Who says politicians don't play?

The portly Union minister of state for human resource development, M A A Fatmi, has
a house that also doubles for anything and everything cricket, where talented young cricketers do battle with established players and even visiting foreign teams

By Shahid Faridi

Left-arm leg-spinner Sukhvinder Singh, who represented Delhi and Assam in the Ranji trophy, is bowling. Taking the strike is Sumit Anand, a young boy who plays for the Jamia Millia Islamia University Cricket Team. On the field are former Ranji players Tariq-ur-Rehman, who plays for Air-India after having represented Bihar in the Ranji Trophy, and Zeeshan Ali, who had represented East Zone and was part of the Under-19 Rest of India team. There are others on the field who had played the C K Naidu Trophy or in other prominent matches.

The venue of the match is neither a stadium nor a playground: it is the backyard of Union minister of state for human resource development (HRD) M A A Fatmi's residence at 1, Kamraj Road in New Delhi's Lutyen's Bungalow Zone.

The burly minister is himself on-field, supervising the proceedings. It is a Minister's XI versus Youth XI limited-overs match. The problem is that the team of youngsters is scoring runs at a rate not quite to the minister's liking. There is tension in the air, with the youngsters scoring on almost every ball, either by stealing singles or finding the boundary. To cut the upstarts down to size, the bowlers are being rotated and the field is frequently being readjusted.

The youngsters pile up a good total, but when the veterans in the minister's team come out to bat, the target set by the youth appears too small and is easily achieved.

During halftime, hot samosas, jalebis, and Pepsi are served to all. And, at the end of the match, the talented youngsters are all given good-quality BDM bats.

This is not an event organised once a year but is a regular feature at Fatmi's residence. On most of his off days, whether it is a Sunday or a government holiday, when Fatmi is not at office at Shastri Bhawan or touring, a cricket match is organised at his residence where young cricketers get to play and interact with the experienced killers.

Throughout the daylong match, the seasoned players give tips to the youngsters and motivate them to play better and strive for their place in bigger teams. During these matches, the minister identifies talented players and helps them along in their careers, something he has been doing for the past 10 years.

A senior cricketer, who works as a middle-ranking officer in a public sector undertaking and is a regular at these matches, tells Realpolitik that Fatmi has been instrumental in getting government jobs for many sportsmen—and that he is one of them.

Fatmi is a rather unlikely sports patron, not only because he is dangerously overweight, but also because he is a politician from Bihar, where all that politicians do is full-time politics. Then, again, Fatmi is an unlikely politician, a man with a snooker table and a table tennis table at home. A four-term Member of Parliament (MP) belonging to Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), who made his maiden entry into the Union council of ministers in the Manmohan Singh government as minister of state for HRD, Fatmi is a prodigal.

After getting a degree in civil engineering from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), he had worked in Saudi Arabia. He returned only to contest the Parliamentary election on the RJD ticket. Since then, he has won the Lok Sabha elections four times and lost once—all from Darbhanga.

Last year, he had organised the somewhat oddball All-India Tennis Ball Cricket Championship at his constituency. His unflinching commitment to promoting cricket has got him the post of president of the Bihar Tennis Ball Cricket Association and patron of All-India Tennis Ball Cricket Association. He is busy these days trying to get all organisations, states and districts that have cricket teams to build up tennis ball cricket teams as well.

Being the sports buff that he is, he says, "Talent has to be spotted early and then honed. There is no dearth of talent in our country. But the talented youngsters need support and guidance." Once, at a Parliamentary sports meet, Fatmi shocked fellow MPs by beating sports stars-turned MPs like Chetan Chauhan in the swimming and carrom championships.

That's hardly surprising: Fatmi was a promising sportsman in his schooldays—a javelin champion in Bihar at the school level, and a member of the Bihar school football team. When he reached college, he was the undisputed champion of the 200-metre dash. And then he went on to join the Aligarh Muslim University football team.

Becoming a politician only expanded the footprint of his passion: ever since he became an MP, every time a foreign cricket team arrives in India, Fatmi uses his beef to cart them to his residence for tea or lunch, where dozens of promising young Indian players get a chance to knockabout with them. And it remains a matter of great satisfaction to him that in the Lok Sabha election, he trounced the not-too-ageing cricket star Kirti Azad—by a margin of 1.40 lakh votes.

Who says politicians don't play?