I
spent over forty years on the cricket field. The game gave me greater happiness
than any other activity of my life. Through it, I made many friends, and some
of them have remained lifelong friends. Sadly, the friendships tended to grow
rarer as I progressed to the higher levels of the game, perhaps because each
man was increasingly concerned about looking out for himself. Competition does
breed selfishness and self-centredness, doesn't it?
There
were exceptions. In my book Third Man, I have mentioned my genuine
friends, friends who selflessly took great trouble over mentoring me and
nurturing me because they believed in my potential. They derived happiness from
my success and worried for me when I met obstacles, encouraged me to fight my
way against them.
In
cricket, as in life, new friendships are a remote possibility once you cross a
certain age. I have been lucky in that I have acquired friends after my
forties, into my sixties, even. Harimohan Paruvu, the former Hyderabad pace
bowler, has been one such. I met him first at the Chennai launch of his first book The Men Within: A
Cricketing Tale, a novel woven around young cricketers. In fact, I had
already read his novel before I met him, and been impressed with his seemingly
effortless story-telling ability.
Hari
is a an extremely tall, strapping man, probably in his fifties, plain speaking
to a fault, but gentle and courteous, honest and generous all at once. A rare
quality in him is his ability to accept people as they are--non-judgementally.
Though I haven't met him too many times in the few years that I have known him, I
have come to count him as one of my friends, and that is why I experienced
mixed feelings when I heard that he had written a book titled 50 NOT OUT:
Powerful Life Lessons from Cricket to Excel in our Lives. I have not been a
great believer in this genre of literature, and find many of the parallels
authors of such books draw between cricket and professional life quite
artificial and forced. I was wondering if Hari had fallen into a trap in attempting
such a venture. I still bought and read the book as a dutiful friend and
senior.
To
my pleasant surprise, I find 50 Not Out to be an exceptional book that uses
sport to illustrate management challenges and how to meet them. I am sure the
reason for the successful compilation of life lessons from on-field and
off-field cricket experiences, is that the author has been a cricketer, an
intelligent, resourceful one as well. And like other cricketers who have a
second string to their bow, Hari combines his engineering education, his work
experience in a bank, and the invaluable insights he gained rubbing shoulders
with cricketers greater than he, as well as his peers, to arrive at a
thoroughly useful road map for the journey that is life, no matter what your
profession.
Hari
and I recently interacted gainfully at two different book events, one of which
related to both my book and his. At Hyderabad, my wife--a journalist,
translator, musician, playwright and theatre director--and I had the pleasure
of joining Hari at the Department of Dance, University of Hyderabad, where we
engaged graduate students in meaningful conversation on art management, a
course Hari teaches there. To my delight, I found that I could open any page of
50 NOT OUT at random, and find a resonance to the lives of our audience. That
is when I realised that Hari Mohan Paruvu had produced a winner of a book. Well
bowled, Hari!
