Grumble with Gaurav | Gaurav Kalra
I have often wondered why I wept at the birth of my child. Tears are usually logical. When my favourite uncle passed, his body ravaged by a vicious cancer, I wept in regret and pain. When my sister said goodbye on getting married, I wept in trepidation, in fear of the new life that awaited her. But why was I weeping now? Why did this miniscule lump of meat have such an impact? A stranger who didn't as much as wonder who I was. A little human being I hadn't ever met, never shared a bond with, never as much as set eyes on before. Why was I weeping?
As my son has grown from infant to toddler, I've let those unexplained tears slide from memory. But they grabbed me by the collar again when I heard of the horrific crash involving Mohammad Azharuddin's son. For want of a better analogy, a child is next in line to take over the baton in a relay race. Its arrival is the surest sign of your life moving forward. Not as a grandiose keeper of your legacy but quite simply as an extension of your being. A relay always moves forward. If the sprinter meant to carry the baton forward stumbles, the race is over. The team is rudderless. The first runner can't run again for the fourth. There is smoothness to the process. A protocol, if you will. Continue reading below
It is against the balance of life for a child to die before its parent. It befuddles the parent. The mere prospect of that eventuality pulverises their reason to run on. When Germany's football goal-keeper Robert Enke lost his little girl, he sunk helplessly into a depression; ultimately jumping in front of a moving train to end his agony. Saeed Anwar sought solace in embracing god when his tiny daughter was snatched away. Possibly jostling to this day with him on why she was taken. I listened once in rapt attention as Chris Cairns described how his mother never really put her life back together after his teenage sister was killed in a train mishap. Eric Clapton asked his 4-year-old son Conor who plunged to death, if he "would hold his hand, if he saw him in heaven". Not so he could comfort Conor, but so Conor could somehow keep him standing.
Azhar by all accounts is a generous man with a penchant for the good things in life. So for him to buy Ayaz a motor-cycle that costs upwards of 15 lakh rupees wouldn't have taken a minute of thought. It was a Suzuki after-all, the best there is. How deeply must Azhar now regret that indulgence. He will forever search the answer to the "what if I hadn't?" question. That answer will never come. Sympathetic hugs will vanish. Tears will dry. Life will inevitably go on for the flurry of well wishers by his side. That gnawing question though will never leave Azhar.
In the days before Ayaz's accident, a heart-warming father-son saga enriched us from another part of the world - Pallekele in Sri Lanka. Geoff Marsh first handed over the baggy green to his son Shaun. And then sat nervously in the stands as a century on Test debut neared. The camera captured his anxious face giving way to pure elation when the moment arrived. Marsh - Geoff not Shaun - later described it as "the proudest moment of his life". Here is a man who has won Ashes series and World Cups in a decorated career. But it was his son's accomplishment in front of a sparse crowd, against a mediocre attack and in a forgettable Test match that is now the "proudest moment in his life". Fathers and sons are odd. Every time Azhar would have seen Ayaz clip a cricket ball past mid-wicket with similar nonchalance to his, a secret ambition would have taken root. One day perhaps my son will play for India as well. He will maybe show his father that another member of the family has been blessed with the same sinuous wrists, with the same sublime sense of timing. One day...my son...
The heartless among us have justified Azhar's agony as a kind of karmic revenge. It is the sort of despicable eventuality no divinity could possibly inflict. None of Azhar's failures in life warrant this form of retribution. Ayaz was the lump of meat that made Azhar weep when he first arrived. Ayaz was the toddler who harangued his dad for a ride on his shoulders. Ayaz was the freckled adolescent who sought his advice on playing the cover drive. He was the impish teenager who cajoled his dad into buying that motor-cycle. There is something wrong though with the construct of these sentences. Ayaz 'was'...Azhar 'is'...the baton has fallen...
