RUDRANEIL SENGUPTA
The Sporting Life
Ihave an utterly lopsided but not-entirelyunheard-of way of judging people: What is their relationship to animals? How do they get along with dogs? Or cats (or birds or bears or rabbits)? When I recently and reluctantly made my Twitter debut, the first handles I began to follow, in order, were: @Weratedogs (where all doggies are good doggies), @A_single_bear (and lonely to boot), @Mrandrewcotter (the adventures of two wonderful dogs as narrated by their sport-commentator daddy) and @Ftbllrswanimals (footballers with animals, self-explanatory).
That last handle immediately changed my list of favourite footballers; where once it was populated by such staid names as Maradona, Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp, it now features Carlos Valderrama (and dog), Raul Jimenez (and dog), Lukas Podolski (and dog), Matthijs de Ligt (and dogs) and Frank Lampard (plus dog).
It follows then that my two favourite cricketers are Virat Kohli (an ardent dog lover) and the man so in the news right now, Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Everything that could be written about Dhoni has already been written, but I have a deeply personal story about him that has nothing to do with his cricket or with me being a sports journalist.
This is from about seven or eight years ago. Dhoni was coming over to a friend’s house for dinner and my wife and I were invited to join. It’s the only time I ever met the man. He was charming, his disarming smile never leaving his face; he was soft-spoken, and made everyone in the room feel utterly at ease.
The conversation was going along expected lines —cricket, the armed forces, bikes — when it turned to dogs.
“I am happiest when I’m with my dogs,” Dhoni said. “Time passes so easily with them, I completely lose track of it.” My wife and I were parents to three dogs at the time (the number has since risen to five), all of the breed lovingly known as desi or indie. Our home was not far, so my wife got all excited and asked if Dhoni would like to meet our pack. He said he would be delighted. We rushed home, put the dogs in the car, and rushed back to the dinner.
As he had done with the people at that small dinner, Dhoni worked his charm on the dogs. He showered them with attention and affection. He regarded the big boy of the pack with macho admiration.
Our big boy likes to show his affection for new friends by sitting on their feet. It’s a sure sign of his love. He soon settled down on the Indian skipper’s foot and didn’t move for a good 15 minutes. Dhoni didn’t move either, or complain.
For most of his playing career, except right at the beginning, Dhoni avoided journalists. It did not, understandably, make him popular with our breed. Perhaps he did not trust journalists. Unlike dogs, they may not all be good. So we know not much about Dhoni the man. Except for what we have seen in these glimpses.
Now you see a bit more of him, courtesy the Instagram account set up in the name of his daughter, Ziva. There, you see him and his family playing with their four dogs. You see them nursing an injured bird back to health, or safely escorting a lost chameleon back into the wilds. You remember what he once said about his pets at a press conference: “I have three dogs at home. Even after losing a series or winning a series, they treat me the same way.”
After Dhoni announced his retirement, his wife Sakshi posted a Maya Angelou quote on Instagram: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
I was thrilled to see Dhoni of the leonine mane win the first T20 world cup; I held my breath and watched in awe each time he coolly navigated yet another heart-stopping chase; I cringed at his abrasive humour aimed at an Aussie journalist who dared ask him about retirement; and was quietly disappointed that he did not — seemingly — care much about conflict of interest. But I have a feeling that years from now, what will stand out most, is how he made me feel that night at dinner.