Chak De Kabul!

ON ONE of the very few occasions that I have met Lord Mandelson (when he was still the business secretary in the last Labour government and a thousand other things) I did say to him that he was the “Sonia Gandhi” of British politics. I meant it as a compliment: He seemed cool and calm, a stabilising force, the “glue” that maintained the uneasy coalition between the then Prime Minister Tony Blair and the former Chancellor Gordon Brown. It reminded me of how Mrs Gandhi had first stepped in and kept her party and later the first United Progressive Alliance government from collapsing. He looked quite pleased. And now it is painfully obvious why, but, alas, not quite in the way I had meant.
From his newly published memoir, The Third Man, it is apparent that more than keeping the Labour Party in power, the tension between Mr Blair and Mr Brown actually kept Lord Mandelson and others around in power. Feeding into the insecurities of the two men, Lord Mandelson played the concerned middle-man, brokering deals between the two and assiduously storing away all the salacious details for future use. Mr Brown was “mad, bad and dangerous” and Mr Blair was “weak and ineffectual”. And guess who comes out smelling of roses? Lord Mandelson, of course.
The speed at which Lord Mandelson has churned out his “kiss and tell” book has been astonishing. It is barely two months since the elections — how did the man ever find the time to write a book covering 13 years so quickly? If he has only just written it then he has got through one year in one week which is a breathtaking ratio by any measure. Or more likely, accused as he is of being a master of the dark arts, he may have already anticipated this moment and had been prepared to line his retirement years with royalties, ages ago. He has, not for the first time, pipped both Mr Blair and Mr Brown to the post. They are still struggling with their recollections while he is busy serialising book rights and tours. No doubt there will soon be a film about a gay, powerful minister who controlled 10 Downing Street.
But who do we really believe? Coming so close on the heels of the former spin doctor Alistair Campbell’s memoirs, this latest bombshell has pushed us deep into a Rashomon moment, with each new book giving a different twist to our understanding of the Blair-Brown years. Lord Mandelson has very nobly maintained that he rushed his book because he wanted the contenders of the newly-launched Labour leadership contest to learn from history. But already doubts are being shed at his capacity to remember incidents laced with supposedly verbatim dialogue unless he was also tape-recording the conversations? However, his loyal supporters point out that a Prince of Darkness must also have supernatural powers and maybe this is only a small demonstration of that.
Perhaps the book should have been called “The Third Monkey” as it seems the three men had decided that whilst in power they would not notice the evil around them, pretending that they were all influential world leaders. On the contrary, they actually seem like a bunch of squabbling schoolboys at Number 10 and 11 calling each other names and even occasionally pummelling each other — not over policy or even the Iraq war, but over what clothes Mr Blair was to wear. According to Mr Campbell’s memoirs this was the reason why Lord Mandelson boxed him during an acrimonious meeting. Clothes! Image maintenance reigned supreme, after all.
Whilst this may not be what we would have liked to think New Labour was all about, it is interesting to see the depths to which hubris can make us plunge. At the same time, I really wish a similar no-holds-barred memoir would come out in India. Mission impossible!

MEANWHILE, AWAY from the Westminister battleground I saw the preview of a really feel-good and unusual film about the Afghanistani cricket team, Out of the Ashes, from filmmakers Timothy Albone, Lucy Martens and Leslie Knott. Shot over two years — the film emerged from Albone’s journalistic sojourn in Afghanistan during which the cricket team was announced. Immediately struck by the idea, Albone temporarily abandoned his journalism for the film — even teaching himself cinematography for the purpose. The documentary is especially heart-warming as it does not play upon any stereotypes, but clearly pitches a bunch of very cheerful underdogs against the cricketing might of the entire world, as they prepare for the World Cup. The crew, also often struggling for resources, determinedly shot over 200 hours all over the world to reach the final, brilliantly-edited version of the 86-minute film. However — the film did garner some backers along the way — including the filmmaker and cricket enthusiast Sam Mendes and the BBC.
Out of the Ashes traces the initial grouping of the team, mostly from a refugee camp, under an almost surrealistically optimistic coach Taj Malik to their knockout at the World Cup qualifiers. Armed with very little training, almost no funding and a strict halal diet, the team launch themselves enthusiastically into the championship. Albone was never sure about where the documentary would lead or end — because the team could have been ousted at any of the qualifying rounds. To his astonishment, they travel through Jersey, Tanzania and even Argentina, praying and surviving to play another day. The film with a powerful true-life story, accompanied by strong visuals and rousing music (and thankfully without a voiceover) gifts us a rarely seen side of Afghanistan.
Albone himself says that this was the main inspiration. “I wanted show the human side to Afghanistan, not just the war.” In this, the film, with its fairytale ending, succeeds completely. It is a film about the triumph of the human spirit. The politics and ravaged images of a war-torn country are not entirely absent but are integrated seamlessly into the script — for instance, sometimes as a broadcast from US President Barack Obama — so that we can never forget where the indomitable cricket players emerged from. Even their final knockout from the World Cup is like a victory because they had never even dreamt they could, with all their disadvantages, become an internationally-recognised team.
It is the sort of film that a cricket-mad country like India would love — but also viewers everywhere because it transcends boundaries and speaks to us purely about how the most fragile dream can, one day, become a reality. Or as Taj Malik says, “There are a lot of problems in the world today… Everywhere there is complex fighting, injustice... The solution to all the problems is... cricket!”

The writer can be contacted at kishwardesai@yahoo.com [2]