Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

THE OTHER HALF

Celebrating difference

Like thousands of others across the country, I too went to see the new hit film “Chak de India”. Not because Shahrukh Khan is acting in it. Not because I love Hindi films. Not even because everyone is talking and writing about it. I went because I was curious to see what a mainstream Bollywood filmmaker would make of a subject that deals with a game that is hardly written about, that is field hockey, and one that centres on women’s hockey.

The film certainly does not disappoint although I found the constant harping on patriotism a little cloying. It attempts to tackle several issues rarely written about, leave alone shown in popular cinema. Such as the claustrophobic connection between “national honour” and sport, any sport and not just cricket. The double burden that Muslim sportsmen and women in this country must shoulder by virtue of belonging to a religion that has defined the nationhood of a country perceived perpetually as the chief rival in every venture, including sport, and that is Pakistan. The political and bureaucratic interference that is the rule in the way our world of sports is governed. And in addition to all this, factors common to all sports, the fact of being a woman who wants to excel in a given sport. Surprisingly, the film does manage to touch on all these aspects in a fairly honest and straightforward manner.

The real stars of the film are the women hockey players representing different regions, religions, classes and ambitions. They are believable and come across as real people. The women from the Northeast, for instance, are shown dealing firmly with the constant looks and comments that women from their region have to suffer from men in north India. And the women from Jharkhand sportingly laugh off the “jungli” label from a well-meaning, but uninformed, team mate from Punj ab even as they manage to merge with the team despite the absence of a common language. The class and cultural divides are also tackled with humour and a refreshing absence of stereotypes.

What I fear, however, is that the over-riding patriotic message in the film will drown the far more significant theme about women and sports. The film ends with the “patriotic” Muslim being accepted back by his neighbourhood that had earlier forced him to leave by calling him a traitor. But did things change for the girls who brought honour to the country? Or was their victory forgotten within a few weeks as they slipped back into the anonymity of their particular regions? If they had been men, and cricketers, the media would have followed them to their doorstep and continued to write about them.

The day after seeing the film, I did a quick scan of three leading English language newspapers published in Mumbai. There was not a single item about women playing any sports. Perhaps women don’t play games in the monsoons. Or if they do, these events don’t merit media attention. While individual stars like Sania Mirza, who also happen to be photogenic, do find space on the sports pages, the sportswomen who play hockey, volleyball or even cricket throughout the year are hardly ever mentioned. The women’s cricket team has recently gained some recognition. But the focus on them too remains transient. In between tournaments, there is practically nothing written about their training, about new players emerging from different states who could make it to the national team, about who would be the best person to coach such a team so they do better, about the amount of money they are paid, about the conditions under which they practice etc. They become “newsworthy” only when they play international cricket.

Apart from national or international level sports, we know for a fact that in thousands of colleges and schools across India, young girls are participating in a range of team sports from hockey, to football, volleyball, basketball and cricket. Many of them dream of qualifying for State or national teams. They work hard on fitness. When they compete, they do so with utter seriousness. Yet, even though school level matches involving boys are often covered by the media, there is rarely anything about girls unless they do something really exceptional. Films like “Chak de India” might encourage budding sportswomen but only if they are backed by a real change in the attitude of the sports administration and the media.

The values that team sports inculcate in young girls and boys, when they are not muddied by ultra-nationalism, have to be supported. When a team takes position to play, the individual brilliance of a player does not matter as much as the ability of the team to work together. This is brought out beautifully in the film. In fact, the differences between the players are shown as their strength as a team. The best antidote to the current poison of intolerance prevailing in this country is this very belief, that difference should be celebrated not denigrated and despised.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail