THE COLLECTIVE OUTBURST of hatred on the Indian cricket team following its defeat is a fascinating phenomenon. The gravity of this tantrum can be gauged by the clips we see on news channels that are flashed in all corners of the nation. People belonging to different cultures and speaking different languages indulge in the same act of frustrating flare ups. The question that crosses our minds is what probes them and is it the right attitude?

Ideally, sports events should be designed to promote a sense of healthy competition and teach the fans to be able to handle both victories as well as defeats with equal fervor. Sports are an excellent tool for overall development since they teach a whole lot of values through their intended fun and frolic. They inculcate the spirit of true sportsmanship. These are the positive points associated with sports which form the fundamentals of each game.

Rigorous planning and intense pressure goes into the preparation of a single match which brings a few minutes of excitement and amusement. Apart from this, the amount of resources and money involved as well as the prestige issue associated with  certain games like cricket make it all the more intense, eroding the actual purpose of  the game. In recent years the fans are even ready to kill the players if things fail to go their way.

The recent murder of Pakistani coach Bob Woolmer is a startling example reflecting the degradation of the game. The burning of effigies of the same players we once worshipped shows our fickle nature and the extent to which we abhor failure.    

It has become necessary for us to understand the underlying cause for this intolerance. We have lost all forbearance and altruism, not only as a nation but as an entire race. We are not ready to accept failure as sportingly as we should. If we cannot view a game with the spirit of good sportsmanship that enables us to accept a graceful defeat, we can just imagine about the kind of acceptance we would show in other spheres of our lives.

Intolerance to failure, perhaps, gets programmed in our heads at a very tender age when we are taught repulsion to the word “failure”. The kind of treatment meted out to children by their parents, family members and friends who fail in any examination is appalling. We form am instant dislike for such persons and are taught to avoid any association with them. We blame them and in worse cases, leave them alone.

We never encourage our children to look beyond an expected or unexpected downfall in performance. We intentionally create an intense fear of failure in the hearts and minds of our young Indians so that they win not because of a passion to win but because of the fear of the consequences of failure. Under such circumstances we get tuned to the inability of accepting failure and cannot handle the defeat of our players.

It has become important for us to teach our kids that failing is only a matter of knowing how a certain thing is not supposed to be done and not about the inability to do it. We must deal with children who fail to perform academically up to a desired level fail to perform with immense patience and compassion. The entire education system needs to undergo revision. We must help our children learn from their failures instead of developing a fear in their minds. Once this fear is overcome, we would see a change in a whole lot of aspects of our lives where we’d be more tolerant and willing to learn from our mistakes instead of blaming ourselves or others for them. This make us realize that we need to give a second chance to our players and stop blaming them for their unfortunate defeat.