Boria Majumdar, a Rhodes scholar, is a historian by training who went to St John’s College, Oxford University, to do a DPhil on the social history of Indian cricket in October 2000. His doctorate was published as Twenty-Two Yards to Freedom: A Social History of Indian Cricket in December 2004. He has taught at the universities of Chicago, Toronto and La Trobe where he was the first distinguished visiting fellow in 2005. He was also a visiting fellow at Trinity College, University of Cambridge in 2009.
<p>As India gears up for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the country will focus once again on the moments of glory we have had on the largest sports arena in the world, featuring such stalwarts as Abhinav Bindra, Mary Kom and PV Sindhu. But it will also be time to ask again the question we ask ourselves every four years: why does a country of a billion plus have so little to show for itself at the Olympics?Dreams of a Billion gives the reader an inside view of what goes on backstage in the Indian Olympics world, alongside a quick history of how India has fared at the Olympics over the past century, and a look at how the Indian Olympics world has changed in the last decade. Which brings us to the question: How good is India’s preparation for Tokyo 2020? Can Tokyo be the gamechanger Indian sport wants it to be and hopes it will be?<br></p>
