Cricket is the flavour of the season. Nothing from a heart wrenching natural disaster in a neighbouring nation to a government shaking expose in our own have been able to steal away the storm. Well, talking of storms, the assembly elections scheduled for this month back in my home state has stirred up quite a one. The blog, though, has been rather dormant over the last month or so owing to a range of reasons from mundane mid semester evaluations to an impulsive holiday (I would like myself and everyone else who bothers to believe that I’ve kept busy).
Quite an irony actually. You would any day expect a policy maker to be more honest than a sportsperson!
It’s been a nice period though albeit the minor physical glitches I’ve had to encounter. The cricket, a passion that has as a passion withstood all the test of time, and friends together have gladdened my heart like nothing else has for quite some time. Amidst all that, a lot has been going through in my mind regarding statures of certain people. People whom I’ve been influenced by and have discussed at length about.
In fact to be narrowing down, it’s just two of them. Both fit into the typical rags to riches fairytale stories. Both of them are honest hard workers. But such has been the turn of events over the past couple of weeks; one looks slightly more human to me now while the other has so totally reinforced his God like image of his in my head. To catch a starry eyed kid’s imagination is one thing but to constantly surpass his sky high expectations takes some doing (something even Shahrukh Khan would acknowledge as a big deal!) and that is exactly what the latter has been doing unfailingly for what seems forever now.
Cutting the pronouns induced climax short; these two great men do have names- Manmohan Singh and Sachin Tendulkar respectively. From two walks of life as varied as they come, they are connected by the fact that both of them have been hugely responsible for catapulting our country into the big league. And by my yardstick (heck it’s my blog so I can have one); you know you are in the league when kids of your country have the audacity to dream and dream big and the last two decades have been testimony to the phenomena of Indians dreaming big and going all out to achieve them. Manmohan Singh’s masterstroke of liberalisation and privatisation (terms I admit I do not understand inside out) in the early 1990s as the finance minister of the country revived the economy of the country, the benefits of which we are still reaping. Sachin Tendulkar on the other hand is probably our best ambassador of anything. Most importantly both these geniuses are the best at what they do; a fact acknowledged and respected by peers the world over.
But what made me set out to write about them in the first place apart from the fact that the blog needed to be updated are two events that took place on the same fateful day some two weeks back. A late morning it was for me. And like the first thing you normally do on a holiday morning (no I am not the early morning jogging kind), I switched on the TV without having had anything specific to watch. That is when I happened to stumble upon Manmohan Singh participating in an interactive talk session and vociferously (yes he was vociferous by his modest standards) washing his hands off from the recently revealed Wikileaks( I’m surprised this one still stumps MS Word) cable alleging that the Congress had bought trust votes on the floor of the house. If the expose wasn’t startling enough, Manmohan Singh’s attitude was a rude shock. Someone whom I’ve always looked up to, Singh’s demeanour was plain disappointing and genuinely saddened me. As the official head of the cabinet, the prime minister ought to have taken full moral responsibility of the entire issue. It wouldn’t have been easy for sure but I had honestly expected the Prime Minister to do better than what he did.
Barely three hours from then, my second protagonist touched the other end of the spectrum by just walking off the crease when he was judged not out by the umpire. An action made all the more great by the fact that it was a World Cup match and the man needed a century more to complete 100 international centuries- an achievement unfathomable for most mortals. Preaching the righteous path in the comforts of your drawing room is alright but to ride the right route when the stakes are high is what matters. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar made a whole nation proud that day by actually being a live example of what we as a country claim to stand for but have awfully failed to back up with actions - honesty and values. If Manmohan Singh was a letdown, Sachin more than made it up.
Quite an irony actually. You would any day expect a policy maker to be more honest than a sportsperson!
But then this is India where people juggle between being holy men and porn stars and you have temples in respect of Boyllwood stars. (MS Word just offered me Hollywood as a replacement for Bollywood) Politics again lost to cricket like it always has in India but I’m sure there is much more in store from both these great men. Manmohan Singh has a lot more mettle which he shall prove very soon. Meanwhile, I hope we kick some Sri Lankan ass today and yes, the 100th ton finally comes from the shorter of the two great men.
