“The City Police on Wednesday presented an autorickshaw driver a cash prize for displaying honesty and sense of citizenship in returning a bag left in the vehicle by a passenger, which contained money and valuable documents.” 

 

Don't we come across such press reports every once in a while ?

It is a sad reflection of the times that we live in, that a simple act of honesty, needs to be rewarded. What is actually being recognised here is that the ‘auto-driver” deserves praise not so much for being honest as for not being dishonest, which he well could have been. For, isn’t dishonesty the  default setting now ? That’s why, such news items appear only “once in a while”.

(To test this theory, I am curious to know if such an act would fetch a reward in Singapore. Or conversely, what would happen to the driver, if he did not return the bag to the rightful owner).

A very similar observation can be made in the case of the accolades showered on Adam Gilchrist, the Australian batsman, on his retirement. The man is eulogised for his willingness to accept that he is out. When he knows he has snicked a ball, he doesn’t wait for the umpire to lift his finger. He starts walking back to the pavilion. Just as Phantom was referred to as a “ghost who walks”, Gilchrist is a “man who walks”. Other batsmen stay put till the umpire asks them to vacate. Gilchrist walks. He is special.

Nirmal Shekhar, sports writer for The Hindu, who tries to infuse as much poetry into his columns as possible, waxed lyrical on an incident in which Gilchrist had, you guessed it, walked:

There was not even the slightest hesitation as he walked. But, then, knowing the man, you would expect him to, wouldn't you?

So what's new? He did it in Chennai, when his team was staring at a possible defeat. He has done it before that. And, surely, he will do it again. In the event, what's the fuss all about?

Ah, how smugly we get used to goodness of character! How easily we brush aside moral issues of timeless significance! Almost dismissively we accept moral courage in the competitive cauldron of modern sport! We take for granted the behaviour of a few heroic men like Gilchrist as a matter of habit.

Here lies Gilchrist's greatness. He will live and play the only way he knows how to: fairly, honourably, as a good sport…….In the high-noon of professional sport when commercial pressures have re-ordered the sporting arena and have effected a evaluation of values, if someone had written a piece of sports fiction with a Gilchrist-like hero, he might have been thought of as old-fashioned.

…..Winning and losing pale into insignificance when compared to such matters of principle, when put alongside such heroic acts of moral courage as enacted by Gilchrist time and again.