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If I asked you to imagine a cannibal, what picture do you get in your mind?
Is it something like the image in the blog?
I once learnt that cannibalism was practiced by several tribes across various parts of the world as part of mourning at a funeral. The flesh these particular tribes ate was of someone who had died. More over, they didn't cook it like some exotic dish, they actually burnt it till it was charred. The point was that the enormity of death meant that such a symbolic and rather drastic measure was required to provide meaning to the whole phenomenon. This obviously appears quite drastic and unpleasant. But take a moment, if you please, and you will realise that it also underscores something else. It is important to truly grieve something as enormous as the death of a loved one.
Similarly, it is important to grieve the loss of the things you love. Because doing so allows you to deal with those feelings and be able to learn something from the process.
A few days ago, I was writing an earlier version of this blog. I was writing it the day after the fourth one-day international (ODI) between England and Pakistan. Those of you following the series would understand that it was a particularly emotional time.
My plea at the time was that amidst all the controversy, we were forgetting the quality of the cricket being played. I never finished that post, and then the series was over, and other things came up, both in my life and the national conscience.
I read a tongue-in-cheek comment on Twitter, where a friend suggested that the rabid apologists for Mohammad Amir should move on. The remark stung, which felt oddly surprising.
After all, ever since the scandal broke, I had tried to act rational and honest. I had even written about needing to explore our own selves. So I believed I HAD moved on. After all, I had read what all the experts had to say, and they agreed that life bans were the only way to prevent people from sullying the sport again. For each Mohammad Amir who was spared, 10 others might fall for the same trap without the necessary deterrents in place. What would become of cricket?
But then I saw something else, something which made me feel the grief I felt but had tried to forget. Something which allowed me to make sense of my emotions, something which made me realise that I had only been considering this problem in a 'rational' way. And while that might work for lawyers and administrators, being rational is often the worst way of approaching the things you love.
And as far as I am concerned, I don't love the game for Harsha Bhogle's commentary, or Ian Chappell's analysis. I love the game for the sheer joy it brings. So, put aside rationality for a moment, and listen to this:
This man says everything I wanted to. Instead of punishing individuals for ever, let us try and rehabilitate them. Instead of treating cricket and its loss as some matter of pure legalese, let’s try and think about what we lose.
*Image taken from: http://www.timtim.com/public/images/drawings/large/Pizza_Cannibal.gif
The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.
