The Dependable Mr Dravid

As Rahul Dravid head coach of Indiarsquos senior menrsquos cricket team was raised up by his T20World Cup winning team where he pumped his fists and showed a range of emotions so much better than those lsquoIndiranagar ka gundarsquo advertisement while raising the coveted trophy my thoughts went back to those days when as a journalism student in Bangalore and even later we had the joy of experiencing the greatness of this silent selfless and dedicated warrior of Indian cricketBack in our days as aspiring journalists we scrapped hard to carve micromillimetres of column space in the cityrsquos leading broadsheets and magazines all the while harbouring dreams of becoming key members of the fourth estate Securing that allimportant byline felt like winning a gold medal in any discipline and if you nabbed a big name for your reported articles voila it automatically catapulted you into the big leagueDuring one such assignment the theme of our collegersquos weekly newspaper was Sport and each of us had to interview sportspeople of repute My tossup was between Dravid and the other Bangalore favouritemdashPrakash Padukone Dravid was on tour so I did my best to pursue the latter One afternoon to my utter disbelief the Padukone family was lunching at the same popular Udipi that we were at I mustered the courage to walk up to the man himself in the hope that he would give me time for an interview at his badminton academy The AllEngland champ obliged without the air of a superstar Tonguetied I muttered a half thankyou before speeding away to boast to my gang of the coupThe high was shortlived though when a fellow sportscrazy batchmate got time with Rahul Dravidrsquos mother a professor of architecture Pushpa and was invited to their home for her interview On her return she was bullied into sharing every tiny detail from that interaction One anecdote that stood out was that from a young age ever since Dravid wanted to be a cricketer he would sleep with a toy bat and ball in his bed It was front and centre of his thoughts and focus He had promised his parents that he would bring laurels to his country and do everything to improve his skills to reach that goal He did that with sheer class and understated style in a team filled with talented and big namesStudent life was all about lsquojugaadrsquo and so in exchange for a few free rides my twowheeler came handy to avoid Bangalorersquos infamous public transport woes a friend sneaked me in to hear him speak at his alma matermdashSt Josephrsquos Boysrsquo High School His humility was like second skin despite the accolades and the superstardom that comes with being an Indian cricketer He advised those impressionable tenth graders to stay grounded when fame came knocking irrespective of their profession and to fight till the end even if defeat looks more likely than victory A testimony to what he practised both on and off the field The thunderous applause was reassuring as those teenagers lapped every word of their famous senior I had become a fulltime fan girlYears later while at a reunion in Bangalore I happened to be in a bookstore where Dravid was the chief guest to release a book by a friend Unassuming and low profile to a fault he patiently obliged every fan who swarmed around him for an autograph He downplayed his own exploits on field each time a question was darted at his own achievements ldquoAsk my friend the questions pleaserdquo he gushed during the QampA session It is this lsquoDravidnessrsquo that is inspiring and will resonate with anybody keen to look for heroes in our midst the middleclass workhorses who make big things happen and yet remain unfazed by the din and bustleFlash forward to a few years We experienced another impactful presence that Dravid had on an audience this time as a speaker at the Jaipur Literature Festival The nowretired cricketer was onstage for a session on leadership in cricket with a few senior cricket writers and historians as copanelists His ease in explaining complex manmanagement mantras decoding lessons from the cricket field to the boardroom and sharp acumen about the subtleties that the game taught him made for a memorable hour such that I happily skipped another session in the adjacent venue given this one had rolled well over its stipulated time Again his patience and calm especially over tricky questions about his teammates and critical decisions from the crowd was applauseworthyWe can only imagine his impact on the current bunch that just won the World Cup As he signs off in style his rare display of emotion underlines how much the win meant to him after years of toil resilience and discipline as a steadfast servant of the game Itrsquos these attributes that he must have nurtured even in his sleep with that toy cricket bat and ball for company Go well Dravid Next callingmdashthe senior womenrsquos team cricket coach perhapsmiddayrsquos Features Editor Fiona Fernandez relishes the cityrsquos sights sounds smells and stoneswherever the ink and the inclination takes herShe tweets bombayana Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycom