Killer Instinct

The climax of the Mansoor Khan's Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar from 1992 has always been dear to me. We have seen umpteen movies with the David felling the Goliath theme. This particular movie can't be rated as an original. Neither can we call it a classic. But it was one of those movies that left you with a warm feeling inside the chest.

What made the movie special is the 'Killer Instinct' shown by the protagonist, a role played with gusto by Aamir Khan. This special talent of Indian Cinema has since gone on to act in many more wonderful movies. But for me, JJWS will remain the quintessential Aamir Khan movie. It required real courage and conviction to make a movie with cycling as the background in a country gone crazy about Cricket.

A country with a people who are easily satisfied has always excelled in underachievement. We will be happy if Sachin Tendulkar scores century even if India lose the match. We will find a zillion excuses from the Umpiring decisions to the pitch to the weather to the crash of stock markets for our sporting defeats!

We look at the magnificent heights achieved by our neighbors in Olympic games with awe and then are quick to cast aspersions about doping and cheating. We are not good to our own rare winners. Our burgeoning sport bureaucracy ill-treats even the nest in the business. So what are we left with? Bhindra fails during the very next opportunity. When we have our own sports bodies to demoralize and defeat our athletes, we don't need any opponents.

Cricket is a rare case where we can say a sport has been administered marginally better than other sports. The way we have managed our national game can be described in a single word; Shame! Even the sporting Gods have been unkind to Indian Hockey. They robbed India of a possible chance to win a title after a long time. We rarely win anything on the world stage. This happens only in reel life, never in real life!

With such a gloomy scenario, there is 'One and Only' true Champion among the gigantic mass of humanity we have in this country. And 'HE' has time and again lifted our morale every time the much hyped Cricket team went down tamely in ICC events.

Yes, he too has lost and was blamed for the lack of 'Killer Instinct' like any other Indian. This Gentle Tamil Brahman boy from Chennai has enthralled the Chess world with his lightening speed and sharp skills. But at the age of 40, he also has proved he has what we always doubted in Indians; the Killer Instinct!

Why is it that Indians lack in this instinct when our neighbors are all aggression and killer instinct incarnated. I am not only talking about China. Just look at Pakistan's overall records in Test Cricket. They took 112 lesser tests to notch up 100 Test wins and that too in double quick time. This is in spite of the chronic infighting and politics plaguing them. They have produced more quicker and aggressive fast bowlers in every single decade since 1947 than all those produced by India since we started playing Cricket.

Why are we lagging behind? The stock answer is lack of 'Killer Instinct'. But is this true? We have had guys like Sreesanth, Manoj Prabhakar, Saurav Ganguly and Harbhajan who have not only been aggressive with their game but also with the body-language. We are ready to suffer tantrums of the likes of Andre Nel, but are quick to pounce upon Sreesanth and admonish him and even ridicule him.

We have double standards when it comes to our own bad boys. Aussie bad boys are good but our own are not! No wonder we don't have many aggressive guys. This is where and why we lag behind. We are too harsh on externally aggressive Indians. It is true that Anil Kumble, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid are Gentleman Cricketers who are also fiercely competitors without being demonstrative. But without characters like Sreesanth, we will definitely lag behind when it comes to giving back aggression with aggression.

With all the respect and tribute due to Vishwanathan Anand, the Greatest Indian Sports Icon; I would love to see a lot more aggro from Indian Sports-persons on the international stage. Something like this when repeated more often augurs well for India in sports and sports in India.