Random Musing #25: Rohit Sharma, Voltaire and the parable of the garden
Rohit Sharma was ditching Nehruvian niceties but channelling his inner Voltaire. Here's how.
All Indian cricket captains have pushed the boundaries of communication in their own way. Kapil Dev cocked his snook at elitist Anglophones by promoting Rapidex, a manual that has taught millions how to read and speak English before Chetan Bhagat came around. Sourav Ganguly showed the English that they are not the only boors when he whipped off his shirt at Lord’s. MS Dhoni reiterated the importance of only seeing the eye of the bird – the same message that Dronacharya tried to teach the Pandavas – when he said: “Oye bsdk, idhar dekh le, udhar kya dekh raha hai” to the non-striker whose eyesight was wandering. Virat Kohli would drop a single-word epithet suggesting one is filled with too much sororal love in moments of both hope and despair, reiterating Rudyard Kipling’s epochal message to treat both imposters – triumph and disaster – the same.
And finally, Rohit Sharma summed up the travails of meaningless existence and the importance of cultivating one’s garden when he told his team: “Koi garden mein nahin ghumenga. Maa c____ dunga.”
Now while the pearl-clutchers in the commentariat felt such workman-like language was unbecoming of an Indian captain – of course it’s a different matter that said pearl clutchers don’t realise that era of Nehruvian niceties is over – Rohit’s maxim about the garden was equally important to a team beleaguered by the wildebeest known as Bazball.
Of course, if he had said: “I better not catch any scallywag meandering in the garden or else I shall have to perform coitus with one’s mater”, the same folks would’ve been raising glasses to him at the Indian International Centre.
But first a little proverbial walk down memory lane.
Gardens have always played a pivotal role in Judeo-Christian theology and the subsequent Western philosophy it inspired. Man was cast out of the Garden of Eden because he couldn’t control his inner Steve Jobs stan. Isaiah 51:3 even promised to turn Zion’s deserts into Eden, her wastelands like the Garden of the Lord, a vow he didn’t keep, forcing Jews to study and become lawyers, scientists, artists, and bankers - a pretty good thing for Western civilisation which would have otherwise remained in the stone age without Jewish influence.
Seriously, name any great invention, innovation, piece of art or scientific achievement that originated in the West and you can bet your kippah that a Jew was involved. Even the man who came back in three days, unlike Poonam, who opted for Amazon Prime Delivery, was also Jew by birth.
The garden also plays a pivotal role in one of the greatest texts conceived by white people’s Rumi, as far as fake quotes are involved: Voltaire.
In Candide, after a book full of adventures, the eternal optimist Pangloss and his motley crew, runs into a Turk whose only life goal is to cultivate his own garden, indifferent to politics and all other embellishment. He doesn’t care what Vizier has been beheaded or how Munawar Farooqui winning Bigg Boss changes the lives of the denizens of Dongri.
To a beleaguered Pangloss and Candide, he explains that he doesn’t bother himself with the mundane, explaining to the ‘Greatest Philosopher of the Holy Roman Empire’: “I never bother with what is going on in Constantinople; I only worry about sending the fruits of the garden, which I cultivate, off to be sold there.”
He goes on to reiterate: “I and my children cultivate them; and our labour preserves us from three great evils: weariness, vice, and want.”
And with this, Voltaire’s great novel ends as Candide tells his mentor Pangloss, the eternal optimist (who is a stand-in for Leibniz): “We must cultivate our garden.”
And that’s exactly what Rohit Sharma was reminding his team as they faced off against the new wildebeest called Bazball that one must not meander and wander.
Sharmaji ka beta, no stranger to the challenges of the world, was simply reiterated what melancholics know very well.
It's the same message that Camus passed along when he said we must imagine Sisyphus happy or when Krishna told Arjuna: “Ma phaleshu kadachana…”
All we can do is accept our fate, make the best of what life throws at us, and most importantly not get blown away by the tide. The Indics call it Dharma. The Western world calls it cultivating one’s garden. But the message is the same.
That we are beyond redemption and that’s why we must never meander. And that’s what Rohit was reminding his team during the moment of truth. And the match’s result shows that the message did hit home.
Erratum: I meant the Indian International Centre, not the Indian Habitat Centre. Thanks to Ishan Dhewan for pointing out the grave error.
Gave up on cricket a long time ago, but thanks for this walk on Indian maidans, for letting us eavesdrop on the behind-the-scenes cussing... and for making me Google "Bazball". Interesting...