This Diwali turned ‘Virat and Hardik’ – grandeur and heartfelt, as India beat Pakistan in a nail biting finishing on Sunday.
While King Virat established the fact why he reigns over the world of cricket today, Hardik Pandya displayed an extra-ordinary role of the partner at the other end. Together they delivered a stunning out of the ashes victory for not just the team but a nation which wanted nothing less as it bled blue.
Both the players displayed an incredible composed character despite the mounting pressure as every delivery was being bowled. In the end, it was the calm and composure that led to a frustrated Pakistan ending up with multiple mistakes.
For Virat Kohli, who had recently revealed his encounters with depression, Sunday’s innings will go down into history as his best given the circumstances, the pressure and expectations from the millions of fans across the globe.
For a country which has a billion cricket experts, some of whom have turned into troll brigade, the Melbourne match was a hard hitting tight slap sealing their traps, if not for good atleast for some time.
The men in blue very dutifully displayed the essence of teamwork and personified the phrase ‘rise to the occasion’. The country celebrated and joined in with tears of joy with Kohli.
However, the historic match also makes an independent mind ponder upon the possibilities of building bridges through soft power. Indian music, movies and food, have for long been the favourites of billions across the globe. The two countries have for decades witnessed bitter rivalries and nations lost precious innocent lives in cross-border terror.
One of the ways to break the boundaries is for India and Pakistan to play each other more often and not less. It’s one of the ways to remove the animosity off the field till atleast we aim to build bridges on it. Cricket will certainly not end cross-border terrorism. Nevertheless, it can for sure provide some hope of normalcy at the people to people level with our neighbours.
Definitely, given the present hostile conditions on both sides and for security reasons the Indian team cannot or rather should not travel to Pakistan. However, playing at neutral venues like UAE or Australia should not be a barrier.
The famous line from a drink’s tagline would sum up the quest, ‘yeh dil mange more’. We need to play each other more often and we would witness, that as people of two neighbouring hostile countries we would live with victories and defeats without seeing every match as a matter of life and death.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Diwali message to the nation while celebrating with the jawans this year has rightly articulated, “Peace cannot be achieved without strength.”
While there is no doubt that India’s prowess is cemented by the bravery of our jawans at the borders, it is the soft power that has had an imprint globally and the respect the countrymen have been showered with when one travels overseas.
For a country on the path of being a global leader, being confronted on two fronts by hostile neighbours, especially when one of them (Pakistan) is indebted economically and for military purposes to the other (China), the stakes to play with soft power multiply.
Herald carried an image on the front page on Monday, leaving a “powerful message” for all. A couple from India and Pakistan displayed two messages that read “Beti Pakistan ki, bahu Hindustan ki” and “Biwi Pakistani, phir bhi dil hai Hindustani”.
