For Once, We Are Glad Dipa Karmakar Became A Bigger Name Than Cricket In India
For the last fortnight or so, the nation has been chanting Dipa Karmakar’s name. A month ago, barely anyone knew her name. And now, there are articles all over the internet preaching her name.
All this, while the Indian Cricket team is playing against the West Indies at the same time.
That’s exactly the kind of change we needed.
For decades, Cricket has ruled the world of our sports by entertaining the hell out of us. And in the process, we forgot about all other sports we could have flourished in, the repercussions of which still haunt us to this day.
When Dipa Karmakar qualified for the Olympics, it was the first time an Indian woman was participating in the final vault event in the Olympics.
The news of her heroic feat spread like wildfire and in a matter of hours, the country was glued to their television sets to watch a 23-year-old gymnast from Tripura perform the Produnova vault and become only the 5th person in history to do so.
If you told me a couple of months ago that the entire country would be watching a 23-year-old gymnast perform the Produnova vault, I wouldn’t have believed you. But it happened. And in that moment, Dipa Karmakar became bigger than Cricket.
If we had ten more Dipa Karmakars, our medals tally would look much different, our sports landscape would be different. But more importantly, more girls would aspire to become Dipa Karmakar.
In that moment when Dipa landed on the mat, she changed Indian sports, just a little bit. Her interviews are proof that when you “let” a woman follow her dreams, there’s nothing else she will want or need from you.
And if that’s not it. The fact that she’s so frikkin’ grounded to her roots is reason enough to adore her!
As much as we hate to admit, yes, there will be a day when all of us will forget Dipa yet again, until she comes back 4 years later, stronger and fiercer than today. But until then, let’s celebrate the fact that India will today, and for years to come, reminisce the night this beast got all of us glued to the television without any Cricket match screening on our .