Comfort zone to hell-hole

Sometimes we all need to take a break and reflect on our circumstances.

If this sounds unnecessarily broad and pretentiously philosophical, it's only because I'm happy that there was a significant time-lag between the first inflammatory thoughts that came into my head and the two hours spent yesterday morning tap-tapping out a perspective on the keyboard on the deliberations by the England squad as to whether or not they should return to India for the two-Test series that is due to begin next Thursday in Chennai.

Had the situation been different, you would have been enjoying (or enduring) a real diatribe on pampered, multi-millionaire cowards who are so arrogant and myopic that any variance from their standards - be it organisational efficiency, cultural norms or social attitudes - is greeted with thinly-veiled condescension or outright scorn and derision.

But even in the midst of salivating at the prospect of another 750-or-so similar intemperate words at the expense of Kevin Pietersen and his men, something pulled me back from that course and charted a direction instead towards an appreciation of the bigger picture, towards contemplating what I would do in a similar situation.

Without a moment's hesitation, I resolved that I would go, in the same way that I would have jumped at the chance to go to Sri Lanka during the 1996 World Cup or Morocco in 2001 (post-September 11) or Pakistan in 2002 or Kenya at the 2003 World Cup or Pakistan again last month, all instances when the West Indies Cricket Board chose not to have its team visit those countries for scheduled engagements on the grounds of security concerns.

This has nothing to do with courage or an innate sense of adventure. It's just that, selfishly, it remains a fundamental fascination to visit a very different part of the world from my own to cover cricket. That desire, which involves more than a hint of egotism at the prospect of being read and heard from far-flung corners of the globe, when combined with a strongly-held religious philosophy that accepts the will of a Supreme Being ("Insha Allah" - God willing - is the term that even non-Muslims are familiar with these days) easily override considerations of personal safety in these specific circumstances.

I emphasise the specific circumstances because this apparent devil-may-care bravado only goes so far, as on the 1997 West Indies tour of Pakistan where, in the midst of living the dream of commentating "live" on radio from Peshawar and observing the squalid circumstances of Afghan refugees in that city, I baulked at the invitation to visit the lawless and legendary Khyber Pass, the gateway to Afghanistan.

In contrast, an English journalist, from the same so-called First World environment as the cricketers now contemplating the return passage to India (it might have been Michael Henderson of the Times), made the trip and thoroughly enjoyed it while I stayed safely in the hotel, secure in the knowledge that my objective for the entire journey in the first place was being fulfilled.

From my self-serving perspective then, it was foolhardy to risk being shot at or kidnapped, even though there was little chance, at the time, of that happening.

A year earlier, after being robbed at gunpoint coming out of the bank in San Juan and then seeing car thieves speed away with my neighbour's vehicle in the dead of night a couple days later, I was living in fear for more than a little while, haunted by the feeling that death was just around the corner. But those emotions have long since dissipated, and even though apprehension and caution are inevitable amid the levels of serious crime in the country, I haven't moved to a supposedly safer district or seriously contemplated emigrating ... as yet.

At the end of the day, it's all about perspective and priority. One established or family-oriented cricketer's unacceptable risk is another eager young player's golden opportunity. And in this modern era of individualism and the celebration of selfish indulgence, one person is less inclined to succumb to pressure from others, quite unlike the old band-your-belly-and-take-it attitude of a very different time.

One man's comfort zone is another man's hell-hole and it is very difficult to rationalise with someone who feels threatened, whether psychologically or physically, or if something very dear to him is in danger of being taken away.

On arrival in London last Saturday in the aftermath of the attacks in Mumbai, Pietersen stated that his life was the most important thing to him. So from the captain's perspective, leaving India was an act of self-preservation. Who knows, maybe the inducement of a staggering paycheque to an already wealthy cricketer will alter his priorities for, say, returning to the subcontinent to play for one of the franchises in the Indian Premier League?

It's so easy to stand back and condemn them all as a bunch of self-centred hypocrites. Everyone cites the London bombings that didn't affect the 2005 Ashes series. But again, it was a case then of feeling comfortable with the reassurances given by security personnel in a very familiar environment, compared to doubts now over the urgings of the Indian authorities for them to return to a part of the world which some of these English cricketers may have been conditioned over a lifetime to assume is deficient in almost every aspect from their own cocoon.

They may be dead wrong in that regard. But that's not the point, for worldliness and a bigger-picture perspective are easy from a safe distance.