A LITTLE over two years ago, while sitting with Ramanathan Krishnan and listening to him talk about his salad days in tennis, when he routinely beat the best in the business in what was the golden era of the game - the 1960s - this writer asked him a straightforward question.
We were actually co-operating in writing his autobiography - which, entitled A Touch of Tennis, and comprising the story of his son Ramesh as well, was published by Penguin Books (India) - and when Krishnan recalled his days at the top, I asked him what, he believed, stopped him from making that one final push to the very top.
Briefly in the early 1960s, Krishnan was ranked the second best player in the world, the closest any Indian tennis player - by himself - has come to reaching the coveted No. 1 ranking, the closest anybody will come in the foreseeable future.
"You know what," said Krishnan, as forthright a human being as anybody will ever get to meet in the world of Indian sport, "I think I was satisfied too easily. Semifinals at Wimbledon, twice. And I started feeling good, I started thinking, 'Yes, I have done well for myself."'
Lesser men would not have made that admission. Lesser men would not have had the courage to bare their soul and to say that they perhaps settled for less than what they might have accomplished. But Krishnan had the courage, and the humility, to say it.
Every time the question of world beaters in Indian sport crops up, you cannot but rewind to the day Krishnan said what he did... and ponder the truth of that honest admission.
As a sporting nation, over the last 50 years and more, India has had very little to show, very little to compare with giants such as the United States, Germany, Russia and the rest. And even at the Asian level, countries such as China and Japan have left us far behind.
In 50 years, Indians have won three individual medals at the Olympics. And when you take away the heroics of our great hockey teams of the now-distant past, India, as a nation, has been a non-entity in the quadrennial summit show of sport.
For all that, the sporting cupboard has not been bare, really. From time to time, Indians have made their mark at some level here and there. A succession of cricket teams, not the least Kapil Dev's men in the World Cup in 1983, have matched the best in the business, a Milkha Singh now, a P. T. Usha then, a handful of billiards players from Wilson Jones down to Geet Sethi, a pair of badminton stars in Prakash Padukone and Pullela Gopi Chand, have scaled the summit or gotten close.
Yet, as significant as the achievements of our cueists and cricketers may be, as popular as someone like Sachin Tendulkar is in the world of cricket and particularly in his homeland, there is no getting away from the fact that these are not truly international sports.
Of course, it is not Tendulkar's fault or Sethi's fault that more countries do not play the games that they do, the ones in which they are genuine world beaters and champions of substance.
But the point is, until the arrival of Viswanathan Anand, India did not have a sportsperson who was a consistent world-beater in a truly international sport. Krishnan, no matter that he never made the No. 1 ranking, was the one that had come closest before Anand. He was followed by Prakash in badminton.
To be a genuine world-beater, it will not do simply to beat the best on a given day and then struggle the next day to stay even with the worst. A nice case study here is the Indian cricket team.
The famous victory over the world champion, Australia, at home was followed by a shock defeat to lowly Zimbabwe in the away series.
There are many talented teams/individuals that can match the best on a given day. Roger Federer, a gifted 19-year-old Swiss player matched the peerless Pete Sampras shot for shot - although on a day when the great man was struggling to find form - at Wimbledon last fortnight and brought up a famous kill. But whether Federer will go on to become a world beater only time can tell.
But a proven world-beater, a team or an individual of real substance, does it day after day after day, like the Australian cricketers have done over the last three years - no matter the odd debacle as the one they experienced in India - like Sampras himself has done over many years, as Sachin Tendulkar has done as an individual in a team sport for a good part of his career.
Using this yardstick, we could perhaps count the number of world-beaters in Indian sport in the fingers of one hand.
Anand, of course, stays at the very top, his recent success over Vladimir Kramnik in the Mainz Chess Classic in Germany, further cementing his place at the helm. Count him in as No. 1. Then you have Tendulkar, a great player figuring in a succession of mediocre to average teams, someone who deserves better men around him.
After all, most great batsmen in the world - from Don Bradman down to Viv Richards - were all part of great teams that went on to conquer the world and rule with an iron fist.
Third in the list will be the Indian tennis pair Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes. Over three years, no matter the odd failure as in Wimbledon this summer, the two men have proved that they have what it takes to beat the best in their sport time and again.
Three Grand Slam titles and three appearances in the final of the World championship offer proof of their calibre as competitors and as champions.
So, who else do we have? Perhaps Gopi Chand. But one All-England championship does not make a world champion. The talented young man is getting there. He is not quite there yet.
These few apart, there is the odd marksman who makes headlines once in a while, the hockey team blows hot and cold, a few young chess players - all products of the great Anand Revolution - make their mark...
Still, the question is, are we, as a sporting nation, anywhere near the top or even the middle level? Certainly not.
And, after saying all that you want about infrastructure, about Government support, about corporate sponsorship, you finally have to get down to the bottom line - which is Krishnan's point about why he failed to crash through the final barrier.
The other day at Wimbledon, talking about American tennis players, about Andy Roddick in particular, John McEnroe, in the midst of his now-familiar State of Tennis address, dwelt on the attitude of American sportsmen and said how Second Best will simply not do in his country.
That's the point, really. In India, we tend to reach for the bubbly a little too soon, much before time. An Asian Games gold for the hockey team, and we are ecstatic. Toast the boys, allot them housing plots... whatever.
Well, don't get me wrong. There is no intention here to belittle an achievement such as winning a gold medal in the Asian Games. It was a magnificent effort. But the question is, where has the Indian hockey team gone from there?
That's the question John McEnroe had for Barry Cowan, an English journeyman ranked No. 265, at Wimbledon the other week. After his thrilling five-set loss to Sampras, McEnroe said to Cowan: "I am not interested in what you have done. I am more interested in what you are going to do after this."
That's the key - using success at one level as a springboard for further success until you reach the very top. Viswanathan Anand has done just this. The great master of the 64-square game continues to do this.
And to do it consistently, you have to say to yourself: Second Best simply will not do.
The great Swede Bjorn Borg once said, "What's the point in being No. 2. It is the same as being No. 100."
If you are trying to be the No. 1 in any sport - well, in anything that you do in life - it would help if you are armed with that attitude. For, at the top level in any sport, there are several players/teams with the same level of talent. What separates the best from the rest is merely attitude.
In the event, if Indian sport is to find more world-beaters like Viswanathan Anand, Sachin Tendulkar and the tennis pair, Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes, then the best of our sportsmen will constantly have to tell themselves that Second Best simply will not do.
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