In body, mind, spirit

Sport is life-affirming, an antidote to sadness and longing and depression. It has saved millions, including famous men such as Mike Tyson, and it has saved anonymous men such as Akhilesh Pal of Nagpur, a slum-dweller who was hurtling towards a violent and early death before being rescued by an angel. The angel was disguised as a diffident old college sports instructor, Vijay Barse, who gave Akhilesh money from his own pocket to do a job — just go out and play football with his friends. Tyson’s coach Cus D’Amato saved him and straightened his life; Akhilesh’s instructor Barse manoeuvred the then 20-year-old away from drugs and gang-fights towards a life of respectability.

Sport saved Qudsia Khalili, an Afghan woman judoka, who has found a sanctuary and support in Oslo. Also in Oslo is Farhad Hazrati, the man who coached the Afghan women’s team before the Taliban came, with their puritanical edicts and their extreme and, in their view, the only correct interpretation of scripture.

As Qudsia trains with Norwegian women judokas, Hazrati has his phone directed at her and her sparring partners. He’s been forced to give up Afghanistan, but he’s not given up on his wards back home —- Qudsia’s training sessions are live-streamed to young women judokas in Afghanistan. Most of Qudsia’s former national teammates have given up the dream, but some continue to resist — not publicly, for that would be suicidal, but through secret defiance and training regimen. Hidden deep in houses behind high walls, safe from the joy-destroying intent and gaze of the Taliban, these women train through WhatsApp videos from Oslo, defying the draconian laws that were enforced after the Taliban took power in August 2021.

Taking the path of least resistance, and simply giving up, could be easier, but keeping the dream alive, and continuing to hope, is life-affirming and the very essence of being human.

Tyson, a poor black kid, had no education and no prospects and no self-esteem, and couldn’t look people in the eye while talking with them — ‘ain’t got no home, no shoes, no money, no class, no friends, no schooling’, as Nina Simone sang about being black, soon after Tyson was born — but he’d got life, which was also the one great solace for Nina in ‘I Got Life’.

Qudsia and Hazrati have got life, too, and they’re trying to make the best of their lives in a country that is free from the threat of pre-modern ideas based on scripture, and where women can pursue their dreams without the fear of the enforcers —male, primarily — of scriptural edicts.

“If you will never be a champion, that is OK,” Hazrati, the coach who was among the men who swarmed the Kabul airport in August 2021, told a news outlet, adding: “The main thing is that you are better than yesterday.”

Are we better than yesterday? That’s a question sportspersons ask themselves everyday — and that’s a question most non-sportspersons, office-goers, sedentary workers stop asking themselves soon after settling into the comforting rut of routine. But that’s an important question that everyone must ask themselves at least occasionally — putting oneself through such inquisition everyday would be too much for most mortals.

Sport retards the ageing of body and mind. One by one, the ageing process steals from human beings — they don’t hear well, they don’t see things clearly, they get aches and sorrows, and pleasures and friends die.

Sportspersons see the death of their careers long before their lives end. What is their response? Most fight very, very hard. Sourav Ganguly is now primarily known as a smart cricket administrator and seller of agarbattis and promoter of online betting platforms, but when he was facing an existential crisis as a cricketer, he worked hard like a man possessed, some 17 years ago, and made a comeback into the Indian team, again became a scorer of big runs for India and finally retired on his own terms in 2008. Saina Nehwal, who hit her career peak at age 22, when she won a medal at the 2012 London Olympics, was soon eclipsed by a super-talented teenager, PV Sindhu. Sindhu won several medals at the World Championships, topping them with a silver at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, and Saina was hobbled by injuries and was visibly slower on court. Then, in 2018, we saw a new Saina: at 28, she had reinvented herself — several kilos lighter, quicker and more agile, more able to stretch forward and bend backwards to lift the shuttle. At the 2018 Commonwealth Games, the iron-willed Saina beat Sindhu in the final — an incredible result, considering everything.

There are some very obvious benefits of getting into a sport. Regular physical activity helps maintain muscle mass and bone density, improves joint flexibility, enhances the immune system. There are less obvious benefits, too. Sport can lead to the growth of new neurons in the brain, improving cognitive abilities like memory and problem-solving. It has been demonstrated to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression by releasing endorphins, or “feel-good” hormones.

The corruption of human tissue, the failing of the mind, the flickering and fading of the light — this is inevitable. Sport can help us deal with the inevitable — we always knew that even Roger Federer’s magic must end, and it has ended.