In the bitter vitriol-brimming letter to Rohan Jaitley, the lawyer son of the late finance minister who now heads the DDCA, Bedi finds it odd that the stadium should be named after a cricket administrator rather than a cricketer. In his hatred for Jaitley, the once ace left-hand spinner forgot that the famous Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai commemorates a former Maharashtra minister who, as head of the Mumbai Cricket Association, had built it to end the arm-twisting by the controllers of the nearby Brabourne Stadium. But then, Bedi wouldn't be Bedi if he weren't to play a contrarian. I remember several years ago meeting him at a dinner at the house of the sport-linked entrepreneur Lokesh Sharma. Referring to the incident a few days previously at a premier British-era club in Madras, which had denied entry to MF Husain owing to his unshod feet, Bedi unleashed a volley of choicest Punjabi invectives against the club bosses: "Angrez chaley gaye… aulad …", or "Angrezon ke gulam…". I tried to reason about it being a private club and competent to set its own rules of admission, etcetera. When that failed to stop him from having a go at the club administrators, I countered, "You have played for India in scores of tests, how come you were seen wearing the same white shirt and trousers which the whites-dominated international cricket body prescribed… why not in your regular, everyday Punjabi attire of 'tehmat' (a sort of lungi) and, instead of a turban, a colourful patka… and why white, why not red or blue or yellow shirt… ?" Expectedly, he had no answer. But for the rest of the evening, he still revealed his regret that he had peaked as a cricketer when there was little money in cricket. That Sunil Gavaskar— 'chhotu' for Bedi—had parlayed his excellence as a player into a successful post-retirement career as a commentator, or a Kapil Dev, post-cricket, had made a successful switch to business, too seemed to rankle with Bedi. I had heard about Bedi not adjusting well after the end of his cricketing career, but that evening at Lokesh's house, I came across a bitter and frustrated man who rued not so much that life hadn't given him enough but that his peers and others, some certainly much less talented cricketers than him, had got far more in financial terms. It wasn't enough that his record as a left-hand spinner still shone bright. Jealousy is a disease of the mind and needs a lot of introspection and mental discipline for one to overcome it.

Bishan Singh Bedi

Bishan Singh Bedi (1946-2023): Spin Master

Wrong Reasons