Anthem calls sportlings

There’s nothing quite like the national anthem to make you swell with pride. But when it’s sung by a bunch of your favourite sports stars, it elevates the emotion to a whole new level. So when a video, a first of sorts, featuring India’s greatest sporting talents singing Jana Gana Mana was released a few days ago, it made the entire nation stand up, take notice, and promptly go into a frenzy about its inspirational content.

However, while the buzz generated by the video is palpable, there has been a section of the public who believes that it has not done justice to a number of other legends. Released by International Institute of Sports Manage-ment, founded by former India cricketer Nilesh Kulkarni, it stars Sachin Tendulkar, Sania Mirza, Mahesh Bhupathi, Baichung Bhutia, Dhanraj Pillai, Sunil Gavaskar, Sushil Kumar and Gagan Narang. All clad in white, they are seen encouraging youngsters to pursue the sport of their choice.

“The goal of the video is simple... to urge kids to get off their comfortable couches and take up sports. It’s a social message and is not necessarily meant to be a complete reflection of India’s sporting talent,” explains Nilesh Kulkarni, adding, “We did approach many athletes and sportsmen but it’s not easy to bring so many high profile people together. We had to account for everyone’s schedules and tournament dates. So we made it happen with the people who could give us their time. I don’t blame the others who couldn’t make it.”

Cricket commentator Charu Sharma echoes his thoughts. “I think it’s a fantastic effort by Nilesh and his team. Sports has a way of cutting across all barriers and they’ve used that to their advantage. The point is not about who is in it and who isn’t. It’s about the fact that someone has made an effort to create a video like this, that really helps spread the message of sports. These kinds of initiatives need to be done more often to really help build a strong sports culture in the country,” states Sharma.

Having been in production for close to six months, it’s no wonder that the video, available on YouTube has garnered over 1,50,000 views already.