{"id":116031,"date":"2013-12-01T00:19:21","date_gmt":"2013-11-30T18:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=116031"},"modified":"2013-12-19T14:05:20","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T08:35:20","slug":"murali-is-transparent-accountable-and-reconciled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/murali-is-transparent-accountable-and-reconciled\/","title":{"rendered":"Murali Is Transparent, Accountable And Reconciled"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Malinda Seneviratne<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

\"Malinda<\/a>

Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n

It was the 22nd<\/sup> day of the month of July in the year 2010.\u00a0 Galle was the venue of the first test between Sri Lanka and India.\u00a0 India had avoided innings defeat but was ahead only marginally with 9 wickets down. For fifteen overs and 2 deliveries, much of the cricketing world waited and watched with rising anticipation.\u00a0 Muttiah Muralitharan<\/span><\/a> had already taken 799 test wickets.\u00a0 It was his last test.\u00a0 He had one shot at achieving the numerically satisfying \u2018800\u2019 to end an illustrious test cricket career.<\/p>\n

Few who watched would forget the 4th<\/sup> delivery of the 116th<\/sup> over.\u00a0 This is how it was described by the cricinfo commentator: \u2018Muralitharan to Ojha, OUT, 800 it is! The wait and the tension is finally over! Tossed up outside off and the four men around the bat wait in anticipation! Ojha lunges forward, edges it and Mahela falls to his left and takes the catch at first slip! No need to look anywhere for confirmation, straightforward and Murali is ecstatic.\u2019<\/p>\n

Few would remember two other deliveries, the 4th<\/sup> of the 102nd<\/sup> over and the 2nd<\/sup> deliver of the 106th<\/sup>.\u00a0\u00a0 In the first case, Ishant Sharma steered a Lasith Malinga delivery past cover. There was confusion over a second run but in the end the batsmen reached safety. Someone threw the ball.\u00a0 Muralitharan. Then in the 106th<\/sup> over, Pragyan Ojha pushes a Dilshan delivery to mid-off. \u00a0Murali picks and has a shy at the stumps.\u00a0 Ojha just makes his ground.\u00a0 The disappointment on his face was clearly not for camera.\u00a0 Murali doesn\u2019t do \u2018photo op\u2019, he is not a politician.<\/p>\n

\"Murali\"<\/a>

Murali<\/p><\/div>\n

On both occasions Murali might very well have won the game for Sri Lanka and denied himself that magic number, 800.\u00a0 Bradman got out for a duck in his last innings.\u00a0 Murali would have been \u2018stranded\u2019 on 799 but I think would have dabbed that little bit of grace to his immortality to rise (marginally) over the Don in the romantic history of the game.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s Murali. All about team, all about collective even as he recognizes the individual and is conscious of the tasks he has been assigned and the standards he sets himself.\u00a0 On and off the playing field, one might add.<\/p>\n

He is not one to be drawn into political discussion but if asked he would offer, as he has, candid opinion.<\/p>\n

What does Murali know about Sri Lanka, communal conflict, inter-community relations, and depravations generated by war and natural disasters?\u00a0 He is, ethnically speaking, a Tamil.\u00a0 He has, along with his family, known of ethnic violence and yet it cannot be said that he belongs to an underclass, ethnic or otherwise.\u00a0 He is immensely popular and much loved by all communities.\u00a0 He is a national icon and is internationally recognized as an athlete of rare ability whose achievements of an exceptional character.\u00a0 What credentials does he possess to assess progress made in post-conflict Sri Lanka?\u00a0 The Nation <\/i>asked. Murali responded.<\/p>\n

\u2018We all belong to various communities; we are Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslims. And we all have religious faiths; we are Hindus, Buddhists, Christians.\u00a0 We can belong to this or that community. What we have to realize is that we have to live together and for this we must respect each other.\u00a0 There are differences of course, but the main difference is not about being a Tamil or a Christian, but the different ideas and ways of thinking. We all need peace and we all want to live in a peaceful country. All countries have conflicts and that\u2019s natural.\u00a0 But we have to overcome and live together.\u2019<\/p>\n

The above can be read as a homily that is easily drafted.\u00a0 Anyone can say it. Murali, however, is not a word man.\u00a0 He is a man of action, on and off the field, intense and focused, pragmatic and disciplined.\u00a0 No one will dispute this.<\/p>\n

He has not lived in a war zone but this doesn\u2019t mean he is ignorant of war-related realities and depravations.\u00a0 He has visited these areas when he was a Brand Ambassador of the World Food Programme.\u00a0 He recalls that time: \u2018You can\u2019t imagine how bad things were. I was there and I saw with my own eyes.\u2019 He was speaking of the year 2003, i.e. at a time when the Ceasefire Agreement between the Government and the LTTE<\/span><\/a> was in force.<\/p>\n

This is not the only reason he is qualified to pronounce judgment on progress made post-conflict.\u00a0 The \u2018Foundation of Goodness\u2019 he set up in 1999 to improve the lives of people in rural Sri Lanka, has been working tirelessly in the North and East for the past 36 months, concentrating mostly in the areas that saw the heaviest fighting, Kilinochchi, Mankulam, Mannar and Mullaitivu.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019ve been there in 2003. It is now 2013, 10 years have passed.\u00a0 I see the difference. Things are 1000 percent better now.\u2019<\/p>\n

He has touched and keeps touching hundreds of thousand lives in a real, practical and tangible manner.\u00a0 His work covers 30 \u2018empowerment sectors\u2019.\u00a0 He has set up medical centers, dental clinics, implemented projects to empower women, encourage environment management, develop business skills, offered IT training, set up pre-school educational facilities, organized programs to enable young people develop technical skills, provided all kinds of implements, from cooking utensils to sports equipment, and through it all facilitated people-to-people and inter-community interaction and understanding.\u00a0 All for free.<\/p>\n

This is not the place to showcase Murali\u2019s \u2018Foundation of Goodness\u2019.\u00a0 The point is, he knows.\u00a0 He visits, talks, smiles, make people feel better and leaves behind that which will support them long after he is gone.\u00a0 How many among his detractors who question his credentials can claim to have done better?<\/p>\n

\u2018It is all about people.\u00a0 Harmony depends on people.\u00a0 It is about how you take it.\u2019<\/p>\n

That\u2019s shorthand which describes operational template and subtly takes issue with certain kinds of narratives and interpretations of lived and suffered realities, both then and now.\u00a0 Murali could have \u2018taken\u2019 in a hundred different ways. He could have \u2018given\u2019 too, in many ways.\u00a0 He chose a particular kind of \u2018taking\u2019 and a particular kind of \u2018giving\u2019.\u00a0 His way makes for harmony. His way is on-the-ground, people-to-people; there are other \u2018ways\u2019 that are not, that are wordy and worse, pit people against one another. Those other \u2018ways\u2019 are pernicious also because they are designed and disseminated by those who cannot claim to \u2018know\u2019 in the way that Murali knows.<\/p>\n

\u2018The assistance given to me by the Army is immense.\u00a0 There was a time when they developed five grounds in just three months.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think anyone or any organization can do what the Army does and continues to do. They have the human resources and the equipment. They can be counted on at any time to deliver what is needed.\u2019<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t ask, but he said.<\/p>\n

It brought to mind the period following the defeat of the LTTE.\u00a0 Certain sections of the media castigated the security forces with regard to the way the IDP situation was handled. It was a tough, tough, tough job.\u00a0 No UN agency or set of UN agencies, no I\/NGO collective and no set of state institutions, together or separately, could have managed to feed approximately 300,000 people, take care of their health issues, reunite families and arrange things so that the education of the children would not be totally abandoned, the way that the security forces did.\u00a0 They had the numbers, the equipment, the discipline, the minds and hearts.<\/p>\n

What Murali sees, then, has to be extension.<\/p>\n

We cannot ask, \u2018What do you know, Murali?\u2019\u00a0 We cannot ask, \u2018What right do you have, Murali?\u2019\u00a0 Few, indeed, can interrogate the man.\u00a0 He knows the dimensions. First hand.\u00a0 He knows eye-wash.\u00a0 He can see through orchestrated demonstrations.\u00a0 Why? He is a person and he knows people. Different kinds of people.<\/p>\n

He is a man of few words, when it comes to interviews.\u00a0 He is more about action.\u00a0 He has tossed unplayable deliveries.\u00a0 But what he delivers now and what he has been delivering for more than a decade now are different \u2013 makes for engagement. Makes for peace.<\/p>\n

On the cricket field he savored of course his personal achievements, but never delighted more than when his team was victorious.\u00a0 It is the same outside.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t talk about his Foundation unless you ask him. He does his bit.\u00a0 He is accountable.\u00a0 He is transparent. He is about reconciliation.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t use those words.\u00a0 That\u2019s the difference.\u00a0 That\u2019s Murali.<\/p>\n

*Malinda Seneviratne is the Chief Editor of \u2018The Nation\u2019\u00a0and his articles can be found at\u00a0www.malindawords.blogspot.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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