Fourth Rank!!

In my school days, except the 12th Board and CET results, I was never topper in my class. But nonetheless, I was AMONGST the toppers. On every 1st May, the day when school results are declared in Maharashtra, I used to be very excited. But a result day is a damn stressful day for many. Expectations bring stress. I was never sad about my numbers. After going back home, dad used to ask "कितवा नंबर ?" [What is your Rank?], and I used to reply "Fourth!" (As usual). In our schools, from the ages, no one bothers about fourth rank onwards junta. Only the first three were felicitated and lauded. My father knew I was not exactly fourth, but he knew it very well that rank doesn't matter anyway. By most of the parents, Education is always compared with ranks and numbers on certificates.

My father never forced me to study and get rank in school. After working as a teacher for more than three and half decades, he knew that numbers fade away, what remains are the qualities you build. He asked rank only to check if I'm ignoring my extra-curricular activities and doing wrong stuff - ONLY study! "Extracurricular is an obstruction to study!" was never an explanation at my home. It helped me to develop my leadership qualities, which later helped me while helming Production Engineering Students Association (VJTI) and later in my L&T days.

Rio Olympic is over. And now the top sensation of the country is our Silver Medalist - Ms PV Sindhu. She is superb indeed. She deserves all our love and shower of all the monetary benefits. But what if she had lost against innocent looking Japanese badminton player Ms Nozomi Okuhara? For me, Ms. PV Sindhu would have still remained the best badminton player. But what about all those who judged her only from her last two games only?

Medal the tally for India declined as compared to 2012, from 2 Silver and 4 Bronze to 1 Silver and 1 Bronze. But if we look at the statistics, we can decipher that overall performance is not that bad. 

Sr. No.	Player	Sport	Rank (Olympic 2016)
1	Deepa Karmakar	Women’s Vault	Fourth
2	Abhinav Bindra	Men’s 10 mt air rifle	Fourth
3	Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna	Mixed Doubles	Fourth

These are the medals that India missed, and these are the people who missed India's love in terms of monetary benefits and recognition. The fourth rank is always looked down as a sympathy place but hardly considered as an achievement. In Kushti, they have Bronze for the Fourth number as well; otherwise, the Fourth rank is nothing but a place of sympathy.

In my opinion, who got qualified to play the Olympics is no less than who wins the medal. It is just that she/he could not play comparatively better in THAT deciding match. It is time to ask ourselves, are we really doing justice to Fourth Rankers? We have become so "ends" oriented that we do not even recognize the one who does not meet specifies ends. Can't we see that playing on such a beautiful and prestigious platform itself is a big success? In the race of medals, we are forgetting the important message of Dominican priest Henri Didon. The message was for Paris Youth gathering 1891, "The Most important thing in Olympics Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."