Of talent and it's harnessing.

Missus barges in through the bedroom door. I have just come in and am in a chair looking at the ceiling. Men, at such grey junctures in life, look at the ceilings. She hollers. I come out of the grey. Naturally. She is showing me something on her mobile. It is a picture of a craft project her student has done some minutes back. Let me bring you in on this a bit. Some weeks ago she asked me if she should take in students for summer craft classes. I know her hand at all this. And I also know that she handles children very patiently. Even in other cities where we lived, she used to do these painting classes that were quite popular. So I said that she should do it. And she did advertise in those WhatsApp wormholes that we have. She got in some numbers. Then she was told that they are going in vacations. Post that they would come in. One student was agreeable to start right away. So be it. I saw the result of that student's work after the second class. The boy had turned in awesome work. Told me one thing. All children with the right energy and support of a teacher, can turn out gold. All children. And the younger they are, the better they can get. Missus, of course, is very calm, energetic and can converse very well with children. I see the results through the year. Then, later I saw Christiano Ronaldo's back flip goal again. And I began to wonder. This man couldn't have been this crazily talented if not for a succession of coaches who kept tweaking his talent to this supreme specimen that he's become. Monitoring his sleep, regimen, food, endorsements, his entertainment and rest so that he gets this far. This people are unnamed but they handhold the champion to such levels. Then I hear of how Saina Nehwal had to threaten to walk out of Indian team if her father wasn't let into the games village. And then the IOA relented. All the while saying that they had to do it because she threatened and she does not need her father. Every Games time we hear of such things. Some weird guy, usually a friend or relative of an IOA official who waltzes into the games village and has a gala time at the expense of us, the tax payers. Then, on the other hand, deserving coaches and support staff who needed to be there to make the athlete perform, are asked to stay back in India. See on TV and communicate by phone, they are told. Then we also see some weird doctor with an MBBS done a couple of years back with a needle in hand nearly finishing India's name even before the Games began. Every year. First the good Russians came with their tablets and needles. Now our own good coaches and doctors. The medical shop outside SAI hostels will tell us how much they make selling needles and steroids. And we still don't allow the personal coaches who keep these demons away. One wrong pill can break a career. And athletes are not doctors themselves. So you see how a bad system kills talent? However, glad to say, Missus is unaffected by bad support staff. That's me, if you were wondering. She's also cooked an enormously brilliant UP mutton masala curry yesterday. It's got whole garlic pods in it that you have to suck on while you eat the meat and the curry. It's done on slow flame. It's got over a dozen red chillies in a portion for two. Take that. If this curry is served to angry Dalits, the andolan will subside. Believe me. So don't break stuff and burn stuff. Have this curry. Be happy. Go home.