The Weekly Whine: Honey, there’s a robot taking free throws at the Olympics
In many ways, Japan is the Tamil Nadu of Asia.
Note: I apologise to my two readers who follow the Weekly Whine. Oscar Wilde accurately noted that work was the curse of the drinking class, and my day job has taken my true raison d’etre – writing shit posts. So here we go again with the Weekly Whine.
The Olympics is a test of patience, grit and endurance. Of meeting Triumph and Disaster and treating both imposters the same. Of knowing that to see the light at the end of the tunnel, one must ride through the darkness. To sit through uncertainty, not knowing what will come next. That’s what athletes go through to become Olympians and what viewers go through while watching it on Sony Liv.
Elite commentary with hot geopolitical takes (Cuba –an island next to America) or deep insights on table tennis (good amount of spin and bounce into the body), never-ending buffering and Anurag Thakur breaking the fourth wall to view himself in an endless dystopian mirror nightmare are some of the memorable highlights of this year’s coverage.
And of course, Team India’s outfit. While we saw various nations show off their sartorial chops, Team India’s outfit looked like something rejected by Air India stewards in the 1960s.
But enough ribbing. I love the Olympics, where people too fat to get up to get their remote to change a channel, shout at athletes with single-digit body fat percentages even as we completely appropriate their struggles after they have won, even though we’d never let our own children become athletes, instead vicariously pushing them down the never-ending White Hat Jr – IIT – IIM hellish landscape till they are too old to realise it sucks.
Speaking of hellish landscapes, it’s fascinating how much the Overton Window has expanded post 2014. From articles on how India winning the World Cup could mean more attacks on minorities, we’ve reached a phase where everyone masquerading as an activist feels the need to show their support for national teams. Note, that this is anecdata and I’ve no way to back this ‘bhay ka mahaul’ hypothesis.
But I digress, back to the Olympics. The greatest show on earth being held in a country which is kind of the favourite hotspot for natural disasters.
In many ways, Japan is the Tamil Nadu of Asia. In the sense they are a more developed economy but also because they are more extra. I mean it’s nation where Darth Vader plays baseball with stormtroopers and where someone – in a sober state of mind – decided to represent every single discipline in the Olympics with pictorial dance representation.
But it was cute, including a drone show that would’ve caused a third World War if it was located anywhere close to the India-Pakistan border. I mean what other country would think it appropriate to wheel out a basketball robot to hit three pointers.
Spoiler alert: His free throws are much better than Shaq’s.
BTW, that robot looked terrifying. Sort of like a beefed-up LeBron James but who doesn’t kowtow to China as much.
Earlier, a robot joined the relay torch march as well. Frankly, if there’s any version of the future where we end up with Skynet a la the Terminator franchise, it will start in Japan.
But seriously, you must admire Japan. It's the only nation where the Prime Minister felt it important enough to cosplay as a video game character as opposed to a Prime Minister who cosplays as a literary figure to attempt to win an election in a state where he can barely pronounce the words (poder chaap, sunar bangla)!
It’s a country that gets knocked down again and again – whether it’s nuclear attacks, tsunamis or the repetitive plotlines of Godzilla movies – but manages to get up like a protagonist in a Chumbawamba song.
Meanwhile, Mirabai Sanu managed to win a silver on Day 1, which was the cue every Indian needed to instantly embrace her, even though we racially heckle someone of her heritage when they walk down the streets.
Sanu’s first want after winning was to eat pizza, which is why Domino’s instantly promised to give her free pizza for life. Sadly, that’s the gustatory equivalent of being forced to wear drag in The Kapil Sharma Show. I mean surely winning a medal for India should’ve better rewards.
Day 2 saw a bunch of folks including ministers, journalists who claim to be fact-checkers and speak truth to power and a host of other sanctimonious Twitter users claim that Priya Malik won a gold at the Olympics which was in fact the World Cadet Wrestling Championships.
Manika Batra also showed an amazing trait – keeping cool under pressure which is not innate to Indians on the big stage – to come back from two games down to win 4-3. This was the cue for the standard posts on “women’s empowerment” and “marry her if she can do both” posts, two genres of Twitter that really should be dead by now.
I mean the only guy who can tweet like that is Tonga man who hasn’t gained a pound during the pandemic and still looks like he’s one oil-rub away from being invaded by America.
Well, that’s all for today folks. Go Team India. See you next week. Unless I can program a robot to write this nonsense.