THE MAN WHO WON THE RACE

My hall of heroes has been awfully noisy for the last few months. Champions who inspired me through thought and deed have been keeling over like eager pins in a bowling alley. And on the 19th of November, another titan rolled over to forever rest in peace. This is my second elegy in two weeks and I surely hope I don’t need to write any more of these for some time to come. The name of this unassuming man once shook up an empire. His friends called him ‘Dolly’, but history would remember him as the man at the centre of the D’Oliveira affair.

His name – Basil D’Oliveira.

He had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for a while now and I had written a story about him during India’s tour of South Africa. I reproduce sections from that story to remind you about a remarkable life that simmered with passion and a quiet dignity that humbled one of the cruelest regimes in history.

To tell you his story, let me take you to the time when he lay in bed, cold and dead, his eyes closed to the world for good. But if those eyes could talk to you still, they would have told you tales of all they saw…

For what they saw when they were young was a world full of hate and fear. Do you see that world now, a world far removed from here and now, many miles and many years away, in Cape Town, South Africa? You see a road and some kids playing cricket in the heat and dust of the afternoon. They’re playing hard, with enthusiasm, but you doubt they have the skills, except for the tall lad with a bat in the middle, whacking the ball to all corners with ease. Suddenly, you hear angry sirens… the game stops. The kids freeze, and once they know the direction of the approaching police car, the kids run in the opposite direction. The white policemen run after the dark-skinned little urchins, but they escape. It’s apartheid time in South Africa. “Coloured” kids go to jail for playing on the streets.

Anyway, you follow the kids on their run, especially the tall one with the eyes you know, as they run through streets and lanes, past hovels and slums, until one of the younger ones calls out to the tall one “Basil! Basil!! I think we’re safe now…” The tall one slows down, looks back at him, runs to him and puts an arm around him…the two friends are tired, but they’re happy…to be free, free to run and play. They look at each other and laugh, and laugh till they cry…

Basil grew to become quite the star in the local matches amongst non-whites (once hitting 46 in an eight-ball over), but he couldn’t ever hope to play for South Africa. Born into an Indian-Portuguese family in South Africa, he wasn’t allowed to play with white South Africans because the minority white government felt that it was beneath “white dignity” to mix with people of Indian or African origin. But as little Bas’ talents blossomed, so did his dreams. He was loved by his people for his brave and explosive batting, his tall hits and taller scores, and he’d like me to add, his steady, often inspired medium-fast bowling. But he’d grown too big for his ‘coloured’ boots. He wanted to play Test cricket. He’d watch the great white South African cricketers playing in the big stadium, and from his little segregated corner in the stands, wish he was there on the field, playing with them. He made up his mind to try the impossible. If his homeland wouldn’t have him then he’d try and play for the game’s homeland – England. Basil had a friend he trusted. A man he believed had a heart as bright and bold as that golden voice of his BBC commentator, John Arlott, a household name in every Commonwealth home with a radio. During the 1950s Basil was already on the wrong side of 25. Time was running out and he knew he was reaching for the moon, but he had to try. Arlott didn’t know of Basil when he received a letter from him that spoke of his dreams. But the story of a gift ed boy trapped by the colour of his skin touched a chord in his heart. Arlott wrote back, and thus the two exchanged letters and hope until two years passed. Then it began to wane. Basil was grateful for Arlott’s support, but he knew it was too late. He was too old now… Then out of the blue came a letter from Arlott. He’d persuaded an English club to hire Basil as a professional. The pay was meagre, but at last Basil would play as a professional.

Basil was delirious and his family and friends were so happy for him. In his dreams they saw their hopes of dignity and acceptance taking flight. But those dreams had come with clipped wings, only to flutter and shatter on the hard, cold floor. Basil didn’t have the money to pay for his way to England. But help walked in, in different hues. Friends, both brown and black, wrote letters and raised funds, and then Gerald Innes, a white South African cricketer, heard Basil’s story and put together a team of ‘whites’. They played a match, defying apartheid laws and its brutal police action, to raise funds for Basil’s journey. Years later, whenever Basil would be asked to add his voice to the crescendo against ‘the white man’s tyranny’, his memory of Innes walking amongst the spectators with a pail in his hands, raising funds for his cause, would always soften his stance. In England, it was a quiet start for the boy from the streets, walking behind his mates, looking for ‘coloured-only entrances and toilets’, but soon his great talent and greater hunger saw him take the leagues by storm. In five years, he’d become a British citizen, and perhaps because he’d lied about his age on arrival, was selected to play for England in 1966. He was 34 (or, more likely, 38). The old light in his eyes must have glistened for a while, for he must have shed a silent tear in prayer and joy that day… And then runs, dozens, scores and hundreds more flowed from his blade, and Basil scanned the horizon. England was due to tour South Africa and he was in form. This was the day he was waiting for, when he’d return to the land of his birth with so much to prove. It was a moment that he and his people had been waiting for.

But then the unthinkable happened. Basil lost his touch. It was 1968 and the Australians were touring. Basil was dropped after the first match. Four Tests later, they’d announce the team for South Africa. Basil was worried. Meanwhile, South Africa’s Prime Minister, one-time Nazi sympathiser, BJ Vorster was also worried. Not co-incidentally, Basil had been approached by a South African tobacco magnate to coach ‘non-white’ South Africans for more money that he’d ever seen. The ‘catch’ – he’d have to make himself ‘unavailable’ for the tour. Basil was tempted. He could secure his family’s future if he accepted… But, what of his dreams? And all those people waiting back home to see ‘Bas’, the ‘coloured’ Test cricketer? Though not in the team, Basil refused and hoped for a miracle.

It was the final ‘Test’ at the Oval and batsman Roger Prideaux fell ill. Meanwhile, Basil had turned out brilliantly in a county game and was picked for the final match. When Basil walked out to bat, he knew he was battling not just Aussie bowlers and the pressure of a comeback but also battling the South African government that wanted him to fail, as well as the weight of the expectations of every man of colour around the world. Basil scratched the pitch with the toe of his bat and took guard for far more than his team that day and slammed158 iron-willed runs that took England to victory, like in a fairy tale. What could stop his inclusion for the tour now? But alas, something did. The selectors were informed that the South African government won’t allow a player of ‘colour’. However, the English selectors maintained that, “Bas had been dropped on ‘cricketing grounds only’”. The nation erupted in support for Basil. But Basil felt betrayed by his adopted nation and maintained a stoic dignified silence even as the storm blew and grew. Then, as luck would have it, Cartwright, a bowler, was injured and Basil was recalled to the tour-team. But before a bemused Basil could join the team, Vorster exploded in Bloemfontein, calling the English team a team of “the anti-apartheid movement.”

Now the English couldn’t drop him and Vorster wouldn’t have him, and so the tour was cancelled. Bas felt sorry for his English team mates, and for himself, but most of all for his people back home. His integrity and proud dignity in the face of such rejection and betrayal stood out in stark contrast to the terrible racial bigotry in South Africa and the English sporting establishment’s tacit support. The West having hitherto turned a blind eye to South Africa’s excesses was now disgusted and embarrassed; it began to sever ties with South Africa. Within a year of refusing Basil, South Africa had become the pariah of the world, shunned and abhorred for its inhuman policies. If not for Basil D’Oliveira, the shy Indian boy from the Cape, who knows when, if ever, the world would’ve noticed, and who knows how much longer South Africa would’ve taken to become the great rainbow nation it is today.

So you might not have met, and you might not have known, but we all still owe old Bas for pushing the world in the right direction all those years ago. Nothing quite as dramatic as the story of the other Indian in South Africa who got thrown out of a train, but significant nevertheless… So do say a little prayer for him, for the world needs a Dolly, even if good old Dolly has no need for it anymore. God bless you, Bas!

A FORGOTTEN OLD MAN, HIS SANDAL AND HIS STORY

In the cold inky blue of a frosty Beijing night, the Red Theatre stands out like a bright red flame emitting warmth and light. On a night like this even without the pre-booked ticket in my pocket, The Red Theatre would’ve called out to me like the open arms of a long lost lover in city full of strangers. I hurried across the road, through the gates and up the cold wet steps of the theatre and entered a world draped in red and ochre.

The Red Theatre is famous for showcasing traditional Chinese performing arts like kung fu, but I would be lying if I said I had expected the theatre and the performance to be world class in terms of quality. To begin with, the theatre had this officious communist-sounding name, which by the way, was a huge improvement on the rather oxymoronish Chongwen Worker’s Cultural Palace Theatre; a name it went by before Mao’s (Zedong) China became Yao’s (Ming, the former iconic NBA star) China. And secondly, Chinese production values have always emphasized quantity over quality.

But having said that, I did expect the very highest standards of ‘performance kung fu’ even if the platform was going to be loud and kitschy. But boy, was I wrong. The auditorium was well appointed and the stage impressed with its scale but nothing had prepared me for the brilliance of ‘The Legend of Kung Fu’.

I sat mesmerized as I saw the sublime blend of music and martial arts weave together a magical tapestry that told the tale of a young boy at the Shaolin temple and how he found enlightenment through kung fu. Halfway through the show, my neighbor, a fellow Indian, shook his head and said “isn’t it sad that we have nothing like this in India. Our classical music and dance is all fine but nothing compares to the virile vigour of a martial tradition. Our national character would have been different if we had a proud martial culture rooted in our history like the Chinese..” I nodded in agreement but I was too distracted for a conversation. My whole being was funneled into the mystical world on stage - beams of light, blue yellow and red, dancing in circles around the stage, catching the actors, skilled martial artists all, in shades of light and shadow - as the story unraveled its seductive charms.

Suddenly a little boy appeared, not on stage, like I first thought, but like a vision in my head. That little boy danced with the lights and the music for a while and then the stage faded while palm trees appeared around a lake where the child jumped in and began to swim across it. Once on the other side, he pushed his long dark hair away from his eyes, removed his tunic and wrung the water out. It is then that I realized that the boy wasn’t Chinese but Indian.

A voice…! The child looked up. Someone was calling out to him. I followed his gaze and saw a bunch of soldiers from another time, carrying shields and javelins. I wondered if these were friends or foes, but then I saw the child smile and run towards them. Ah, friends! This boy seemed to be a prince of some sort and this was some ancient kingdom by the Malabar Coast. The stage had faded completely as I got immersed in this story in my head.

The boy grew up nursing a keen interest in the ways of war as well as the scriptures of his chosen faith – Buddhism. He was the son of a king and he had the best teachers in the land instructing him on both paths which seemed to converge in his heart as he pursued their truths. He found that the way of the warrior, one who dedicated his life to the pursuit of excellence in his chosen martial art and then forged his will in the furnace of war for truth and justice found the same sense of enlightenment as those who meditated on the teachings of the Buddha and the scriptures for years in seclusion, and often sooner.

The boy was named Bodhitara. And as his understanding of the truth grew, so did his resolve to share it with the world and help them find the same peace that he had found. As the third son of his father, he was not bound by the same responsibilities that chained his elder brothers to the throne and so he left his kingdom, Kanchipuram, in modern day Tamil Nadu and became a wandering monk who spent his days sharing the light with the world.

Bodhitara was now known as Bodhidharma and he travelled across the length of India and then found himself on a vessel that was sailing east and after battling storms and pirates it dropped anchor in a Malaysian harbor. Bodhitara did not stay here for long and moved north towards China. However, he did linger long enough to leave behind his martial teachings which metamorphosed into the Malaysian martial art of Silat.

Along the way, Bodhidharma met kings and philosophers, learning and sharing, teaching and training all he knew of the way of peace and the way of war. And then he reached that famous Buddhist monastery in the mountains called Shaolin. But Bodhidharma, now known as Damo in China, was disappointed. The monks in the monastery were in poor physical and mental condition and their weak bodies just couldn’t handle the rigours of sustained meditative practices and nor could they defend themselves against the bandits who often raided the temple.

Damo went into a cave and stared at a wall to meditate on the problem. And it is said he meditated for many years. If you go to Shaolin today, they will show you the cave where Damo meditated. At one point, he felt his eyelids go heavy with sleep and so he cut them off and flung them to the ground. Where his eyelids fell, so runs the Chinese legend, sprang up a little plant whose leaves, when brewed, helped the monks stay awake through their austerities. Today, they call it tea.

When Damo found his answers, he went to the monks and taught them techniques to strengthen their bodies against disease and dacoits. Some of those teachings were inscribed in an immortal classic, versions of which survive to this day – The Muscle/Tendon changing classic or Yijin Jing. And these teachings that Damo brought with him all the way from India’s southern tip were the pillars that held up the Saholin Temple through wars and famines and floods and fires and laid the foundation of Shaolin Kung fu and qigong.

“Rise son, and honour the teachings of Damo…”, said the old master on stage, and mention of Damo’s name brought me back to performers on stage. The master continued, “… and as you honour his path, you will find the way to enlightenment.”It’s a sad irony that ‘Damo’s way’ became the way for a land far away from his own, but in his homeland, the twin arts of Kalaripayattu and Marma Vidhya (the art of striking the vital points), in which he trained with such passion to become the warrior ascetic, have been languishing, forgotten and forlorn, like an old senile grandfather left to die in a corner of the family courtyard.

About 155 years after Damo was born, sometime in the sixth century A.D., a minister from the Chinese Emperor’s court was returning from his travels and chanced upon Damo on the Pamir range that separates China from Central Asia and asked the revered sage where he might be going, to which the sage replied he was headed home. Then the minister noticed that Damo was walking bare feet and was holding a sandal in his hand. When the minister asked him why, he replied “you’ll know when you get back to court.”

Once there, the minister told Emperor Wei about his meeting. The Emperor was shocked when he heard that for Damo had died three years ago. Damo had been buried behind the monastery in Shaolin but when they reached his grave it was empty except for one sandal.

If only Damo could have brought Kalaripayattu and Marma Vidya back from the dead the way he himself returned from his grave, perhaps my neighbour wouldn’t have been lamenting the absence of a martial tradition in India.

The curtains came down on the show and we stood up and gave the performers a standing ovation. But I left the theatre with a gaping wound in my heart, regretting the fact that we had squandered with apathy and neglect the very riches that have enriched our neighbours so…