IMPORTANCE OF SPORTS AND GAMES
Games and sports symbolize the youth of the nation. They keep the nation young as they keep the people young. A drowsy inactive nation seldom makes a mark anywhere in the world. The intellectual growth of a nation too depends upon its physical health. Olympics of course are the mirror of the joy derived from physical competition. How much physically fit we are and how much joy we derived from the games and sports have been reflected in the Olympics for the last so many years. India has cut a sorry figure.
Besides building health of the nation games give a sense of cooperation to the people. We call it team spirit. Leaving Tennis and Badminton most of the games have a team of 6 to 11 members. In Football, Hockey, Volleyball, even in Kabaddi if the team members do not cooperate they lose the game. The best game is one in which the ball is passed from player to player. Victory is a combined affair not an individual one. That is why most of the people in India try to develop their own personality. The sense of cooperation lacks.
The games inculcate in us a sense of sportsmanship. We enjoy the victory of our rival and shakes hands with him. It is not the victory that counts but how you played the game. The elections have become a wretched affair. We indulge in all types of vices to win them. It is only because we have no sense of true sportsmanship.
Of late India suffered a heavy jolt in the sportsman like spirit among the players. It entered the field of the game liked by most of the people in this country. There have been scams in the share markets, banks, among politicians and bureaucrats as fodder scam, dhoti scam, and ayurvedic medicines scam. It means deception and betrayal has entered among the people in a big way. How could games remain away from it? Match fixing in cricket is no more a secret of the big cricket personality’s right from the President of the Cricket association down to the team manager, Captain and players. The new millennium saw a South African Captain indulging in this low practice. It was like a panebora box. Many a Skelton came out. It is rather a beginning. Who knows what may follow. On the other hand our shining sportsman do not find businessmen or tycoons to sponsor good sportsmen to the Asian or Olympic games where our tally is just one or two bronze – a shameful thing for the biggest democracy and the second most populated country of the world.