Wrestling with a foreign language

An advertisement for an airline currently airing on TV shows a cricket coach telling his team that in order to beat the Indians they must “think like Indians, eat like Indians and dance like Indians”. Language was not included in this immersion exercise but had a real coach conceptualised the commercial, he would probably have included it.

Apart from obviating on-field misunderstandings — of which there have been several notable incidents — it could help them understand at least a few of the communications between fielders or batsmen. So our Olympics bronze medallist wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt must be commended for realising the obvious advantages of knowing specific foreign languages and getting trainees in his academy to come to grips with Russian in addition to arm drags and headlocks.

Looking at the medal tallies of the last few Olympics, it is clear that Indian sports people with international ambitions in weightlifting, wrestling and gymnastics — among others — should learn Russian. And a smattering of Chinese may prove useful to those competing in shooting and archery, not to mention table tennis and badminton – sports in which India has shown a lot of promise and some success. Of course, it may also be wise to find out which countries’ sports people have picked up relevant words and phrases used by Indians too.