How it all started? Was the reaction justified?
Before heading on to the debate, a simple question: How many of you know who's Vladislav Tretiak? Let me guess 0.1% people may be!!
Ice hockey is one of the most popular games in Russia, just like Cricket in India and Tretiak has won 4 Olympic medals – 3 golds and 1 silver -- 10 world championships and, memorably, received a four-minute standing ovation from the crowd at the Montreal Forum. He is the only modern-era non-NHL player in the Hockey Hall of Fame, and one of only two Russian players so honored.
See! Such a great player, but we still didn't know anything about him, to be very frank, even I knew nothing about him before I started writing this article. Now I guess Tretiak's Russian fans should spam my blog, abuse me, post trolls about me throughout the Twitter and Facebook, and make me and my other Indian friends By heart his name, just because they love him, Provided we have nothing to do with Ice Hockey.
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| Maria Sharapova. Pic Courtesy: google images |
Tendulkar, is often invited at Wimbledon, he was in the Royal Box with English footballer David Beckham, golfer Ian Poulter and former England cricket captain Andrew Strauss. But when, during a post match conference, Sharapova was reminded of who all were present in the Royal Box, she flaunted her love and appreciation for Beckham while she doesn't know who Tendulkar is. "Sachin Tendulkar was the other person who came in at the same time as David Beckham - do you know who Sachin is?" somebody asked at the post-match conference. Sharapova replied, "I don't."!
Noticeably, she was at a press conference and gave a spontaneous, honest answer, But honesty has obviously not been the best policy here, as the tennis sensation was being abused and humiliated for saying so, all over the Facebook and soon #WhoIsMariaSharapova became trending on Twitter, and we should be really proud about it, because that's all we can do with a 1.2 billion population
Her Facebook page was full of comments like: “I was one of your biggest fans of you as a tennis star, but now I will never see your matches”. While few commented Sachin's name repeatedly, maybe with an intention of making her remember that throughout her life, others were full of abuse and demeaning language.
A session with the trolls was also active, to convey maturity level of Indians to the whole world.
Few people even started comparing both the icons in terms of records and statistics, i mean can this seriously be done, Where has been the common sense of these people, one is a tennis player other is a Cricket icon how can you even think about comparing their records, to find out who is better.Sachin Tendulkar was touching the pitch and taking “it’s blessing” while Sharapova is shown stretching her right leg on the net. The text entitled with it was “Dear Maria Sharapova this is Sachin Tendulkar who respects his sport. Learn something.”
And the best role was played by our very famous and very favourite media houses, HINDUSTAN TIMES reported: "We hope you read up on cricket soon, Maria. Because this population that comprises 17.5% of the global population won't take not knowing Ten (times God) ulkar lightly" what a thoughtful vision from such a famous media house.
Another one comes from the sports corner of NDTV: "Considering the fact that Tendulkar is quite a 'regular' visitor at Wimbledon and good friends with Roger Federer, it comes as quite a surprise that Sharapova is oblivious of a man who has broken almost every batting record in cricket." For Christ's sake somebody please ask them why would Sharapova be bothered that who is the friend of Roger Federer and who has broken most of the records in Cricket.
With god's grace we even have some responsible media as India Today, the Times of India and The Hindu have criticized and regretted the foolishness of people, understanding the fact that Cricket is not a global sport and hence we can't expect that everyone in every corner of the world should know who are Tendulkar, Dhoni or Kapil Dev.
A simple, thoughtful question, Was it all worth? We have once again proved the same, what we are known for around the world, foolishness, stupidity and A narrow mindset. When all the media publications and websites around the world are criticizing our efforts, I thank god that Maria Sharapova didn't say that she doesn't know who is Rajnikant or Manoj Tiwari for that matter.
The situation is you might be one of the most renown athletes in the world, you might have won Wimbledon at the age of 17, won every grand slam title and an Olympic silver, but if you don't know who Tendulkar is, India will take it as an insult and will insult you back. I am not able to figure out one thing, for what was this outrage, because she praised Beckham and didn't know about Sachin, why instead of fighting over what we are good at, we can win at even other sports. And this way we provide several reasons to the world to laugh at us, I'm sure Sharapova, the world's highest-paid female athlete, is doing just that.
To end the debate on a lighter note, here is a video which was shot after this trauma, It's not just that the people from Mumbai don't know about such famous sports personalities, but I can bet 90% of the India doesn't know these names: Pankaj Advani, Narain Kartikeyan, Sunil Chettri.
We should come out of this hypocrisy and live in the real world, because there is a world outside Planet Cricket and there are many others like Maria Sharapova. Grow up Guys!!
Another one comes from the sports corner of NDTV: "Considering the fact that Tendulkar is quite a 'regular' visitor at Wimbledon and good friends with Roger Federer, it comes as quite a surprise that Sharapova is oblivious of a man who has broken almost every batting record in cricket." For Christ's sake somebody please ask them why would Sharapova be bothered that who is the friend of Roger Federer and who has broken most of the records in Cricket.
With god's grace we even have some responsible media as India Today, the Times of India and The Hindu have criticized and regretted the foolishness of people, understanding the fact that Cricket is not a global sport and hence we can't expect that everyone in every corner of the world should know who are Tendulkar, Dhoni or Kapil Dev.
A simple, thoughtful question, Was it all worth? We have once again proved the same, what we are known for around the world, foolishness, stupidity and A narrow mindset. When all the media publications and websites around the world are criticizing our efforts, I thank god that Maria Sharapova didn't say that she doesn't know who is Rajnikant or Manoj Tiwari for that matter.
The situation is you might be one of the most renown athletes in the world, you might have won Wimbledon at the age of 17, won every grand slam title and an Olympic silver, but if you don't know who Tendulkar is, India will take it as an insult and will insult you back. I am not able to figure out one thing, for what was this outrage, because she praised Beckham and didn't know about Sachin, why instead of fighting over what we are good at, we can win at even other sports. And this way we provide several reasons to the world to laugh at us, I'm sure Sharapova, the world's highest-paid female athlete, is doing just that.
To end the debate on a lighter note, here is a video which was shot after this trauma, It's not just that the people from Mumbai don't know about such famous sports personalities, but I can bet 90% of the India doesn't know these names: Pankaj Advani, Narain Kartikeyan, Sunil Chettri.
We should come out of this hypocrisy and live in the real world, because there is a world outside Planet Cricket and there are many others like Maria Sharapova. Grow up Guys!!
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