The Dhoni Touch

by Bharat Sundaresan

  At the end of the rigorous training session, it was time for the jump. His first jump came off an An-32 military aircraft from around 15,000 feet. But as he would tell Col Shankar later, it was the second that was the toughest. ‘“First jump mein pata nahi chalta hai. (The first jump you don’t realize what’s happening.) I was just pushed out. Only then you realize, bloody how crazy this is. The second jump is the toughest. You know what’s going to happen, and you’re waiting, waiting,”’ Shankar recalls him saying. ‘You are in a fixed line and just pushed out. It is generally safe since the parachute opens on its own, you don’t have to do anything,’ he explains.

  Completing the five jumps and earning his badge also meant forming a stronger bond with the regiment he represented. Moreover, the fact that not many of his fauji friends, Col Shankar included, had completed the five jumps, gave his feat an additional shine. ‘“Sir, aapne toh nahi kiya hai. (Sir, you have not done it.),”’ Col Shankar recalls Dhoni telling him soon after with great glee.

  That wasn’t the only time Dhoni indulged in one-upmanship with the colonel. He does so every time the two go to a shooting range. Whenever possible, Dhoni makes sure that he visits one on 1 January, regardless of which part of the world he’s in. The shooting range is his kolaideivyam (Tamil for family deity), says Col Shankar, who remembers picking him up at 6 a.m. from Taj Bengal on New Year’s Day a few years ago. And also seeing him up and ready, decked up immaculately in his uniform.

  Col Shankar says that Dhoni can fire any weapon—he’s seen the former Indian captain do it with at least nine different weapons—from twenty-five yards and hit the bullseye. It’s something you expect only the most highly skilled soldier to pull off. The fact that he can do so even with a pistol, which jumps a lot more on recoil, impresses Col Shankar so much that he reiterates the point.

  ‘Any firing is about holding, aiming and the trigger operation. Nobody has taught him the basics, but they seem ingrained in him. His strength is amazing, so the grip is great. The aiming comes from the natural alignment of his body and, of course, he’s worked hard to master the technique of trigger operation. Normally, we soldiers pick a new weapon and spend the first round only on zeroing. He picks up, and within two shots, he has gained enough information about the weapon to strike bull,’ he explains.

  The irrepressible competitor in Dhoni naturally makes sure that every visit to the shooting range results in a ‘shoot-out’ between the two friends. ‘He beats me hollow every time and will even tease me saying things like, “Sir, aap hamesha daaye–baaye maarte ho. (Sir, you always strike right or left of the target.” I always tell him that in combat I’ve proved myself and killed terrorists. “You’ve only proved yourself on the range.” That’s our standard banter. But you can see how thrilled he is to get the better of an active soldier,’ Col Shankar says with a beaming smile. He also quickly recalls the time Dhoni beat former Australian pace great Glenn McGrath, a lifelong hunter, at a clay-pigeon shooting face-off in Kimberley during the 2009 IPL which was played in South Africa. And he did so as clinically and cerebrally as he finishes off a run chase.

  Dhoni takes his ravenous curiosity to the shooting range too, and as Col Shankar says, he won’t just pick up a new weapon and fire away. It’s not just some trigger-happy indulgence for him. Instead, he’ll go into the mechanics of it, ask why it’s particularly better than others, or he’ll read up on them and give seasoned officers information that they wouldn’t have been aware of, like ‘Sir, there are certain weapons that’ll give you sight where the laser pointer is and very few Indian weapons have that.’ He’ll also want to know whether the one he’s hitting ‘bull’ with will be as effective in combat as it is on the range. ‘It’s again something we are taught as young officers—to first understand a weapon in its entirety before learning to fire it,’ says Col Shankar.

  In an army establishment, it’s a different Dhoni that shows up. When the colonel and Dhoni are together in his room or on the road—when he often picks on the cricket-mad colonel, saying, ‘Sir, aap IPL mein kya kar rahe ho? Doklam mein hona chahiye aapko. (Sir, what are you doing in IPL? You should be in Doklam.)’ But when they visit a military unit, he makes it a point to play second fiddle to the colonel. He acknowledges the hierarchy and respects it.

  ‘He salutes really well now,’ says the colonel. ‘Now he doesn’t get confused with ranks. It’s easy for a civilian to get confused with military jargon. Prior to such visits, he’ll ask me, “Isko kaise bulana hai? Kaunse regiment ka hai? Bahut log aa gaye toh kaise bulana hai. (How should I address him? Which regiment is he from? When a lot of people come, how do I address them?) Who should be the priority?”’ says Col Shankar. And Dhoni doesn’t mind erring on the side of overdoing the respect, even if it means addressing every fauji he meets at a camp as ‘sir’.

  It’s at these army bases that Dhoni’s ‘innate knowledge’ about military life really shines through, leaving Col Shankar flabbergasted every time. While celebrity visits are largely publicized, Dhoni insists on informing the people incharge only at the last minute. That’s not to keep them guessing but to ensure that his audience isn’t restricted to the best people they have or simply officers with their wives. Dhoni always prefers meeting the jawans since he feels he can make a bigger difference to their lives, and also because he connects with them more in terms of background, work ethic and an earthy approach to life.

  Col Shankar would call beforehand and ask for thirty–forty jawans to be quickly assembled, and the initial volley of questions to Dhoni would all involve cricket, along with a few about his personal life, especially after the movie came out. But Dhoni, of course, as any journalist who has attended even a single press conference of his would know, has this ability to effortlessly steer a question you want answered towards one that he wants to answer. As Col Shankar says, he does it subtly without sounding rude and manages to tug at the jawans’ heartstrings.

  As Col Shankar reveals, he would start telling them about how his father wasn’t a big shot and that, much like them, he’s away from his home and family for long periods. He once told a bunch of them that at his peak, he got forty days off in a year, out of which he had brand endorsements to deal with, leaving him with not more than eight to nine days in a year at home.

  ‘He tells them, “I am exactly like you. But at least you guys have the freedom to go meet your friends and relatives on your off days. I am mainly cocooned in my hotel, and it’s almost like a jail to me.” He also slips in lines such as, like them he too has to take care of his finances despite all his wealth, which immediately strikes a chord with the jawans,’ Col Shankar says.

  Soon, it’s Dhoni who’s asking questions, mainly centred around the agricultural land that invariably an average jawan owns or tends to back home. They’ll range from who’s taking care of them to how the crop is this time. That again makes the soldiers’ eyes light up, says the colonel. “They’ll start telling him stories excitedly. “Saheb, iss baar baarish hi nahi hui. Papa ne aisa kiya. Beej mein humne yeh daala. (Saheb, this time there was no rains. Papa tried to do this. In between, we tried to sow this.)”’

  In the army, young officers are made to live with the jawans. It’s part of their grooming process, paving the making of a good military leader. The stay can last anywhere between two weeks to two months, depending on the regiment. Col Shankar reveals that in some Gorkha units, the officer cannot enter the officer’s mess for food till he’s learnt to speak Nepali fluently. ‘The guys in the unit there speak only Nepali. So, they make sure you know the language properly. If you are from a Muslim unit, you have to go for prayers to know what namaz is about. It’s done so that we can lead them effortlessly,’ he says.

  Having a drink with a jawan or going to the bara khana (a feast organized on special occasions) even if the food is saltier than what your dietary demands dictate, rather than sticking to the mess is a great way of bonding. It’s a tradition that is passed down generation after generation of senior officers
to their successors.

  Dhoni, of course, has had no formal training in becoming an officer or a military leader. But heck, he’s barely had formal training to be a cricketer. He just found his own way of becoming one. But like Col Shankar keeps reiterating, Dhoni just seems to have an inherent understanding of the significance of bonding with the soldiers. Or like he says with the same astonishment as always, ‘Where did he get that from?’ For, while Dhoni is known to rarely have anything more than a piece of chicken or a glass of water when presented with a gourmet feast at the officer’s mess, he doesn’t miss out on a single item offered to him from the soldiers’ kitchen.

  ‘He’ll relish the jawans’ chai handed to him in a steel glass. He’ll barely touch the continental and English fare laid out by the officers, but with the jawans he’ll have one small piece of the pakora and taste all the sweets. He realizes that it makes a difference to their lives. They’ll say, “Dhoni saheb ne yeh khaya. (Dhoni saheb ate this.)” They’ll talk about it forever,’ says Col Shankar.

  The colonel further explains that there’s no greater satisfaction for an officer when a soldier who served under him comes to him after many years and says, ‘Yaad hai mein aapke saath wahan tha? Aap bahut achche the. (Remember, I was there with you? You were very good.)’ That’s exactly the feedback Col Shankar gets from those who have interacted with Dhoni. ‘They’ll say, “Dhoni saheb kya achcha bole the. Maine bhi ghar mein jaake bataya. (How well Dhoni sir spoke. I told my family too.)” The same jawan will then say that while MS wanted only group photos, they managed to sneak in a selfie with him.’

  It’s often how happy the soldiers are under an officer’s command that determines his annual appraisal. The jawans might not be the one writing the final report, but the man who is, does so only after taking their opinion. It can be little things like whether you sacrificed watching a movie to attend one of their unit events.

  ‘We also have the usual yardsticks ranging up to “outstanding”. But if your boss writes that you are a good asset both in war and peace, then you have achieved the highest honour,’ says Col Shankar. Like Dhoni did when former India coach Gary Kirsten said, ‘I want to go to war with this guy,’ a few months after the two had seen India lift the World Cup on that famous night at the Wankhede stadium.

  Most of Dhoni’s conversations at these army camps—and he’s now visited a lot of them, from the southern part of the country to Kashmir and Leh in the very north—are bond-building exercises with the jawans. He also tells them how they idolize him while he looks up to them.

  As captain, Dhoni has earned many sobriquets—from that of being an impulsive gambler, an astute tactician, to a rather reactionary sceptic in Test cricket. But he has never ever shied away from taking a decision on his own terms, whether it made sense or not to the outside world or even his teammates. And decision-making is an issue that he gets quizzed on a lot by the soldiers he meets by the dozens. He, however, uses it as a platform to declare his views on how war and cricket should never be spoken of in the same breath, forget putting on the same pedestal.

  ‘He tells them “the more and more decisions you take, the more and more times you’ll make a correct decision. So the more decisions you take, the number of mistakes will come down.” He says in war, it is life and death. You might not get another chance. When people say India–Pakistan match ek jung hai (is war), he says that’s completely wrong. People lose lives and there’s destruction. Not only of the army but the whole country,’ says Col Shankar.

  Dhoni is also aware of the ills of the army, whether it is to do with the bureaucracy or the lack of equipment, and he questions them wherever he goes. He’s found that if the right people are asked the tough questions, they sit up and realize that they cannot fake it with him. A young Dhoni is said to have been similar in the Indian dressing room, at that point boasting of some of the biggest names in the history of the sport. He never spoke out of line, but he never shied away from making his point of view heard either. If he had a point, he would make it.

  It was a trait that he displayed a lot as Indian captain. He remained steadfast in calling a spade a spade or in pointing out the white elephant in the room even if there were times in his career when critics said that he could have done more of it.

  When he led India for the first time during the triangular series in Australia back in 2007–08, Dhoni was clear about not wanting a particular senior batsman in the lineup. He had an issue with his running between the wickets, the number of dot balls he consumed, and said he won’t even bring up his fielding ability when asked for his reasons by the selector representing this particular player’s zone. He had very objective and pointed explanations for each of his specific concerns about this player. About his running between the wickets, Dhoni is learnt to have said that he couldn’t be sure whether that batsman would complete the run or stop in between, and such indecisiveness would have a negative effect on his partner’s mindset. When pointed out that the batsman didn’t have a bad strike rate by the prevailing standards, then Dhoni, never a big believer in numbers, is learnt to have said, ‘Char dot balls, last two balls pe ek boundary, ek single or double, strike rate ho gaya 90. (Four dot balls. A boundary and one or two runs on the last two balls. That takes the strike rate to 90.) The number of dot balls is the problem with this stat.’ And true to his word, he didn’t speak a word about his fielding. Eventually, the batsman in question wasn’t picked for the squad and never played ODIs for India again. But when India found themselves in a tight spot during one of the matches in the tournament, Dhoni used the axing he’d engineered to motivate or send a quiet warning to his players. ‘I want to say only this. I’ve dropped a lot of big players to bring you guys in. Abhi kuch karna padega aap logon ko. (You guys have to do something now.)’ As always, a man of few words. India, of course, went on to win that game and the tri-series, the first time they’d won a tournament Down Under since 1985 when they had won the World Series.

  ‘How can you give away a rank as prestigious as that to a cricketer, while we’ve earned and achieved it through our sweat and blood? What has he done for the army?’ That’s a question that is asked a lot about most honorary military officers by those who actually serve the country on the frontline. It’s a valid one too. No civilian or even a Bollywood star has yet received an honorary Test cap from the BCCI after all, just for argument’s sake even if the comparison might not be a direct fit.

  Col Shankar admits that the sense of antipathy towards their high-profile celebrity inductee doesn’t arise from envy. It has instead got more to do with Dhoni not being one to overtly promote the armed forces; he does it more subtly and at times anonymously—especially in financial matters—without beating a single drum, unlike others of his ilk.

  ‘If they are not able to meet him, or they have introduced themselves as army officers and haven’t been given an audience with him, they feel like he’s not living up to the expectations. They don’t know the kind of work he does. They think that he should spend crores on the army widows. “Siachen mein ek banda mar gaya, uske liye kuch nahi kiya, ek tweet bhi nahin? (A soldier dies in Siachen, he doesn’t do anything, not even one tweet?),” they ask. For him, it matters more to speak to a jawan and find out more. He feels it’s about leadership and not showmanship,’ says Col Shankar.

  It does makes sense why his detractors would think that Dhoni isn’t doing enough, considering the present political climate of the country, where social media has become the platform and the pulpit to emblazon and preach about your patriotism even if it borders on jingoism. The fact that Dhoni doesn’t toe this line, leads to the misconception that he doesn’t care, and is only there to reap the benefits of holding a senior rank. So much so that some officers get annoyed when they hear that Dhoni is visiting their unit.

  ‘The perception completely changes for anyone who’s met him even for ten minutes. They’re like hamare type ka banda hai, yaar . . . (he’s like us). And within minutes after him leaving, their What
sApp profile pictures have changed from the tricolour to M.S. Dhoni. That’s his impact,’ says Col Shankar laughing before listing out the various Dhoni contributions to the army, including lakhs of rupees spent on widows and martyr families.

  Dhoni chooses subtler ways of promoting the army. It’s become such a routine to see some part of Dhoni’s apparel depicting or representing the army. He’ll have those army fatigues on while travelling or even otherwise. His wicketkeeping gloves are custom-designed under his own supervision and carry a military theme and a name that resonates with it, MSD Warrior. His kitbag has had the fatigues’ theme for a few years now, and is now popular among other cricketers too, both among those who play for India at the highest level and in the suburbs of Mumbai and Delhi who play for their local clubs.

  More often than not, it’s a direct statement in support of the army rather than having anything to do with fashion. Col Shankar says it’s Dhoni’s way of giving back to the army, at least in terms of exposure. ‘He does it because he feels that people will notice. If not the fatigues, he’ll have T-shirts with telltale signs. Then they’ll ask, why and what is written? “Why does it say Airborne? What is Airborne?” He says when I wear it, people take a lot of pictures and post them, so at least that way the goodwill will spread.’

  Dhoni has his own theory, not surprisingly, about why the army needs to be promoted more, or the air around it cleared as much as possible. He wants people to see how the soldiers live off the land in the border areas and the kind of sacrifices they make rather than simply relying on newspaper headlines, which brings us to his pet peeve. ‘Why is it that when an army guy does something wrong, his profession is always mentioned in the headline like, say, “Ex-army did this and that”, but when a lawyer or journalist does it, they just put a name and never bring his profession into disrepute?’ Dhoni would ask the colonel repeatedly. The army, Dhoni is said to believe, is always put on a pedestal because they’re expected to have an unreasonable level of moral uprightness, and as a result, any negative news about them alters the rest of the country’s opinion of them greatly. And it’s this reason that pushes him to try and promote the positives of the army to a greater extent.