Monday, September 19, 2005

Identity Crisis

While in school I was confused to read in a subject that Dr.S.Chandrasekhar is one of the few Indians to have won the Nobel prize, and to read Dr.Chandrasekhar's nationality to be American in a list of Nobel laureates. I'm still confused on the nationalities of quite a few including Kalpana Chawla, the Amrithraj cousins and Sunitha Rao.

My understanding was that, in cases like that of Dr.Chandrasekhar, their nationality is American as they switched to American citizenship, but India kept showing its linkage with them to gain some respect out of it. But I was surprised to see the US news channels broadcasting the loss of an Indian in the Columbia space shuttle.

The case of the sports people is even more confusing to me. Why should the guys born and brought-up in the U.S. play for India? Is it because of their attachment to India, or is it because of reasons similar to Rohan Gavaskar representing West Bengal in Ranji trophy?

If people are to represent their ancestral countries, then why do we see Indians in the cricket teams of all the newly playing countries?

All these thoughts resurfaced as I saw Sunitha Rao in the news regarding the Sunfeast open. Anyways, here is wishing Sania a wonderful Sunfeast open.

posted by Jammy at 12:09 PM

1 Comments:

Blogger Ravi said...

Visibility Thats the key. Players want to go in those places where they have higher visibilty & are more valued.

Tennis is a popular sport in US. A person of Indian race playing tennis for US will be lost in the crowd of the many superstar players that US has. But in India, these same players are given a much higher visibilty. Which will also bring a lot of 'other revenues'.

As far as cricket goes, its again visibilty. Players of Indian origin play for newly playing countries because in India they wouldn't have a chance in the National side.

The name of the game seems to be going places with lesser competetion.

19 September, 2005 15:22  

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