The Redeeming Factor

By Tribhuwan N. Bhan

While watching the recent Indo-Pak Cricket Matches certain thoughts came to my mind. These concerned how God plays His role in the lives of the Human beings. Earlier the so-called “Rawalpindi Express’ Shoaib Akhtar had boasted that he would not let Sachin Tendulkar score more than ten runs. Foolish Shoaib did not realise that God was looking down at him from above and laughing at his empty boast. It was indeed God’s doing that Shoaib was “caught and bowled” by none other than Sachin Tendulkar himself. Thus this so called “Rawalpindi Express” scored a duck. This was the retribution inflicted on Shaoib the fast bowler, by Almighty God. When the Pakistani coach Javed Miandad heard about Irfan Pathan, a teenager, being included in the Indian Team, he had come out with most unsupporting and derogatory statement, “We have many such Pathans roaming in the lanes and by-lanes of Pakistan”. What followed was a slap on the Pakistani coach. It was Irfan Pathan who turned the tide against Pakistan by being very effective bowler and fielder too. I have realised in life, whenever any human being makes an unwanted and unethical statement, hurting the sentiments of anyone else, God takes up the matter in his own hands, and gives a fitting reply to the person who has said anything, he should not have, and makes him eat a humble pie.

While watching the match played at Lahore I thought of the days of December, 1946 when I was at Lahore. Anarkali Bazaar was the cleanest Bazaar of Lahore city, a shoppers’ paradise those days. While watching the match being played at Rawalpindi, I thought of the horrendous ten days we spent at the waiting room of Rawalpindi railway station. We could not move anywhere because of the communal riots in the city. While the match was being played at Multan, I thought of the Dhingra family who were from Multan and were staying as tenents in my house at Karan Nagar, Srinagar in 1945. Mr. Dhingra was a dark tall man who could speak English very fluently, his wife was rather short, very fair but could not speak English at all. They had two children almost of my age and we were good friends. He was on some official assignment at Srinagar. When they left Srinagar to go back to Multan, I was sad to be separated from my friends.

No doubt the Indian Cricket team won the ODI series but it was the people of Pakistan who were showered with all the praise by all the cricket fans from all the corners of the world. The disciplined behaviour of the spectators in the stands of the stadiums, the love and affection showered by common Pakistani in the streets on all Indians who went to see the matches in Pakistan, the generous and warm hospitality offered even by the rickshawalla of Lahore or Rawalpindi defies, definition and description. But in contrast there was not a word of appreciation about the encouraging crowd behaviour from the India Captain Sourav Ganguly, which is absolutely questionable and raises many an eyebrow!

This series has brought the people of the two countries nearer. Due to the speeches of our so called patriotic politicians, Pakistan is depicted as enemy number one and an average Pakistani untrustworthy. But, this cricket series has demolished that myth atleast about the common man in th streets of Pakistan, to a large extent. Some politicians on either side of LOC, who still believe in the infamous policy of the British, “Divide and Rule”, and “Fish in troubled waters” must be realising that their policy is not going to last long and their days are numbered. That is the writing on the wall.

What could not be achieved, by Lal Bahadur Shastri and Ayub Khan at Tashkent; by Indira Gandhi and Bhutto at Shimla, by Vajpai and Nawaz Sharif at Lahore; by Musharaf and Vajpai at Agra; has been achieved by the peoples of the two countries – the objective of “Universal Brotherhood” – through the noble game of cricket. People of Pakistan have demonstrated to the whole world that there is a sea change, for the better, in their outlook and also it is not the ruled who are vicious but the rulers who are so!

Source: Milchar