As usual, I had to look up the dictionary dozens of time reading Mr Zia Mohiyuddin but it was worth the effort. Sahib jitni mushkar Urdu boltay haiN utni hee mushkal angrezi kay shoqeen haiN.
Zia Mohiyuddin on Navjot Singh Sidhu
14-7-2002, A School For Cliches
(Copyrighted, THE RAG)
A bizarre new phenomenon is on the air these days. It is called Navjot
Singh Siddhu.
When I first heard him I was mildly amused. Never before had I come across anyone who had such a missionary zeal for spouting balderdash. Perhaps it was a clever ploy by ESPN to boost their ratings.
Mr. Siddhu had obviously been told that it wasn t enough for a commentator to confine his observations to cricketing matters; he must draw the scene and describe the atmosphere as well. When a crow parked itself on the field, he showed his wit, “Oh, that reminds me of Martin Crowe,” he chuckled.
I winced. This was during a match between India and Zimbabwe. One of the lower order batsmen had managed to block some of Srinath s yorkers. “He is shining as a beacon in torrential waters,” piped Mr. Siddhu. It was a highly inappropriate assessment, but I put it down to his enthusiasm. He was, after all, new to the job.
The next time I saw him he had assumed the mantle of a sage and was speaking like an oracle. It was during the India-West Indies tussle. After the ubiquitous Bhogle had gabbled about a stunning catch, Mr. Sidhu came on and remarked that fine feathers made fine birds. His companions nodded knowingly as though the secret of some arcane wisdom had just been revealed to them.
Encouraged by his fellow experts Mr. Sidhu went on to mouth the most outlandish banalities. On seeing a spectator who was yawning, he said “a yawn is a silent shout”. And when the camera panned to show a group of girls with purple paint daubed over their cheeks and foreheads, he told us that “beauty can be eloquent even when silent.” It mattered not that the girls were exceedingly plain and were chewing ferociously.
Television presenters in the sub-continent are generally prone to employing cliches; Mr. Sidhu wears them like a general his medals on parade day. Every Australian cricketer is fit as a fiddle ; if a batsmen runs fast he is fleet as a gazelle ; none of Tendulkar s drives are just straight, they are straight as a ramrod.
Mr. Sidhu rattles off his trite platitudes with a gusto that leaves you speechless. You can admire him for his assertiveness, but that is perhaps the only thing you can admire him for. Tom, Dick and Harry appear regularly in his homilies. Their old habits die hard and they put their carts before the horse. If a batsman jumps to fend a rising ball he, of course, jumps like a cat on a hot tin roof. And if he fails to reach the crease on the other end he is dead as a door nail. His propensity for using inapt cliches grows with every appearance.
For reasons known only to his colleagues, he is often referred to as Sherry. The sobriquet doesn’t quite match his bearing but he doesn’t seem to resent it; indeed his face softens as he hears the nickname.
In the current ODIs in England, the said Sherry is on a new wavelength, transgressing all canons of linguistics. He is now creating his own cliches. An English fielder dived and stopped the ball just before it reached the rope. “Well”, said our oracle, “a good lather from the face is worth half a shave.” I sank in my chair. What could he possibly have meant? Ravi Shastri was his co-pilot at the time. The admirable Shastri did indeed question him about the lather but Mr. Sidhu offered no explanation.
I had hardly recovered from this Confucius-esque parable when there was more. Ganguly flicked a half volley off his pads elegantly. Mr. Sidhu described the stroke as “free cheese in a mousetrap.” There was more wisdom in the next over: when two Sri Lankan fielders rushed for a skier and missed the ball which landed between them, the oracle observed that “passing ships always clash.” The best was yet to come. Yuvraj Singh, the new young maverick in the Indian side, hit a glorious six over mid-off.
Mr. Siddhu’s voice rose to a high pitch “There you see, the bee sucks honey from the bitterest of flowers.”
I have a feeling that he collects adages and proverbs from a secret book and memorises them. He then practices saying them out loud in his shower. Having rehearsed his repertoire, he waits until it is his turn to go on. What he blithely ignores is the right moment or the right situation in which to insert his gems. When wickets fail to fall and the batsmen are making merry, Mr. Siddhu cannot resist telling us that
wicket is “as elusive as The Scarlet Pimpernel.” Amusing, you might think but he repeats and repeats. Dravid is forever solid as the rock of Gibraltar. When the field is spread out, it is always spread like missionaries and when things get tough for India, he proclaims that adversity is the stepping stone to success. This is a new one on me.
Mr. Siddhu’s cliches certainly have the advantage of sounding like translations of Buddhist scriptures but his words do not. This is because he chooses to assign personal meaning to words he has newly acquired. The innocuous spinner, Arnold, was bowling and one of his deliveries went straight instead of turning. I learnt from Mr. Siddhu that Arnold had footled the batsman. Later he informed us that Mongia,
the batsman,always makes a mountain out of a molehill. This, he went on to explain meant that Mongia was not going to chuck his wicket.
Mr. Siddhu s cricketing knowledge is not nearly as astute as Gavaskar’s or Shastri’s. His voice is a trifle squeaky, his wit is leaden and his diction leaves a great deal to be desired. He pronounces words like many people from the sub-continent, putting the stress in the wrong place. Nobody could blame him for that, but when he goes on using the same word with a highly individual pronunciation, it begins to pall. One of his favourite words is awry, which he prefers to enunciate as lorry. (His other regular word is impetus , which he utters as im-pettus like impression).
Has he been engaged for his overwhelming predilection for malapropisms? This is the only reason that comes to my mind, His solecisms are a source of merriment, no doubt. Only yesterday when Tendulkar leg-glanced delicately, he said, “Absolutely vintage hung to anvil.”
I bear him no grudge. Like most Sikhs that I know he is handsome; he dresses with great care, his tie always matches his turban which is tied impeccably in the true Patiala tradition. On rare occasions when his is silent, he looks like a would-be election commissioner. He may be aspiring for that position but I have a feeling he has chosen the wrong route.