The game - More in the mind and less on the court!

Thoughts on Thursday

In the match between Fedex and man-on-fire Soderling, I remember seeing that green advertisement board in the court that had Adidas and Fedex side by side. At first sight I misread it as Adios Fedex. Unfortunately, that was what happened. Beyond a point, Fed just gave up. And his body language betrayed that! Try imagining what went on in his mind - 'I won here last year, and here I am losing it even before the semis. That too, not to my arch nemesis, but to this kid Soderling! What will everyone say? That I won last year because Rafa wasn't here?' Looking at Rafael Nadal literally slip, slide, run, smash and work for every point, evoked a ton of thoughts. Think of what might have been playing on Nadal's mind when he played Almagro - 'This guy, from my country who I beat 6-1, 6-1, 6-1 last time, has pulled me on to 2 tie breaks!' Or take Almagro's musings - ' Man. I fight out every ball in every game and this chap is God in tie breaks and so he wins!! Where is justice in this world?" In fact, tie-breaks are perhaps more trying, since each point, each service game, or even each break point is evenly fought for. At such times, like say in the match between Rafa and Almagro, one's heart perhaps goes out to the underdog, who fought so hard and yet lost!

At key times, the nerves take over. Take Sam Stosur. When she was serving for the match in the second set, she committed a double fault! Her first serves never went through! The nerves were visible in out-of-form Sharapova's match against Justine Henin. Or even in case of Djokovic against Melzer! All of last year, since Nadal's loss at Roland Garros thanks to tendinitis, there were talks, including an interview in which he said that his parents' imminent divorce had taken a psychological toll on him, because of which he couldn't give the game his best! At such times, one wonders whether a psychologist is as essential as say a physical trainer!

And it's not just tennis. Try thinking of Michael Schumacher! Seven times World Champion, not so in 1999, when all hopes were on him to get Ferrari out of 20-years-without-a-championship-victory and when he was so close to winning the championship, he broke his leg at Silverstone! And now, when he has come back, the world thinks he has lost his spark! Flavio Briatore said to the press that things have changed so much that Schumi may not be able to get back! Knowing the kind of person Michael is, always doing everything possible to win, one can only imagine how all this would hurt the guy psychologically! Always a winner, dominating the sport, to a place where he no longer gets covered in the papers post a race! Sport can be quite unforgiving!

I guess sport is as much a psychological game as it is physical. When Federer gave up his Wimbledon crown in 2008 to Nadal, the game stoked my imagination leading to this. That old post is a bit long, since I've added a couple of articles I'd read on Nadal just then. But anyways. The point is that the mind games or the games people assume are being played in the players' minds are interesting to imagine. Players putting their hands up in the air, shaking their heads at missed points or simply losing their nerve, exulting - all make for some really good imagination and introspection.

School results and Suicides - an alarming trend

Trends on Tuesday

And the boy tied a belt around his neck, latched the other end on a fan and kicked the chair beneath him.... She ran up to the terrace of her building, looked back one last time and jumped.

No, these are not endings of a set of Gus Van Sant movies. These are alarming trends facing the urban youth of today in a super competitive India. A few years ago, when we were in school, suicides soon after results were unheard of. But now, we have suicide helplines, huge long winded articles in major newspapers, and even shows on TV that try to counsel kids against taking that drastic step.

When did such a dire situation come about and why? Peer pressure to perform is perhaps one of the biggest reasons. Yeah, almost all of us know that peer pressure is the cause of practically all problems facing the youth. But why do some succumb to peer pressure and some others don't? The answer may not be too obvious, but somewhere the stress that people lay on academics and their importance in lives is perhaps key. For instance, in some houses, people tell the kids to work hard. But a few slip ups here and there are perhaps forgotten. In some other households, the pressure to perform is very high. Somehow, the impressionable minds are given the view that if they do not score those 99% marks, their lives are finished. Well, fear is a good tactic to get human beings to work. But somewhere, in kids, the fear has to be offset as well. Which unfortunately isn't happening.

If we delve deeper, the issue can also be with the education infrastructure. Too few opportunities for too many people. Few seats in the IITs. Few really good colleges. add to it the seats eroded due to reservation and kids have precious few opportunities. And academic lineage does matter while getting into universities abroad or even into premier schools in India. The kids really at risk are not the average or below average ones, for they manage to do something or nothing at all. The kids at risk are the ones a notch below the best. The ones who fall in the 'just missed' category, who set their goals on the best and fall into despair when they miss. So the issue is complex and the resolution perhaps lies in proper counselling and hand holding services, not just for kids but for their families as well. Somewhere someone needs to tell the super moms and super dads that it is ok to fail once in a while. For with every fall comes the effort to rise again and that effort builds a true human being.

But till then, the spate of suicides and botched suicide attempts soon after school exam results is a scary trend. It really is insane, for a 16 year old who is considered too immature to vote or buy alcohol or even drive, decides that a few low marks in an exam have the capacity to break his/ her life! It is a very gory foreboding of future trends that need to be checked before it is too late. India has a young working population to look up to in the future. The last thing we need is our competitive nature getting the better of us.