Yaoshang Sports Meet : Potential to groom young talented boys and girls
Leimapokpam Mahesh *
Young boys getting ready for the torch carrying ceremony for Yaoshang Sports in 2013
The Yaoshang Festival is basically a festival of colours. In many parts of the country, it is a day long celebration, with colours and water. In Manipur Yaoshang Festival is a five days affair. The colours are there, so is the water. Most interesting aspect of our festivity is the element of sports that has grown popular. Yaoshang Sports Meet is a meeting at which a number of Athletic contests are held participate in Athletic sports performed on a running track or on the field associated with it in respect of Yaoshang Festival.
Today we hardly see young boys and girls going around the neighbourhood with buckets fastened on bamboo rod to ask for alms – any type of vegetables and rice – with which they would later enjoy ‘Chak-Channaba’. The children are confined to the community playgrounds, busy in different activities of sporting competition. Localities are organizing sports in a scale which comes close to being a district level sporting events. Most of the localities have sporting competitions throughout the length of Yaoshang Festival.
In Yaoshang Spots Meet, there is definitely a potential to groom young talented boys and girls who can make it to the nationals and the international. The Yaoshang Sports have taken a more disciplined and regulated form of sporting event at the grassroots. The Yaoshang Sports are being organized in a very systematic in track events and are sweating out in the sun on the short marathons in the streets.
The sense of Yaoshang Sports gaining momentum by the year can be felt that best when seeing the thronging crowds of young sportspersons at the Kangla Western Gate on the 1st Day of Yaoshang. There is a sense of competition among the different groups coming to partake in the Yaoshang Sports.
The potential of the Yaoshang Sports has searched out untapped talents. There could be an incentive package to favour outstanding young sportspersons topping in district level competitions with of course an encouragement for competition at the district level among the various local Yaoshang Sports groups.
Consequently, Yaoshang Sports has become an institution of socialization with multifarious benefits. It serves as a school for cultivating personality developed and hunting young talents.
Kids get the opportunity to expose to various competitive events. Besides, recreating the ageing people, it promotes organizational skills among the locals, increases social cohesion and reduces crimes and unwanted behavior in society.
Every locality must endeavour to top the inherent potential of Yaoshang Sports is making of a strong Manipur.
* Leimapokpam Mahesh wrote this article for Hueiyen Lanpao (English Edition)
The writer is a Class: XII (Science) student at Xtra-Edge School, Sagolband and a resident of Kwashiphai Maning Leikai
This article was webcasted on March 15, 2014.
* Comments posted by users in this discussion thread and other parts of this site are opinions of the individuals posting them (whose user ID is displayed alongside) and not the views of e-pao.net. We strongly recommend that users exercise responsibility, sensitivity and caution over language while writing your opinions which will be seen and read by other users. Please read a complete Guideline on using comments on this website.