NaMo: GIVING HIS EAR TO THE PEOPLE’S WOES

The narrator bring home to us the warmth, the peace and the positivity that PM Modi infuses in all his interactions. He is the PM and has a hundred pressing tasks to accomplish. But the 10 minutes he devotes during a meeting with someone, he is present completely. He makes the speaker feel super important and that is the quality that makes him truly phenomenal! My interaction with Modiji has been really remarkable! Of course, we view him as our leader, but for me to get a letter from him post the All-England victory was the first close interaction with him. It was 2003 and he was the CM. I received a few letters from many dignitaries, the PM, the President, but these were more of congratulatory notes. But his letter was different. He mentioned not just how my win inspired people but also related an incident about me rejecting a cola company. And this letter has remained with me and touched my heart! While everyone had made generic remarks, he had gone deeper and that made me feel very good. He spoke about Indianness and being the pride of India, and that remained as a big thing for me. Well there was something that I began to feel very strongly about. While sport for everyone is a very important thing and physical literacy as a movement had just started, my experience in sports has taught me that it is not just about winning medals and trophies and I felt that sports was losing the essence of what it was meant to be! I felt that somehow that if I was tell it to him, he will feel connected and that he could do something about it. So I wanted to share it with the biggest person and that was him. I was all prepared for the meeting but I am not the laptop kind of person. I made a presentation and sought an appointment. His office called up and said “Done! Come to the Parliament House! We have a meeting arranged with the PM!” It was scheduled for 11 o’clock. I had no clue for how much time the meeting was slotted but when I went there I realized it was seven and a half minutes before the next meeting. I went in there and then I started talking. I remembered the advice of a couple of friends who were preparing me for the meeting. They told me “You would probably need to speak for 5 to 6 minutes. Nobody is going to listen to you for so long! So go prepared!”

As I go in for this meeting, the first thing is that he makes me feel so warm. He asked me to pose for a photograph as his social media team was there, and then he says “Bolo Gopi, kya hai? (Yes Gopi! Tell me what it is.” And then I started talking. I actually spoke for 9 minutes. I was surprised at my own self ! I could not remember speaking continuously like this to someone, one-onone, at a personal level in this way. People always say that he is a great orator. I think, he is a bigger, better listener. And that is the point that people actually miss out. He is somebody who did not interrupt me, at all, for 9 minutes. And at seven and a half minutes, the door opened, he just glanced at his watch, and then he nodded and the person went off. And then the meeting continued till about 15 minutes. So I think one of the most striking qualities you realize is his ability to listen and his warmth. In a one-on-one interaction I realized that this is phenomenal. Then I remember something very vividly. He took out his pen and a small notepad, and wrote something. And then that was it! I came out. And it was amazing that for eight months back to back he spoke about “Sports for All.” When you look at government policies, whether it is Khelo India, Fit India, Yoga Day, it is all around Sports for All! If PM Modi says something, it makes a difference. He knows how to make a difference!

Today I have realized, more than then, that the Prime Minister, with his kind of problems, actually had so much of time and detail to figure this out. I remember this time, when I won the international Olympic Award for being the coach of the year, I asked once again for permission to meet him. It was 3 o’clock and I enquired at his office if it was even possible to meet sir. I could come at some other appropriate time as well. And the answer I get is that “I could come at 9 in the morning!” I was elated and shocked. He had been on that long tour abroad where he was visiting seven countries in seven days and was landing back at 4 am. Between 4 am and 9 am too he was super tied up. He visited Arun Jaitley’s family as Jaitleyji had passed away. Normally one would expect a person to be super tired at 9 am who has just done so much in the past week, and here he was – as fresh an apple! Well, glowing is the word. He spent 15 minutes and I was almost feeling guilty. You are in a hurry. You have ten things to do. But he is there, sitting in front of you and telling you that he has no other work but to listen to you. You know, it is this quality that makes you feel as though you are super important. It makes you feel like he has no other work more important than actually being with you. I think it is this quality of PM Modi that is unbelievable! It is almost sage-like. In one of the functions recently, in India the typical tendency is that most of the officials are sitting and the players are standing. You could see on his face that he was not liking what was happening. But he is PM Modi. He immediately figured out a way and quickly made it a point that he met each of the players personally. That again is something supremely remarkable. For me, I know one thing. Even if he is in a crowd, he connects with each one of the crowd! His warmth can never leave any one untouched.

TO BE CONTINUED...

COMPILED AND EDITED BY SHASHIKANT SHARMA AND SHWETA SHARMA