V GANGADHAR discovers that the controversy over Sania Mirza being the Brand Ambassador for Telengana is justified as she is already a BA.
Seemandhra and Telengana were born after a division. That was the beginning but not the end. Now the region is divided once again whether tennis star Sania Mirza should be the Brand Ambassador ( B A) for Telengana or not. Both the groups are collecting material to prove their point. The anti-Sania group is agitated because it feels the tennis star was not a Hyderabadi but born in Maharashtra. The same group believed Sania was ineligible for the BA honour because she was a daughter-in-law of Pakistan.
One more group dug deep into Sania’s tennis background and found out she was not qualified for the award. It discovered a serious issue of conflict of interest as Sania was already a Brand Ambassador of an international organization and could not function as the same for Telengana. This organization was spread throughout the tennis-playing world and Sania had been its BA for several years, in fact more than a decade. She had no rivals for this honour and had been consolidating her position over the years.
Tennis lovers may be ignorant of this fact. Sania Mirza is the Brand Ambassador of the Association of First Round Losers in International Tennis Tournaments (AFRLITT) based in Dubai with branches in Monaco, Geneva and Nice. The honour was bestowed after Sania achieved the near-impossible feat of losing in first round singles matches in 578 tournaments all over the world. The record, tennis experts believed, would never be broken.
No wonder, AFRLITT, was delighted to rope in Sania as its Brand Ambassador in view of this unique record. But it was an easy choice as she had no rival at all who was anywhere near her record. The same honour was named differently in different tennis playing nations. Queen of First Round Losers, Nymph of Never Advancing Beyond the First Round and so on. But the meaning was clear, Sania achieved this feat without fail and the world had to acknowledge this.
Thus came the AFRLITT honour which was the brainchild of the venerable Duke of Middlesex a keen tennis player, who was the 271st claimant to the British throne. So keen was the Duke about this honour that he was personally present in all the 578 matches which Sania played and lost in the first round. In fact, Sania acknowledged in her soon to be published memoirs ‘Quick Exit’ that the presence of the Duke of Middlesex spurred her to reach great tennis heights and lose in the first round.
No wonder AFRLITT grabbed the opportunity to honour Sania with its own Brand Ambassador award. How can it allow the Telengana government attempt to deprive the tennis star by offering its own BA award. The tennis world would never permit this and Sania would be well advised to reject this latest honour. Telengana may come and go but not the BA award instituted by the Duke of Middlesex. A word of warning to Sania. She is still playing competitive tennis and should be careful not to win even one first round match which could disqualify her from her present honour.
(V Gangadhar writes satire, a special form
of humour. Incidents and anecdotes in his column
are purely imaginary)
