You might find a silver lining

The more things change, the more they remain the same. I wonder if it was intended as that but Alphonse Karr's aforementioned quip sums up how the Indian campaign at the Olympics yields strikingly similar results every leap year.Here we are, once again sending a substantial contingent -- lots of officials and some athletes -- to the mega event. And, as if it is pre-destined, we all know the outcome. Indian Olympic Association president Suresh Kalmadi has issued a disclaimer beforehand: "Don't expect too many medals at the Games." Even at the risk of being pummelled by boxer Vijender, or facing a firing squad comprising all the nine Olympic-bound shooters, I want to tell Mr Kalmadi: Don't worry, sir. We're not.On the face of it, one might argue, things have changed, in fact the graph shows a steady incline since Atlanta '96, when Leander Paes ended a 16-year drought with a bronze in tennis. Weight-lifter Karnam Malleswari repeated the feat four years later, even as India narrowly missed out on another medal in boxing. In Athens, Rajyavardhan Rathore got the country its first individual silver.But delve deeper and one thing has remained constant in the past three editions -- that India has consistently been sitting at the bottom of the heap in the medals-per-million population list. The only way the scenario can change is if India doesn't win a medal at all in Beijing. And that is firmly within the realm of possibility.But there is not need be depressed. Every dark cloud, they say, has a silver lining. I tried finding one in it and guess what, I succeeded.A nation obsessed with what our neighbours are doing, we've always compared ourselves vis-à-vis China in the field of sports only to develop a sense of inferiority complex. It's about time we come out of that. While India do bring up the rear in all Olympic medals lists, China isn't necessarily up there every time. Their economy has been doing pretty well, and they are tipped to overtake the US, perhaps at these Games itself, but they haven't quite translated that growth into sporting success, if the list of medals-per-$10bn-GDP is taken into account. China are way down at 64th place, just 11 spots above India and even African countries such as Eritrea (fifth on the chart) have beaten the Asian powerhouse hands down!Somehow, all this fuss about medals is beyond my comprehension. Ours is a nation which has always upheld the Corinthian principle of universal brotherhood. So whoever tops the list should make us happy. Participation, after all, is more important than winning.And for those who still believe in competing, there's another, easier way out. Adjust your frame of reference next time and start reading the medals list upside down.