Nothing succeeds like success. Tell this to Abhinav Bindra and you are certain to get his ‘Constant Comatose’ smile in utter agreement. After his riveting victory on Monday, everyone seems to have been queuing up with cash prizes to ‘celebrate’ his podium finish. The top well-wishers include the Board of Cricket Control in India (Rs 25 lakh), the Maharashtra government (Rs 10 lakh) and the Steel Authority of India (Rs 5 lakh). Then there’s Railway Minister Lalu Prasad who has dipped generously into the public coffer to handout a lifetime free first class AC travel for the marksman who, we are sure, will now utilise this mode of comfortable transport more than ever before.
Well, of course, the 25-year-old Bindra deserves this and much more. But this sudden mad rush to link themselves with the champion’s performance has a nice, little lesson in human behaviour attached to it: to him that hath shall be given.
So did it surprise us tremendously when Bindra said that all he wants to do now is go back home to his family — his parents being the only ones having invested so much in him? But hang on. There’s a whole line of state governments and ministers still waiting to congratulate the boy for something that they must have always encouraged.