A fifty and a duck: a dream and reality

By: Gowhar Nazir Shah Geelani

During my early childhood I had once unwittingly asked my father to explain to me the difference between a dream and reality. My courage to ask a question pleased my Dad. And the query impressed him.

Dad wanted to answer my query but my age at that time delayed the proceeding. However, he assured me to answer when I grew a little older and perhaps a little wiser too.

The time passed by. I almost forgot what I had asked my father. And that was because of my passionate involvement in cricket and studies. There were other questions to remember and take care of.

I had a strong passion for cricket, which I still nurture. But these days there is hardly any time left for me to play cricket. Otherwise I used to eat cricket, sleep cricket, drink cricket and play it too. Now, I find it really hard to steal time to play and watch the game. Other things keep me busy and going.

Only five years back, I remember, coming to home after playing an exciting final match which our team had won and I was feeling very hungry. With butterflies in my stomach, the first thing I wanted was, of course, food. Having exhausted myself to the hilt I could barely talk. But the win was responsible for the ‘feel good’ factor. My jubilation was touching the crescendo and I was feeling being on cloud nine. We had won the finals pretty decisively.

After taking some apples and bananas at home I started to feel relaxed. The relaxation was, however, short-lived. Suddenly I found myself in the tight spot when my father asked me about my individual performance in the match. He asked, “It is fine your team has won the tournament but what about your performance?” With a feeling of trepidation I replied that I scored a quick fire fifty (50 runs), belting the red cherry to all parts of the park with disdain, and also took three wickets at crucial stage of the game. With a rare smile on his face my father said, “My boy, well done!”

After this pat on my back and encouraging words for my performance from my father I was confused with myself. My confusion was the outcome of a problem I knew.

Fact of the matter was that I had actually scored a duck (nought) and was bowled on the very first delivery I had faced. Not only this, I hadn’t taken any wickets either. In cricketing terminology it was one of those bad days at the office. I was a key member of the team but on this day my performance was not of any significance. I was only part of the winning brigade.

“Oh! I lied to my father”, I said to myself. But there seemed to be no other alternative. The enthusiasm of the win died down soon. And after a yawning gap of days and weeks my father summoned me to his room, a rare occasion, and said, “My son, once during your childhood days you had asked me a question regarding the difference between a dream and reality. Today the day has come to reply your query.” Why today Dad, I asked advertently. It is the appropriate time, he replied. I turned pale and felt nervous. I had no idea whatsoever why this particular day was appropriate.

With a half smile on his face my father went on and said, “That you scored a run a ball fifty and took three wickets in the final match is a dream, and you were bowled on the very first ball you faced and didn’t take any wickets is a reality.”

Embarrassed, I felt bad about myself. But my father’s candor made me proud. And the very next day I came to know about the meeting my father had with my team skipper on the very day we had won the final. As a matter of fact, my father already had the knowledge about my performance in the match. Still he had complimented me for my “fake” performance.

I could utter only three words in favour of my Dad: “Thank you Dad”.

Dad’s candor taught me a lesson and the difference between words and deeds, saying and doing, and above all, a dream and reality.

Five years later, this dream-reality episode has struck me again. When I look at the daily press notes and statements of Kashmiri leaders who claim to represent aspirations of people of this hapless and restive region and there bundle of claims, I’m reminded of my performance in the cricket match.

Imaginary achievements of our leaders of all hues are quite in tune with my dream ‘fifty and three wickets’ and their actual performance on ground very similar to my ‘duck and no wicket’. The only difference, however, is that despite my poor performance my team had won the game but the result of the game our leaders are participating in seems regressive than their performance.


Gowhar Geelani is a Kashmiri journalist based in Bonn, Germany.

East Meets West

By: Gowhar Geelani

November, 2009

The German capital Berlin is abuzz with celebrations. It is the 20th anniversary of the fall of Berlin Wall. Exactly twenty years earlier, the entire world had witnessed this historic fall, and eleven months later in October, 1990, the re-unification of East and West Germany.

The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in the German capital. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are amongst other dignitaries who will attend events at Berlin's famous Brandenburg Gate, alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Such is the importance of the event that in her maiden speech in the US Congress recently, Ms Merkel - who grew up in East Germany - thanked America for her role in the fall of the Wall and the subsequent re-unification.

Many South Asians living in Germany at that time had also witnessed the fall. Some had watched it on television screens and others listened to the great news on radio sets.

Amjad Ali, a senior broadcaster, was one among them. Ali, originally from Lahore, Pakistan, recalls when in his apartment in the colourful city of Cologne, he saw the footage on television. "All I could utter was 'unbelievable!'" he says.

Ali had come to Germany in 1982 for studies. Before moving to Cologne he had been studying in West Berlin for many years.

Like many other foreign visitors, the Wall would attract him. Recalling the pictures, paintings, slogans and messages inscribed on the Wall, he says: "The slogans were mostly about the liberation movements of Africa, Latin America and Asia. Some paintings showed people from East crossing over to the West and vice-versa through an imaginary hole. Messages were mostly about the possible re-unification of East and West."

"The wall was a symbol of terror and fear. For me the pictures inscribed on the walls were unbelievable. I also remember seeing slogans about former Pakistani premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. I could touch the wall from the West side. I still remember many pictures, slogans and cartoons," he says. "Afterwards it was amazing to see many South Asians selling the pieces of the same Wall near the world famous Brandenburg Gate as souvenirs," he adds.

Modern-day Berlin bears few reminders of the concrete walls, barbed wire, observation posts and the 'death strip' which ran through its centre until 20 years ago.

Ali says that he has uttered the word 'unbelievable' only twice in his life so far. On the fall of Berlin Wall and September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre. "These were the events when people believed that the world will not be the same again." It really wasn't.

In West Berlin, Amjad Ali would often visit the iron curtain. "At some places I could see the soldiers of East and West in eye-ball to eye-ball contact. From the West side there was not much restriction, but on the other side there were many."

Ali says when he came to Germany the existence of East Germany and West Germany was a reality. Nobody would believe that this will change, but it did.

Arunava Chaudhuri, a German national of Indian origin, was 13 at the time of the fall and was studying in Kolkata, India. His parents broke the news to him on phone. "Even as a child I was politically very conscious. I made it a point to record the news of the fall of the Iron Curtain on my school note-book," recalls Chaudhuri.

Had the world really changed after the fall of Wall? Well, Germany had changed for sure.

"When I came back to Germany in 1990 there was a different mood here. A feeling that we are united and sort of unbeatable," says Chaudhuri. Now in his early 30's, Chaudhuri recalls the feeling amongst his young West German friends about East Germany before the fall. "East Germany: the evil brother. And then I hear the news about re-unification and oneness. It was a great feeling for my parents who originally came from West Bengal. Bengal, too, had suffered greatly because of the pain of the Partition in 1947. My parents fully understood what the separation and re-unification meant."

These days Chaudhuri works in Berlin. "You always see and witness history in Berlin. In a certain sense it is still divided." But, Chaudhuri has plans to celebrate the event with his friends Monday evening. "Yes, it will be celebrations all around!"

Despite re-unifications some scars remain intact.

Kishwar Mustafa, a Pakistani journalist working in Germany, says that though the physical wall and barrier don't exist anymore, the mental barrier remains very much intact. "Even after the re-unification many East Germans believe they're being discriminated against by West Germans. The mental barrier hasn't vanished," she says. "In West Berlin many believe they are economically on a higher pedestal and intellectually rich, while in East many say they are deliberately being left out," says Mustafa.

In an interview with Spiegel Online, Mr Lech Walesa, the man who led 'Solidarnosc' (the first non-communist trade union movement) says that the collapse of European Communism actually started in the Polish shipyards and that it was good that Mikhail Gorbachev was a 'weak politician'. Mr Walesa later on went to become the president of Poland. Former Russian president Gorbachev, and former Polish opposition leader and President Walesa, are also due to attend the celebrations in Berlin.

So this is the good news from Europe but the news from Asia is not so pleasant.

In 1989, when the world saw the end of European Communism, the end of the Cold War, the fall of the Iron Curtain, and barriers and borders vanishing, the Indian side of Kashmir witnessed an armed rebellion in the same year.

Twenty years hence, not much has changed. There are no celebrations in Kashmir! The line of control (LoC) dividing two parts of Kashmir remains there. Big promises were made to make it irrelevant. In April 2005, after a yawning gap of 58 years, the trans-Kashmir Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road was re-opened and the 'historic' bus service started to ensure that divided families meet; but the pace of peace process tested patience. Not much has changed.

Critics say that the tense relationship between India and Pakistan has rendered this bus service only a 'symbolic gesture'. Will the time ever come when like Berlin Wall, all curtains and barricades dividing a son from his mother, a brother from his sister, and a daughter from his father will vanish and become irrelevant to make this world more peaceful and prosperous?