Sporting glory blinds 7 mm

Nonika Singh

Just be patient. Let the game come to you. Don’t rush. Be quick, but don’t hurry, the famous basketball player Earl Monroe may have said. But closer home, Bollywood seems to be in a tearing hurry. Not to play games, but to immortalise sports heroes on silver screen.

Almost everyone is ready to make a sports biopic on virtually every sportsperson worth his or her salt. While the latest film, nay docudrama, Sachin: A Billion Dreams paid a befitting ode to the god of cricket, a host of similar inspirational biopics are in the pipeline.

Sania Mirza, PT Usha, Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu, Dhyan Chand, Balbir Singh… the list of sportstars that film are being made on is as impressive as long and the latest to join the cinematic club is Olympic gold medallist shooter Abhinav Bindra. Sporting glory may have been an elusive word in the world of sport: recognising and remembering our sport heroes an even greater rarity. After all, we are a nation of cricket maniacs and not exactly true sports lovers. So why are filmmakers suddenly exulted? What makes their adrenaline pump at the sight of sporting success stories? Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, who kind of set the ball rolling with Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, will not join the chorus. Yet he can’t help but say in the same breath, “Real life heroes need to be celebrated.”

How much and how many isn’t the question, but how well is the crux. Actor-cum-producer Sonu Sood, ready to tell the inspirational tale of shuttler PV Sindhu, adds, “Script is the key which isn’t counting the number of medals up her sleeve or putting together her badminton matches. It’s her journey from an ordinary girl to an achiever that fascinates me. As I met Sindhu and her family, I could sense a real story with a potential to connect with the audiences.” Mehra saw in Mikha Singh’s journey not just sporting feats, but a human tale set against the backdrop of Partition. He says, “A film is not Wikipedia listing out achievements and milestones. There have to be compelling reasons to tell their stories and makers really need to ask themselves: Is this a story I am dying to tell?”

Of course, for commerce-driven Bollywood, the biggest driving force is and will be moolah. On that count, sports biopics truly count. But for Azhar, which did average business, most sports biopics have set the cash registers ringing. Mary Kom, MS Dhoni: The Untold Story and now most recently Sachin, it’s a perfect score at the box office. Divya Dutta, who was an integral part of BMB and is now all set to sign another sports biopic, is not surprised. “When you tell the story of an underdog making it big, it touches a chord with the audience.” But if relatability is the USP, what prompts directors to eulogise more than humanise. Most biopics end up being hagiographical. Mehra’s BMB was accused of fictionalising facts, yet, he says, “Indeed, when you are telling a human story, pockmarks have to be visible.”

Alas, few biopics delve into complexities; fewer still are ready to pry open unsavoury details. Most take shelter under extended disclaimers which read loud and clear; it’s inspired, mind you, not based on a real story. Dutta, however, understands why it’s not easy to portray the not-so-glittering facets of sports personalities. “A biopic can’t be insensitive to the feelings of a living hero and to millions of fans.” Even Azhar, instead of chronicling former cricket captain Mohammad Azharuddin’s fall from grace, ended up as his alibi and was structured strictly from the former cricketer’s perspective.

Will the new biopics then tread new ground and shed new, at times not so flattering light, on sportstars? Will they truly tell the untold stories and not just append it as a tag line? Tennis star Sania Mirza, whose life is otherwise dotted by interesting details such as fatwa and marriage with a Pakistani cricketer, is already having doubts about how much she should reveal. Indeed, her autobiography and that of Abhinav Bindra, for instance, have already unspooled what they cared to unveil and will be the basis of the films made on them. Pray, why retell what is already in public domain. Why not focus on unsung and forgotten heroes such as Paan Singh Tomar?

Producers argue that these biopics are not about sports per se. Producer Rahul Mittra says, “Take Partition away from Milkha Singh and it becomes a tepid story of an athlete. Minus the dramatic transition, Paan Singh Tomar wouldn’t have connected with the audience.”

But how many stories can a non-sporting nation really savour? Makers are aware of the challenges, the obstacle race they will encounter before they sprint down the road to success. “The audience today is a very smart breed and knows instantly why a particular film has been made,” says Sonu Sood.