The Bronze Age

The BOC Bharat Olimpic Corporation held an urgent meeting post the Tokyo OlympicsThe President of BOC Mr Pehla Prasad Pasricha addressed the august gatheringldquoBhaiyon and behenon itrsquos been a soso medal show for us in Tokyo Better than Rio but only one gold two silvers and four bronzesrdquoThe treasurer of BOC Mr Moolah Mohanty chimed in ldquoJamaica with a population three times less than Jabalpur has so many golds and wehellip wehellip only one We need many many morerdquoMr Pehla Prasad announced ldquoI wish to propose to the World Olympic Committee that we introduce new rulesrdquoldquoLike whatrdquo his Vice President Shri Doosra Dobriyal askedldquoI want to suggest that they introduce more medals than just gold silver and bronzerdquo Pehla saidldquoMatlabrdquo asked Mr DobriyalldquoSee Irsquove got so used to us finishing 6th or 7th or 10th why not have medals for theseAn aluminium medal for 4th place or a wood medal for 7th or synthetic glass from China as consolation prizesrdquoldquoWhy canrsquot we suggest sports that we are good at Like why not cricket for the Olympicsrdquo Mr Chand Chauthala askedldquoMy fear is our players will choose IPL over the Olympic Gamesrdquo warned Mr DobriyalThe youngest in the group Yuvak Jawaan said enthusiastically over his hornrimmed specs ldquoRespected uncles and aunties I have some revolutionary ideasndashusing my latest software Irsquove come up with a list of new events ones that we can become very good at if we set up training facilitiesrdquoMr Prashna Prasanna asked sceptically ldquoWersquove been in a lockdown for almost 16 months What are you recommending young manhellip how hard to bang a thalirdquoldquoWell Prasanna uncle close but not quite During the last two years while Irsquove been working from home these are new games Irsquom thinking of based on my own experiencesrdquoYuvak continued ldquoSo I have formulated a new athletics event called lsquoThe JhadooPocha sprintsrsquo using certain algorithms Two races I have createdmdashlsquo50 metre Jhadoorsquo and lsquo75 metres Pocharsquo For the 50 m Jhadoo the athlete goes down on his haunches brandishing a broom and over 50 m sweeps the track in front of him while he moves forward like a duck With the 75 m Pocha the athlete holds the swab broom and races over 75 metres while he mops simultaneously We will have champions from all over the nation in these two sports Irsquom convincedrdquoMoolah Mohanty was happy ldquoAccha hai tell me young Yuvak what other sports has your team of techies inventedrdquoYuvakrsquos assistant Soch Vichar Rathore said excitedly ldquoWe have created the Mumbai Duothlon which can be extended to become a national sport The Duothlon has two disciplines First is the 6 km Water Walk We Indians have got so used to struggling through floods with water upto our knees Here the athletersquos obstacle is a 6 km stretch of water he has to wade through to win the racerdquoSecond is the 2 km Pothole Cycle Maneouvre As the term suggests wersquove become adept at avoiding potholes on our roads so in this event we replicate a potholed dirt track that the cyclist has to overcomeYuvak said ldquoAnd finally we have a sport very newly developed So after you take your second vaccination the game is how far can you throw an objectrdquolsquoWhatrsquos this unusual game calledrdquo Mr Moolah enquiredldquoThe Jabelin Throwrdquo Yuvak concludedRahul daCunha is an adman theatre directorplaywright photographer and traveller Reach him at rahuldacunhamiddaycom