On November 26, 2008, the top floor of Mumbai’s Taj Mahal was on fire. By March 2011, Mumbai was rejoicing; Taj Mahal hotel filled to capacity as India beat Sri Lanka after having defeated Pakistan in a cricketing semi-final.
Let’s back-back to November 2008 when terror struck Mumbai and its Taj Mahal hotel. Matthias Williams writing out of New Delhi on behalf of Reuters reported on December 13, 2008. “Fire, water, shooting and grenade blasts during the 60-hour siege damaged the hotel, which was crowded with fine art, sculptures, chandeliers, photographs, and visitors' books signed by kings, rock stars, business barons and heads of state” (http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE4BC18Z20081213).
India’s January cricket tour to Pakistan was in doubt, even in early December. Cricket was being drawn into terrorism -- the England team was to stay at the Taj in Mumbai. And just when this was sufficient for my archives, Tuesday March 3, 2009 saw settling of another score. In Lahore, Pakistan, at least a dozen men ambushed Sri Lanka's cricket team with rifles, grenades and rocket launchers.
The Associated Press story was written by Rizwan Ali with joint contributions from Krishan Francis and Ravi Nessman in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Zarar Khan and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad, and Babar Dogar in Lahore. They wrote, “Seven players, an umpire and a coach were wounded, none with life-threatening injuries, but six policemen and a driver died.”
Seven players and an umpire wounded in a West Indian city would hurt, and while such sentiments could not be transported by paper in Associated Press, not even when appropriate words were carefully selected, the death of six policemen and a driver ran deep into community and communion among friends, loved-ones, wives, Mothers and Fathers anywhere in the sporting world and Third World yards. “The attackers struck as a convoy carrying the squad and match officials reached a traffic circle 300 yards (meters) from the main sports stadium in the eastern city of Lahore, triggering a 15-minute gun-battle with police guarding the vehicles.” Police were guarding the vehicles? I guess, considering what had happened in Mumbai in November.
Players might’ve been gathering up thoughts as they approached their favorite site and play space. They would soon be out of traffic, in an area surrounded and presumably protected. The exogenous shock was perfect. “The assault, just ahead of a match, was one of the worst terrorist attacks on a sports team since Palestinian militants killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.” Wow, look how far Krishan Francis et al went to find traces, memories of this one, one fitting clearly into the terror narrative gripping globalism. “By attacking South Asia's most popular sport, the gunmen guaranteed themselves tremendous international attention while demonstrating Pakistan's struggle to provide its 170 million people with basic security as it battles a raging Islamist militancy.”
Pakistan did not expect an attack on a Sri Lankan or any cricket team. There was an unspoken silence touching cricket’s neutrality – it was the place where we argued and agreed to agree. This was South Asia’s most popular sport. It was the same in the West Indies, tearing us apart or bringing us together, causing us to smile to remember, to historicize, to use battle metaphors but never meaning guns, grenades, knives, bazookas etcetera.
“The bus driver, Mohammad Khalil, accelerated as bullets ripped into the vehicle and explosions rocked the air, steering the team to the safety of the stadium.” In that fifteen-minute battle can you think of the number of bullets fired? “The players — some of them wounded — ducked down and shouted ‘Go! Go!’ as he drove through the ambush.”
City Police Chief Haji Habibur Rehman said the attackers melted into the city hustle and buzz abandoning their “machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and plastic explosives, backpacks stuffed with dried fruit, mineral water and walkie-talkies” (http://www.myfoxla.com/dpp/news/dpg_Gunmen_Attack_Sri_Lankan_Cricket_Team2223058)
India and Pakistan were cricket semi-finalists in the ICC World Cup 2011. It was a match drawing Prime Ministers and who’s who in corporate affairs in both countries to witness a riveting game that India won by 29 runs. India scored 260/9 off their 50 overs and Pakistan 231 all out.
Thing is, initially I wanted Pakistan to win in the hope that they would play Sri Lanka and through some cathartic interplay, settle that bad portion of blood spilled on March 3, 2009 when the Sri Lanka team was ambushed in Pakistan. But Pakistan’s team fielded poorly – dropping Sachin Tendulkar five times. India beat a team that was home to the group which attacked a team likely to beat India. India was then to play a team which was ambushed by men from Pakistan, men from a land who also attacked Mumbai’s Taj.
I mused – if India beat Sri Lanka in Mumbai on Saturday they would surely redeem Mumbai’s legacy as a cricketing community over and above memories of Taj Mahal’s 2008 fires. If Sri Lanka won, they would be doubly prized – winning India in Mumbai and, beating the team that beat Pakistan whose so-called terrorists attacked their team in 2009. I wasn’t alone. Sri Lanka’s President wanted his country team to win the World Cup “as a tribute to spin-wizard Muttiah Muralitharan who retired from international cricket after the event” (http://www.icccricketworldcuplive.com/CricketNewsUpdates/mumbai-city-fully-secured-ahead-of-the-cwc-11-finals).
I thought too, that if India won, we in Dominica would have the opportunity to see India’s precious ones and of course, the real West Indies, since the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) would not send spaghetti cricketers to Dominica to play against the best team in the world. If Sri Lanka won, we would see another classic team through whom Dominican Shane Shillingford found his center until the ICC spotted a tendency to what one Australian called chucking in his actions. Dominican broadcasters would possibly, have an opportunity to ask the experienced Sri Lankan Sangakkara what he experienced before the second test this year, when he said, “Shillingford is an interesting bowler -- the lines he bowls and the little bit of variation that he has in pace. He is a bowler who can probably change direction at the very last minute the way he bowls. We had a good chat about him. We got a few plans in a few different areas to try and defend and then attack him as well” (http://www.windiescricket.com/node/1208).
Sri Lanka 274/6 in 50 overs. Mahela jayawardene 103 not out. India 275/5. Mumbai roared, Sri Lanka dignified to be the team to challenge and be challenged by India. What a day. Indians the world over lifted their heads. Cricket.
You should understand how Dominica feels, how Ossie Lewis, Reginald St Havis Shillingford, Irvin Shillingford, Darwin Telemacque, Chaucer Doctrove, Lockhart Sebastian, Leon Sebastian, Ted Dailey, Pearl Gregoire, Billy Doctrove, Tom Lafond, Emmanuel Nanthan, Kadem Hodge and Dr. Donald Peters feel. The list runs into hundreds and thousands who, in quiet excitement wait to see the world’s greatest and their own West Indies team in transition.
Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has already noted tremendous advantages over and beyond the security imperative, and of course, magnificent skills to be demonstrated by Tendulkar, Doni and Haberjan Singh among others. “O yes. People are hearing of Dominica now and going on the map and trying to locate Dominica and certainly, it will have a positive impact on the economy. This is promotion that you’ll normally pay tens of millions of dollars for. I mean when you have close to a billion people, if not a billion people in India alone watching cricket – that, we are not paying for. There is not one dollar we’re taking from the Treasury to pay to the broadcasters to show Dominica …. And we have no doubt that all of us will rally behind the West Indies and of course, Dominica for hosting ….”
Among us – at the Windsor Park Stadium and hotels -- will be those searching within, who’ve cultured an inner energy feeding their bodies, hearts, minds and souls. These are sportsmen who win because most if not all of them have hoaned a meditation tradition, not after a religious and ritualized agenda, but truly tapping into what is within us all whether Christian or Muslim, Jew or Hindu. They draw from within in support of their muscle and thought. Their breath is not simply there to be released on the point of death, but is the vehicle that transports their mantras and sutras, that bowls at their chakras, their seven energy centers. These too, are in us West Indians, but we’ve not been socialized and cultured to tap into them; save maybe for the Rastafarians. The last record of Rastafarians and chakras that I recall, can be found in Dennis Forsythe’s Rastafari: For The Healing Of The Nations.
Finally, let us, in our celebration of India, remember the exceptionally strong resistance exerted by Sri Lanka, India’s tear! They should really hug – these two nations which suffered loss in November 2008 and March 2009. Pakistan’s population watched and enjoyed, having been that close. Let us not forget that there too, are women, children and people with hearts, minds and souls, not just terrorists.
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