THE good news is that I have selected myself as a member of the Pakistani contingent which will participate most honourably in the 2008 Olympics being held in Beijing. The bad news, however, is that I will keep the tradition and will not win any sort of medal other than some certificates of “Also ran” or “Also knocked out” etc.
If the Olympic gods ... I mean the Olympic committee ... hesitates to nominate me for the contingent I will present my excellent credentials which no one will be able to refute easily. For instance I will have the unique distinction of being the only participant in the history of Olympics who will compete for almost all the events single-handedly. I will guarantee that in athletics I will be the last man in every race and will reach the finishing line even if by that time all the people have gone home and the whole Olympic stadium is empty. After all, every morning I complete a five-kilometre walk in the local park and survive!
In hockey especially, I assure you I will go down with my team and in boxing I will request the referee to stop the fight in the first round; why wait for the second or third round for the same result? In swimming I will give a written pledge that I will not drown and come back home safe and sound. My dips in the village pond during childhood would help me achieve this distinction although in the Olympic pools there wont be any frogs or ducks to liven up the proceedings.
With these impeccable qualifications can anybody dare to exclude me from the future Olympic squad?
Although there is absolutely no chance of my rejection but let us suppose that the present president of POA, again a General, survives till 2008 and is highly jealous of my heavenly talents in the field of sports and blocks my way then I have an alternate action plan all chalked out. I will strive to become a Nazim of Gakkhar Mandi or Pattoki, depends upon my financial resources and my ability to switch my political allegiance. I can also become a minister of state at least because by 2008 the present number of more than sixty ministers will surely cross the hundred mark.
What sort of man am I if I cannot be one of the hundred ministers, and that too after playing my cards properly? I hope you are aware of the glorious fact that our minister for sports, along with some near and dear Nazims of his area, accompanied the Pakistani Olympic squad to Athens to have a little bit of fun and to encourage our listless athletes. I hope you can see through my plan, once a Nazim or a minister of some sort I am sure to attend the Beijing Olympics.
I must admit that I have always dreamed of becoming an Olympian and I also admit that I was always hopeless in all sports and related activities. For instance, no matter how hard I tried I could never hit a sparrow with my ghulail, the sparrows felt quite safe whenever I approached them with my rubber ghulail. Then I tried my hand at cricket and was declared a baata bowler or a chucker if you like, with the very first ball I tried to bowl.
I did not fare any better in batting, to tell you the truth. I never could see a ball coming towards me and always heard the crashing of wickets behind me. I tried sailing and could not manage the sails; my attempt at boating met the same fate, if I pushed and pushed the oars for one hour I found the boat stationery at the same spot and was in bed for next few days with backache and blisters.
Although my initial training in swimming in the village pond gave me certain competence in this sport and mind you afterwards I have had the romantic honour of numerous dips in fabled Italian and Swiss lakes. But even then, as soon as I jumped into the water, I sank like a stone till such times that I could observe the underwater marine life. And of course when I surfaced I was saved by my friends or lifeguards.
I still marvel the people who manage to stay afloat and do not drown. I hope the credentials which I have listed above will impress the then Pakistan Olympic Association and I will be invited to participate in Beijing Olympics, that is if I fail to become one of the hundred ministers or one of the thousands of Nazims.
It was in the early 60s or the late 50s — I do not exactly remember when my Olympic dream almost came true. I was in England and the Olympics were being held in the eternal city Rome. Along with some hippy and non-hippy friends, a plan was chalked out to hitchhike through France and then onwards to Rome where we will sleep on the footpaths and earn millions of liras by shoe shining.
Those were the days when we were captivated by a song Three coins in a fountain relating to the Trevi Fountain of Rome and crooned by the thinnest American possible, Frank Sinatra. We reached Italy but on our way some of our lady co-travellers found better companions and left us high and dry! All roads led to Rome and were jam-packed. Still, it was well nigh impossible to hitch a lift. Finally we abandoned the Olympic project and came to England to watch the games on the tele.
I still remember that moment, vividly, when Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila entered the Olympic stadium, all alone and barefoot, after completing his Marathon, the whole world of Olympics stood up and clapped on this amazing performance. And although he had won the race, he did not stop and kept on running in the stadium. It was ages before the next athlete appeared in the stadium. It is said that Bikila was a royal guard in Emperor Haile Selassie’s palace. He lived in a small village at a distance of thirty miles from Addis Ababa. Every morning he ran barefooted to his palace of duty and in the evening went back the same way. Someone calculated his timings and found out that this poor uneducated guard covered this distance equal to a marathon race daily and in record time. In Rome he refused to wear shoes and ran barefoot.
Upon his return to Ethiopia he was carried on a float with two African lions as his guards and taken to the royal palace where he was received by the emperor. If I am not wrong, he also won the next marathon in 1964. His life ended in a tragedy when he met a car accident and spent the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair.
As if the failure of the athletes at Athens was not enough, officials have come up with some hilarious and rather shameful excuses. The President of POA and a General in bargain stated “Athletes are not to be blamed for the Olympic failure, it is rather our supporting system that needs to be improved.” So why don’t you improve it General, while you are at it? You are the boss for heavens sake. If you knew that they were not going to make any headway then why did you send this hopeless lot to Athens?
The hockey federation people said “We are satisfied with the performance of the hockey team. They were caught on an off day in the match against Spain, going down 0-4 just per chance”! Then the boxing official chipped in by saying that we were pitched against the Cuban champions in the very first round so we lost.
As the saying goes, justifying a sin is worse than committing one.
Some wise guy came up with the figure from nowhere, saying that it costs $1.5 million to train an athlete to be able to make him win a gold medal and that the Cubans spend one-fourth of their national budget on sports.
I think the wise guy should contact and find out how many millions of dollars the Ethiopians, Kenyans and other African nations are spending on the training of their athletes who are leading the world in athletics these days.
I do, however, appreciate the inclusion of female athletes and the young swimmer in the squad, although beside their limited talent they were bogged down by the Pakistani dress code. It could have been worse if they were dressed in shuttlecock burqas to satisfy the religious and national sentiments.
Anyhow, the golden days are ahead. I will surely compete in the Beijing Olympics and restore the dignity of the nation by not drowning in the swimming pool.
THE good news is that I have selected myself as a member of the Pakistani contingent which will participate most honourably in the 2008 Olympics being held in Beijing. The bad news, however, is that I will keep the tradition and will not win any sort of medal other than some certificates of “Also ran” or “Also knocked out” etc.
