Celebrating the spirit and history of Olympics

Over the past couple of weeks, an intense game of administrative politics has dominated discussions about how sport is run in Kerala.   Former India athlete and Olympian Anju Bobby George has just stepped down as chief of the Kerala State Sports Council in the wake of the council’s differences with the state’s new political dispensation.

The jury is still out on the treatment the new government has extended to one of India’s rare stars on the world athletic stage. The aftershocks of the controversy are also likely to have their political import. But the takeaway, like always, is that sport has to move on beyond the politics which govern it.

The rancour around the political row, perhaps, forms an interesting backdrop to what M C Vasisht is trying to do in Kozhikode. Vasisht, an associate professor of history in the Malabar Christian College, and his team are organising a series of exhibitions at schools in the district, in an effort to introduce the little ones to a global event which truly exemplifies sporting excellence and carries a spirit of comradeship – The Olympics.

Road to Rio Olympics 2016 is a project designed to create local awareness on the Games in the run-up to the Rio de Janeiro edition which commences on August 5. The team proposes to cover schoolchildren from the lower-primary level with an exhibition of laminated photographs which come with brief descriptions that trace history and politics of the time in which the event was held.

Philosophical debates held on the sidelines of the ancient Games, rituals, trivia about the Olympic torch, they all form the exhibition’s content. It traces the ban on the Olympics in AD 393 by Roman emperor Theodosius I and its 1896 revival in Athens, stellar turns by legendary athletes, including Jesse Owens and his 1936 gold haul in the Berlin Games, the politics of the Cold War era, the Munich massacre of 1972 and more.

The content does appear complex and a touch too political for schoolchildren to appreciate. Vasisht says the exhibition is customised based on the age of students who watch it. “There is a context of history attached here as well; for example, when we are talking about the GDR (the erstwhile German Democratic Republic or East Germany) or the USSR as contesting teams at the event, we are also pointing to a past which the children are not necessarily familiar with. If we look at history, it becomes difficult to take politics out of Olympics but I’m also trying to look at the bigger picture here – this is a truly global event which has broken geographical boundaries, it has a story that has to be told to the children,” he says.

Vasisht looks at the travelling exhibition as a spark for a longer programme to spread the message of the Olympics. Kozhikode will also host it at a fixed venue, between August 1 and 5. The idea is to build awareness on the history and relevance of the Games right from the school level. Vasisht feels that the event assumes greater relevance in our times. 

“This is the age of nation-states indulging themselves in arms races but what is the point of this notion of supremacy when weapons on both sides are equally destructive? Peace is the future; it could be dubbed a Utopian idea in this age but I believe in it and feel that Olympics continues to symbolise that kind of hope,” he says.

This is the not the first time that Vasisht is getting involved in an Olympics-related initiative. In 2008, a song written by him on the Beijing Olympics was aired by a Hindi channel of the China Radio International (CRI). Composed by his student Sai Giridhar and sung by Hani Raman, the two-minutes-plus song was, in Vasisht’s own words, a “musical tribute” to the spirit of the Games. 

 Vasisht wrote the song in 2001, after Beijing won its bid to host the Olympics. In 2005 Vasisht, again along with Sai Giridhar, had released a composition called Pride of India, dedicated to Indian medal winners in the Olympics. He has also published anthologies of poems on football (The last penalty kick) and cricket (Night Watchman).

 While reiterating enthusiasm for sport, Vasisht keeps returning to its historical context during the conversation. Sometimes, it’s about the politics which shaped the history of sport; sometimes, it’s also about nostalgia.

“I remember how P T Usha fell just short of creating history at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 (the iconic athlete missed the 400-m hurdles bronze by a whisker). I was a pre-degree student then; I had to wait till the early morning radio news bulletin to know what happened at the event. Listening to that bulletin… it was heart-breaking,” says Vasisht.

His exhibition also features a segment called Gems of India, dedicated to Indian Olympic medal winners ranging from Norman Pritchard to Mary Kom. Vasisht has never been to an Olympic event and says he wants to make it to the 2020 or 2024 Games. Any personal favourite among Olympic moments? “I wish I was there to watch Abhinav Bindra win the shooting gold in Beijing,” he says.