A Bug Called HYPE

It has often been found that in Indian sports, whenever any player achieves something significant, the media starts making a lot of hullabaloo about it. Especially if the concerned player is of the feminine gender. The news channels start airing the news of the concerned player's achievement day in and day out. The lifestyle channels air special rendezvous with the rising star. Corporates like the soft drink majors, FMCG companies, shoe and apparel companies, all want the upcoming star to endorse their products. Result? An excessive hype makes the promising player more aware of his/her looks et al. Even on the field, the player starts imagining himself or herself to be the one and only one, the cynosure who is just there out for an endorsement commitment. The player's responsibility to represent the country and bring respect, recognition and glory to it takes the back seat. There have been scores of such instances.
Is an example hard to seek?? Certainly not. Take our very own Hyderabad- based tennis player, Sania Mirza. After winning the Hyderabad Open and her string of some good performances in Dubai Open and the Wimbledon a year back, she not only had the opportunity to see her rankings improve but also her bank balance, which apart from her professional source, came from the endorsements. Sania had even seeked a nomination as the MTV Youth Icon along with some stalwarts belonging to different other fields which was absolutely irrational.No doubt, Sania is a beautiful lady but that she is something extraordinary became part of her attitude because of the hype created wholly and solely by the media inspite of her dismal performances in subsequent tennis tournaments. Not just the corporates but even the government made her a brand ambassador for various products and issues.
The ultimate, the unnecessary and the most premature hype was created around Sania by the government of India when it awarded her the Padma Shri. An award that should and is generally awarded to those sports personalities who have graduated from being a boy to a man (the genders change in Sania's case) in a particular sport. An 18 year, who has just played couple of years of tennis as a professional and hasn't achieved something out of the world as such can certainly not be a deserving recepient of the award. Let the girl in Sania mature. Let the player in Sania seek experience from her debacles. Allow her to be a consistent performer. Don't just make an incredible buzz around her just because she has represented the country at a level where no other Indian lady has represented earlier.
However, that is India and the media is simply hyper active in blowing some initial achievements of an upcoming player to an unimaginable extent. They just don't wait for the guy or the gal to settle in his or her career and allow him or her to understand as to how to navigate his or her way up the success ladder in his or her chosen field of sport. The media badshahs provide the player with a short cut to fame and money via the glamour route which actually harms the player's subsequent performances and the country fails to produce a world class player in the long run.
Frankly speaking, hype generally has been found to have more adverse effects rather than bringing out any positivity in the context of a player's performance. It causes distraction, creates an " I am Mr/ Ms. Extraordinaire" attitude which halts the learning process of an individual player. The player becomes an instant hit in the ephemeral scheme of things of the glamour industry and not actually a role model for those budding talents in sports who visualize seeking their recognition one day by being just a great sports personality.