How Abhinav Bindra’s gold cost me a good amount of money
In August of 2008, Abhinav Bindra won India’s first Olympic gold medal. I can never forget the moment when I got to know he had won. It cost me a good amount of money.
I was in China back then. The country was red hot with the Beijing Olympics fever. You couldn’t miss it anywhere even in Shanghai. It was super awesome time to be in Shanghai (it is over 1200 kms away from Beijing; a geographic reality simply ignored by the makers of Chandni Chowk to China). People everywhere were happy with the superb showing of their sportspeople in multiple disciplines. Bucketful of golds!! Winning a Gold medal for China was almost a certainty in every individual event.
Shanghainese people were primarily interested in talking about Liu Xiang, the local boy, who was expected to win 110m hurdles. His foot injury had the country and especially Shanghai obsessed.
Given this situation, it seemed the only people interested in 10m rifle shooting were Padarbinda Barik (Paddy, my colleague and flatmate), me, and Abhinav Bindra himself.
I was working in the 7th floor office of Evalueserve in the Zao Fong building in Shanghai and Paddy was on the 4th. We were chatting on the internal messenger (there was no whatsapp then). Paddy was keeping track of the scores in a very quiet office. It used to be so quiet you could hear mouse clicks from a few cubicles away.
The Beijing Olympics website was updated after every round. Abhinav was doing very well that day, of course.
Paddy called and whispered in the phone
"I think he has won"
"Kya bol rahaa hai? Sure?" I whispered my question.
"Haan!"
"Let me refresh the site on my computer"
Click.
Click.
"Abey haan... it’s a gold"
"Yes, it is"
"YES! YES!" I screamed startling everyone on the floor.
A nice colleague asked "Shenme? What happened? Are you ok?"
"YES! INDIA GOT A GOLD"
"So?"
"IT’S THE FIRST TIME EVER! EVEEEEEERRRR!"
Nice colleagues smiled. They were just happy that I was happy. It was like 'how cute, they won their first gold finally’.
A smart Alec colleague said "Dinner party! Indian Food"
"YES YES.. anything. My treat"
"Great! Indian dinner it is then"
"YES!"
....
Oh wait! Indian dinner for 15 people in Shanghai.... that’s good money. (A roti used to cost CNY 15 at least. Plus, everyone was non-vegetarian)
Nevertheless, word is a word. We did go out and had a good team dinner and celebrated Abhinav's gold. So, that's how Abhinav's gold cost me some money.
How monumental an achievement it was can be judged by the fact that there hasn't been another individual gold yet. I read somewhere that Abhinav Bindra is still involved with sports after retirement and is helping the next generation of champions. Great man indeed!
