Kovindji on Mirabai and Manipur

Free Thinker *

President of India, Ram Nath Kovind at Manipur Sangai Festival at BOAT, Imphal on November 21 2017 :: Pix - Shankar Khangembam

His Excellency the President of India congratulated Mirabai (& Manipur) for winning the Gold Medal in the World Weightlifting Championship held in the USA. It was simultaneously followed by the felicitation messages from the Honorable Prime Minister, Her Excellency the Governor of Manipur, Honorable Chief Minister of Manipur, Honorable Minister of Sports and a series of Very Important Persons. Thanks to all the respected natty twitter handlers.

Taking advantage of this grand success by our lady weightlifter, we on behalf of the people of Manipur in particular and of the country in general would like to urge upon the Union (Federal) government to expedite the process of establishing the National Sports University .

We heard that the National Sports University Bill, 2017 has already been introduced in Lok Sabha and subsequently referred to the Standing Committee on Human Resource Development. Since it is a non controversial Bill, the process may kindly be hastened and expedited so that the parliamentary procedure is complete at the earliest and finally the Bill be passed.

It shall be a watershed in the Sports history of this Country as it is going to be the first University of this kind. Believe me this University shall be a boon for our future games & sports and certainly it will pave the way to bring more laurels and medals for the nation.

On the great feat of our Mirabai, we (lesser mortals) also express our happiness and send congratulatory messages to ourselves. Unfortunately nobody groks the hidden happiness of the people in general and in particular the members of Nongpok Kakching area, Imphal East where Mirabai hails from. It is high time to appreciate and acknowledge the feeling of the subalterns and laity.

Media houses may take the view and interview (bites/photographs/images/clippings) of the common man/woman on the streets and in the villages on such joyous eventful moments. That will be a great tribute to the cause of democracy and people’s power.

In fact we are lucky with the number 48. I don’t know why? I am not a ‘Chiro’, but it seems this particular number is good for us. Mary Kom also won many times at 48 not in age but in weight category. Here again Mirabai came out with flying colors in the 48 kg category.

Did Not Finish (DNF) is an ignominious status in the world of Weightlifting. Mirabai has successfully overcome the trauma she had (DNF) in Rio Olympics. In fact she was one of the India’s best bet for a medal at Rio. Due to some reasons only known to her, Mirabai could not perform. She failed to lift the barbell in all three attempts of clean-and -jerk.

Mirabai was greatly inspired by Kunjarani (another sports icon of Manipur & India) a renown weightlifter of the country. Mirabai respectfully broke Kunjarani’s national record. At the initial stage she went far ahead of her counterparts and at the age of 11 she was already a national champion (U-15).

Again at 17 she was the national junior champion. Later Mirabai won the much coveted Asian Championship. At Anaheim a few days back in the final of the World Weightlifting Championship Mira had beaten Thun Thun of Thailand.

If she continues with the present form for another three years she shall be a medal winner in Tokyo Olympics. We could not see her winning lifts at Anaheim (California) live due to unawareness and communication gap. Anyway we could finally watch the winning clip from the digital world and in the sports channels including Doordarshan Sports.

Considering the commendable past contribution and present performance of the Manipuri boys and girls in the field of Sports like Football (8 boys in FIFA U-17), Boxing (Mary’s gold), Archery (Sushila’s silver), Weightlifting (Mirabai’s gold) etc., it is high time to give further boost to the sports loving people of the State.

Perhaps the finest reward will be the National Sports University. The State leaders irrespecting of Party affiliation, sports lovers and all our well wishers at the national level may collectively insist the Centre to finally establish the Sports University in the State at the earliest by enacting the law. We firmly believe that Kovindji will be more than happy to give his Presidential assent to the National Sports University, Bill, 2017.

On being successful somebody said something, somewhere and I quote, “Success is a very relative term, if you are successful you will have more relatives “. Now Mirabai will have more relatives even though she did not attend her own sister’s marriage when she was away in California for lifting gold.