Dear Dr A C Muthiah

Independent India is 53 years old. A mere millisecond in compared to this nation’s actual age. Just a movement of the pendulum, from left to right. After centuries of servitude to a host of conquerors, we at last achieved a unique state, where we would decide our own fate. Though free from invaders and secure, we have still have demons that hold us captive. Greed, corruption, envy and deceit. And many more, they are the demons we have to fight, and many more. But we can and will fight them, for after all, demons though they are, they are our demons.

You were a mere six-year-old, when the walls of the Red Fort reverberated a booming voice ... "Many years ago, we made a tryst with destiny...." I do not know if you remember those times, but I am sure you remember the times that followed, and the time since. We made the pledge and redeemed it. Such lofty aims, such lofty hopes, such dreams, and one by one they shattered, we are still collecting the pieces, of a nation’s broken heart. Much like the beginning in the famous Raj Kapoor movie, where he picks up the pieces of a broken heart.

One of the pieces is with you.

I have never written a letter with this much enthusiasm and misgivings alike. Have written and rewritten this thousand or so words, so many times that the same effort would have ended up as a short novel.

I have begun, asking questions: What is to stop you, on your own, from calling the all the cricket greats, and the leading scribes and lovers of the game, and sitting down for a long session of ‘let’s solve the problems’? Or what is stopping you from using the power that has been given you, and change the face of the BCCI? What is to stop you, on your own, from calling the people who specialize in their field to study the ills that have mired cricket and prescribe remedies?

Top notch consultants have come to the aid of dying and bedridden businesses and revived them with proper plan of action. Companies? Even nations have used this people, experts in their fields, to revive their sagging economies and ailing financial systems.

But such questions would be meaningless, childish even, to such a person as you. After all, you must have analyzed the problems in cricket. You are a Bachelor of Engineering. And the Masters in management you received in Detroit could not have been bought, you must certainly be aware of the remedies that are required.

That brings me to the puzzle that has made write and rewrite these pages. The enigma that is you.

When the drastic times require drastic measures, what keeps you from taking them. It is impossible that you have your father’s business by skirting around the tough decisions. It is impossible that you have built a business worth twenty times the worth of the BCCI by setting up committees to look into the problems, by following the ‘democratic’ processes when a crisis is building up at the gates. You could hardly have made your millions by appointing engineers as head of your financial departments, hardly have built up your reputation by going to the bankers when your machinery breaks down.

What then makes you say and do things that are completely different than what the common sense says you should be?

I rack my limited brain and I ask some people here who have known you, and ‘astute’ or ‘shrewd’ is the recurring words that they describe you by.

That only adds to the puzzle, not solve it.

Is it loyalty, to the colleagues at the BCCI, to people who voted you? Could be, loyalty is a laudable trait, not to be downplayed. But such loyalty also means deceit to the billion fans, to cricket itself. And it is hard to imagine this fact escapes you, that it is not that you should love them less, but that you should love cricket more. Is it fear that keeps you from the remedies that you must know are needed? That could not be possible. Is it the desire to keep the post? What charm could that hold, to be the president of a decaying organization, to be questioned about your role in it, your integrity. You have many such honors bestowed upon you, trustee of many organizations, president of a far reaching industrial empire, honorary consulate of Belgium. And many more.

It is amazing how the puzzle only gets more difficult at every step.

All the more amazing because you stand at such a unique place at such a unique time that greatness is within reach of your hand.

Cricket is as much a part of this nation as its politics, as its religions, as its divides. Cricket is as much a part of our life as much the our daily work, cricket is as much a part of our life as life itself.

But with a difference, for long it stood for honest work, a work of talent, with strokes of genius here and there. For long it stood above all the filth that filled our life, the politics that was corrupted, the promises that were unfulfilled, the water we could not get, the floods that we could not stop, the droughts that we had no escape from. For long it stood, even with every defeat that India faced, as a honest face of the nation.

That face in now searching for a veil. Cricket is in the middle of a desert thirsting for water, with not a soul in site. All great men have abandoned it, save few. And to be honest too there’s nothing much they can do. They have no power.

Every fan, each of cricket’s well wishers has been looking at the horizon, for a deliverer who can save cricket. And everyday, the sun sets in the horizon, each day bloodier red than ever, and the cold of night brings despair that chills their spine.

Dr Muthiah, men have come to power and men have been unceremoniously been stripped of it. Leaders have come and gone. Some have left their mark in this world, some have left it with scars. And some have just faded without a trace. But one thing is unique. The best ones have always ruled at the worst of times. It was no accident of fate that when Hitler rose, he faced Churchill and Roosevelt.

Is it accident of fate, or is it design that you are now at helm, when all the barbarians are at cricket’s gate?

How do you want to go down in history? As the 25th president of the BCCI? As the guy who was there when cricket died?

Or would you like the posterity, by a fireside on a cold winter night tell its children, hundred years from now: Once upon a time when cricket was mired in corruption and apathy, surrounded by incompetent people, besieged by greed and self-serving wolfs there was a president called Muthiah, he rose against all, battled hard and long, and saved cricket. If he was not there, children, the game game that you play and love would not have been too...

It is a lonely place you are in, but you should know best how lonely it is at the top. The media questions you, every word you say, but then you have not given them anything to applaud. The fans look at you in despair, and you have not done nothing to allay their fears.

When it is time to come out and say, I have done this, you have been saying, I am going to do this. When cricket needs antibiotics you have been trying to hide the symptoms with heavy doses of pain killers. When cricket needs a haircut you have been sending it to the cobbler.

Dr Muthiah, when receiving the Excellence Award from Tamil Nadu Foundation you had quoted, in the same breath with "Work is worship", Disraeli: "We must be conservative enough to conserve all that is good and radical enough to uproot all that is bad." Were they the words of a man who created an enviable business empire, or just impressive words written by a speech writer?

In a nation that has made opacity an art form, you have a chance to emerge as an revolutionary that redefined the meaning of transparency. To set into motion a reformation that could even emerge as a model for all the other dying sports, hockey, football, volleyball.

To quote from Mr Lele’s report at the last Annual General Meeting, (and strengthen the belief that even fools can teach you some), a line from Paradise Lost:

"All is not lost through unconquerable will.
And courage never to submit or yield."
The next time the Indian cricket fans see you, Dr Muthiah, let it be with pride and awe. Surrounded by men and women who matter, whose past speaks of their abilities, men who love cricket as cricket should be loved. Professionals in every sense of the word.

The next time they see you, let the hand involuntarily go to the forehead in salute.

Have a nice day.

Shakeel Abedi

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