Most columnists and television anchors who have been foaming at the mouth over the national furore about which combinations will represent India in the tennis men’s doubles and mixed doubles in the XXX Olympic Games in London scheduled to begin later this month, seem to understand little about the nature of this game because they probably haven’t played it. At least not seriously.

The issue which has galvanised them into print and/or screech is the great split between Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi — India’s ace doubles pair which over a decade combined to win 30 international tennis tournaments worldwide, including three Grand Slam titles, not to speak of millions of dollars for themselves. After impacting the world of tennis as one of the finest men’s doubles duo, now they — not to mince words — hate each other. Therefore Bhupathi insists on pairing with his recently discovered partner Rohan Bopanna for the London Olympics. On the other hand, print media pundits and television anchors insist that Paes and Bhupathi set aside their differences in the national interest and bring home India’s first tennis gold medal.

The plain truth is that the chances of the Bhupathi-Bopanna duo striking metal for India are better than of a Paes-Bhupathi combination. That’s because camaraderie, complementarity, affinity and empathy — call it what you will — in a doubles combination is the non-negotiable precondition of success. If it’s missing, play becomes agony and a resentful experience.

Men’s doubles apart, India also has a good chance of bagging a medal in the mixed doubles because women’s tennis star Sania Mirza seems to have recovered her form in the nick of time. But as ‘compensation’ to Paes now that the Bhupathi-Bopanna pair has been confirmed as India’s men’s doubles A team in London, Sania may be paired with Paes in the mixed doubles, despite the Bhupathi-Mirza duo having won the French Open championship last month. Although Paes and Sania have won some minor tournaments together in the past, they are both deuce court players whereas Bhupathi is the world’s best left court doubles player. What a mess! Forget about gold — or any other medal.

IGNOU ignoramus

One of the wonders of the cock-eyed socialist state which has been fashioned by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and post-independence India’s complicit political and middle classes, is how individuals lacking even the merest general knowledge and intelligence rise to the very top of government (and private) organisations.

A case in point is one Prof. M. Aslam — a reportedly eminent sociologist and pro tem (‘acting’) vice chancellor of the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), billed the world’s largest distance education varsity by virtue of its 3.5 million students enroled in its 150-acre campus and 67 regional and 3,000 learner support centres. Despite numerous phone calls, letters of demand and legal notices, this learned academic refuses to discharge IGNOU’s debt of Rs.1.1 lakh owed to EducationWorld, pending for over six months on the ground that he is not bound by an advertising contract signed between IGNOU and EW during the tenure of eminent biologist and former IGNOU vice chancellor Dr. Rajasekharan Pillai. According to the learned professor, he is not legally obliged to discharge the debt incurred by his predecessor.

Such ignorance of the elementary principles of law and commerce is ubiquitous in the socialist state fashioned by the Dynasty. Now the sole option available to EW is to file a civil suit on which substantial court fees — a shameful tax on justice delivery about which there’s not a squeak of protest from the intelligentsia — will need to be paid. With even top academics and corporate chieftains ignorant of the most basic principles of ordinary commerce, it’s hardly a wonder that India is ranked no.182 of the world’s 183 countries on the World Bank’s enforceability of contracts index, and foreign investment inflows into the country are drying up.

Great brainwash

Excellent live coverage of the uefa european Football Championship 2012 (aka UEFA Euro 2012) now drawing to a close in Ukraine/Poland — which is being telecast in India by UEFA broadcast partner NeoSports — has undoubtedly stimulated interest in the beautiful game which needs more official and societal promotion in this cricket-obsessed nation. For one, football is a much cheaper game to play and consumes much less time than cricket.

However, the downside of UEFA Euro 2012 is the uncouth chanting of racial insults at black players in the teams of several participant nations, which has marred the tournament. Ironically, the most aggressive and insulting racial abuse has emanated from football fans of Croatia, present at match venues in large numbers. This is quaint because nine of ten people are unlikely to be able to locate Croatia on the world map. That citizens of this pipsqueak country should entertain absurd notions of racial superiority, is indicative of the extent to which in the absence of effective counter-offensives, subtle and overt white supremacist propaganda has permeated the consciousness of people around the world. Nor is the great mass which graduates from the majority of India’s under-developed, if not obsolete institutions of education, any less prejudiced. A few years ago, there was disgraceful baiting and racial abuse of aboriginal Australian cricket star Andrew Symonds in which some India players were complicit.

With the ruling Dynasty getting paler with each passing generation, and brain-dead producer-directors of Indian cinema projecting pale imitation Caucasian clones as the gold standard of male and female beauty, it’s hardly surprising that post-independence India has lost its ethnic pride, and greedy vendors of deadly mercury-laden whitening creams are raking in huge profits. Meanwhile the world’s unprepossessing race painted up by a multibillion dollar cosmetics industry and Hollywood make-up artists, has brainwashed traditionally tall, dark and handsome people of the developing world into accepting inferior status. To the extent that the advertising fraternity and the media routinely depict Caucasian stereotypes to sell products and services to dark-skinned natives while official textbooks take pains to emphasise that Swami Vivekananda was ‘fair’.

Pathetic self-loathing of a thoroughly brainwashed, subject nation.