Lucknow Outgoing president Pranab Mukherjee recently got lessons in sports from young researcher Kanishka Pandey. Sports: A way of life, written by Pandey, explains how sports plays a major role in holistic personality development of players. It was presented to Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhawan.
“This research is the first-of-its-kind academic work on sports that lays emphasis on national character building through sports and seriously challenges the adage that sports spoil the human being,” Pandey, a former state-level badminton player from Lucknow’s St Francis College, said.
During the 15 minute audience, Mukherjee asked him about the content of the work and how it could change society. Pandey explained that participating in sports activities from an early age ingrained more than 16 sports values in human beings, helping them fight depression and develop competitive instincts.
“Besides, these sports values build solid individual character and arm him/her to fight corruption that has plagued our society. It also helps them face difficult times with grace,” Pandey, a budding researcher at Campus Law Centre, University of Delhi, said.
Pandey sought the President’s help in introducing policies that see sports from a new perspective. Mukherjee asked him to give a proposal for any new sports policy that he thought was necessary so that it could be forwarded to the government for a follow-up.
{{/usCountry}}Pandey sought the President’s help in introducing policies that see sports from a new perspective. Mukherjee asked him to give a proposal for any new sports policy that he thought was necessary so that it could be forwarded to the government for a follow-up.
{{/usCountry}}The work has been translated in many languages to reach wider audiences, Hindi version had hit the market and the English one was likely to be published by a well-known foreign publication.
The Sanskrit and Urdu versions are soon going to press.
A few months ago, the book was formally released by badminton player Pullela Gopichand and former UGC chairman Ved Prakash.
Pandey has based his research on autobiographies of various iconic players such as Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali, Mary Kom, Yuvraj Singh and Sachin Tendulkar, to name a few.
For the book, Pandey spoke to patients suffering from depression, sportspersons undergoing training, coaching students in Kota, junior and senior players receiving training in national and state training camps and employees of industrial units. “You can become a force to reckon with only if you play sports along with your studies,” he added.