8 April 2012 Kerala Commentary
The enemies of our public stadiums in Kerala.
P.S.Remesh Chandran.
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum
Let us examine how stadiums in Trivandrum were destroyed brick by brick by government experts at government expense. Palayam was a very important and famous junction in Trivandrum with a canopied bus shelter, shops, cathedral, mosque, temple, banks, hotels and a stadium. People waiting for buses would sit on the concrete railings surrounding the stadium, watch volley ball and foot ball going on at each corners, admire, enjoy and assess players, judge teams, and when their buses come jump out, jump in their buses and go their ways, to destinations as distant as Kozhikode, Malappuram and Kannoor. It was very good and freshening to sit on these railings in the evenings and during the nights, watching the games, drinking tea from the nearby plank tea shops, smoking, talking politics literature and cinema and enjoying fresh night wind coming from Shangummughom. Not all sitting on those stadium railings were awaiting their buses but were residents of the city, young and old and toddlers, come there or taken there to enjoy the night life of Trivandrum. Women could safely wait for buses and walk the road at any time of night because there was unbroken vigil by the people of Kerala. There was no mugging, pick pocketing or gold chain snatching. As we will see, these vices were introduced later due to the intervention of intolerant authorities. This place reminded one of the disciplined city life of Kozhikode, people walking roads at all times of the night and shops functioning day and night. In those days this stadium was occasionally allocated for circuses, dramas, musical programmes and public meetings. When commercial programmes with ticketed admissions were conducted, temporary walls of considerable height would be raised. People will look for holes in the temporary wall to see if anything could be seen. When this kind of temporary walling had been going on for a long time, a few people of authority began to think about permanently walling in the stadium. In our society there are many people who dislike public enjoyment of sports, arts, music, drama and other fine arts who are born with hatred in their hearts but with authority in their lineage. We will wish these people were never born. So, as they are the people of authority, they walled in this stadium. The decline of Palayam was sudden. People no more could sit anywhere, plank tea shops were closed by police, smoking banned, the bus stop canopy dismantled and even the buses began to not stopping there. The shops closed, the junction fell into darkness and insecurity and became a haunt of pick pockets, muggers and gold chain snatchers. People thought: If there was a king, the person responsible for this would have been hanged! But our new authorities are worse than these cut-throats. When the government spends millions of rupees for reviving sports and the sports won’t revive, remember the person who took the decision to wall in the Palayam Stadium. People will remember and retaliate in many ways.
Three furlongs away from Palayam is the famous Wellington Water Works which supplies water to the entire city, with the swimming pool there. It was this swimming pool which made many swimmers in Trivandrum. It is public, and the swimmers need only observing the general rules of cleanliness. Mr. Jimmy George was a famous volley ball player and smasher of Kerala and when it was decided to construct an appropriate memorial for him, it was suggested that it would be good to construct a good indoor stadium in his name in Trivandrum. The Wellington Water Works of the old and decent Public Health Engineering Department of Kerala posthumously renamed as the notorious Kerala Water and Waste Water Authority, willingly handed over a few acres of land from their campus. Thus we see the board there: ‘Jimmy George Indoor Stadium owned by the Sports and Youth Affairs Department of Kerala’. This site was leased to the Sports Department. A very good indoor stadium with many modern facilities was constructed there where shuttle badminton, gymnastics and Thai-Kondo were taught and practiced admirably for a few years. Hundreds of young boys and girls living not only in the Trivandrum city but from outside city limits, even from Nedumangadu, found their career in this stadium. It was a time when sports authorities in Kerala were comparatively corruptionless. Then a few corrupt officers noted this place and there began a series of unending betterment and renovation programmes, all unnecessary there. Crores of rupees were spent and pocketed in the name of sports. Floors, walls, ceilings, pillars and even name boards which needed no renovations were noted in estimates and tenders and quotations as to be renovated, new bills of claim presented, passed and encashed. More crores passed through corrupt hands after all which the stadium became insecure and unsafe for players. Now it is closed for two long years. It is explained that it is once again going to be renovated for National Games. Is this sports or naked and authoritative corruption? So Trivandrum lost one more stadium. Simply put, it was piece by piece destruction of the Jimmy George Indoor Stadium donated in a way by the Wellington Water Works. Now we have two more good stadiums in Trivandrum to dismantle, the Colonel Goda Varma Raja Indoor Stadium and the Central Stadium, which we intend to finish soon.
Colonel Goda Varma Raja was a great sponsor and patron of sports, one belonging to the royal family of Travancore. To commemorate him, another indoor stadium, the G.V.Raja Indoor Stadium was started in a very good and convenient building previously owned by the Maharajas of Travancore. It was very good and stimulating to practice here, the building being situated very close to the breezy beach of Shangummughom. There were a few indoor shuttle courts and an outside roller skating rink which caused the emergence of many proficient players. This piece of invaluable real estate came to the attention of some greedy influential prospector who could not shed away his desire to purchase this land and build one of the greatest hotels and entertainment centre in Kerala, surpassing even the recent one built in Quilon, and the Indian Coffee House housed in one part of this stadium building was immediately ordered to be closed. The stadium soon followed and was shut down. The curse of Kerala is, the politicians who are the decision makers also, are almost all born in very poor families where there never was good food or money. Therefore, when they see a rich man with a huge wad of currency notes in his suitcase, they crave on their knees, bend rules and order everything that he dictates. This kind of slavishness never existed among politicians when there were real sports in India. Sports are something that takes away the vices of men and imbibes men with virtues. That is why rigid, corrupt administrators hate sports and pulls the curtain down whenever and wherever they can. So that was the death knoll for the ‘Colonel G.V.Raja Indoor Stadium of Shangummughom, owned and operated by the Kerala Sports Council.’ If someone anxious goes to the Kerala Sports Council, Department of Sports and Youth Affairs or even the Sports Minister and asks why this stadium is remaining closed, there will come the standard immediate reply from the Indian Administrative Service: “It is going to be renovated for the National Games.” A lame reply, which even his lowest subordinate can give. Without continuous training and practice, what National Games? With stadiums remaining closed for years and ministers and government secretaries receiving salary for keeping them closed, what scope for Kerala in national games?
There is one more famous stadium in Trivandrum soon to be destroyed, but not too easy to be done with. It is the Central Stadium owned by the government, situated just behind the Secretariate, the seat of administration. Because it is situated just there, and because the watchful eyes of so many government officers glance there when they come out to the back and stand there for a while to breathe fresh breeze, only very slowly can it be destroyed and packed up. Anyway, the sports authorities of this state are trying their very best. For this, they allocate the stadium for frequent public meetings and other functions when stages and divider barricades would be built, podiums erected and march pasts done. When the practicing children come to the stadium the next day, the barricades and the stages would still be there, or if dismantled, the countless pole holes on the ground would still be there unfilled, so that the runners, jumpers and pole vaulters shall sprint their legs. The stadium turf would be trampled upon and the practicing ground littered with plastic cups and left-over food and what unspeakable things not. What else can we do to support and encourage sports? We already have fully succeeded in making the ground turf-free. They are weeds anyway. These children practicing in these grounds almost all come from poor families, hoping sports will uplift them one day. Does the world know how much they are paid as food allowance each day when the School Games comes? 30 rupees, enough for just one tea and one glass of lime juice: not enough for a meal. That is the sin of Kerala. Does anyone know how much an authority will pocket when the games ends? Let your imagination take off on wings. That is the way the crores and crores of rupees Kerala spend on sports go. When all these things happened in Trivandrum, the capital city of Kerala, under the very nose and eyes of the people whom we pay high salaries for looking after these things for us, where was the Sports Minister of Kerala? We will wonder whether he was on long leave for five or ten years serving abroad. One day in March 2012, he wakes up, declares that corruption in sports will be dealt with, and goes backs to his sleep. Why did he wake up? His dreams were filled with nightmares and beloved Jimmy George and respected Goda Varma Raja began to haunt him. As long as this kind of greedy, corrupt and unimaginative morons rule sports ministry, sports and youth affairs department and the sports council, no stadium in Kerala is safe for practicing sportsmen. National games also would be a great milking cow for them. Of the amounts allotted in the budget, less than two percent would reach the athletes and coaches. The rest would be devoured up by government officers from the topmost to the bottom.