PV Sindhu won Olympic silver medal but India is searching for her caste

Summer’s Olympics held at Rio this season and again it was a drought-hit season but  PV Sindhu has come as a rare breath of fresh air for India. It has been deeply saddening that things really haven’t gone India’s way after the 2012 London Olympics. PV Sindhu has been the lone star, so has Sakshi Malik. But apparently, being a star is just not enough, in India.

Even as 21-year-old Sindhu was fighting it out for glory and India’s pride at Rio, what was India doing back home? Well, it was busy searching for her caste-identity.

This Google search was first highlighted by some facebook user and later Google Trends statistics verified, the queries, or rather one query in particular is very baffling. Data suggests that thousands of Indians have been more curious about “pv Sindhu caste” over the last one week than they have been about her live match scores. Or that she’s just 21, how the heck did she do it? What’s her secret? What’s her fitness mantra? Or simply, how does it feel to represent India on such a huge platform, all at 21?

Nope, nothing of that sort was searched for. It wasn’t all that important, it seems.

In that period, PV Sindhu – she plays Badminton, by the way – became India’s first woman to win an Olympics silver medal.

People in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have been particularly interested in finding out Sindhu’s caste-identity, as per Google Trends data, perhaps to claim her as their own.

That’s not all. Search for the caste of her coach, Pullela Gopichand, has been steadily rising as well.

For a nation starved of medals at the Rio Olympics, PV Sindhu has killed two birds with one stone. One, she has created history and second, she has brought India out of its gloom with a display of talent, courage, power, and most importantly, her grace. She lost the final only to win millions of hearts, all across the world. She’s done something big for India. It’s time India pays her back.