Only a hopeless prude would quibble with the premise that the Olympics would improve if India improved, if it jockeyed for medals up near China, the United States, Japan, Australia et al., while surpassing all of the above in both vividness and the reactionary melodrama that helps make sport so irresistible. Yet post-Paes, this sporting giant of a country often said to generate two-thirds of the world’s cricket revenue, a country that boasted one of the Olympics’ great dynasties — men’s field hockey, seven of eight gold medals between 1928 and 1964 — has gone through six Olympics and umpteen fresh streams of medal-seeking. The medal tallies: one, one, three, a hopeful six (London), a bummer two (Rio de Janeiro) and a sighing five (Tokyo).