Simone

Simone Biles, age – 24, Country – United states. She is often referred to as the greatest gymnast of all time. At such an early age or at any age for that matter this is a phenomenal achievement. But in last few days she is making headlines for reasons other than her sport. I would not say its bad or something, but its nature is exactly opposite to attitude or mindset of sports.

When we think of Olympics, a picture of athletes from across the world competing for that 556 grams of gold-plated medal comes to mind. And one word just strucks to mind “Competition”. What is a competition? I’d say competition means pushing the personal performance until it becomes the best in a bunch of people. Winning it, is a subjective phenomenon and not an objective one. So, if one of the athletes pulls out from the competition then clearly, overall she is not the best in that group of competitors. Then why such a fuss about her pulling out or why no one has ever criticized her for not putting her nerves together?

First thing we have to remember is that these are not the normal times to evaluate something on the usual parameters. We all have either suffered through illness or have known someone very close who has battled this deadly disease. So, we have to keep in mind the mental trauma some one might be going through or the financial issues back home. In such unprecedented times our mentality to look towards a problem has changed in a good way. I think we have become more humane while evaluating something which involves human emotions. And it’s a good thing in my opinion to keep in mind background when we look at the results.

Here in India, we hardly think about someone’s mental position. we consider it as a part of life and move on. Many of us get successful to manage it and sail through our journey of life. But some of us fail to handle the pressure and to achieve the result we desired. Such failure makes people take unwanted steps and sometimes suicide. We often judge people for taking such huge step, indeed the issue due to which such step was taken might be small and according to someone, very easy to handle but we can’t imagine what that thing might mean to someone. In such times what that person needs is the therapy and a place to open up about her sufferings with people she trusts. In India such infrastructure is at very early stage comparing to western world. It will develop eventually.

To conclude I want to say only one thing, achieving or aspiring to achieve pinnacle of success by pushing all the boundaries is a great thing but we are all humans, many of will not end up where we aspired to be. So be kind while talking about someone, it might just hit us back.

I would really suggest reading two articles I read one from Wired and other from my page in The Sunday express. Feel free to criticize. I am always open to constructive criticism.

P.S. I am writing this 3 years after it was originally published. Here’s the link to the Loksatta article which reminded me of this blog. From 12-08-21 to 12-08-24!!