GAMES IN INDIA

Games in India

Indians have enjoyes various games activities, Games history of India dates back to the Vedic era, Traces of the earliest game activities such as hunting, swimming, boating,archery, horse riding,wrestling,martial arts, fishing and board games like chess, snakes and ladders etc can be seen from ancient bronze ware, paintings etc and finds mention in books such as the two great epics Ramayana and Maharastra.

The origin and development of games activities are closely related with the work, defence and entertainment of the time, Records says that games like, chess , Snakes and ladders, Kabbadi, Kho-kho, playing cards, martial arts etc had originated as a game in India. Now the most popular sports in India is Cricket and Football, In fact, Cricket has become a way of life with Indians and India has an impressive track record in cricket. Traditionally a number of games were popular kho-kho, kabbadi, Gulli-Danda, Wrestilling, Camel race, Vallamkali (boat race), Pachisi are a few amongst them.

India is an active participant in major world games tournaments such as the Olympics, Commonwealth games, Asian games, Saf games, Wimbeldon and many others. The country has hosted the Asian Games twicw in 1951 and in the 1982 and the world Table Championships three times in 1952, 1975, and 1987.

But India's sportspersons have generally performed creditably only at the Asian and Commonwealth games and in quite a few cases at the world level. From the 1948 Olympics through to the Athens, India's effort have a brought a meager return of eight gold medals in hockey, six of them successively, three silver medals ( 2 in athletic and 1 in hockey) and four Bronze medals from the Olympics so far. A few notable performances, those of the triple-jumper Henry Rebello(1948), Quarter-miler Mikha singh(1960), hurdler Gurubachan singh Randhawa (1964), 800m-runner Sriram Singh(1976) and P.T.Usha (400 m hurdels, 1984) etc, Karnam Malleswari (2004). Apart form Hockey, Tennis Doubles, Cricket, Billiards and Kabbadi, India has had relatively little success in these tournaments.

India has produced some players with exceptional skills who have made their presence felt at the international events in individual sports such as Viswanadhan Anand in Chess, Geeth Sethi in Billiards, Ramanathan Krishnan, Vijay Amritraj, Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupati and recently Sania Mirza who is making waves in tennis, Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopichand in badminton, Rajyavardhan Rathore, Jaspal Rana, Mansher singh (shooting), Anju George (long Jump), Narain Karthikeyan in Motor Racing, Chetan P. Baboor in table tennis, Chiranjeev Milkha Singh in golf, and A. Maria Irudayam in Carrom etc. All these sportpersons and many others lent prestige and splendour to the Indian sports.

But , in a country having a population of over a billion, these stars represent A Microcosm of the stars at the world level. With the introduction of new equipment and techniques of coaching and training, there is hope that India will show a marked improvement in various disciplines of sport.