By Manish Chand, IANS,
New Delhi : The lengthening shadows of the Mumbai terror attacks vanished for a while as well-heeled Indians and Pakistanis talked cricket, Jinnah and nostalgia, barely three days before their foreign ministers meet in New York in a bid to thaw the deepening freeze in bilateral ties.
The occasion for this cross-border cricket camaraderie at a luxury hotel Thursday night was the launch of a book celebrating the game that is known to trigger mass madness, specially when the two teams play against each other.
Co-authored by India’s Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor and Pakistan’s Shaharyar Khan, a former foreign secretary and former chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, “Shadows Across the Playing Field” chronicles cricketing encounters between the two countries over the last six decades.
In the audience were some Indian cricketing legends like ‘Tiger’ Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi and Bishen Singh Bedi besides a score of Pakistanis, who had come with Khan in a gesture that signalled the continuing flow of popular contacts despite the tensions following the Mumbai attacks.
For Tharoor, cricket proved to be a welcome reprieve from all the publicity his tweets have generated.
“Not only will our two countries be playing cricket against each other, but will also enjoy good, positive and peaceful relations for long time to come,” said Tharoor, who calls himself a “passionate outsider” to the game he has loved since his childhood.
Recalling the cancellation of the planned tour of Pakistan’s cricket team to India in January following the Mumbai attacks that occurred at a time of “arguably the best period in India-Pakistan relations”, Tharoor said after 26/11 “the note of optimism gave way to sadness”.
All this cricket talk comes days before India’s External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna meets his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi in New York Sunday for some straight talk on actions taken by his country against the perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage.
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Conjuring up the galvanic impact of cricket on the mass psyche of Indians and Pakistanis, Khan said cricket “cuts very deep into the minds and hearts… But it has also the potential to destroy relations”.
Describing India-Pakistan ties as an “undulating relationship” marked by highs and lows, Khan hoped Pakistan and India would use cricket as “a bridge of peace”.
Some were sceptical of the so-called cricket diplomacy.
“There are no goodwill or ill-will matches. It’s a contest between two teams,” Pataudi said, as his film star wife Sharmila Tagore smiled in the audience.
The irresistible Bedi, fondly called ‘King of Spin’, however, stole the show with his earthy jokes and his memorable attempt to make the grim General Zia-ul-Haq laugh.
“They had not seen Zia laughing like this,” he recalled when he cracked a smart Sardarji joke during one of his meetings with the formidable Pakistani ruler.
Journalist M.J. Akbar, who played the gentle inquisitor, could not help bringing Jinnah into the game. “Only Jinnah and cricket can unite Pakistan,” he quipped.
Khan was not amused, but tried to play it down, saying Jinnah’s secular message – “go to your temples, go to your mosques” – was as relevant as ever. Tharoor was quick to retort: “Rest assured, at least this part of Jinnah’s message is followed in India.”