We have stopped playing sports because nobody is interested: Arjan Bajwa

Actor Arjan Bajwa,raises an important point on playing sports regularly. As we all know, in today's fast-paced life, the only form of fitness people partake in is either going to the gym or walking. Somewhere while growing up, we stop playing sports. Arjan voices his opinion on this,”We have stopped playing sports because nobody is interested. Most of the time people play sports in video games. As we grew up, bruising our knees, breaking bones and getting hurt every day were common. We used to run around and play sports. But nowadays the only fitness activities are gym or walking. I also feel there were more open spaces earlier but now the way we live our lives in concrete jungles we don’t find an open place. The fast-paced life that we have today doesn’t give you much time to do all those things.” He also adds,” Watching live sports on tv is very normal. You get excited, you discuss and exchange calls and messages over what happened on television. I have grown up playing table tennis, cricket, hockey, and volleyball and would come back exhausted and completely tired but at the same time feeling fit. Just going to the gym and doing weight training is not physical fitness. So I think for our lives if one wants to be physically fit, there is a difference between watching and playing sports. So play it, don't just watch.”

Schools do encourage children to play, but still a lot of kids end up playing more on Mobile and computers/ laptops.

On this Arjan says,” Schools encourage but the children today are growing up in the digital age. When we were kids, there was no digitalization of the world hence the only entertainment was play with friends, play sports, go out and activities like cycling were popular. Those were the fun times we had in our lives. Even we played video games while growing up but children nowadays are so engrossed in phones and tablets. I have seen women walking their small toddlers in a pram and the toddler is holding an iPad or an iPhone just to keep him/her engrossed. Maybe this was supposed to be the change in a generation but I am glad that we played all the sports and won medals in our school days and that was life to me. I grew up in Delhi and near our house there was a park and in the evening all the kids would go cycling in the park or play some kind of sport. It was always running around and then coming home and having a hearty meal.”

So what do you think should be done to revive playing sports in our life?

“There should be a strict timing for the kids to be allowed to play with mobiles phones or watch television. Every small kid has a phone nowadays and I find it very disturbing that they are wearing reading glasses as a kid. They don’t know about the outside world. Kids are very intelligent as they google everything and know about everything and at the same time they don’t know anything about the world around them. All their knowledge is google based. I have seen Parents having to scream sometimes and put their foot down or hide their gadgets. As kids, we were only allowed a certain time to watch television and after that we had to study and go to sleep.

A Few years ago, people still used to play some sports in the building on weekends. But that is also neglected now. Now people prefer to rest at home or watch OTT/shows.”

Talking about his favourite sports Arjan says,”I have played all possible sports. In school I was in a hockey team, table tennis team, and also volleyball team. Even now I play table tennis quite regularly as we have a club in our building. I still play volleyball sometimes and I enjoy playing it. We do play a lot of cricket and it goes on for 3-4 hours. Apart from this, I run and I am into Taekwondo and I have been practising since I was a kid. Physical fitness and playing sports is a very important part of my life. My father himself was an athlete in college and we learned from him and followed his footsteps.“