Going for gold in 'Olympics of Life'

JAKARTA (JP): It takes something like the Olympics rolling around every four years to make one sit up and realize what a competitive arena the world has become.

Insurmountable challenges and unbelievable obstacles are overcome and there is constantly someone breaking a record by just a few hundredths of a seconds, someone lifting or hurling just a few more kilograms or reaching out for just that tiny bit more.

Meanwhile, for the more ordinary people caught up in mundane daily activities, the mere mention of more competition is quite daunting -- as if there were not enough challenges to be overcome in our very own, custom-made "Home Olympics".

Life is one big Olympics which requires staunch verve and every dreg of undiluted patience to meet the unpalatable challenges that it serves up in steaming hot platefuls every day.

One can find the Olympic spirit of competition right on the very roads of Jakarta, where traffic congestion and chaos require one to sharpen the senses and reflexes on par with a judo competitor, where the singular goal in each one's mind is to get ahead of the car in front and primarily only to win. Making a U- turn on Jl. Kelapa Gading requires the skills of a brain surgeon.

There is also the Olympics of the social elite, where a valorous effort is required to maneuver into social setups and to be seen with the right people. It is not important whom they see but whom they are seen with.

Then there are the "Political Olympics", the challenging competition for those political power. The intoxication of power is as forceful as a nuclear fissure. Getting ahead of those vying for the high chair takes more willpower and steadfastness than those competing in the 10-kilometer run. Any obstacles on the way need to be met and dealt with as just one goal in sight.

And then there is the Olympiad run by the housewife. She faces the daunting 100 m hurdle race of making the paycheck stretch for a whole month. While competing, she has to constantly conjure innovative and mouthwatering food the family would love to come home to. The end of the month is the climax -- while an athlete quickens his pace to break through the winner's ribbon, her cookery skills are challenged to a point that prompt her to consider dying the potato cutlets brown and passing them off as burgers.

The end of the month also sees her getting rid of the voluminous stack of something she picked up obsessively in a promotion drive. A friend panicked at the time of the crisis and shopped for a whole trolley load of egg noodles. "If the world crashes and supermarkets close down at least we can eat noodles," she said.

She was left with the challenge of serving all those noodles in ingenious and innovative ways or, in other words, getting rid of them. She learned how to make those cute crunchy fried noodle baskets. She serves chicken a la noodle baskets, cap cay (stir- fried vegetables) in noodle baskets, fried rice in noodle baskets and sometimes noodle baskets with chili sauce.

While the Olympics winners receive a gold, silver and bronze medal, all the "Home Olympic" medals rightfully to the mother and full-time housemaid, juggling housework, kids, job, husband and social obligations in pristine Olympic spirit. However, their medals are not rotund metal orbs but exist in the form of a clean-licked casserole dish or dessert bowl and a gurgling satiated burp after the lights are off.

An Olympic weightlifter closes his eyes in concentration and stakes every cell in against the heavy weight he is going to lift above his head. He raises it, with his breath nearly bursting in his lungs, before dropping it back. On another part of the playing field is handicapped man whose lungs are bursting from the effort it has taken to get himself out of the wheelchair and onto the booth where he works as a ticket collector. But the crowd does not cheer the relentless effort of this hero.

While keeping an eye on the final medal tally in Sydney, let us take a minute to appreciate the work of some other heroes in our lives -- the volunteer workers of the United Nations and the Red Cross, the paramedics who rush to save accident victims, the firefighters who brave the flames to save people -- the list of the heroes is endless. And while acknowledging some of the frivolous Olympics that people are caught up in, let us not lose our perspective and forget to applaud those heroes whose life and work make them the true champions in the "Olympics of Life".

-- Pavan Kapoor