If former Indian captain has indeed fallen in the eyes of Mr Patel, it's not Gavaskar’s tragedy, but Mr...
HYDERABAD, INDIA: This is apropos to Aakar Patel’s article “Gavaskar’s shameful silence” (June 2). Mr Patel states in the initial part of his article that Sunil Gavaskar was his hero while he was growing up although the great Indian maestro clearly lost Mr Patel’s admiration as time passed. Gavaskar is my hero, too. Heroes lead, not follow, their fans. So, Mr Patel cannot really tell Gavaskar what he should be doing. If Mr Patel does not admire Gavaskar anymore, he should just forget about him instead of lamenting his supposed fall from grace. If the former Indian captain has indeed fallen in the eyes of Mr Patel, it is not Gavaskar’s tragedy, but Mr Patel’s alone. However, despite Mr Patel’s assertion that Gavaskar was once his hero, what I can glean from his article is that he never really was his hero in the true sense.
The fact is that Gavaskar enjoys a good following and is widely read as a columnist. When people write about him, it sells. Mr Patel, as a journalist and an editor, used his name to get better returns. Similarly, even though he brought more titles for Pakistan than the country’s cricketers, hardly anyone writes about the great Jahangir Khan as he does not sell. In a similar vein, I wonder how many articles has Mr Patel written about the great Indian athlete PT Usha?
C Nandkishore
Published in The Express Tribune, June 4th, 2013.
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