Muhammad Ali - From The Pages Of Verses To The Bouts Of The Rings

March 8, I always cherish and also abhor ....

International Women's Day is celebrated on my birthday ... which I cherish about ...

And I abhor, for Muhammad Ali faced his first professional loss in his boxing career ... yes he lost to Joe Frazier after 15 rounds on March 8, 1971 .... I abhor more, for I always have a soft corner for poets, and Ali was no mean poet ... His "I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee .." being my all-time favorite ...

Trounced he was, but avenged the defeat, and never allowed his bete noire Frazier to overpower him for life .... he defeated him twice in two bouts, on January 24, 1974 and October 1, 1975 ...

That fighting spirit, to hit back at the opponents including the most powerful governments around the world, is not a joke but commendable, an inspiration for generations to come to raise voice against something which you think isn't correct, politically or apolitically .....

I wonder, the Virats and Tendulkars have the fighting spirit of the legendary boxer to take on the government of the day by its neck, questioning its policies ...

Or even a word against Vijay Mallya, the Man Friday who is holed up in a rat hole somewhere in London to catch a glimpse of his team RCB losing in IPL finals against Sunrisers Hyderabad .... 

The Bevada (Mallya, the drinker) had left India, for he owes over Rs 9,000 core to the Indian banks ... what a fall for Mallya - from opulence to misery ... thats another issue ...

I wouldn't be surprised if Mallya had a tough time with Ali, famously known for his maverick braggings ... 

The boxer wouldn't have spared Mallya either and verbally punched him as he did punching the sandbags ... would have done without much caring even if he was bought over in an auction by the liquor baron ...

I don't think Virat has that juice to juice up the media space ... and hence it wasn't worthwhile for any of us (Journalists) to ask questions on Mallya in all nine matches played at Chinnaswamy in Bengaluru ...

But there was one ... asked by a very respected and veteran journalist, but the question was evaded as cowardly as a wild duck  ....

VIETNAM WAR

Getting back to Ali, he had championed many issues relating to civil rights and racial equality ... also stood up against the US war in Vietnam and refused to be drafted in the Army ...

The incident was highly controversial at the time and Ali even took his case as high as the US Supreme Court where he was acquitted of all charges ...

But before he could win this battle, he fought a different kind of a battle off the ring, without the gloves on ... He was denied a boxing license and stripped of his passport between the age of 25 and 29 ...

But the legendary boxer donned the gloves of social activism and made public speeches, criticising the Vietnam war and advocating African-American pride and racial justice ... This stance even, it is said, inspired Martin Luther King Junior to publicly voice his opposition to the war ...

IRAQ WAR

And how he infused life into the hopeless condition of 15 US citizens who were taken hostage by Saddam Hussein in the run up to the Gulf War ... is a well-documented episode ...

He flew to Iraq, and hardly could walk, talk and stand due to the Parkinson's disease, and yet succeeded in flying out all the 15 in tow out of Baghdad, but he had to wait for a week's time for Saddam to invite him for a talk, till then he had ran out of his Parkinson's medication .... 

He flew out of Bhagdad on Dec 2, 1990 ... and was humbled. The released hostages thanked him, and in reply the legend said: "They don't owe me nothin."

For this humane work, Ali was criticised by Bush White House alleging the mission was one of self-aggrandizement, that he was just in search of more publicity

The ringmaster that he was landed a knockout punch on Bush administration by saying, "I do need publicity, but not for what I do for good! I need publicity for my book, I need publicity for my fights, I need publicity for my movie — but not for helping people. Then it’s no longer sincere."

He did not stop at that he had undertaken many such missions in South Africa, Cuba, India and many other countries ... travelling as the UN Ambassador of Peace

A POET-BOXER 

All these, a poet only can do with eloquence, for a poet's heart is full of love, even if the verses sound rebellious ... the verses, the anger stems out of supreme love for humanity, nothing else ...

And Ali lived a life of a poet, made boxing look poetic, brought  grace into the world of the rings with his style and grace ... surely a poet could only import that from the pages of verses to the bouts of the rings ...