The Great Beijing Scribes’ Race

 

Photo: With Pradeep Paul at the Great Wall of China 

COLUMN: TUNNEL OF TIME

By Shevlin Sebastian

In Beijing during the 1990 Asian Games, there was enough action on the field, but somehow, it could not quite match the action off the field.

Here are a few stories of what happened behind the scenes in the Forbidden City, with its broad avenues and the massive Tiananmen Square.

Adidas sponsored a media race for journalists in Beijing.

Among the participants was the lean Ranjit Bhatia (1936-2014), who, as no one bothers to mention, is a former Olympian and a marathoner, a Rhodes Scholar, and in excellent physical shape. Even in Beijing, despite the late hour that he finished writing his reports, he made his morning runs.

Lee Evans, the 400m gold medallist at the Mexico Olympics and now trainer of the Qatar squad, started the race.

Evans, who is in his mid-forties and extremely trim, said: ‘Ladies and gentlemen (and yes, indeed, there were a couple of women journalists), I wish you all the best of luck. However, just remember to take it easy because unfortunately, there is no ambulance outside the stadium.’

Nervous laughter rippled through the group. And when Lee Evans announced that the first twelve would get the expensive Torsion sneakers while fourth and fifth places would get tracksuits, the scribes shuffled their feet in anticipation.

The gun cracked, and a motley crowd of ageing, paunchy, young-to-middle-aged never-was—has-beens, broke into a furious run. But it was a brief flourish.

By the end of the first lap, everyone had collapsed except for Giao Biyang of Radio Beijing, Ranjit and my Sportsworld colleague Pradeep Paul.

A few were panting like fish out of water, and a couple of them stood, with hands on knees, mouths wide open, puffing out air like an old man leaning on his stick trudging up a steep hill.

I was lying happily in last place with India Today’s Shekhar Gupta, forming ‘Joggers Incorporated’. But as the front group slowed down, there was hope we might get somewhere. The desire to win slowly crept up like a tortoise suddenly realising it could win when he saw the hare asleep at the starting line.

The threesome in the lead just went on and on and finished the 400m race with Ranjit second and Pradeep third. And since even visions of a tracksuit could not motivate everyone else, thanks to collapsed lungs, a non-smoker like me slipped with ease into fourth place.

Not everyone was at ease in Beijing.

Consider the South Indian journalist, whom the Indian Ambassador invited to his house for a get-together with medallists and journalists.

He expected dinner, but he got samosas instead. He stood and moaned out loudly in Malayalam to a few fellow Malayali journalists about this stingy act of the ambassador.

The ambassador’s wife stood nearby, and surely that was not a problem. Until a journalist walked up and whispered: ‘Just forgot to mention to you, but the Ambassador’s wife is a Malayali.’

The journalist’s mouth opened like the entrance to a large cave, even as he whispered a tortured, ‘Aiyyo.’

That’s not all.

A crusty, old, God-fearing Indian newsman, who shoots not only from the typewriter but also from the lip, for once lost his tongue in Beijing. A deeply religious man, he wanted to go to church on Sundays. So he rang up the telephone number given by the organising committee because they told him that was where he’d get directions to the church.

The lady at the other end said, ‘Do you want women?’

For once, the words jammed in his throat, like Monday-morning traffic.

We don’t know what happened after that, but he certainly didn’t see any churches in Beijing.

And finally, here’s the story of how optimism survives even in God-forsaken Beijing.

Al-Ahmed, a photographer from Saudi Arabia, had ranted and raved about the impossibility of dating Chinese girls, but then he smiled and twirled his moustache.

‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I am now waiting for eight more years and a few months.’

Whatever on earth for?

‘Because that’s when the 1998 Games will be held in Bangkok, the sex capital of the world,’ he said with a mischievous smile.

Al-Ahmed was like a Chinese farmer ploughing his field from dawn to dusk, confident that in the end he would reap a bountiful harvest.

(Published in Sportsworld, November 7, 1990)