I’ve never been much of an athlete, but someday I’d like to wear an Olympic silver medal around my neck. I’d show it proudly to all my friends, saying, “It’s mine, all mine. Did you ever think I’d have an Olympic silver medal in javelin?”
My friends would shake their heads in disbelief.
“Amazing,” one of them would say. “You can’t even throw a butter knife across the room.”
“That’s true,” I’d say. “But I still got this.”
You may be wondering how I’d ever get myself an Olympic silver medal in javelin. Well, I hope to meet Neeraj Chopra one day and beg him to give me his. “You have a gold medal and a silver medal,” I’d say. “Why do you need both? Once you have gold, anything less is meaningless. If you give me your silver medal, both of us can be proud.”
If Chopra is unwilling to give me his silver medal, I’d beg him to lend it to me for just 24 hours, long enough to get lots of photos with the medal around my neck. I’d post a photo on social media with this message: “If you can dream it, you can achieve it. Dreams do come true.” I’d also frame a photo and pass it down to my grandchildren, so they can be proud of their grandpa.
I know what you’re thinking: “You can’t just take someone else’s medal. You have to earn it on your own.”
That’s not true anymore. After all, US President Donald Trump is now in possession of the Nobel Peace Prize that Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado won in 2025. Machado recently met Trump and handed him the prize. Trump had coveted it and was disappointed that the Nobel committee awarded it to Machado.
Machado placed the medal in a frame, along with these words: “To President Donald J. Trump. In recognition of extraordinary leadership in promoting peace through strength, advancing diplomacy, and defending liberty and prosperity.”
In a social media post, Trump called it “a wonderful gesture of mutual respect.” Those are the same words I will write when Chopra gives me his silver medal.
The Nobel committee, of course, did not approve of Machado’s actions. “Once a Nobel Prize is announced, it cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others,” it said in a statement. “The decision is final and stands for all time.”
But Trump obviously does not care about that. Rules are not for rulers. After all, people who visit Trump’s home are just going to admire the medal. And Trump will be standing there proudly, saying, “Everybody knows I should have won it. Even the person who won it knows I should have won it. That’s why she gave it to me.”
I will say something similar when Neeraj Chopra gives me his medal: “Everybody knows I would have won it if God had made me bigger and stronger. Even Neeraj Chopra knows I would have won it if I had inherited his genes and trained as hard as him. That’s why he gave it to me.”
If you think I’ll be satisfied with just an Olympic silver medal, you really don’t know how ambitious I am. After getting my Olympic medal, I will pester Kiran Desai for her Booker Prize. Then I will beg Vijay Kumar, a chef in New York City, for his James Beard Award for Best Chef in New York State.
I will be the first person in the world to have achieved athletic, literary and culinary success.
If you are reading this and have won an award of any sort, please consider giving it to me. I am not picky. I do not mind if it’s an award for “Best Eggand-Spoon Runner, Annual Picnic and Sports Meet, Village of Udupi.”