When India wins a match or a tournament, the editors on duty have only one minor issue to settle – how much, how big.
Remember Sachin Tendulkar’s 200 at Gwalior? Or, remember India’s Hockey World Cup opener – beating Pakistan 4-1?
The question in both instances was simply this: how big?
Sachin went across the top of the page, all eight columns and the hockey victory was a substantial 5 columns, top of the page.
The problem arises when India loses, specially in a high-voltage game coming after a massive build up.
Remember the cricket World Cup in West Indies in 2007? Newspapers and companies raced each other for the best logos, best wishes for the team and the best one-liner, etc, etc and etc.
The Men in Blue were back before you could say Men in Blue.
The nation was disgusted and the newspapers reflected that. Not a tear shed, not a page one inch wasted.
It’s shameful how we behave in defeat.
So, here is what we did at Hindustan Times the night Australia thrashed India at the Dhyanchand Stadium.
We carried a picture of the game on Page One.
It was not to mock the team or tell them how disappointed we were or any such cynical reason.
It happened by default, but we quite like the effect.
We had the boys on Page One despite a defeat.
Actually, they had played extremely well, or so we thought, without any prompting from the TV talking heads.
We tend to take our disgust at defeats very seriously.
It was as if India doesn’t like losing!!! We are a nation of winners; our cupboards are full of medals from the Olympics and cups from tennis grand slams.
Oh c’mon, give these guys a break, let them lose in peace.