MASTER STROKE

When I persuaded Wadekar Sir to let me open

SACHIN TENDULKAR  17.08.2018

It’s really shocking, very troubling to hear that Wadekar Sir is no more. Our relationship went back a long way. It was in 1992 when he joined the team as manager. We’d grown up hearing stories about the brand of cricket he brought into the Mumbai camp — the khadoos way of playing the game.

We first went to Zimbabwe and from there to South Africa with him, and during that trip, grew familiar with him. It took us time, around six months, to break the ice, but over a period of time, I got to know him really well.

The three of us —Vinod (Kambli), Wadekar Sir and I spent a lot of time together. Post practice, we would go to his room, or he would come to ours and chat a lot. With us, he was like a friend. We were really close to him. The age difference between us was never a factor. I could tell him anything and so could he.

On the morning of our ODI against New Zealand at Auckland in 1994, our opener Navjot Singh Sidhu, woke up with a stiff neck. By then, we (me and Wadekar) had built a good rapport, so I could walk up to him and tell him anything. I went to him and said: ‘Sir, give me one chance to open the innings. I know I can go out there and hit the bowlers. And if I fail, I’ll never come to you.’ I told him to discuss this with Azhar (Mohammad Azharuddin, the then India skipper), and since I was the vice-captain, the three of us could meet.

That’s where good coaches come in. They understand all these things. Deep within, he must’ve somewhere had that confidence that I could go out there and do it. It worked beautifully (I scored 82 off 49 balls), also because of the relationship we shared — we had trust and confidence in each other. For the first two years of my ODI career, I used to bat at No. 6, and then for another yearand-a-half, I batted at No. 4. But after that game, things changed. I could actually go out and control the game, rather than terms being set for me.

We had complete confidence in him. He brought the best out of us. In that period, we really stretched and focused hard and he played a huge role in that. He was at the forefront of putting together a formidable team in place — one that would be unbeatable at home. To play three spinners here was his brainchild. He was very shrewd. He knew how to stay a step ahead of the game. He had a great cricketing mind.

We kept bumping into each other after he quit as the India manager in 1996. I last met him during the launch of the Mumbai T20 league. Vinod (Kambli) and I went to his house to offer our condolences, and we’ll go today for the funeral too. (AS TOLD TO GAURAV GUPTA)

HEART TO HEART

Wadekar: The link between India’s two Little Masters

Ajit is gone, but Arre, kaay re, will remain with me

SUNIL GAVASKAR: 17.08.2018

Sunil, sorry, he is no more’. Those devastating words conveyed to me that ‘my captain’ Ajit Wadekar had passed away. Just a little while earlier, I was trying to help put him in the car to rush him to the hospital since the ambulance was going to take another 15 minutes to arrive and even then it looked like it was a hopeless battle.

Ajit Wadekar was my captain when I made my debut for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy and he was my skipper when I got my India cap. So for me he was always ‘captain’. That he was from Shivaji Park Gymkhana and I was from Dadar Union Sporting Club, its great rival, then made no difference as I was a fan first. Those days there was hardly a single weekend where you didn’t read about Wadekar getting a century. He was so prolific in local and Ranji Trophy cricket that it was a surprise to many that he made his India debut as late as 1966 against Garry Sobers’ West Indies team. Five years later, it was against Garry Sobers’ team that he led India for the first time and went on to win the series, beating West Indies for the first time. A couple of months after that he led India to another historic win when India beat England in England for the first time.

He was unkindly called a lucky captain by those who couldn’t stomach the fact that he had replaced the charismatic Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi as the skipper. The then Chairman of selectors, batting legend Vijay Merchant, was also pilloried by some for it was his casting vote that made Wadekar the new Indian captain then. Even after these twin wins and another in India a year later, neither Vijay Merchant nor Ajit Wadekar got the credit they deserved for bringing India those hat-trick of wins. Ajit retired from Test cricket suddenly when he was left out of the West Zone team for the Duleep Trophy by a committee led by another Indian great, Polly Umrigar and thereafter concentrated on his banking career and also cricket administration with the Mumbai Cricket Association.

He also was a successful manager/coach of the Indian team in the early ‘90s. When some of us sportspersons requested the Maharashtra Government for a plot of land to build an apartment block, it was Ajit who took the lead and there was Umrigar also in the society formed showing that he harboured no hard feelings towards his senior. Being the promoter, he got the top floor of the building when it was built and since I was on the floor immediately below him, he used to always joke, ‘I am the only one on top of Sunny’. In recent times, with my travel schedule, we hardly met but whenever we did, he would as usual come up with a joke in his easy drawl.

There’s hardly been a day when I haven’t mimicked his arre kaay re at least once and not just me but even Sachin Tendulkar told me that he too says the same at least once a day.

My captain is no more but he will always be with me when I say, arre kaay re. RIP, Captain.

PMG





Sunil Gavaskar (right) is introduced to Queen Elizabeth II by his captain Ajit Wadekar at Lord’s in the 1971 series



Sachin Tendulkar says Ajit Wadekar played a vital role in his progress

‘Atal was more than a colleague, he was my closest friend for 65 years’

Mohua.Chatterjee@timesgroup.com: TOI 17.08.2018

I will miss Vajpayee immensely…” This was the first reaction of BJP veteran L K Advani, who was in public life with the late former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee for nearly 65 years.

The 90-year-old former deputy PM was speechless when he heard the news of Vajpayee’s death around 5.30pm on Thursday. Advani had visited AIIMS where Vajpayee was admitted for nearly nine weeks on Thursday morning and sat in a waiting room for an hour, along with daughter Pratibha and aide Deepak Chopra.

He remained restless and refused to meet anyone after the visit, till their former colleague and ailing leader Jaswant Singh’s wife arrived to meet him. The two shared the grief of losing their ‘Atalji’.

The pall of gloom over the Prithviraj Road residence of Advani was palpable when the BJP veteran sat down to write his condolence message.

He wrote: “I am at a loss for words to express my deep grief and sadness today as we all mourn the passing away of one of India’s tallest statesmen, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. To me, Atalji was more than a senior colleague — in fact he was my closest friend for over 65 years. I cherish the memories of my long association with him, right from our days as pracharaks of RSS, to the inception of Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the struggle of the dark months during the Emergency leading to the formation of Janata Party and later the emergence of Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980... His captivating leadership qualities, mesmerising oratory, soaring patriotism and above all, his sterling humane qualities like compassion, humility and his remarkable ability to win over adversaries despite ideological differences have all had a profound effect on me in all my years in public life. I will miss Atalji immensely.”

Later, he visited Vajpayee’s residence. In the last few years, Advani used to be among the first callers here on December 25, Vajpayee’s birthday.

BY INVITATION

His weapon was the word, not the sword

MJ AKBAR  TOI 17.08.2018

The distance between Treasury benches and its “loyal” Opposition in Britain’s House of Commons is, famously, the length of two swords plus one inch. The inference is clear. Politicians might be at daggers drawn, but democracy cannot afford drawn swords.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee would have sniffed at such political architecture. His weapon was the word, not the sword. His wordplay had the flexibility of oratory and the principles of a humanist. His language was as mellifluous as his smile; even when the cut and thrust of debate demanded a touch of verbal stiletto, it was tempered by the goodwill of geniality rather than the bitterness of angst.

Some associates disliked his overt or covert generosity to opponents. He wasn’t bothered. He could be hurt when recipients of his generosity reciprocated with malice. But this did not much bother him either. He did what he did because he believed it was the right thing to do.

Anger was part of neither his personality nor his preference. If memory serves, he was angry in public just once, at a rally in Delhi in January 1977, after 19 months of draconian Emergency during which Mrs Indira Gandhi had imprisoned India and exiled India’s democratic values. India was still numb, and depressed. No one believed that Mrs Gandhi could be defeated in the impending general election. No one knew that India was smouldering beneath a fragile surface.

On that cold January evening, Vajpayee’s speech, heavy with sarcasm, sparkling with promise, and infused with faith in the Indian people, lit the fuse that led to a revolution.

He was angry not merely because he had been sent, in a brazen exercise of injustice, to jail; or because the courts had been impaled; or because the political process had been usurped by Congress. He was angry because democracy had been grievously wounded. He was a democrat because his heart was passionate about liberty; and his head said that India, with its ancient philosophy of pluralism, could only function as a democracy. Dynasties, in contrast, believed in supremacy and exclusion; it was no accident that Mrs Gandhi began to visibly nurture a dynasty only during this obnoxious Emergency. Vajpayee’s main concern was the future of India and Indians. He was a champion of democracy because he was a servant of the people. That is the logic of freedom.

Vajpayee was not weaned on silver spoons; he wrote his own destiny. His father was a school-teacher. He was born into an emerging middle class, the backbone of India. His virtues, inherited from civilisational values, became the foundation on which he could structure his formidable talents. He did not enter politics to become prime minister of India. Even independence seemed psychologically distant when, as a student in 1942, he joined Gandhi’s Quit India movement to, in the words of the Mahatma, “do or die”. When he became a member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in 1951, no contemporary believed it would one day lead a national government, albeit in a slightly altered avatar. Power, when it came, was a by-product of commitment.

Any conscientious prime minister wears a crown of thorns during the day and sleeps at night on a bed of nails. But above all, this responsibility tests two qualities: vision, on the strategic balance, and crisis management, on tactical scales. As prime minister, Vajpayee wrote an indelible chapter in India’s history with the detonation of one fusion and two fission bombs on 11 May 1998, and two additional fission devices two days later. Previous PMs had shied away from traversing the last mile of a national vision. Vajpayee’s cool, and silent, steps to this visionary horizon took the world’s breath away. For India, it was a moment of rebirth.

Vajpayee’s leadership was tested by Kargil. Pakistan’s onslaught, thinly veiled by familiar military deceit, had the advantage of surprise. Vajpayee’s resilience, patience and belief gave our armed forces the leadership they needed for victory.

There was much surprise, and even a hint of contradiction, when the leader who went to Lahore for peace, hosted Pervez Musharraf, the architect of Kargil, at the Agra summit. But Vajpayee, who dreamt of resolution, understood a critical fact: peace is possible only when security is achieved. Between a nuclear arsenal and Kargil he had proved to Pakistan the futility of terrorism and war. It was now up to Pakistan to abandon both and build amity between two sovereign nations. Alas, Pakistan never seems to be awake when history beckons.

As is well known, Vajpayee was also a brilliant poet. There have been many writers [and more re-writers] who have done well enough in politics; but the combination of poet and politician is rare. Uniquely, Vajpayee was equally honest to both poetry and politics. That is what lifted him from excellent Prime Minister to a hero of his generation.

The writer is MoS external affairs





POSTER BOYS: With MM Joshi & LK Advani

Retd justice Karnan refuses to vacate govt flat in Kolkata

Rohit Khanna TNN

Kolkata:17.08.2018

Retired justice C S Karnan has told the West Bengal housing department and the registrar general of the Calcutta high court he could not be evicted from his flat at Rosedale Complex in New Town till his order against eight Supreme Court judges were not executed. He said he wanted to continue at the Rosedale flat that served as his home and “make-shift court”.

Karnan was given the accommodation when he was transferred to the Calcutta high court.

The new development over the Rosedale Complex started when the housing department wrote to the judicial department secretary last month, mentioning that the retired judge had to vacate the government-maintained flat, which had to be given out to others. A few days later, the registrar general of the Calcutta HC sent a letter to Karnan. When contacted, Karnan said, “I have sent a reply to the housing department and the registrar general of the Calcutta HC. I have also sent copies to the International Court of Justice, Netherlands and the United Nations Security Council.”

Govt launches its website for disaster management

Chennai:17.08.2018

Against the backdrop of growing incidence of disaster, chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Thursday launched a web portal, www.tnsdma.gov.in, exclusively for disaster management. The government also signed a memorandum of understanding with Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC) to provide training and disaster risk management strategies for government staff involved in disaster management.

The website, a comprehensive one, provides a wide range of services, including active alerts, helplines for each district, rainfall info, risk governance, policy and plan, capacity building, vulnerability assessment, awareness and programmes. Emergency contact numbers of various agencies are hosted on the website. “It provides a platform to people affected by disaster to upload the photographs and messages and get their problems highlighted. Monitored by the state-level officers, the district administration concerned will be communicated immediately for action for which they should register. Volunteers can also register their names,” revenue administration, disaster management and mitigation commissioner K Satyagopal said. Nongovernment organizations and first responders can also register.

Links are provided for weather updates, regional forecast, Chennai weather update and heavy rainfall warning from meteorology department, earthquake bulletin and tsunami early warning from the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services. Along with Bangkok based ADPC, the state will provide a long-term training programme for government staff. Satyagopal said, “Final details are being worked out for programmes in Chennai and other districts. ADPC’s association is for a longer period to build capacity among staff.” TNN

TN REMEMBERS ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE

Brand Vajpayee was in high demand in TN in 90s

Jayaraj.Sivan@timesgroup.com

Chennai:17.08.2018

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was able to make inroads into the Dravidian heartland of Tamil Nadu with ease, first through an electoral tie-up with the AIADMK in 1998. Even as that alliance was snapping shortly a year after it was forged, Vajpayee pieced together an alternative with another Dravidian major, the DMK.

More than Vajpayee wanting to ally with the AIADMK and the DMK, it was J Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi who were keen on tying up with the BJP under Vajpayee, said M Kasinathan, political analyst. As the BJP was emerging on the national scene after kar seva and the Ayodhya marches, Jayalalithaa saw an opportunity to regain a foothold in the political power struggle. She felt a tie-up with the BJP would help gain importance on the national scene and also weaken a slew of cases filed by central agencies against her. The grand alliance that included the PMK and the MDMK stumped Karunanidhi.

There was a Tamil Nadu link to his government’s undoing too. The infamous Delhi tea party that pulled down his government was scripted by Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy, an MP from Tamil Nadu, and was played out by his ally Jayalalithaa and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi. After the truck ended, Jayalalithaa claimed it was she who introduced Vajpayee to the people of TN. The journey with the AIADMK was a roller-coaster ride for Vajpayee all through. Trouble began even before the government could be formed as Jayalalithaa delayed her party’s letter of support to his government, said political commentator R Rangaraj.

There was no looking back since then and the BJP made huge inroads in TN. People in Karunanidhi’s inner circle in the ‘90s say he felt he missed a chance to tie up with Vajpayee in 1998. He grabbed it a year later by extending support to salvage Vajpayee’s government. Karunanidhi’s larger game plan was to keep Jayalalithaa out of power, both in Tamil Nadu and at the Centre.

Karunanidhi’s nephew Murasoli Maran, who saw a chance of becoming a Union minister, played a key role in sealing the alliance. In the process, Karunanidhi even embraced his estranged colleague and MDMK leader Vaiko. Despite the Vajpayee government falling in 1999, the BJP-DMK alliance continued and formed the government at the Centre that year.

BJP’s dabbling with major alliance partners in Tamil Nadu ended with the 2004 Lok Sabha polls. Since then, both the DMK and the AIADMK have been hesitant about any electoral truck with the BJP.

People cutting across party lines who happened to interact and move closely with Vajpayee were swayed by his aura. Leaders like Vaiko, despite falling out with the BJP, held Vajpayee in high esteem.



GOLDEN ERA: A September 2003 photo of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee being received by DMK president M Karunanidhi at Apollo Hospital in Chennai, where he had gone to meet Murasoli Maran