In the five years of a spectacular tennis career, Sania Mirza has never been deemed good enough. Every move on and off the court, every statement has been parsed for proof of her unsuitability as a public figure. Fatwas have been issued, verdicts pronounced, effigies burnt. Her skirts were too short, her piercings and appearance not subdued enough. She spoke too much, like the time she spoke out for safe sex (pre- or post-marriage). Her endorsements were excessive and annoying. She even wore T-shirts that announced, “Well-behaved women rarely make history.” She put her feet too close to the Indian flag. A 21-year-old playing for herself, and pouring herself into her game has been treated as a stand-in for Islam, femininity, Indianness, and all-round propriety. And media coverage vacuously offers the ‘for’ and ‘against’ arguments as though they were equivalent, inflating each trivial incident because Sania Mirza spikes their ratings. No wonder she’s had enough.

Why are we a country of such short fuses? Narayana Murthy faced a case when he cancelled the singing of the national anthem and settled for a musical score, thus bruising the feelings of the Kannada Rakshna Vekeelara Vedeka. The petitioner in Sania’s national flag case, Prakash Singh Thakur, is in fact, serially offended — he has filed several cases of contempt against those who defile national pride, including Sachin Tendulkar. Who set these people up as arbiters of decorum? In the culture wars, the sanctimonious somehow always manage to make things difficult for the liberal, no matter how small their numbers. Taking offence is one of the easiest things in the world. Being Sania Mirza or M.F. Husain means a lifetime of dedicated effort and excellence. A few extreme voices should not be allowed to drive a wedge between these public figures and their sense of worth in India.

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