Column

Writer George Orwell used to detest memoirs. “They are generally written by people who have either entirely lost their memories, or have never done anything worth remembering,” he wrote once. I don’t necessarily share Orwell’s cynicism, though I can appreciate where he is coming from.

If the autobiography is just a limp attempt to whitewash a volatile life or a desperate attempt to liven up a boring one, it becomes pointless. There are too many people who erroneously believe their lives are interesting which means there are far too many autobiographies floating around. But that is a problem of the system, not of the autobiography.

Frankly, where would we be without them? They can be wholly entertaining, depressing, provocative: but if written fearlessly, offer great insight not just into a particular subject’s life, but also his times. Such books serve as a great frame of reference for studying a certain period in history.

To mention some highly readable stuff off-the-cuff, I would say go and hunt for David Niven’s The Moon’s A Balloon and Bring On The Empty Horses to offer a wonderful perspective into Hollywood in the days when studios enjoyed hegemony. Bertrand Russell’s many autobiographical books provide an acute understanding into the mind of an agnostic and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s My Experiments with Truth reveal the making of a Mahatma. Sport, of course lends itself to autobiographies because so much action is packed into such a short time, and the ebb and flow of events and life is crazily topsy-turvy.

In cricket, where I am leading to, there is Sir Donald Bradman’s Farewell To Cricket, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi’ Tiger’s Tale, Sunil Gavaskar’s Sunny Days, Ajit Wadekar’s My Cricketing Years, to name a few, which become mandatory reads, especially in the Indian context.

So, to juxtapose Orwell’s caustic observation and the issue on hand, which is Adam Gilchrist’s autobiography and the stink it has raised because of what he has allegedly written about Sachin Tendulkar. Now, Gilchrist is not somebody who has done nothing worth remembering nor — as the gist of the book suggests — has he entirely lost his memory. He is one of the greatest players to have stepped on to a cricket field. That’s why my admiration for Gilchrist has whittled down over the past couple of days, and not because of what he has purportedly written about Tendulkar, but because of his puerile attempt to sanitise this subsequently.

It is all too easy to now blame the media for ‘sensationalising’ and taking ‘out of context’ what he may have actually meant. In that case, Gilchrist should have found a better ‘ghost’ to write his book — who understood clearly what he didn’t mean even when he said some things to write his book — or chosen a more altruistic publisher who would not want to ‘cash’ in on controversy.

Frankly, his explanations, as they appeared in a bylined piece in a national daily, appear lame and lack credibility. Rather than retract, these in fact reiterate what the extracts used by newspapers in Australia suggest. The controversial 2008 series has far more significance for India-Australia cricket than for a key former player to just gloss over the events. I would have expected Gilchrist to provide a genuinely factual and insightful recount of the events, rather than one based on mere perceptions, followed by a sloppy apology.

I hold no brief for Tendulkar and Harbhajan, but to deploy the Socratic method, is it worth Gilchrist’s consideration that he may have heard wrong? Perhaps Tendulkar did not hear Harbhajan clearly, but went by his colleagues’ word on the incident. Would Gilchrist have done otherwise if say, Ponting, Hayden or McGrath was involved?

For that matter, to say that the Australian way of cricket is to play hard on the field and have a drink with a rival at the end of the day suggests sportsmanship is being simplistic. Let’s turn this around. What if a player has a drink with an Aussie cricketer one evening, only to find himself being abused and sledged the next day? Should he wait to have a drink with the player that evening or mind his own business?

No Gilly, it’s not about cultural differences but good behaviour.
Email: ayaz@dnaindia.net