I think most people would have seen that teri mitti edit on Dhoni. If you haven't, you should. I don't know what it is about that edit that makes me stop and watch it every time it comes across my recommendations. Or maybe I do.
It is sloppily made, an amateur's work. Heck the beginning logo is more professional than the video with its odd cuts and noisy abrupt ending. There is no flow, no ambience, no sync of the music flow with the visuals. It is an amateur's work. But that is the thing, "amateur" the word comes from the old latin word "amator" which means lover. Amateur has come to have negative connotations but in actuality amateur means doing something in love of the activity itself. That is what makes this video so special, it was an amateur's work, his love I guess for Mahi. I can feel the effort the creator put into this little video trying to piece together everything of Dhoni which makes him magical to the creator.
For me, it will always be the night of 02/04/2011. We did not have a TV because my parents don't like the exposure it gives. I only saw the match on video much later. But I remember the night. My father did not really care for any team but he liked to know what was going down. I HEARD rather than saw Ravi Shastri's commentary on the radio, yes radio. I saw the night sky light up with so many firecrackers, it was basically a photosensitive epileptic person's worst nightmare. I was eight, I was just beginning to learn what patriotism felt like, what a national identity is, what India is. There is an unmistakable sense of community that sports brings. For that moment in time, when those people on the field win, it feels like we won no matter who the 'we' is consisted of. It can be a tea seller, a businessman, a ragpicker or a little eight year old with too big dreams. In that moment when those people defeat others to raise OUR flag, it doesn't matter who you are, in your heart you feel like you have won. There are precious few victories in life of a struggling person, so yes sports; and in India, especially cricket; is instrumental in making that struggling person feel like they have won something. It gives you hope when your people win, a sense of progress, a desire for a future just as bright. It is exhilerating.
For my young mind, it wasn't cricket that made that victory so special. It was the first memory I had of something happening in India which made me feel proud, stirred up those baby feelings of patriotism. I had only read in books you know, about people doing their nation proud. I had read of Major Dhyan Chand, of Kapil Dev. I had learnt of all the great people of our country but I had never truly seen what it felt like. I hadn't understood what it felt like to be Indian if you get my meaning. And then I heard "Dhoni finishes off in style, a magnificent strike into the crowd, India lift the World Cup after 28 years" and the screams from the entire colony afterwards. I saw this one picture, "Dhoni stands tall at Wankhede" in the newspaper the next day (The picture attached below is the nearest I could find of that one). I listened to my classmates and teachers talk about it. That World Cup has been called the common man's World Cup. And looking back on it, I can see just how true it is.
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And at the centre of it all was this one man who never gave an interview or talked about it unless prompted, a leader with sharp eyes and a sharper brain that I was introduced to in the beginning of my interest in cricket. There was something magnetic about his style to me, something about how he was described, how unavailable he was that kept intriguing me. So while I was super happy with the victory and all that patriotic jazz, reading about his non reactive personality created a never ending intrigue about this giant who walked among men as if he hadn't made the whole country lift our heads with pride with that performance. Would it have been just as special to me had someone else done that? Apart from the fact that there was low chance of the other batsmen tackling Murli-Malinga duo as Gambhir-Dhoni had, I don't think it would have caught my attention this way because that batsman WOULD have talked about it. Anyone else and I would have smiled and moved on. I would have had the same interest in cricket but not in any one personality. There is not one man who wouldn't have taken the crown of finishing a World Cup winning match, and showed it off with pride. And here he was, the captain, the man who hit those winning runs with such confidence and fire in his eyes, with no more than a line to say of it. That first memory of feeling like a part of something bigger than me, was a gift from team India but for me it was Dhoni's personality that wove the magic into the memory. I don't fall in love fast, any kind of love. The kind of love I have for Mahi, for Atif, it is a mix of an intellectual and a spiritual feeling. I didn't fall in love with him fast either. It was years of memories, of getting pleasantly surprised, of getting hooked at different times. But it started from 02/04/2011.
