On Heroes

Another Sunday afternoon, another visit to the bookstore, as i walked idly through the rows and rows of books, I saw something that made me gasp, it was Boris Becker's autobiography, something I had not know to exist. Literally grabbing the book from the shelf, I hurried my way to the check out counter since I knew that nothing else would attract my attention beyond this point. Even with my past experience with autobiographies have been rather bad (e.g., McEnroe’s Serious! Ugh!) I wasn't the least bit perturbed since I knew this one would be special. I've been a Becker fan since 1985 when he was a 17 year old kid making his way through to the finals and I was a 11 year old who was watching his first ever tennis tournament. All we had at the time was a five-year-old Solidaire, which wasn’t very clear. I remember what I thought when I saw Becker for the first time (this was during his semi final match against Anders Jarryd) it was that I couldn’t see his face, because the TV wasn't exactly very good and this guy was so fair that his face blended in with the background. All I could see was the t-shirt and the hands and they were moving mighty quickly around the court too. For a kid who had to endure a slow Kevin Curran vs. Jimmy Connors semi final match (please remember I was 11), this was a revelation. What was a passing curiosity started getting rather lively; it wasn't about deft touches but about raw power, which was more appealing. Plus this 17-year-old guy I could identify with was taking on the big guys in their own turf, fodder for a overactive 11 year old brain. He was jumping and diving around and get back up as if it were nothing. Even if the balls were clearly going wide, Becker would be lunging for it like his life depended on it. I had found a hero. I think that wimbledon final defined Becker's life and changed it beyond his or anyone's comprehension.

After that day, I made sure that I watched all his matches as I could, trying to imitate his serve, the way he walked etc. Year after year, one grand slam tournament after the other I would hope Becker would reach the semi finals (we had only one channel on TV and they would show a grand slam from the semi finals only), he rose to the occasion most of the time, I would sit tensed up, watching my hero play, grimace when he screams, laugh when he joked around, pray when he played and cried when he lost. I watched him change from a boy wonder to a mature tennis player, watched his animated laughing face turn into one filled with a touch of steel. Between all of this, there was another international personality who had a tremendous impact in my life, someone who was exactly the opposite of Becker, this was a little man they called Diego Armando Maradona. By 1986, the world cup fever was in full swing and I was swept away in that wave. I watched one country play against the other and I was fascinated at this team event. With players like Maradona, Socrates, Zico, Platini and Schumacher around soccer was eminently facinating, plus for some reason these names also rolled off my mouth so very well. It was a thrill to be able to recite the names of the players in the various teams in school; this ability was looked upon with awe and jealousy in an equal mix. Maradona was in his peak, he was a proud (little) peacock strutting around, immensely confident of his ability and toying with his opponents at will. He was unstoppable and always managed to carry around this image of a little man who was trying to survive against much stronger opponents, while in reality, his opponents were no matches to his wizardry. During Italia '90, the second world cup in which Maradona was the captain, each opposing team had two defenders marking Maradona, a rare tribute given to only the greatest of the greats. Though he was bogged down by this he nearly pulled off the improbable world cup victory by reaching the finals with a clearly less talented team, he was ably aided by the lightning speed of Claudio Cannegia and a young goalkeeper who's ability to block out penalty kicks at will was earned him near cult status, Sergio Goycocheya.

Becker and Maradona retired from the game in the mid to late nineties, it was then I realised that I wasn't a kid anymore. The 17-year-old fresh faced boy from Leimen was this bearded, tired looking Superstar struggling with his game and his personal life and the little man from Buenos Aires was a pale shadow himself, growing fat, his brain consumed by drugs. These were very defining moments for me. Childhood was over.

The lucky person that I am, I've had two other people I could look up to, my parents. Now, every kid holds his or her parents in awe but when we grow up our parents become more human and more fallible. Keeping this in consideration, for a 31-year-old man to say that he looks up to his parents and would never be able to be like them, would either mean that I still haven't grown up (which can be partially true) or it could mean that I have grown to admire them with a fresh adult perspective. Dad is a professor of Zoology and Mom the Principal of one of the largest colleges in South India. Both of them, like all good parents gave up a lot of their pleasures to ensure that I and my sister went got through our education without any problems but always taking care that their high standards at work were maintained. When my mother went through breast cancer treatment in late 2000 no one was really sure that she would ever be able to work again, just the sight of her lying in her bed with her energy totally zapped after chemotherapy was extremely saddening sight. But true to form, she was back in office in six months time and what more she managed the overnight journey to her college with ease, not bothering about living away from home on week days and returning back on the weekends. In fact she made it look easy and I have no doubt that she enjoyed the experience too. Despite the passing of years I still remember sitting with her outside the principal’s office of this highly rated school, in the mid 1980s to ensure that the school gave me an admission that it had earlier refused. She sat calm and collected, waiting patiently for days to meet the principal. I think it took us 4 days to finally meet the man and he having seen us wait for all those days was so taken in that he immediately offered admission. If I have to look for courage and determination, I don't really have to look very far.

During all of my mother’s illness and her absence due to work, managing a family, a house and three dogs were my dad’s first priority but he somehow found the time to head the committee that wrote the biology text books for school students in my state and ofcourse to do justice to his teaching commitments. To give you a perspective, his books are being read my more than a million students across the state; he never talks about it, not a word. When both of them got an opportunity to take voluntary retirement a few years ago, an option that would have been much more financially remunerative than to work the entire term, they chose to work, a decision I could not understand at that point. I realise now that the joy of teaching outweighed anything else for them, an act against which i now weigh all my decisions. Tomorrow, 31s of May 2005, they retire at the age of 59, after more than 35 years of service, slipping away into their private world unnoticed by anyone. Not all superstars retire to a standing ovation and international recognition, do they?

Our personal heroes have a large part in molding our lives. They give us great joy; they leave us with their own bit of magic and some of them are people we know and love and are living examples of what great lives are all about.