It is arguably the irony of our times. Even as Indian nationalism turns feverish, even delirious, our quests have tended to become mediocre and our self-professed achievements delusional. This irony is best reflected in our breathless rooting and tooting for the tennis stars Leander Paes and Sania Mirza every time they pocket a doubles or mixed doubles title in international tournaments.
The performance of Paes and Mirza in the 2015 Wimbledon and US Open sent the media-led nation into a tizzy, prompting it to hail them as the shining symbols of a rising, resurgent India, hungry for success and striving for it. This hunger Mirza satiated again on the weekend, partnering Martina Hingis to win their sixth doubles title of the year at the Guangzhou International in China.
In the fervour generated over their triumphs, there are few who try to situate the value of their victories in the hierarchy of importance in international tennis. So engrossed are we in feting Mirza and Paes that we forget their titles are tokens of India’s failings, its inability to realise its aspirations.
This tendency is mirrored in the political realm as well. There is indeed a parallel between the frenzy over Paes and Mirza and that over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trips abroad. In both instances the frenzy is self-induced and, worse, out of sync with the global reality.
Lower standards
Packing a stadium with eager-beavers from the NRI community to listen to Modi is a spectacular, even heady, sight. Yet, it isn’t comparable to New Yorkers thronging the streets to catch a glimpse of the Pope, whose visit last week was front-paged in every American daily. Modi, in contrast, languished in the inside pages, treated in much the same way as the coverage Delhi-based national dailies accord to, say, an assembly election in Manipur or Mizoram.
In the realms of tennis and global politics, we define success at a peg or two lower than the international standard, and crow on achieving it.
In tennis, a good many international tournaments have discontinued the doubles and mixed doubles categories, where those with relatively weak legs and gasping lungs dominate. This is reverse of the traits required in modern international tennis, which combines skills, power, physical endurance and athleticism.
In an interview to The Times of London in 2013, the tennis legend John McEnroe said, “Most of you guys know I love doubles. But I look at it now and say, what is this? I don’t even recognise what this is. The doubles are the slow guys who aren’t quick enough to play singles. Would it be better off, no disrespect, but would it be better off if there was no doubles at all…” McEnroe acquired excellence in both forms of tennis – he won 77 singles and 78 doubles titles in his flourishing career.
Both Mirza and Paes have either worn out or ageing bodies, well past their prime. Neither now plays singles, understandable for Paes, who is now 42 years old. Yet, even when he was young, regardless of stellar performances in the Davis Cup or the rare upsets he sprang up, he reached the third round only once in the 15 Grand Slam tournaments he played – he lost in the first round nine times. His best singles ranking was 73, in August 1998.
By contrast, Mirza achieved a high of 27 in singles, but then witnessed a freefall. In the nation’s memor,y she might have remained a shooting star, but she reinvented herself as a doubles player, hitting upon a winning spree to the delight of a nation starved of success.
Sticking to the doubles
Don’t blame Mirza for the nation’s incredible fussing over her. She was candid enough to admit why she took to playing doubles tennis: “Tennis is getting so much more physical every day and it just was not possible anymore. For me, I have a fragile body… I had to make a decision, and I love tennis too much to stop playing so soon.”
Oblivious of Mirza’s own admission, we are over the moon each time she brings a Grand Slam title home. But look at the competition she faces: only one of the top ten women in doubles is also in the top ten of singles; another two are ranked below 50. Even these three prefer to focus on singles, using doubles to sharpen their skills at best, and don’t have long-term partners as Mirza has in Hingis or McEnroe had in Peter Fleming.
As for the top ten double players among men, none is a singles player of repute or reckoning. This is what enables Paes to get the rank of 33. He might have improved upon it had he been playing more tournaments, but he chooses to preserve his energy for the Grand Slams, considered more prestigious no doubt, but also offering better money and media spotlight.
But what he or Mirza earn in the doubles or mixed doubles is just a fraction of what the singles winner takes home. In the US Open of 2015, the singles winner received a whopping $3,300,000 and the doubles winning team just $570,000. Each of the eight semi-finalists got $805,000; every singles player who enters the second round got $68,600. These figures are proof of the relative insignificance of the doubles in tennis.
Nevertheless, the $285,000 that Mirza pocketed in the US Open is a hefty sum for someone who can’t or won’t participate in the singles, as is also true of Paes, whose triumph in the mixed doubles fetched him $75,000. In addition, these victories enhance their brand value at home and have advertisers queuing up to sign them up for marketing their products.
The feel-good factor
As for all of us, our national pride receives a boost, as we count the world titles brought home, brushing aside the unmistakable sign of Indian tennis going the hockey way. We faltered in hockey because we couldn’t cope with the sport as it became faster on account of the astroturf. It is happening in tennis too.
Till the eighties, we produced tennis players who could on their day upset the best. Ramanathan Krishnan made into the top 10, Vijay Amritraj into the top 20, and Ramesh Krishnan into the top 30. Today, our best ranked player is Yuki Bhambri, at 125, followed by Somdev Devvarman, who is 166th.
Turning away from the plummeting standard of Indian tennis, not even thinking of improving the system to produce world-class players, we have migrated into the imaginary world where the achievements of Peas and Mirza signify glory for the nation.
This is typically the cultural trait of the middle class, to which both the Indian tennis audience and players belong. For instance, its response to the grim reality of India has been to retreat into gated colonies or swanky apartment complexes, or settle abroad, and embrace ideas and symbols representing their supreme confidence and superlative dreams.
From their insulated environ, India is great, beyond fault. They look for stories to bolster their feel-good feelings, quite like the kicks obtained from narcotics. To the well-heeled NRIs packing the stadiums and halls abroad, Prime Minister Modi too narrates the story which enhances the worth of India in their eyes – and, by extension, of themselves.
Spinning dreams
It’s the NRI’s idea of India that Modi caters to. It is the India on the rise, richly deserving of becoming a member of the UN Security Council, a repository of knowledge and talent and technological achievements. A digital India, a developed India, an industrial India. (It is another matter a good many of us have also started to believe plastic surgery existed in ancient times, as did rockets and aeroplane.) In articulating these aspirations, Modi is seen as the man leading all of us to the new dawn.
It is great to hear him spin out these dreams, just as it feels exceptional to watch Paes and Mirza win one title after another. In our cheering for them is drowned out the gasping breath of Indian tennis, just as in Modi’s articulation of the Indian dream is forgotten the simple fact that on several social indices we are lagging behind even Bangladesh.
Back home, to the TV audience, the sight of NRI crowds swooning at the sight of Modi has become a marker of his emergence as a global leader. But really, should we mistake their approval for him as an acceptance of his stature worldwide? Should we mistake the meeting between the Prime Minister and internet czars as a sign of India’s irreversible ascendency?
Let us face it, the much celebrated conversation between Facebook’s Mark Zukerberg and Modi mirrors, in many ways, the partnership between Hingis and Mirza for the doubles tennis competition. It means little in the global order of importance and relevance. India will be said to have arrived once it produces a Federer, a desi Mark Zukerberg launching his start-up in India and becoming a world leader. Even those a shade less than them would do.
Ajaz Ashraf is a journalist from Delhi. His novel, The Hour Before Dawn, published by HarperCollins, is available in bookstores.
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The performance of Paes and Mirza in the 2015 Wimbledon and US Open sent the media-led nation into a tizzy, prompting it to hail them as the shining symbols of a rising, resurgent India, hungry for success and striving for it. This hunger Mirza satiated again on the weekend, partnering Martina Hingis to win their sixth doubles title of the year at the Guangzhou International in China.
In the fervour generated over their triumphs, there are few who try to situate the value of their victories in the hierarchy of importance in international tennis. So engrossed are we in feting Mirza and Paes that we forget their titles are tokens of India’s failings, its inability to realise its aspirations.
This tendency is mirrored in the political realm as well. There is indeed a parallel between the frenzy over Paes and Mirza and that over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trips abroad. In both instances the frenzy is self-induced and, worse, out of sync with the global reality.
Lower standards
Packing a stadium with eager-beavers from the NRI community to listen to Modi is a spectacular, even heady, sight. Yet, it isn’t comparable to New Yorkers thronging the streets to catch a glimpse of the Pope, whose visit last week was front-paged in every American daily. Modi, in contrast, languished in the inside pages, treated in much the same way as the coverage Delhi-based national dailies accord to, say, an assembly election in Manipur or Mizoram.
In the realms of tennis and global politics, we define success at a peg or two lower than the international standard, and crow on achieving it.
In tennis, a good many international tournaments have discontinued the doubles and mixed doubles categories, where those with relatively weak legs and gasping lungs dominate. This is reverse of the traits required in modern international tennis, which combines skills, power, physical endurance and athleticism.
In an interview to The Times of London in 2013, the tennis legend John McEnroe said, “Most of you guys know I love doubles. But I look at it now and say, what is this? I don’t even recognise what this is. The doubles are the slow guys who aren’t quick enough to play singles. Would it be better off, no disrespect, but would it be better off if there was no doubles at all…” McEnroe acquired excellence in both forms of tennis – he won 77 singles and 78 doubles titles in his flourishing career.
Both Mirza and Paes have either worn out or ageing bodies, well past their prime. Neither now plays singles, understandable for Paes, who is now 42 years old. Yet, even when he was young, regardless of stellar performances in the Davis Cup or the rare upsets he sprang up, he reached the third round only once in the 15 Grand Slam tournaments he played – he lost in the first round nine times. His best singles ranking was 73, in August 1998.
By contrast, Mirza achieved a high of 27 in singles, but then witnessed a freefall. In the nation’s memor,y she might have remained a shooting star, but she reinvented herself as a doubles player, hitting upon a winning spree to the delight of a nation starved of success.
Sticking to the doubles
Don’t blame Mirza for the nation’s incredible fussing over her. She was candid enough to admit why she took to playing doubles tennis: “Tennis is getting so much more physical every day and it just was not possible anymore. For me, I have a fragile body… I had to make a decision, and I love tennis too much to stop playing so soon.”
Oblivious of Mirza’s own admission, we are over the moon each time she brings a Grand Slam title home. But look at the competition she faces: only one of the top ten women in doubles is also in the top ten of singles; another two are ranked below 50. Even these three prefer to focus on singles, using doubles to sharpen their skills at best, and don’t have long-term partners as Mirza has in Hingis or McEnroe had in Peter Fleming.
As for the top ten double players among men, none is a singles player of repute or reckoning. This is what enables Paes to get the rank of 33. He might have improved upon it had he been playing more tournaments, but he chooses to preserve his energy for the Grand Slams, considered more prestigious no doubt, but also offering better money and media spotlight.
But what he or Mirza earn in the doubles or mixed doubles is just a fraction of what the singles winner takes home. In the US Open of 2015, the singles winner received a whopping $3,300,000 and the doubles winning team just $570,000. Each of the eight semi-finalists got $805,000; every singles player who enters the second round got $68,600. These figures are proof of the relative insignificance of the doubles in tennis.
Nevertheless, the $285,000 that Mirza pocketed in the US Open is a hefty sum for someone who can’t or won’t participate in the singles, as is also true of Paes, whose triumph in the mixed doubles fetched him $75,000. In addition, these victories enhance their brand value at home and have advertisers queuing up to sign them up for marketing their products.
The feel-good factor
As for all of us, our national pride receives a boost, as we count the world titles brought home, brushing aside the unmistakable sign of Indian tennis going the hockey way. We faltered in hockey because we couldn’t cope with the sport as it became faster on account of the astroturf. It is happening in tennis too.
Till the eighties, we produced tennis players who could on their day upset the best. Ramanathan Krishnan made into the top 10, Vijay Amritraj into the top 20, and Ramesh Krishnan into the top 30. Today, our best ranked player is Yuki Bhambri, at 125, followed by Somdev Devvarman, who is 166th.
Turning away from the plummeting standard of Indian tennis, not even thinking of improving the system to produce world-class players, we have migrated into the imaginary world where the achievements of Peas and Mirza signify glory for the nation.
This is typically the cultural trait of the middle class, to which both the Indian tennis audience and players belong. For instance, its response to the grim reality of India has been to retreat into gated colonies or swanky apartment complexes, or settle abroad, and embrace ideas and symbols representing their supreme confidence and superlative dreams.
From their insulated environ, India is great, beyond fault. They look for stories to bolster their feel-good feelings, quite like the kicks obtained from narcotics. To the well-heeled NRIs packing the stadiums and halls abroad, Prime Minister Modi too narrates the story which enhances the worth of India in their eyes – and, by extension, of themselves.
Spinning dreams
It’s the NRI’s idea of India that Modi caters to. It is the India on the rise, richly deserving of becoming a member of the UN Security Council, a repository of knowledge and talent and technological achievements. A digital India, a developed India, an industrial India. (It is another matter a good many of us have also started to believe plastic surgery existed in ancient times, as did rockets and aeroplane.) In articulating these aspirations, Modi is seen as the man leading all of us to the new dawn.
It is great to hear him spin out these dreams, just as it feels exceptional to watch Paes and Mirza win one title after another. In our cheering for them is drowned out the gasping breath of Indian tennis, just as in Modi’s articulation of the Indian dream is forgotten the simple fact that on several social indices we are lagging behind even Bangladesh.
Back home, to the TV audience, the sight of NRI crowds swooning at the sight of Modi has become a marker of his emergence as a global leader. But really, should we mistake their approval for him as an acceptance of his stature worldwide? Should we mistake the meeting between the Prime Minister and internet czars as a sign of India’s irreversible ascendency?
Let us face it, the much celebrated conversation between Facebook’s Mark Zukerberg and Modi mirrors, in many ways, the partnership between Hingis and Mirza for the doubles tennis competition. It means little in the global order of importance and relevance. India will be said to have arrived once it produces a Federer, a desi Mark Zukerberg launching his start-up in India and becoming a world leader. Even those a shade less than them would do.
Ajaz Ashraf is a journalist from Delhi. His novel, The Hour Before Dawn, published by HarperCollins, is available in bookstores.
