India must practice excellence

Abhinav Bindra won Olympics Gold in 2008. Indian media goes full force to celebrate this achievement and declares India has arrived at "Olympics" and predicts this could turn India's performance in future events.

Rabindranath Tagore won Nobel prize for literature in 1913. Sir CV Raman won Nobel prize for Physics in 1930. If the same intense media would have existed then, sure they would have projected on number of Nobel Laureates India will produce in years to come. Well many years have passed since then...and we don't see a Nobel Laureate for the work produced in India.

We have several, scattered, (sad to say) individual achievements, either it be 1983 World Cup by Kapil's team, 1980 All England Badminton Title by Prakash Padukone, several titles by the great chess player, Vishwanathan Anand, etc. Indeed they are great achievements by Indians.

But what we fail to realize is...they are accomplishments by individuals, totally on their own efforts, on their own merit, often fighting several un-necessary battles against the system. They are Indians who achieved excellence in their chose field. They are not products of the system or a nation called India. They are products of themselves. I am sure their achievements, sacrifices, efforts are an inspiration for many...who ofcourse have to fight it out alone to reach such levels of international performance.

One could argue, that Cricket could be a good example of creating systemically many crickets. But I disagree, as we all know, while BCCI is focused in making money, it's the shear individual talent of the cricketers that make them shine. Sure, cricket is a cut above...but even a talented cricketer has to fight selfish, politically oriented system to get into the playing eleven.

Except for a very few, like Vishwanathan Anand, Tennis players, Leander Peas, Mahesh Bupathi, etc. many stop excelling after one wonderful win in the international arena. Look at Micheal Phelps on what he achieved in Athens and again in Beijing. The very next day, after winning 8 gold Medals in China, his focus is already on 2012 Olympics in London.

We need to focus on repeating excellence, whether it is the effort of the person or the system. We need to make the excellence a habit.

We must practice excellence in whatever job we do. We must build a system for the best to come-up. We must put the national interests above the personal interests. Unless we don't do, all our successes will be "flash in the pan" type.

It is the practice, commitment, dedication, focus, selflessness, .... that will take the country into the future. Let's dream and realize such a nation, called India.