While many illustrious sports legends, who have done the country proud in the past and in recent times, are debating whether the IOA’s decision to appoint Salman Khan as a goodwill ambassador of the Indian contingent for the upcoming Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, no wonder twitteraties too are having a field day in showing their ready wit and sense of humour on the matter. One such tweet, which was the wittiest and unsparingly scathing in content, has been particularly chosen by the media to make a point: Doesn’t Salman need a goodwill ambassador for himselfIJ
Though this needle does need an atlas to make clear what course this point will lead the whole debate towards, the legendary sprinter and Olympian Milkha Singh in his criticism maintained that he had nothing against Salman Khan in person, but maybe a sportsperson as a goodwill ambassador would have been a better idea. The london Olympics bronze-medalist Yogeshwar Dutt was more hard-headed in his approach when he questioned the very purpose itself of having a goodwill ambassador in the first place for sportsperson during sporting events. But then, we also have boxer Mary Kom and ace shooter Abhinav Bindra, both Olympics gold medalists, who stood by the IOA’s star-struck choice, which said it believed that the star power of the actor would attract more youths towards sports. But when IOA President N Ramachandran went a step further in hoping that this move would also help motivate the players to do well in the Olympics, he literally had us toeing in for yet another the ‘who came first, the egg or the birdIJ’ type never-ending enigmatic puzzle of a debate.
The concern has been already taken up when a media headline regarding the stand of the wrestler Yogeswar Dutt on the issue read something like “Real Wrestler Yogeswar Dutt questions ‘ Reel’ Wrestler’ Salman Khan” now reel wrestler because the latter is playing a character of wrestler in his upcoming movie Sultan. The puzzle is who inspires whomIJ Is it the reel version of heroism that inspires true heroism or it is the other way roundIJ No doubt, reel characters of sportsperson in movies so far have been based on the lives of sports legends. The biopics on Milkha Singh Bhag Milkha Bhag and the one on Mary Kom, besides the upcoming Bollywood biopics on our cricketing legends Md Azharuddin and Mahendra Singh Dhoni are examples of art being inspired from sporting lives.
But the puzzle remains unanswered. True that we have hero worshiping and fan following in every field, but nothing can beat the Bollywood type in both the spheres. We cannot expect our youths to take to reading or writing if the Sahitya Akademi appoints a Bollywood star as a goodwill ambassador for the Akademi, but if it is a celebrated author then, maybe, there would be some logic in hoping that the formula of having a brand ambassador for the Akademi would create more writers and readers in the country. A wannabe journalist is either created by inherent talent or by inspiration, but that motivation comes from some phenomenon in the field and not from a reel character or a movie star. Similarly, a wannabe or competing sprinter will naturally look up at a PT Usha or Milkha Singh or Ben Johnson for inspiration and not at a movie star for the kick in his spirit to run untiringly to make a mark.
However, in the case of those willing to make forays in the field of acting, nobody can inspire more than a Shahrukh or Salman or someone from the fraternity. We all know that when idols have to be people’s ideals, genres matter the most. A singing legend inspires wannabe singers; a cricketing legend for cricketing talent; a boxing legend for boxers; a dancing legend for dancers; and so on and so forth. A fish is a good swimmer, hats off to it, but let us not hope it will inspire a tree climber at the same time!
(The writer is a Public Relations Officer with the Government of Odisha. Views expressed are personal)