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Vohra's view: Two Indian sport stars we never knew existed
Sports and cinema often make good music and become not just milestones but through the depiction encourage thousands to take up a certain discipline.
Occasionally, politics joins up and makes for a superb trinity and creates a durable lesson in history.
Recall how the film Invictus enshrined forever the big gamble Nelson Mandela took in the early post-apartheid phase when the essentially white Springboks got his backing and were deployed to win the Rugby World Cup.
A nation in turmoil picked up the World Cup on home ground and had its first brief, shining moment of togetherness.
By that token Remember the Titans, a story set in 1971 about a black football coach in Virginia who brought a town together and broke down racial barriers was a searing commentary on race.
The first film I saw from this genre of true sport on the screen was Somebody Up There Likes Me, the 1956 biopic on Rocky Graziano (Barbella) played by Paul Newman and still regarded as the defining film on boxing.
Ascot and the Grand National became globally famous after a young Liz Taylor charmed millions with National Velvet.
Few of this generation will remember Seabiscuit, a film made about a runt of a horse during the depression years whose unexpected string of victories pulled a country together and actually contributed to the revival of fortunes.
And you can never forget Chariots of Fire, an epic that underscored the cutting edge of Olympic athletic competition.
For sheer guts and glory We are Marshall stands out as a heartbroken town tries to rebuild a team lost in an aircrash. Much the same way as Blind Side showcases compassion and talent when a couple take in a homeless teenage African-American, Michael “Big Mike” Oher and guide him to the top rungs of the NFL ladder.
If Hollywood was pushing sport, India’s flourishing industry used cricket and colonialism to create a hi-octane blockbuster called Lagaan and the country’s flagging hockey hopes were revived by the success of Chak De.
The reason for this theme this week is because of a film I have just seen called Million Dollar Arm. It resonates that much more because it has an Indian context but what completely blew my socks off was the fact that two Indians from small towns had actually been selected as pitchers for the Pittsburgh Pirates and that this film was actually based on fact. It happened. All of it.
Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel won a nationwide scouting contest and were flown from their rustic backgrounds to the chrome and glass urban landscape of the US and inside 90 days were trained to pitch ‘fastballs’ at over 90 miles an hour.
Their performance is acknowledged as a miracle in sport in the US and their mentor Jo Bernstein (also agent for Bobby Bonds) kept the faith against all odds.
And 1.2 billion Indians largely have no clue. No one ever writes about this magnificent saga. Nor of the third ‘interpreter’ who tagged along and today coaches baseball in India and his team has never lost a game.
How come no one in India even speaks of this? We have never really heard of Rinku and Dinesh. It is truly a shame.
There are no articles in the papers, no TV reports on their progress. Even when the film was released most Indians thought it was fiction. It required someone from another country to watch a game of cricket, observe bowlers hitting the deck at great speeds and fly to India to find a powerful throwing arm and take that risk.
One would have imagined that these two guys would be at the spearhead of fame, what with the Indian fondness for being possessive about foreign based successful Indians …how come these two slipped through the net?
