Considered the most talented gymnast in the world, at 24, Biles has won the most world medals, the most gold medals and executed dazzling gymnastic moves, four of which are named after her
Illustration/Uday Mohite
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The other day my therapist asked me, “so what will happen if you don’t work all the time and keep doing well at things?” I wonder if he laughed or felt bad at the stricken expression the very thought elicited from me.
But then, Simone Biles asked the world the same question. Considered the most talented gymnast in the world, at 24, Biles has won the most world medals, the most gold medals and executed dazzling gymnastic moves, four of which are named after her. She has exceeded human limits of skill and social limits of race, class and gender.
Poised to make history at the Tokyo Olympics, she faltered, then announced she would not compete, for the sake of her mental health. Unclejis rolled their eyes at this supposed snowflake fragility as if a person of such strength and judgement on the mat, did not also have it in other respects. In the hackneyed language of indomitability, people felt she should have pushed through the troubles, because isn’t that how it happens in sports movies? Some people said ‘we are raising a generation of weak people’. Let’s say it is so. Do they pause to ask themselves what kind of society we are, that so many people are rendered fragile and precarious? Others clucked sympathetically and said they knew she would be back stronger. May be she will. May be she won’t.
Having achieved all she has, should Biles have to prove herself constantly to be loved or admired? Excellence is a beautiful thing, and the stories of those who strive to achieve it are dream-like for good reason.
But are events like the Olympics truly only about excellence? A contest between nations, whose administrations push young people in punishing conditions, including sexual abuse that Biles has been speaking up about, subjecting them to unforgiving pressure and cruel competitiveness. When those athletes win, countries are quick to claim this greatness to manufacture the drug of patriotism.
There is an undercurrent of racism and sexism too in such discussions; the sense that a young Black woman should be grateful for her success, and must continuously be a standard-bearer, not only for her country, but her community. It’s the same for many women also, that they are only allowed to matter if they keep excelling. But is the responsibility of a community’s or gender’s progress only on the shoulders of those who have broken through? Is the rest of a society not involved in making sure that community doesn’t need symbols, but a lived experience of justice and joy? We love to praise those who struggle against odds which ought not to be so tough, using cliches like “resilient Mumbai” and “the show must go on”. But whose show is it, and why can’t those odds change?
A system which measures greatness, not through joy in its grace and beauty, but through incessant ranking, pushes all of us, the most ordinary and the most triumphant, to doubt our worth—am I only as good as my last viral tweet, my last relationship, my last medal? As Biles said, “I think we’re just too stressed out. We should be out here having fun but that’s not the case.” Biles valued herself, against the odds of a world beset by the anxiety of achievement and fear of oblivion. Sounds pretty indomitable to me.
Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. Reach her at paromita.vohra@mid-day.com
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