Mary Kom’s in great demand

Boxing champ MC Mary Kom was quite the toast of this sports star-studded do.
Since the event was about supporting sportspersons with the potential to win Olympic gold medals for India, she was being hailed as the brightest star on the Indian sports scene, and so poor Mary was already quite self-conscious after all that praise.
On top of that, tennis champ Leander Paes told her, “Mary, you’d once said that you wanted to be a tennis player...If you ever consider going back to that thought, I’d love to play mixed doubles with you!” After much laughter and applause, and with Mary blushing bright red, Vishwanathan Anand got up to speak. He said, “Even though Leander’s asked you to play doubles with him, Mary, I’d like to tell you too – if you ever think of chess, there a game called chess boxing. Really – look it up if you’d like. The players make a chess move, then go and punch a round, then make a move, then punch a round...”
By this time, Mary had buried her face in her hands and was shaking with laughter, and so were the rest of the people in the audience.
The event was hosted by billiards great Geet Sethi and former hockey player Viren Rasquinha, who, together with Prakash Padukone, had started the initiative. Other sports stars who’ve done the country proud in their respective fields also support the venture, so Leander, Mary and Vishy were there, as were PT Usha and former table tennis champ Niraj Bajaj.
Their corporate sponsors were there too, and the once the ‘official’ part of the do ended, the questions were mostly about the Commonwealth Games and what the star athletes thought about India’s preparedness and the pre-opening ceremony chaos. But there were other thoughts too. When asked about sports federations in India and whether they were doing or not doing a satisfactory job, Geet said, “I’ll just reiterate that I’d decided to stop criticising, and try and do something instead. The federations, some of them are doing a good job, some are doing a shoddy job, but that’s life. Life is not ideal.”
Vishy also spoke about the hindrances that prevent sportspersons from doing their best — getting the paperwork needed to go abroad to compete, finding proper training and infrastructure, sometimes poverty.
But in the middle of these serious discussions, Viren mentioned that when he’d gone down to Chennai to meet Vishy over lunch, the meal they’d had was the best South Indian food he’s ever tasted! Leander, when asked about the games, said, “I don’t really want to comment on the controversies around the games. Instead, I would like to stress, let’s not get distracted by the negative developments and reports about the games. Let us focus on sports and make it a memorable event. It’s a matter of pride for me to be part of such a mega sporting event which is being held in India for the first time. I’m certainly looking to win some medals. I’m very happy to see that besides cricket, other sports are also being promoted in a big way in India. We have such talented young sportspersons and we hope to win some medals during the games. For me, 2010 has been a wonderful year and I hope that it ends well, with more medals.”
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