SK Uthappa OLY

In a country that is laying the foundations of becoming a sporting superpower, the image of a National Coach and a former pole vaulter, Ghanshyam Yadav from the DSWY Academy, Bhopal begging a railway official is a devastating reality check. Ghanshyam was travelling with National Record holder Dev Meena and Kuldeep Yadav, two of India’s most promising pole vaulters. In a nation of 1.4 billion, where millions are stranded every day in the chaos of transit, Meena is supposed to be the exception. Instead, he became the rule. Imagine, if Dev Meena, the national record holder, instead of Ghanshyam, was folding his hands in a desperate plea to a railway official; it would be the most honest but brutal portrait of Indian athletics. As a nation, we have reduced a champion to a beggar. It is Ghanshyam who understood that Meena’s dignity shouldn’t be tampered with. A rising star shouldn’t feel that the system has left him to fend for himself. The son of a farmer, Meena grew up in the fields that built his strength which now clears a 5.40m bar. Yet, we humbled this National Record Holder at Panvel station. Told him his records, his precocious talent, his dream of winning an Asian Games gold, going to the Olympic Games means nothing. His Rs 2 lakh carbon-fibre poles, the tools he relies on, worships, were treated like “unauthorized scrap.” As a nation, we celebrate the ‘struggle’ after the medal is won. But we won’t think twice before humiliating the athlete while they are still in the trenches. Couldn’t the TTE have just paused, shown a bit of empathy, maybe, just googled to figure out who this athlete was? But, no, he made him stand for five hours, begging not for luxury, not for his own seat but for the right to carry his dreams, his tools home. Meena is a NR holder. Imagine the lesser ones, struggling up the steps, trying to remain afloat. We aren’t building a sporting culture. We are digging a graveyard for talent. Meena, Ghanshyam, Kuldeep are not just athletes, they are the symbols of talent currently being suffocated by an indifferent bureaucracy. While the system is busy printing posters of politicians, film stars, the real Champions are folding their hands. #polevault #devmeena