Even though India won fewer medals at the recently concluded Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland than at the Delhi Games, to end up at 5th position in the medals’ tally in a foreign locale is a great feat. Made greater by the fact that nearly half the medallists were women and that around the same number were a very young generation of sportspersons.
Which brings me to another question: How young should young be? And this is where one can see what wins out — national pride, pride in your child’s outstanding gift, or the greed of ambitious parents, coaches and sponsoring agencies.
In our youth we had the cherubic sisters Daisy and Honey Irani whom all moviegoers, young and old, loved to love. The family was not well off, and the little girls were put to work almost as soon as they could walk and talk. There was hardly any time for study or play with other little children their age. While both sisters grew up in spite of their circumstances to live worthwhile adult lives and better still, to bring up their own children to be successful adults in their own right, they never forgave their ambitious mother for denying them their childhood. Ditto the case of most other child artistes in Bollywood and Hollywood.
The stunning gymnasts of China and the eastern European countries were, as child prodigies, well fed and trained by the state, but were by that very token deprived of a wholesome family life. They had to learn to live with other similarly gifted little children in dormitories from the age of 5 and 6 years, when they were first spotted by the state’s talent scouts.
American college football is an extreme sport that calls for way beyond average height, weight and power to play to win and qualify for sports scholarships and a place in the major league teams of the country. Those selected go on to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars so competition is aggressive. Everybody makes great money — the young players, the coaches and scouts who get a percentage of their proteges’ earnings, and the colleges who get state funds. Hours and hours of training and practice and playing competitive junior league matches become the norm and development of the body is paramount. Steroids to bulk up are already part of the routine, stardom and adulation at this impressionable age is headier than alcohol, and character-building is a casualty as the youngster succumbs to arrogance, vanity, ego and selfishness and seriously regarding himself as the best among less than equals.
As a result, most of these prodigies burn out by their mid-20s, physically, morally, psychologically. Most of them collect juvenile police records for alcohol or drug abuse, drunken driving, fist fights, even allegations of molestation and rape, and these often lead inexorably to manslaughter charges or suicide bids.
The latest craze in our country is mountain, or more accurately, Everest climbing. Because Purna, a 13-year-old small-town girl from my state has scaled the peak, the media is all over her and other wannabe climbers are all set to do the same. But inhuman conditions, the unexpectedness of hazards, the inadequacy of that most basic requirement, oxygen, are extreme challenges even for adults with well-honed, developed physiques and mental strength and toughness. For a youngster who hasn’t yet grown to his or her full physical and mental potential, ascending the most forbidding slopes could virtually be a suicide mission.
However driven one might be, the effects of low atmospheric pressure on the human body can be life-threateningly severe, and what is likely to happen as you near the peak can never be predicted. If one young person has succeeded against all the frightening odds, there is every likelihood that many others will fail, with terrifying consequences.
When impatience for glory, lack of the latest climbing gear and tools, ignoring indications of personal distress, disobeying or ignoring orders of guides or signs of impending dangers in order to be the first one to the top, when these have been the death of many adults, what is one to expect from younger climbers? Why then encourage them to take up the ultimate ascents at so early an age?
It is incumbent therefore on the part of all adults engaged in the grooming of the young for stardom, be they parents, guides or coaches, to ensure that a young person simultaneously grows into his full potential as an adult, able to manage the risk to his mind and body, and to teach him that mastering the core values of living is as much a part of success as is the winning of medals, money, name and fame.
Vimala Madon is a Vimala Madon is a freelance journalist based in Secunderabad, India.
