Dear Editor,
I can’t believe that it is actually happening. In a world and time fragmented by the troubling and wearying there is the incredibly enthralling. In losing on a Sunday, the New Zealand cricket team ends up winning more glory for an eternity, through which these men, this team, and their exploits will be remembered with awe, in nostalgia, for the breathtaking indomitability of effort and spirit. And somehow from somewhere in all of that, there is that indefinable, timeless grace that gleams. I salute the fallen, who never did, and who are already risen to the lore of legends in their own time and by their own hand.
In Guyana, where life is politics, and politics is life itself, it is soul-satisfying to linger and savour the overlapping moments of when men can rise above themselves and circumstances, as was etched on the field at Lord’s on one afternoon in July that will be spoken of whenever the annals, not of sport, but of human endeavour are remembered and cherished. Unlike Guyana and things Guyanese, there was a pristine cleanliness, a nobleness that mesmerized. From the sift and soot of black ashes the men in black made us all behold a pure, white lightning that numbs and then floors. Oh, but if things Guyana were so. Where the notes of unsung heroes will echo and re-echo with the pealing bugle blasts that are heard only by some, sensed by fewer others, and embraced and lived by the fewest that may be so blessed. Once upon a moment, defeat was transformed into the sacred, and there is glory in losing. Guyana could learn. Losing is not an end, the end; but the means towards the rebuilding of a new beginning. Except that the only thing new on this far latitude from the Tasman Sea, is the unchanging eccentricity of an ancient antiquity.
In the British Isles, winning comes with leaden weightiness; overshadowed by the long silhouettes of the unbowed and the now glitteringly heralded for all ages when men gather to speak of such things, and reflect on such immortals from way down below. There are the sparks in balmy Britannica; but where there ought to be sublime streaks of lightning, there are only streaks -subdued, still and separate, and sometimes neither so pulsating nor soothing. What price victory?
Because in this hour of grand triumph, there has to be sharing of the many sumptuous accolades with the unvanquished, who have won the hearts of the world, in the mystery of one finite moment of losing. This is the tie that fetters sentiments and binds hearts in a now unbreakable ribbon that would forever spotlight the black, as opposed to that pristine blue. For this superb English team will only be whispered about, and remembered over the musings that, without fail, will be about the strivers and battlers, who just would not go down; who keep coming for more, by delivering more. There is that now indistinguishable twinning of victor and valiant.
In perhaps the most cruel irony of all, this champion of an English team, having waited for 4 years (by some counts forty interminable ones), will be talked about, and recalled in undeserving if not unfair afterthought, only when and against that of their grand Kiwi adversaries enshrined and immortalized in the greatness of what men can do, and how man must be in the most demanding crucibles of time. It is that occasion that compels self-sacrifice, harnesses togetherness, and leads from the gloom of nowhere and nothing to the first flush of somewhere else, and everything different. It is of men believing in the possibilities, without losing a single shred of their humanity, their idealism, or their dignity.
What, if anything, did I gather from that memorable Sunday and its now unforgettable aftermath? Is there any more wisdom? Any less jadedness? If there is something, it is that there is still a certain kind of man, a certain way of life, rare and extraordinary truths, which when adhered to are unmatched, priceless, and impossible to either imitate, or to fathom, or even to appreciate. When men are gods and the rest of us are reduced to the wonder of it all. I use to think, even know, of that time when Guyana had such men and women. As the curtain comes down (if it ever will) on this most perfect symphony, my parting thought is that would God, in His mercy, make such men for this Guyana. If only He would deign to dare so that there may be those who would deliver. Just this once.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
