Unlikely victim
Harsha Bhogle
At some point in the lives of most men, opportunity and greed knock at
the door. Often, like identical twins, they look alike and wear the same
clothes. It is an irresistible combination. And like with so many of us,
it came knocking on Mohammad Azharuddin’s door.
People have different ways of treating such visitors. Most succumb. Some
mount defences. Their upbringing and family value systems come in the
way; some use religion and the power of its teachings to shield
themselves; some have intense personal convictions. In Azharuddin’s
wardrobe, amidst the Armanis and Versaces, all three found a place at
varying times. That is the staggering tragedy amidst the reality of
today.
You might say that values and religion represent formidable fortresses;
that if they crumble, maybe they were mere facades that glossed over a
more fragile core. It would be easy to say that of Azharuddin today.
Over the last two weeks, I have been searching within and like recurring
motifs, certain stories come haunting back; little anecdotes that made
writing his biography one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
He told me the story of how, as a little child, he had shooed away a
little bird that came searching for grain and of how he had been
punished by his grandfather for doing so. He spoke with great conviction
about his upbringing and would often return to the point that scoring
runs was transitory, that being a good human being was paramount. And I
saw examples of that; in the manner in which he gave freely to the poor,
to budding cricketers. And he did so quietly, so no one would burden him
with nobility. That was not a façade. That is why I am amazed that he
gave in.
And he was religious. He prayed regularly, not as a chore but out of a
conviction that he was doing right. He read the Quran frequently and, as
some of his teammates will remember, quoted profusely from it. Few
people complained because most religions teach the same things anyway
but there was an intensity in the manner he spoke that was revealing.
For someone so inarticulate early on, and so predictable later, he was
amazingly lucid when it came to explaining religion. From time to time,
he would pull out a piece of paper, scribble into it and give it to
friends. "Read it from time to time, it will help you," he would say. If
religion could keep greed away, Azhar would have been the last man
standing.
His team-mates believed him as well. Before they fell out famously,
Navjot Sidhu called him "God’s man on earth" and Javagal Srinath used to
gush about his humility. I can confirm that for I was often witness to
his generosity and dignity. So could many others from Hyderabad and
elsewhere and that is why I can believe a newspaper report that P R Man Singh came close to breaking down when he heard the news. Man Singh had
helped Azhar greatly, as indeed he had helped me and many others in
Hyderabad.
Over the last couple of years, as more stories began appearing in
newspapers, I think a lot of people, while bracing themselves for the
worst, were secretly hoping it was untrue. Now, his confession has
sealed that and we must now ask ourselves what drove such an unlikely
man onto a path of self-destruction. For maybe there are lessons there
for a newer, younger generation of cricketers.
At the root of it all, and there is an uncanny parallel here with Hansie
Cronje, is an addiction to money and the benefits it seems to bestow on
those that possess it. Cronje too was an admirable man, upright on most
fronts and like Azhar, a good cricketer and a wonderful team player.
Cronje has stated that he was addicted to money and though he knew that
what he was doing was wrong, he found himself increasingly drawn towards
it. I wonder sometimes if that was the case with Azhar as well; using
his income to create a lifestyle and then having to go in search of it
to satisfy this newly created monster.
What makes the Azhar story particularly scary is the fact that his
transformation took place, not at an impressionable age but when he was
well into his thirties. It is interesting as well, going by the CBI
report and by his own admission, that this began around 1995-96, which
coincides with a period of turmoil in his personal life. His marriage
was in trouble, the media was after him, he had turned short-tempered
and a near-permanent frown had appeared. Did that lead to a lowering of
the guard? Or had the love for the good life taken over so completely by
then?
Even scarier, and that is why I talk of his early life, is that if Azhar
with his original middle-class morals, could be drawn into this horrible
web, anyone can. And there is really no way we can prevent another from
going down this path. To reduce the money paid to our cricketers would
be to cut the limbs they stand on. How then do we prevent another,
equally colossal, tragedy?
In an ideal world, we would be able to build pride for the nation and
seed into young minds the value of attaining something that virtually
anyone else in India would give anything else to get. I fear that would
be easily said for cricket cannot be an island in an atmosphere where
pride is so thinly spread. How do you feed a 19-year-old on a diet of
national pride when he sees more mature and supposedly reliable people
mortgaging it all the time?
But we must try. Our young cricketers should be offered the pads and the
helmets of life. If they choose not to wear them, there is little we can
do. But that cannot stop us from trying. We cannot afford a repeat of
the deeply distressing story of a man who was marked out for so much
more.
Harsha Bhogle
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