To excel in sports, be a good human being first

Olympian Charles Borromeo never knew athletics would fetch stardom till he entered the portals of St. Xavier’s College in Ahmedabad.

He had been a footballer till then, excelling as a left forward. In fact, the performance of Charles in football at various competitions earned him a seat under sports quota.

Athletics coach at the college Subash Patel was quick to spot his agility and endurance. Then came the turning point in Charles’ sports career.

Two years of rigorous training saw him as a serious contender in 800 m at the all-India inter University athletics meet, and a winner of bronze medal in the same event at the 1979 open nationals.

Confidence swelled then on. “I started putting in a lot of hard work. Mr. Patel lent great support. He not only fine-turned my strengths, but also worked on eliminating my weaknesses. His role was very crucial in shaping me as a competitive athlete,” recalls the Arjuna awardee.

Borromeo’s moment of glory came in the 1982 New Delhi Asian Games, when he won 800 metres gold in record time.

“Being the Asian champion was an unbelievable feeling. Days like those are very special.”

Dream accomplished:

He also accomplished his dream of making it to the Olympics when he represented the country at the 1984 Los Angeles games. “That’s the dream of any athlete. I am one among the sportspersons in the country to achieve the Olympian tag,” says Borromeo, who won silver medal at the 1985 Asian Track &Field event and gold medal in the South Asian Federation (SAF) games the same year. He was conferred the Padma Shri, the country’s fourth highest civilian award, in 1984.

Hailing from a lower-middle class family in Devakottai in Sivaganga district, Borromeo studied at De Britto School, which has produced a good number of international athletes including Asian Gold medalist R.Gnana Sekaran.

“Football was the most popular sport in our town and a lot of tournaments used to take place. That was one of the major reasons for developing interest in the game. Also, one gets instant recognition among the local fans when he nets a lot of goals,” he smiles.

Soon after graduation, Borromeo joined Tata Steel at Jamshedpur. Working as a Sports Manager, he loves spending time interacting with the youngsters and sharing his experience with them.

But why didn’t he take up coaching after hanging up his boots? “I was interested in character building of sportspersons. At the Tata Academy, I urge the youngsters to be good human beings in the first place. Character matters more and I feel a sports person should be exceptional both on and off the field,” says Borromeo, who has been recently nominated by the Athletics Federation of India as a member of the monitoring committee for long, middle-distance and walking events for the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

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Knowing the Paramatma

How does one know the Paramatma? The Paramatma is the cause of everything and resides in everything as antaryamin. It is witness to everything.

He created the five elements, each of which has its own characteristics, the five ‘karmendriyas’ and five ‘gnanendriyas’. But these do not function separately.

There is an element that unites them all, and that bonding element is god, said B. Sundar Kumar. God created the world and during the pralaya He takes the world into Himself.

An analogy would help illustrate the point. When a mud pot breaks, it is cast away, and mud being biodegradable mingles with the soil, from whence it came.

Similarly, the world that came from God goes back to Him. But God Himself has no origin. He is primordial.

Sometimes we say we had dreams in sleep. We are awake, asleep, or in deep slumber, or in sleep punctuated by dreams. But even when we sleep, we do not lose our memory. What if we lose the memory of even the most elementary things we have learnt, through habit, say, brushing our teeth for instance, or eating? Life would become chaotic. But we are saved from such a fate, because we are have a memory that stores all the learned behaviour.

What is this memory? Even when one is asleep, there is one who is awake. And that is the Atma, which is witness to all states: wakefulness, sleep or dreams.

Our limbs and body parts do the jobs assigned to them, because of God who resides in every one of us antaryamin.

But the mind keeps us from knowing the Atma, which is in a state of composure. It is never in one place, but flits from one thought to another.

When we speak of a heavy heart, what we mean is the mind burdened with varied and unnecessary thoughts. The mind is heavy and has to become light.

Then the Atma will shine through. Once the mind gets a sample of the Atma, it will want more.

Narada, because he served the devout people, got a glimpse of God.

He was given only a glimpse. This was to motivate him to redouble his efforts.

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