To get to the playing field where children play in our neighbourhood , you must turn right at the market and then take a sharp left. A bhuttawali sits at the corner. Go another 50 metres and you won't miss it, especially in the evening when the occasional roar of 'Chak De!' will announce that someone has just scored a boundary. The Hindi film, Chak De! India with Shah Rukh Khan, has given us a new slogan which at once unites us and captures the exuberant mood of a confident, young India. Amrita Shah put it nicely, "Part exhortation, part exaltation - it has the right zing and energy to work in a stadium or on the street."
Our sportspersons, too, have won in recent months and returned the compliment. In comparing the three recent victories, Vijay Santhanam is basically right in saying, "It was a bigger Chak De! moment when Vishwanathan Anand became the world chess champion than India winning the T20 Cricket World Cup or the Asia Hockey Cup." Chess is played in 166 countries; field hockey is played in 61; cricket in less than 20.
My own proud Chak De! moment, however, came last Tuesday when our local 14-year-old hero, Arjun, whose cricket bat rains sixes like Yuvraj Singh's, did an amazing thing. He offered to give up his place on the team to a young urchin who had been hanging around for weeks, drooling to play and no one would let him. Arjun's was an act of unbelievable kindness from one 14-year-old to another. At one go, he washed away some of mean-hearted Dronacharya's stain against Eklavya in the Mahabharata.
Arjun's act is a lesson for another reason for the millions of young Indians caught in today's rat race where only money matters. I enjoyed the cliffhangers in South Africa as much as anyone, but was offended by the vulgar display of cash rewards and the Porsche afterwards.
Although the pursuit of success is hard wired in our genes, one wishes that higher status would attach to being kind and considerate, to compassionate acts like Arjun's. I have no problem with money. Unlike our hypocritical socialists, I do not rail against the culture of consumerism. Competition, Hesiod pointed out long ago, is built into our natures, and it calls for real victory and real defeat. This is where a liberal education comes handy. It allows one to cope better with the rat race. The education systems of some nations seem to do a better job at producing Arjuns, however. Richard Layard of the London School of Economics reports that when English teenagers were asked, 'Are most of your classmates kind and helpful?' only 43% said 'yes'. But 75% of Scandinavian children said 'yes'.
I think our neighbourhood hero was given the wrong name by his mother. She should have called him Yudhisthira, not Arjun. Recall, great souled Yudhishthira, tormented and embattled, refuses to enter heaven at the end of the Mahabharata. He insists that an unclean, stray dog that had been following him, is also admitted into heaven. It turns out that this was another test. However, Yudhishthira and his ethical goal of anrsamsya or compassion, are paid the highest compliment when he is told, 'Great king, you weep with all the creatures!'
I sometimes wonder why no Indian mother calls her son, Yudhishthira. It is not because it is difficult to pronounce.
There are millions of Arjuns on the other hand. Arjuna is a winner in the self-defeating kshatriya rat race of life. We prefer winners to goodness.
Saturday, 6 October 2007
My Chak De! Moment
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