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THERE are many ways to regard sports. One way is to hiss and fume at failure, as you could see prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi doing in a 2013 speech a friend forwarded. There’s little space to quote him entirely but the gist of Mr Modi’s assertion was that he would tap talent from the army to get gold medals for India. We would wish he had consulted the army chief about the prospect.
I would, of course, go with anyone who finds in sports an expression of great pleasure that humans take in running, swimming, jumping, pirouetting, tossing javelins, kicking and slamming balls and shuttlecocks with dexterity. All these endeavours have been tested for better or worse with doping. But we’ve been doping for centuries although we don’t approve of it today.
A friend from sports advertising posted a message two hours before the women’s badminton final match in Rio that a billion Indians were praying for P.V. Sindhu to win the gold. I responded light-heartedly, which can be a risk in such matters, that prayers would be tantamount to cheating. Divine intervention, if there were such a thing, would be as good as doping, I said, as it would be an external, nonhuman factor in the outcome.
Moreover, to make matters more complicated, two sides praying for opposite results could disturb the divine order. If prayers did work, they seem to have worked for Spain’s Carolina Marin in Rio, not Sindhu, despite a billion people wooing divine meddling on her behalf. This takes me to the point about drugs as a controversial performance booster.
Sports used to be a great interlude in life, with or without dope. It wasn’t like nations going to war over a soccer match in Central America.
Performance-related concoctions are at least as old as sports and poetry. Reading the lines from Coleridge should convince anyone that conjuring some of the images he summons would be well-nigh impossible had the 19th-century poet not experimented with opium. Nor would Ghalib have become an invincible wordsmith without a goblet or two of an enhancing substance not dissimilar to dope. Using the logic of the Olympic rules, however, all their poetry should be deemed as illicitly written. It should be nullified forthwith, just as they took away Ben Johnson’s gold medal or barred the Russian contingent from seeking theirs.
“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/ A stately pleasure dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran/ Through caverns measureless to man/ Down to a sunless sea.” The lines were creative then, but they would be deemed inappropriate if they inspired Johnson’s fantastic run.
A new research in 2012 posits that John Keats’ reference to opium in his Ode to a Nightingale was rooted in the young poet’s use of opiate. “My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains/ My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk…” It is difficult to imagine the lines flowing from tap water.
Going by the Olympic rules, The Beatles would have to return their fame and fortune to the exchequer. Where would their ‘Nowhere Man’ be? Jimmy Hendrix should have found other inspirations to become a cult figure. Actor Naseeruddin Shah would probably not have slammed Rajesh Khanna as a beacon of mediocrity without violating the Olympic rules.
The use of drugs to boost performance in sports is known to have occurred since the time of the original Olympic Games, from 776 to 393 BC. The root of the word ‘doping’ apparently comes from the Dutch ‘doop’, which is a viscous opium juice, favoured by the ancient Greeks.
Prof Sharon Ruston of Lancaster University offers a different way to regard the history of literature in which drugs have played a major role.
Before the 1868 Pharmacy Act in England, she says, “barbers, confectioners, ironmongers, stationers, tobacconists, wine merchants” all sold opium.
She writes about other drugs that were legally available too. “It is possible that Queen Victoria, a figure considered the epitome of respectability, was prescribed a tincture of marijuana for menstrual cramps; there are unconfirmed reports that she wrote a testimonial for the hugely popular product Vin Mariani, a mixture of alcohol and cocaine, and she certainly enjoyed the ‘delightful beyond measure’ effects of chloroform when it was administered to her during childbirth.”
I’m not aware whether Nadia Comaneci or Bob Beamon took drugs to perform their magical feats in the Montreal and Mexico Olympics. The Olympic administrators may invite men and women with all the ampules of enhancers they want and see if that helps anyone challenge her perfect 10s and his high jump. Assume Sindhu and Marin had dope. Who would win?
And yet Sindhu has emerged as a great player for India, unsung though she was when she struggled to catch the public eye in Saina Nehwal’s unyielding presence. As far as badminton is concerned my fondness for the sport goes to the early 1970s when the Asian Badminton Championship came to Lucknow. Rudy Hartono, Punch Gunalan, Dinesh Khanna (or was it Nandu Natekar) were the stars. Damyanti Subedar with her long tresses was a lovely player to watch as was Rafia Latif with her delectable drop shots. Damyanti later married an Indian Air Force officer who went missing in action over Pakistan. She lives in the hope that Flt Lt Vijay Tambe is alive.
Sports used to be a great interlude in life, with or without dope. It wasn’t like nations going to war over a soccer match in Central America.
The modern Olympics, on the other hand, were greatly buoyed by Cold War rivalries. With the end of the Soviet empire the world of sports seems to have become a TV-induced neurosis infused with momentary highs. In which case why not seek a non-toxic way to find Xanadu? Unless someone, like Mr Modi, wants to call in the army for an enhanced performance of a sport different from any we have known.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2016
