DO I STILL THINK I AM THE 'GREATEST'?
“Never
hate your enemies… It affects your judgment.”
When
I was a little boy in my village, Cassius Clay – who later became the famous
Muhammad Ali – ruled the boxing world. “I am the Greatest”. Yes, this was how
he loved to thump his champion-chest. He was my dad’s favorite… My dad, you
know, was a young-and-dashing man, too, at that time!
Some fifteen
years later, when I migrated to Mumbai, I was a young-and-dashing man, now. My
dad wasn’t… Ali was a spent force, by now… Moreover, the years of head and
chest punches – and the ranting and swearing - had taken a big time toll on
him. He suffered from Parkinson’s and
found it difficult to speak clearly… he walked like a little baby… and,
certainly, he no longer spoke like a World Heavy-weight champ of the boxing
ring… We never heard him say – ‘I am the Greatest’
In fact, what
we began to hear from Muhammad Ali was this:
“Ali is not
the Greatest… Allah is!”
Yesterday,
someone had shared the video of Billy Graham’s (Once a dynamic electrifying Christian
evangelist) 95th birthday celebration. An august audience had assembled
to shower its love and wishes on the mighty preacher, who, for decades, by his charismatic
power had touched millions of lives world over… But, when I saw the images last
afternoon, where, this darling of Jesus confined to his wheel-chair, speaking
with a slur, unable to move his legs and hands … eyes looking resigned… yes,
when I saw this man, I could realize why he kept telling the masses to repent,
let go, surrender, forgive, love, live and laugh all through the years when he preached
God’s message. I realized how age and death would not spare anyone… how beauty
and youth, wealth and health, even every worldly relationship, had all come to
us with an ‘expiry date’ written on them!
I see the
videos in which how Donald Trump looked once… and how he looks now…
I see the
images of Amitabh Bachchan, Dilip Kumar, Madhubala, Bal Thackeray, Atal Bihari
Vajpayee, Dhirubhai Ambani…
I see he images
of Vijay Mallya and Subrata Roy…
I see the
images of Vito Corleone, Haji
Mastan, Dawood Ibrahim and Chota Rajan…
I see my own
images… How I looked and sounded when I was in my twenties and thirties… and,
how I look and sound now… Importantly, how I would look and sound some twenty
years or so from now… Yes, if I am lucky to live that long!
“None of us
has come into this world consuming nectar,” this is what one of my friends
keeps reminding whenever he hears any of us using a language of arrogance and
vengeance. “Our tongue may not be able to utter a word and our feet may not be able
to take even a baby step, mind you.”
Do you still
think you are the ‘Greatest’? Do you still thirst for you enemy’s blood?
God save you!
GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic.: Khushboo Gulrajani
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