Sunday, Mar 14, 2004
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By Nirmal Shekar
AT DAWN on Saturday morning, you might have been excused if you had looked West for the rising sun. It was that sort of a day. For a few weeks now, there has been so much hype about how special this day is going to be that you might have almost expected a celestial rearrangement of routines. Through ages, the finest of artists have known that you've got to exaggerate reality to capture its essence. And in the age in which we live, sports promoters aim for reality to the power of 100 merely to convey that this contest or that is important. In the event, what we witnessed on Saturday in Karachi was supposed to be something so unique that it would change everything. So much so, you even peeked out the window at dawn to check if crows began to sound like nightingales and then flapped your arms to see if you could fly! Alas, no such thing happened. The sun rose from the east, crows sounded like crows and you were as grounded as you ever were since the time you learnt to walk. But, yes, at the end of the day India beat Pakistan in a one-day international cricket match... which changed nothing but the numbers in a small column in statisticians' record books. The truth, as ever, revealed itself in the very end: what was special about the day was the day's cricket. Nothing more, nothing less. A series of contests keenly looked forward to — for all the right reasons by some and for all the wrong reasons by many — like few other sporting events this millennium finally did get going and one must say that it was indeed a sensational start with 693 runs being scored in 100 overs and the host coming within six runs of bringing off the biggest run chase in the game's history. Frankly, before a ball was bowled or struck in this so-called mother of all series, this writer was convinced about one thing: India's arch-rival in the game today is a long way across the Indian Ocean. The name of that country is Australia. Given the inherent strengths of the Indian cricket structure as well as the fact that this particular team under Sourav Ganguly has boldly and purposefully climbed up the cricketing ladder in recent times, Pakistan, given its own strengths and weaknesses — not the least in batting — was never going to be a perfect match to India, at least in the abbreviated form of the game. But despite a poor start to its chase, Pakistan, thanks to a magnificent innings from its captain, almost brought off the impossible before a superb last over from Ashish Nehra sealed the issue. There were, as was to be expected, many sad faces and a few cheerful ones in the stands at the end of the day. India did shine in the end and the iconic cricketers had contributed their bit to the so-called feel-good factor. Meanwhile, it is at times like these that the big question keeps cropping up in my mind. Why do we watch sport? At a time when tens of millions on both sides of the LOC, not to speak of millions of others in other parts of the world, are glued to television screens, indiscriminately lapping up everything on offer, such a question might seem at once ludicrous and out of place. You might even think it is silly and laughable. What do we look for when we watch a sports contest between two national teams? What is the source of our happiness or despair when we find ourselves in the stands or in front of the TV screen? Henry Mencken, a famous American editor, believed that war was the only sport that was genuinely amusing, the only one that had any intelligible use. But legendary Roman emperors who threw slaves into the ring with hungry lions did not think so. They, with an assortment of nobility, found amusement in watching ill-fed animals tear human beings apart. The expressions on the faces of those who watched the unequal contests of the Roman era thousands of years ago may not have been very different from what you see today on the faces of fans in Karachi and Mumbai and Bangalore and Rawalpindi when India and Pakistan face off and one or other of the batsmen carts a rival bowler to all corners of the ground. Sport, of course, means different things to different people even if those who, like George Orwell, believe that it is "war minus shooting" may be part of a very thin minority. Yet, when it comes to India-Pakistan sport, particularly cricket, it has for too long meant only one thing for a vast majority: proxy war. Which, fortunately, in reality, it is not. Two nuclear armed neighbours that were on the brink of war not long ago have, today, removed several barriers to resume sporting contacts at the highest levels and this is as good a time as any to alter many of our perceptions. Sport is a double-edged weapon; it can both unite and divide. It has a capacity to cut across all barriers, a wonderful capacity to heal old wounds and bring people together. But, as with all such weapons, if not used wisely, it can be counter-productive. "Sport is for people who can neither read nor think,'' said George Bernard Shaw, dismissing a marvellously invigorating area of human activity with the sort of contempt that marked his satirical writings. Other great writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Albert Camus and Norman Mailer did not think so. They clearly ignored that piece of Shawian wisdom as they chose to watch and write about sport. But, then, we constantly have to ask ourselves why we watch sport and what is it about sport that provides us enjoyment. If we don't do this, we might become victims of our own base passions and sub-human emotions... evils that have hung over India-Pakistan cricket for too long like a thick overcast that wouldn't go away. On Saturday morning, as television cameras focussed on a section of the stands, if you had not been aware of the enormity of the occasion and what was going on, you might have been unable to say if it was Karachi or Mumbai or Hyderabad or Bangalore. Two peoples with a shared culture; with shared passion for a sport that runs so deep. This is precisely why we should learn to enjoy the game, per se, and celebrate its infinite charms instead of merely celebrating victories and mourning losses. If you enjoyed Virender Sehwag's brutal aggression and Rahul Dravid's Grandmaster calm and consistent efficiency, you would have no doubt enjoyed too Inzamam-ul-Haq's effortless brilliance. It is on a day like this that we must be able to say: Ah, who cares who won, we had a great time anyway... and the game itself was the biggest winner. It is a tough ask, no doubt, but if we can do that, what has always been touted as a "great rivalry" for all the wrong reasons will really become a great sporting rivalry.
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