It took our solitary Olympic gold medallist Arshad Nadeem to remind us of that old adage: Success has a thousand fathers; Failure is born an orphan.
No matter how many awards, honours, cash prizes and amenity plots may be bestowed upon him, it is clear that Arshad’s achievement in Paris was singularly his own. His trusty javelin soared into the skies and landed at 92.97 metres, and then to show that this second throw was not a fluke, on its final flight it landed a metre short — at 91.79m.
Nadeem’s portly coach Salman Iqbal Butt watched from the stands, recalling when, as a teenager at Aitchison College in 1977, he threw a javelin and set a collegiate record of 50.69 metres.
The public has opened its hearts to Arshad. Governments (federal and provincial) have opened their coffers to him, but not their private purses. They are as personally as ungenerous as Lord Chesterfield once was to Samuel Johnson when he begged his lordship for patronage to support his project – the first English dictionary. It took Johnson seven years to complete his magnum opus. Chesterfield then condescended to offer an endorsement.
In February 1755, Johnson sent a letter to Chesterfield that has served as a warning to tight-fisted patrons: ‘Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind: but it has been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary and cannot impart it; till I am known and do not want it.’
Hopefully, all the gratuitous patronage being showered on Nadeem Arshad will shake the government out of its lethargy and schools out of their unconscionable neglect of sports as an integral part of education. Famously, Lord Wellington attributed his success on the battlefield to his school: ‘The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.’ A grateful nation rewarded Wellington with both an estate in Hampshire and a fortune of £400,000.
Many would contend that the World Cup 1992 was won on the playing fields of Aitchison College. No one could have imagined that the captain (an Aitchisonian), who held that trophy aloft in March 1992 at Melbourne and then in processions across the country, would watch Nadeem Arshad’s triumph from a cell in Adiala jail. Sic transit gloria.
For those of us armchair enthusiasts who forfeited sleep to watch the Paris Olympics, it became clear that few of the major countries sported their own nationals. The Chinese and the Japanese did. Others were populated with hyphenated Africans. One commentator even went so far as to compliment one sprinter for being the first African from the African continent to win a gold medal. Hadn’t anyone briefed him that all of us homo sapiens originated in Africa?
Over the centuries, the mobile migrated. Some were exported as slaves, a few repatriated by the U.S. to populate the new nation of Liberia. Some fought desperately to avoid deportation by Rishi Sunak’s government to Rwanda. Millions remained to fight for liberation from their colonialist masters. The best among them today compete for their adopted countries in the Olympics.
Soon, the IOC will have to drop national groupings in favour of individual participation. With so many blacks in the USA, British, French, and German teams, spectators may parrot Lady Susan Hussey’s tactless question of a Black Briton: ‘But where do you really come from, where do your people come from?’
After his winning javelin throw, Nadeem Arshad prostrated himself in a sajdah and then draped himself in our flag. No one needed to ask Arshad where he came from. He was a humble Muslim, and a proud Pakistani son of a justifiably proud Pakistani mother from Mian Channu.
The British novelist E. M. Forster had once observed that ‘I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet, there would be no more wars.’ The mothers of both Arshad Nadeem and his Indian rival (and friend) Neeraj Chopra made moving statements ‘adopting’ the success of each other’s son. Social media hummed with their messages and with images of Nadeem and Neeraj, clothed in their national flags, shaking hands on the podium.
It is unlikely that PMs Modi and Shehbaz Sharif will bring Arshad and Neeraj to Wagah border where the four can shake hands. The next best thing would be for their two mothers to be brought there to embrace across the white line. It would be better than our two countries aiming nuclear javelins at each other.
