Dear Editor,
If ever there was someone who deserved to be affixed with the honorarium ‘Sports Ambassador’ it was Edison Arantes do Nascimento of Brazil and Santos. As I interrupt my semi-media sabbatical, I think ‘Ambassador for the World to the World’ has a sober yet scintillating resonance.
It fits King Pele as neatly as those coruscating old-time crowns fit emperors and monarch, most of whom were middling to terrible, and a small handful who soared like some illustrious divine straight out of one of those books of mythology.
What can be said about Pele? What can be written and said when the dust settles leaving all of us feeling that inimitable trace of loss? For sure, he was Brazilian, but this was a man who knew no borders, no invisible barriers, since he soared over them on and off the field of play. An illustrious warrior, yet the humblest in carriage, in speech, and deed, who gave that strain of hope to those without a shred.
He may have been Brazilian, but somehow that never registered on my consciousness; and I think that when I write of this, I write for billions across the globe. This was the performer and conductor both on and away from the storied annals of battle who brought the fine art of footballing sport to the Indian subcontinent, and left them awestruck and breathless.
If he could have touched and made a dent with Indians in cricket crazed India, then there could not have been too many areas of inhabited land unmoved. And if there of all places, then the rest of the world had to be at his gloriously charged feet. See what I mean by ambassador to the world, and not just for sport….
As a young child my introduction to soccer on the world’s stage was to names like Sir Bobby Charlton and Geoff Hurst of England, and there was much joy from what they and others like Johan Cruyff, Franz Beckenbauer, and Diego Maradona, gave with their all for the game and glory of country.
But there has not been his equal since I was graced by the incredible artistry of the virtuous Brazilian superstar, who was one before there was that world, and all that it means. Also, his was not so much a skillful media creation, or some clever agent’s marketing, it was just earned the hard way, the right way. With dignity, grace, and with honour. Now the scribes will scratch with their quills, and the pundits will have their say, in an effort to capture the essence of a man who transformed before our eyes into a legend in his own time. Farewell, Pele. The world has lost a great and extraordinary son, one that transcended both his time and for the ages.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall