Star cricketer K. Srikkanth known to regale the crowd with his electrifying knocks on the field, bowled the audience with his talk laced with wit and life’s experience on a different pitch at the Mysuru Literature Festival, here on Sunday.
The second and the final day of the festival – organised by Mysuru Literary Forum Charitable Trust — had a packed gallery listening to Srikkanth who touched upon various aspects of life but linked it with cricket in general and India’s world cup victory in 1983, in particular.
The theme of his talk was ‘’Life Lessons from 1983 World Cup Victory’’ and the crux of Srikkanth’s message was that unless there was passion coupled with self-belief, one cannot accomplish anything in life and drew examples from the 1983 world cup victory.
Srikkanth recalled that people were talking about an England-West Indies final and India was nowhere in the reckoning. ‘’Even for many in the Indian team, London was just a brief stop-over for a game of cricket before flying off to the US for a holiday,” said Mr. Srikkanth pointing out that it was the kind of mindset at that period.
But Kapil Dev it was who had other plans and energized the team with his passion coupled with self-belief or confidence when he said that India could beat the West Indies and put out a superlative performance, said Mr.Srikkanth.
The former opening batsman and skipper was candid enough to admit that even among his team mates many were dismissive of Kapil Dev’s views as India had won only one match in the previous two World Cups.
But, it was to Kapil Dev’s credit who could bring about a change in the mindset of the team mates and he displayed his passion with an unbeaten knock of 175 against Zimbabwe when India was reeling at 17 for 5, recalled Srikkanth.
In the finals, Team India’s energy soared when Kapil Dev took a spectacular catch to get Vivian Richards out in the finals which was a turning point and the rest is history, recalled Srikkanth. It also brought about an attitudinal change and self-belief among the countrymen that ‘India could do it,’’ he added pointing out that Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar exemplify that passion in modern times.
Citing from his experience in cricket, Srikkanth said that just as the changing playing conditions forces a player to adapt, so to one should adapt to different situations in life and said M.S. Dhoni best exemplified such a quality on the field.
In the session ‘Towards Harmony with Nature’, wildlife biologist Dr. Sanjay Gubbi and conservationist Pamela Gale Malhotra were engaged in a conversation with primatologist Dr. Mewa Singh.
He said wildlife was threatened due to anthropogenic pressure and India which constituted just 4 to 5 per cent of the land mass accounted for nearly 15 per cent of the world’s biodiversity. The conservation also steered around the books of ‘’From the Heart of Nature’’ by Ms. Malhotra and Leopard Diaries by Mr. Gubbi.
Recalling her conservation work, Ms. Malhotra said an abandoned estate has been reclaimed by nature and flagship and iconic species ranging from tigers and leopards to elephants found sanctuary in it.
Mr. Gubbi said apart from passion and determination, one need a long-term understanding of the society and the system to work for wildlife conservation. In case of Mysuru, he said Chamundi Hills was a biodiversity hotspot which harbored not only leopards but other rare and smaller species and people of Mysuru should put their efforts to conserve the ecosystem.
There were other a slew of other authors and panel discussions in the two-day festival which concluded late in the evening.
