A non violent cricketer
I must warn you that today's post is not a typical one. On this one occassion, I shall not sound like a mad lunatic mumbling leftist rhetoric while at the same time extolling capitalist virtues.
There shall be nothing run of the mill today. It is not a typical day. It is the day Sachin Tendulkar plays his hundredth test match. Along with all Indians, I congratulate him on reaching this landmark. Even though England squashed India on the first day of this historic test match, I wish to take this opportunity to pray for a fitting riposte from Sachin's bat, even at the risk of adding to the expectations of a billion people, which he carries so surely on his shoulder. Nobody deserves it more than Sachin, for he more than other, possesses all the qualities that make for an ideal Gandhi satyagrahi.
Nobody ever asks me this question, but it is one for which I have a ready answer. So I shall ask myself, just so you know what the answer would be (life is sometimes confusing): "What is the happiest day in your life?"
Answer: "The one day match between India and Australia in the 1996 World Cup." Yes, it is true. The happiest moments of my life are those in which I had no part in the making.
Each moment of that day is crystal clear. I had excellent company during this crucial match. My friend, who in addition to being an upright lad of good moral upbringing, was also the son of a senior ranking police inspector. We got into the stadium without any problems (in fact I recollect constables saluting us as we entered). After abusing some Aussies as they went through net practise, then indulging in the customary gesture of jeering Pakistan (most unGandhi like) and saluting the West Indian great Clive Lloyd, play got under way. Australia mauled us that morning. They nearly colonized us; so brutal was their demeanor. Mark Waugh made everything look very easy, as is his wont. My friend kept singing his praises over and over again like a parrot, till he began to sound like a parrot, whose only role in life was to sing praises of Mark Waugh. "The best batsman in the world," he said as the Australian innings ended. I managed to say, "Sachin is surely the best," but after seeing Waugh I must admit I had a niggling doubt.
The players had their lunch (deservedly) and Sachin stepped out on the field. The atmosphere was electric and every eye was trained expectantly on him. Even I could feel the pressure and felt sorry for him. Not that his teammates did anything to alleviate some of his suffering. India had the worst possible start and chasing 250 odd were 8 for three wickets, before you could say, "Koala please, no kangaroo in my soup."
India was sure to lose. That's what everyone thought. Suddenly Sachin stepped up gears and launched a vicious, vicious counterattack. Every person in the stadium now knew how residents of Gotham City must have felt when they saw the Batman logo up in the dark sky. You must have noticed, that I used the word "vicious" twice to describe Sachin's play. That is because no other word can describe it in such an apt manner, even though "timeless, smooth, flowing, brutal" can all be used with equal felicity. The Australians were scared to catch any ball that rocketed off his bat, as it screeched to the boundary ropes. Glenn McGrath, that feared fast hurler of the ball, even jumped on a kite that had somehow made its way to the field in sheer frustration (he jumped repeatedly and then kept jumping).
None of the other Indian players were up to the fight and India lost that match. Sachin got out for 92 electrifying runs. The world was his fiefdom for that duration and he was king. When he got out, the Australians cried with joy, very much like an Afghan leader would after having survived three assassination attempts. My friend had his head bowed in quiet submission. Mark Waugh had been sent to the dim oblivion of distant memory.
Even though India lost, we were all happy. For we had all seen something that would live in our memories forever, an event that could easily make poets out of the most laconic of us. Life in India is difficult, to say the least. That is why we prefer songs and dances in our movies to escape from reality. To see the same escapist fare in real life is the stuff that makes our life worth living; it fortifies us and makes us say, "That crowded train is not so bad after all."
Sachin is God in India. That is an understatement. When he scores a century, even Kashmir is forgotten. He is the first Indian after Gandhi to have united people of every color, religion, caste and blood group behind his cause.
In spite of all this adulation, he is the most soft-spoken and modest man I have ever seen. That is because he is true to the principles behind non-violence:
1. He is humble: He magnifies his own faults and keeps working on removing any possible chinks in his armor.
2. He is similar to the "lilies in the field that ceaselessly turn and spin": I recollect seeing a video of Sachin Tendulkar as a young lad, before he made his debut at the age of 16, where he said that he practised "10-24 hours a day". Or something like that.
3. He plays without thought of the goal: Sachin exemplifies true, selfless karma. He focuses only on the game and does not worry about records, centuries and the like that might fall in his stride.
4. He is courageous and master of the art of standing alone: So supremely confident is he, that even the expectations of an entire nation, do not deter him from turning a ball outside off stump to deep midwicket.
I could go on and on. Even Gandhi would marvel, not only at his talent, but more at his humble, modest, hardworking ways.
When Sachin got out that evening in Bombay there was a hushed silence. I pray for a similar hushed silence in the course of this test match. The kind that results when people know that they have witnessed something very, very special.
Here a few links around the web:
Rediff.com
Three Figures everyone wants to see - The Guardian
The BBC
I must warn you that today's post is not a typical one. On this one occassion, I shall not sound like a mad lunatic mumbling leftist rhetoric while at the same time extolling capitalist virtues.
There shall be nothing run of the mill today. It is not a typical day. It is the day Sachin Tendulkar plays his hundredth test match. Along with all Indians, I congratulate him on reaching this landmark. Even though England squashed India on the first day of this historic test match, I wish to take this opportunity to pray for a fitting riposte from Sachin's bat, even at the risk of adding to the expectations of a billion people, which he carries so surely on his shoulder. Nobody deserves it more than Sachin, for he more than other, possesses all the qualities that make for an ideal Gandhi satyagrahi.
Nobody ever asks me this question, but it is one for which I have a ready answer. So I shall ask myself, just so you know what the answer would be (life is sometimes confusing): "What is the happiest day in your life?"
Answer: "The one day match between India and Australia in the 1996 World Cup." Yes, it is true. The happiest moments of my life are those in which I had no part in the making.
Each moment of that day is crystal clear. I had excellent company during this crucial match. My friend, who in addition to being an upright lad of good moral upbringing, was also the son of a senior ranking police inspector. We got into the stadium without any problems (in fact I recollect constables saluting us as we entered). After abusing some Aussies as they went through net practise, then indulging in the customary gesture of jeering Pakistan (most unGandhi like) and saluting the West Indian great Clive Lloyd, play got under way. Australia mauled us that morning. They nearly colonized us; so brutal was their demeanor. Mark Waugh made everything look very easy, as is his wont. My friend kept singing his praises over and over again like a parrot, till he began to sound like a parrot, whose only role in life was to sing praises of Mark Waugh. "The best batsman in the world," he said as the Australian innings ended. I managed to say, "Sachin is surely the best," but after seeing Waugh I must admit I had a niggling doubt.
The players had their lunch (deservedly) and Sachin stepped out on the field. The atmosphere was electric and every eye was trained expectantly on him. Even I could feel the pressure and felt sorry for him. Not that his teammates did anything to alleviate some of his suffering. India had the worst possible start and chasing 250 odd were 8 for three wickets, before you could say, "Koala please, no kangaroo in my soup."
India was sure to lose. That's what everyone thought. Suddenly Sachin stepped up gears and launched a vicious, vicious counterattack. Every person in the stadium now knew how residents of Gotham City must have felt when they saw the Batman logo up in the dark sky. You must have noticed, that I used the word "vicious" twice to describe Sachin's play. That is because no other word can describe it in such an apt manner, even though "timeless, smooth, flowing, brutal" can all be used with equal felicity. The Australians were scared to catch any ball that rocketed off his bat, as it screeched to the boundary ropes. Glenn McGrath, that feared fast hurler of the ball, even jumped on a kite that had somehow made its way to the field in sheer frustration (he jumped repeatedly and then kept jumping).
None of the other Indian players were up to the fight and India lost that match. Sachin got out for 92 electrifying runs. The world was his fiefdom for that duration and he was king. When he got out, the Australians cried with joy, very much like an Afghan leader would after having survived three assassination attempts. My friend had his head bowed in quiet submission. Mark Waugh had been sent to the dim oblivion of distant memory.
Even though India lost, we were all happy. For we had all seen something that would live in our memories forever, an event that could easily make poets out of the most laconic of us. Life in India is difficult, to say the least. That is why we prefer songs and dances in our movies to escape from reality. To see the same escapist fare in real life is the stuff that makes our life worth living; it fortifies us and makes us say, "That crowded train is not so bad after all."
Sachin is God in India. That is an understatement. When he scores a century, even Kashmir is forgotten. He is the first Indian after Gandhi to have united people of every color, religion, caste and blood group behind his cause.
In spite of all this adulation, he is the most soft-spoken and modest man I have ever seen. That is because he is true to the principles behind non-violence:
1. He is humble: He magnifies his own faults and keeps working on removing any possible chinks in his armor.
2. He is similar to the "lilies in the field that ceaselessly turn and spin": I recollect seeing a video of Sachin Tendulkar as a young lad, before he made his debut at the age of 16, where he said that he practised "10-24 hours a day". Or something like that.
3. He plays without thought of the goal: Sachin exemplifies true, selfless karma. He focuses only on the game and does not worry about records, centuries and the like that might fall in his stride.
4. He is courageous and master of the art of standing alone: So supremely confident is he, that even the expectations of an entire nation, do not deter him from turning a ball outside off stump to deep midwicket.
I could go on and on. Even Gandhi would marvel, not only at his talent, but more at his humble, modest, hardworking ways.
When Sachin got out that evening in Bombay there was a hushed silence. I pray for a similar hushed silence in the course of this test match. The kind that results when people know that they have witnessed something very, very special.
Here a few links around the web:
Rediff.com
Three Figures everyone wants to see - The Guardian
The BBC
The wheel that spins
Rumor has it that someone gifted Gandhiji a sewing machine on his birthday. He returned it to the store, which took it back politely (even though Gandhi didn't have a receipt). Gandhi utilized this money to but another "charka" or spinning wheel for one of his band of devoted followers to spin cloth with. Indeed, it was Gandhi's dream that every Indian spun his or her own cloth.
The spinning wheel was just one of the simple techniques by which Gandhi stopped Indians from utilizing foreign goods that only served to make the Pommies richer and more jovial (in fact had it not been for the spinning wheel, the life of the common man in England could have been so worry free, that he would have been in the ideal mindset to making Monty Python well in time for a 1950 release).
The spinning wheel had a deeper meaning to it. It was habit forming, but the behavior that was formed didn’t only serve the purpose of making India completely independent of the world as far as garbs and robes went. It inculcated in the common man of serving the needs of something very immediate: a community.
Gandhiji maintained that it was humanly possible only to serve ones community and neighborhood. He was very insistent that all human beings confine their philanthropic exploits to this geographic vicinity. How many of us spend all of our waking hours worrying about the world, while littering in and completely ignorant of our own neighborhood?
Of course, not even Gandhiji could have envisioned the spread of commercial flying and the Internet. The biggest obstacle to understanding the needs of other people, a lack of knowledge, has been removed as a result of people and data jet setting around the globe. The world can be ones community. This is particularly true for countries in the west, as they have neighborhoods that are relatively well to do, technological infrastructure as well as travel resources.
The President of the United States certainly does think of the world as one large community. If George Bush would have his own way, the entire globe could become America’s garbage yard. Colin Powell was booed at the earth summit today. I wasn’t surprised. I really don’t know why he was.
.
It is time for the developing world to stop banking on the west to eliminate poverty. If George Bush and Tony Blair (whose government for all its public posturing deported a woman with her children back to Afghanistan recently) were true fans of Gandhi, they would realize that being strong, it is their duty to serve the weak and less fortunate. Even from a practical standpoint, making people more socially involved and rights/duty conscious would strike at the root cause of terrorism –lack of opportunity due to poverty and democratic opportunities. America too stands to gain by pursuing this course of action. If they chose, the world could be their community to serve.
America had a big well of sympathy on September 11. All it had to do was make one gesture in reciprocation and the entire world would have cobbled together international coalitions to further its every cause. George Bush has blown all the sympathy away and managed to alienate half the world in just one year, a feat not many would have thought possible, given the magnitude of the tragedy on September 11.
But there is little point in ranting against a man, whose every action is brutal and honest in the matter of world enviorment and poverty. Karma is called for. Karma without thought of the fruit.
The developing world, they need to stop falling over each other to appease the West. History has shown that the needs of a handful of farmers in Texas will be given more priority than the urgent demands of an entire continent of African farmers, hit by subsidies.
The third world needs to look inwards for that spinning wheel. Community by community at a time. It could be a school. A well. Or a house.
I am not saying that globalization is not important in today’s world. It is and isolation would only bring about a fiscal and intellectual crisis of a severe magnitude. But, the poorest of the poor need to judge how genuine is the sympathy of a leader towards their needs, before going out of their way to appease him. Concern shown by the leader is important. So is pretzel eating capability.
Rumor has it that someone gifted Gandhiji a sewing machine on his birthday. He returned it to the store, which took it back politely (even though Gandhi didn't have a receipt). Gandhi utilized this money to but another "charka" or spinning wheel for one of his band of devoted followers to spin cloth with. Indeed, it was Gandhi's dream that every Indian spun his or her own cloth.
The spinning wheel was just one of the simple techniques by which Gandhi stopped Indians from utilizing foreign goods that only served to make the Pommies richer and more jovial (in fact had it not been for the spinning wheel, the life of the common man in England could have been so worry free, that he would have been in the ideal mindset to making Monty Python well in time for a 1950 release).
The spinning wheel had a deeper meaning to it. It was habit forming, but the behavior that was formed didn’t only serve the purpose of making India completely independent of the world as far as garbs and robes went. It inculcated in the common man of serving the needs of something very immediate: a community.
Gandhiji maintained that it was humanly possible only to serve ones community and neighborhood. He was very insistent that all human beings confine their philanthropic exploits to this geographic vicinity. How many of us spend all of our waking hours worrying about the world, while littering in and completely ignorant of our own neighborhood?
Of course, not even Gandhiji could have envisioned the spread of commercial flying and the Internet. The biggest obstacle to understanding the needs of other people, a lack of knowledge, has been removed as a result of people and data jet setting around the globe. The world can be ones community. This is particularly true for countries in the west, as they have neighborhoods that are relatively well to do, technological infrastructure as well as travel resources.
The President of the United States certainly does think of the world as one large community. If George Bush would have his own way, the entire globe could become America’s garbage yard. Colin Powell was booed at the earth summit today. I wasn’t surprised. I really don’t know why he was.
.
It is time for the developing world to stop banking on the west to eliminate poverty. If George Bush and Tony Blair (whose government for all its public posturing deported a woman with her children back to Afghanistan recently) were true fans of Gandhi, they would realize that being strong, it is their duty to serve the weak and less fortunate. Even from a practical standpoint, making people more socially involved and rights/duty conscious would strike at the root cause of terrorism –lack of opportunity due to poverty and democratic opportunities. America too stands to gain by pursuing this course of action. If they chose, the world could be their community to serve.
America had a big well of sympathy on September 11. All it had to do was make one gesture in reciprocation and the entire world would have cobbled together international coalitions to further its every cause. George Bush has blown all the sympathy away and managed to alienate half the world in just one year, a feat not many would have thought possible, given the magnitude of the tragedy on September 11.
But there is little point in ranting against a man, whose every action is brutal and honest in the matter of world enviorment and poverty. Karma is called for. Karma without thought of the fruit.
The developing world, they need to stop falling over each other to appease the West. History has shown that the needs of a handful of farmers in Texas will be given more priority than the urgent demands of an entire continent of African farmers, hit by subsidies.
The third world needs to look inwards for that spinning wheel. Community by community at a time. It could be a school. A well. Or a house.
I am not saying that globalization is not important in today’s world. It is and isolation would only bring about a fiscal and intellectual crisis of a severe magnitude. But, the poorest of the poor need to judge how genuine is the sympathy of a leader towards their needs, before going out of their way to appease him. Concern shown by the leader is important. So is pretzel eating capability.
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