Beyond Cricket: Today is About Tomorrow. And Tomorrow is Another Day.

Adil Najam

I know today is the day. I have already confessed that I can think of nothing except about what may happen today. But today – and what happens today – is really about tomorrow. It always is. And tomorrow is another day!

Apologies for being unnecessarily philosophical. But today (there I go again!) calls for it. Maybe its my impatience for the great match to begin. Or maybe it is my anxiety about what will happen after the match ends.

I know exactly how I want this match to end. And I can only imagine what my own reaction would be if it does end the way I want it to end. What I can no longer even imagine (or want to imagine) is what my reaction will be if it ends differently!

And, maybe, that is what this post is really about. A reminder to myself that no matter how important this match may be, it is, after all, just a match! Pakistan playing India in India, in the Semi-Finals of the 2011 Cricket World Cup is clearly serious affair. Both countries are at a standstill. A holiday has been declared in most of Pakistan and India is, if anything, even more transfixed on this, the “mother of all cricket matches.”

Yes, I realize that this game is different and evokes the passions it does because it is between India and Pakistan. I want Pakistan to win against India today. Desperately. But let me be clear: I will not become more Pakistani than I already am if we win. Nor will I become a lesser Pakistani if we lose.

So, even as we prepare to engross ourselves over the next many hours in a tense haze of frenzy mixed with anxiety and sprinklings of passionate bouts of hope, despair, angst, anger, joy, and rage, glee, and all the other magical ingredients of cricket at its best, let us please never forget that this today may be the match to erase the memories of all other matches, but at the end of the day it remains just another match.

This is not war. This is not the validation or negation of who we are. This is not the full measure of our identity or even our reality. This is not the panacea to our problems. This is not the pinnacle of our worth.

It is, at least for today, the culmination of all our aspirations. But tomorrow it will be just another memory. Let us hope it is a good memory. Let us, in fact, ensure that it is a good one. And whether it is or not will depend not only on what the 11 men in green will do on the field today, but also on all the rest of us will do. Today, as well as tomorrow.

Here, then, is a prayer for tomorrow. A better tomorrow, that we must invent today.

Here, then, is a prayer for today. A today that may or may not bring us victory, but which must be dealt with dignity and grace. If we win today, let us show gratitude and graciousness. If we do not, then let us face defeat with resolute resolve.

Tomorrow, of course, will be another day. Tomorrow we will return to load-shedding, shouting TV anchors, angry puritans on all sides of all arguments, embarrassing politicians, a conniving establishment, corruption galore, maybe even bombs and blasts.

But let us return to that tomorrow with dignity and grace – a head held high in pride but not arrogance; a spirit that can take a severe blow but not shatter. Dealing with every today with such dignity and grace is the surest recipe of inventing a better tomorrow. And that – a better tomorrow – is the purpose of this today; indeed, the purpose of every day!

(Apologies, again, for this rambling stream of consciousness. Now, let us get back to cricket!)