He Who Started a Good Work

I turn 30 this weekend. How should I measure my life? My memories and people I’ve known? Is that any less important than what might lie ahead? I measure my life by the people I’ve known. One or two of them helped me come closer to God.

I’m a sports reporter at a television news channel. I have a lovely wife and a 3-year-old daughter. We are expecting our second child this fall. We take care of my parents. My father recently retired as typesetter from a small Hindi newspaper. He worked night shifts for years. This story is not about him though. It’s about someone who called me “son” only once but went the extra mile for me…. You know the Bible verse, “He who began this good work in you, will carry it on until it is finished….” Not sure about the chapter and verse but really like the words. Always bring to mind Anthony Sir and my days as a junior long jump player. I didn’t go very far in the sport… just far enough to be where I am now. Which is farther than I deserve to be, all things considered.

Often, I pass by the lower middle class colony near Gandhi stadium in the heart of Delhi where I was born and raised. Sometimes, in dreams, when I least expect it, I’m back in my childhood. In some of them I’m taken back to my 16-year-old self. In reality I’m glad to have gotten out of those stressed times. But today, I will give anything to feel my pulse race as it used to back then… each time I saw someone leap across the long jump pit inside the stadium gates. I can do that, I would think. Images of winning… inter-zonal matches and who could say, but inter-state matches too, would rise in my mind. And each time, I would tell myself to only qualify for a sports-quota certificate… so I could go to college… at Delhi University. I was a government school boy you see and knew a thing or two about being practical. All that poverty, the straitened circumstances, being in a classroom full of kids from poor to very poor backgrounds… made you not want to aim too high yet desperate for the dizzy heights of success.

Every so often, I would compete with my mates at seeing how far down the cricket pitch I could land in a single leap. A little more than a quarter of the pitch. And further than the other lads. I told myself this talent was given me for a purpose.

One day, without telling anyone, I went through the gates of Gandhi Stadium down to the long jump pit. I was one of 3-4 new boys at the scene. I think that was the first time Anthony Sir laid eyes on me. It was the late 1990s and the government was trying to promote sports. Coaches at local sports arenas and of course this stadium, were looking for new talent. I knew that. He asked us new lads to have a go. I remember I didn’t manage much over 17.5 ft. I think someone or the other crossed 18 ft.

What did the man see? I had no spikes, no formal training, was at a school where there was no long jump team… and told me to come for regular practice.

And so at exactly 3 pm each day I would be at the long jump pit.

I was in high school that spring and should have been preparing for pre-board examinations. I was an above average student... with proper guide books, tuitions and sustained study, could perhaps have excelled. But there was not money enough for all that. And you know Delhi University. Were I to get an A grade it would still be difficult to get a college seat for which tens of thousands competed. The other option was a sports quota entry. Though I would have to beat even tougher competition there. It was time to choose – academics or sports. In the end the choice was easy.

Anthony Sir had got a corporate house – I think it was a cigarette brand – to sponsor a few kits for boys from deprived backgrounds. I got a set. The new shoes ha ha ha! They were awkward at first… I think I was in love with them! My wife has still got them somewhere. They made the running and leaping easier. Anthony Sir trained me to change my natural style of running, taking off and landing. Then there were more talented boys I could ape. I practiced measuring my steps without losing speed or crossing the foul line… to propel myself and remain in the air for as long as I could. I learnt to circle my arms and keep my hands at the sides of my feet. It was thrilling and frustrating at once.

Anthony Sir was the main coach and kept an eagle eye on the performances. He was impatient you know and was known to have cut a fellow or two to the quick with words of disapproval… though he took him aside for that. I too got it… but only once. When it happened I was enraged as much with myself as with him.

One day I hit 19 ft three jumps in a row. How did I feel… elated, scared, hopeful, doomed even? Probably all of these. Couldn’t I play at the zonal level now and get a merit certificate? Couldn’t I then qualify for University selection rounds? Yes, if I improved my performance I could….

The next day I walked up to Anthony Sir and asked if I could get a place in our zone’s long jump squad. The zonals were held every fall. And when it was put up, I found my name on the list. I don’t know how he managed it. It was him no doubt. There were other equally talented boys – as much his students as I – and places on the squad should already have been sealed....

Why did he do it? Had he helped me because I was Christian like he was? Maybe yes, maybe no… but the other boys had too much respect for him and they would not not know... in this country our antennas are always up for that sort of thing. Maybe he had been a budding long jumper in his youth and I reminded him of himself… Maybe he saw I was putting my all into the sport. Perhaps he felt sorry for me. To be honest I didn’t really dwell on it back then. I merely thought life owed me something. I took what help came my way as God’s bounty to me, His chosen one. Chosen for what? I didn’t know. Ha ha ha!

No, what I was really occupied with and baffled by was the part of me that was not enjoying long jump. I was relieved to have made it to the squad but as the stakes went up, I was undermined by doubt. Suddenly I had a vision of more sophisticated, inscrutable fellows, for whom I would be no match. Deep down, I felt I had made it thus far because Anthony Sir had helped me along. Where was my own merit? To really achieve something I had to jump much farther than 19 ft. I knew in my heart I couldn’t. Or was it that I didn’t want to? To make the physical leap I had to first make the leap in my mind. As the zonals approached, I tried to. But there was a block somewhere.

I remember the day before the zonals very clearly. In the practice sessions, I kept running out of steam or crossing the foul line. Under pressure and all over the place…. Every moment I was calling to God within – about the zonals... our finances, my future... But in those moments I heard no signalling thunder, no rush of a helpful breeze… only a silence that didn’t help.... Time was so short. If only something or someone would break the loser’s mould that was setting on my mind...

Only Anthony Sir came to mind.

One thing we lads all knew was he never stayed at the stadium after 8 pm due to family responsibilities. Not sure what they were but something to do with a wife who I seem to recall had miscarried more than once. Anyhow, in my desperation I thought nothing of knocking on his door well past 8. What appeared to be several generations were at dinner. Perhaps he didn’t want to slam the door on a student in front of his family; maybe he saw I badly needed his steady presence… “Ok…alright… downstairs” he said.

In the parking lot, I remember he coughed a couple of times, and looked on as I tried to reach 19.5 ft and failed. But I remember I didn’t cross the foul line even once. But he said the words the sting of which hurt for a long time – ‘If it’s only college you want son, I know someone at the Registrar’s Office at DU.’

I’m sure I betrayed no emotion. Inwardly I felt ashamed. Outed, insulted. As if he were telling me he had inched out more dedicated guy on my account… all for my short-sighted goal? I don’t remember how I replied… Actually, I think I didn’t reply.

The next day, as I took my 3 tries, it was as if I were watching myself from outside. I saw the self pity, I saw the selfishness, I saw the desperation… And instead of giving in to the despair I said a prayer – ‘Lord, if college is not part of Thy plan help me forget about it… only don’t banish me from Thy sight.’

It wasn’t I who jumped. My body jumped while I was somewhere else. There was a sense of surrender – much like the moments after a long jump take off, only extended. That day, I didn’t reach 19.5 ft. But there’s a certificate to prove I was tied at third place.

Yes, I got the merit certificate… which had been my goal till last night.

Anthony Sir walked up to me. The slap on the back was strained for both of us. I was seething on account of his blunt speech. Though I didn’t look at his face, I sensed he was furious I had broken his rule of keeping the home separate. I sensed he was also relieved for my sake.

In the months that followed, he didn’t lift his hand from above my head. Other players had begun to look murder at me. I just shut out the background noise and tried to see how far I could really jump. By the next summer, when the university selection rounds were held, I was crossing 19.5 ft.

But it was like a noisy dream had slowly come to an end. My love-hate relationship with long jump did get me into college via the sports quota, and occasionally I even represented my college at sports meets. However by then I had vowed never to play competitively once college was over. Once college was over I never met Anthony Sir. For a long time I didn’t even think I might need to be grateful to him for saying the words that led me to that crucial point of surrender.

I never met another teacher like Anthony Sir. And no person, teacher or other, has helped me quite as much again, through a bleak childhood and after. But the memory of those few summers have lasted me till now. I still trust the forces that govern my life. I know, for sure, that God is at work in me….

I will look Anthony Sir up one day, but not now. It is enough that I can thank God for him. It’s enough that I am certain of a place in Heaven, because I know I have an advocate in God Himself… the finisher of my faith.