Notes

The first day of Parakram, the sports fest of Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad was held yesterday with much hustle and bustle. Being held from 12 to 14th of February, the annual fest includes a flurry of events from a wide range of sports, indoors and outdoors. Be it squash, basketball or even paintball, there was an event for every sporty person on campus. While there was no shortage of sporting events, it seemed that sportsman spirit was lacking this time around.

Since time immemorial, booing and demoralizing the opponents has been accepted as part of playing a sport. However, a new level of sledging has seemed to take over the college in recent years. From making sexual innuendos on the girls teams visiting the campus to cursing the umpire after an unfavourable decision, the audience left no stone unturned. Of particular note were the basketball matches, where rude comments on the opposing players were spoken over a microphone for all to enjoy. Carried away in the adrenaline rush of seeing their team win, few ever stopped to question the consequences of their actions on the playground.

Not only does this much antagonizing leave the visiting players distressed, it also leaves a blot on the college’s reputation amongst others in the area. Take the BIT Mesra girls’ basketball team for example, which boycotted the fest this year and refused to visit choosing not to be the victims of degrading remarks as they were last year. In fact, only one girls’ varsity basketball team visited for the fest this time, and whether that number will reduce to zero next year is debatable. Things were similarly appalling on the football and cricket fields. In fact, chess may have been one of the only events where the visiting players were allowed to leave with some amount of dignity.

It was an even sorrier state on the second day, where commentators and audience members passed revolting remarks on the visitors with much aplomb, finally prompting the visiting basketball teams to forfeit the match and leave, disgusted by the sorry state that the match had turned into. An anonymous message was posted onto ISM’s confession page on Facebook later in the day, criticizing the actions of the students strongly. Perhaps it’s time that ISMites reviewed their choices and chose to change for the better, lest the sports fest be left boycotted, the sports courts turn to barren lands, and the ISM teams be the default winners, with no need for cheating.