Hero too, sort of December 6, 2006
YOU saw the pictures. the guy was cowering in shyness beside his apparently more illustrious peers. That was Efren “Bata” Reyes at the Time Asia Awards ceremonies in Hong Kong, while standing beside Cory Aquino, Eggie Apostol and Letty Magsanoc. He was the very picture of self-effacement.
“Why me?” he would ask with genuine befuddlement later on, a predicament he is not known to face at the billiard table, when he would find the most amazing answers to the most perplexing binds. Which has earned him the title, “The Magician,” a title he has lived up to over the years. The scene in Hong Kong however was another league altogether, for which he seemed entirely unprepared. Indeed, for which he personally felt he did not belong. To be ranked among Cory, Eggie and Letty and to be called a hero by no less than Time Magazine, that was more than he bargained for.
“Why me?” he said in Tagalog, a language that seemed out of place as well in the coat-and-tie and gown affair. “I have not done anything that made any impact on Asian life. I am just a simple man making a living in what I do best: playing billiards.”
Good question, and one I suppose that will be a subject of much debate in neighborhood stores where the Pilosopong Tasyos congregate to divine the ways of earth though the elixirs of hell.
Why Bata? Why one of the heroes of Asia? Why not just elevate him to the level of sports or entertainment heroes? Why not just turn him into something akin to a rock star or a film star? Why put him at par not just with Cory, Eggie and Letty but also with one of my literary heroes, Salman Rushdie? Who, apart from reinventing the Asian novel, as Time says, has reinvented Islam by being on Iran’s fanatics’ Death Row. Of course, some of my Indian friends swear he is not the most pleasant man in the world, but who cares? Artists and writers are excused from being so.
On the face of it, there truly seems nothing staggering in Bata’s accomplishments to thrust him into the pantheon of the gods. But that’s only on the face of it. Instinctively, I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with Time’s decision. Part of the reason for it is that I am a Filipino and have thrilled to Bata’s exploits. But more than that, I am also a human being who may not always know greatness when he sees one but who has been known to know magic when he sees one. Bata is The Magician in more ways than one.
What sets Bata apart from Manny Pacquiao and puts him in league, even if a minor one, with Muhammad Ali, is what he has done outside of his game. There is little to admire in Pacman outside the ring -- he too is aptly named: He wants to gobble up everything in sight; his gambling is the stuff of legend, of the embarrassing kind. There is much to admire in Bata, like Ali, in and out of it.
If a hero is someone who has struggled against great odds and overcome them, then Bata has a good claim to being one. His provenance is well known by now. He was the cleaning boy of a small billiard hall (“hall” is such a grand term if you see the kind that thrives in the provinces) owned by his uncle, and had one of the tables for bed at night. But it wasn’t just that he was exposed to the game, in more ways than one, at so early an age. It was that he had an enormous talent for it. He saw possibilities in his mind that nobody else did. Think of the young Yehudi Menuhin, or a more recent prodigy, Anne-Sophie Mutter, seeing a Stradivarius for the first time, and you have an idea of what happened in that dingy pool hall in a dirt-poor town in Pampanga province.
Coming from these humble antecedents to winning the richest prize ever in pool in Reno, Nevada, last September, that is quite an amazing leap. As bucking adversity goes, it is nothing less than heroic.
If a hero is someone who inspires, then Bata has a better claim to being one. His antecedents were exceptionally humble not just because he was impoverished but because he played a game that fell under the upraised brow of society. What Bata wrought I glimpsed ironically in a joke told by a friend. Before, he said, when your parents asked you why you came home late and you answered that you had just been in the pool hall, you got a creaming in a language that in cartoon-balloon form would contain lightning bolts and swastikas. Today, when your parents ask you why you came home late and you answer that you had just been in the pool hall, you are told, “Ah, pagbutihin mo, anak." ["Ah, do it diligently, son.”]
None of this is a lesson in “Go far, be truant.” All of it merely says that there is no human preoccupation, other than crime, that is so lowly that it cannot be turned into an art. There is no profession that is so lowly you cannot take pride in it, and feel like a champion whether you end up having your arm raised by Michaela Tabb or not.
If a hero is someone who doesn’t just survive but prevail, someone who doesn’t just withstand pressure but shows grace under pressure, who doesn’t just lift life on his shoulders like Atlas the world but scratches his head when he misses with a glint of laughter in his eyes, then Bata has the best claim to being one. He hasn’t just made an amazing leap, he has shown an amazing grace. That’s what sets him apart from Pacquiao, notwithstanding that the latter is a rags-to-riches story, too. Bata hasn’t just played the game of pool brilliantly, he has played the game of life luminously.
“I am just a simple man making a living by doing what he does best.” Aren’t we all? But, as Bata shows, you can always do that miserably, complaining life is unfair, and asking why it can’t give you an even break. Or you can flash a toothless grin at it, and take it, win or lose, like a champion.
And live it, up or down, like -- a hero.
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=36577
“Why me?” he would ask with genuine befuddlement later on, a predicament he is not known to face at the billiard table, when he would find the most amazing answers to the most perplexing binds. Which has earned him the title, “The Magician,” a title he has lived up to over the years. The scene in Hong Kong however was another league altogether, for which he seemed entirely unprepared. Indeed, for which he personally felt he did not belong. To be ranked among Cory, Eggie and Letty and to be called a hero by no less than Time Magazine, that was more than he bargained for.
“Why me?” he said in Tagalog, a language that seemed out of place as well in the coat-and-tie and gown affair. “I have not done anything that made any impact on Asian life. I am just a simple man making a living in what I do best: playing billiards.”
Good question, and one I suppose that will be a subject of much debate in neighborhood stores where the Pilosopong Tasyos congregate to divine the ways of earth though the elixirs of hell.
Why Bata? Why one of the heroes of Asia? Why not just elevate him to the level of sports or entertainment heroes? Why not just turn him into something akin to a rock star or a film star? Why put him at par not just with Cory, Eggie and Letty but also with one of my literary heroes, Salman Rushdie? Who, apart from reinventing the Asian novel, as Time says, has reinvented Islam by being on Iran’s fanatics’ Death Row. Of course, some of my Indian friends swear he is not the most pleasant man in the world, but who cares? Artists and writers are excused from being so.
On the face of it, there truly seems nothing staggering in Bata’s accomplishments to thrust him into the pantheon of the gods. But that’s only on the face of it. Instinctively, I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with Time’s decision. Part of the reason for it is that I am a Filipino and have thrilled to Bata’s exploits. But more than that, I am also a human being who may not always know greatness when he sees one but who has been known to know magic when he sees one. Bata is The Magician in more ways than one.
What sets Bata apart from Manny Pacquiao and puts him in league, even if a minor one, with Muhammad Ali, is what he has done outside of his game. There is little to admire in Pacman outside the ring -- he too is aptly named: He wants to gobble up everything in sight; his gambling is the stuff of legend, of the embarrassing kind. There is much to admire in Bata, like Ali, in and out of it.
If a hero is someone who has struggled against great odds and overcome them, then Bata has a good claim to being one. His provenance is well known by now. He was the cleaning boy of a small billiard hall (“hall” is such a grand term if you see the kind that thrives in the provinces) owned by his uncle, and had one of the tables for bed at night. But it wasn’t just that he was exposed to the game, in more ways than one, at so early an age. It was that he had an enormous talent for it. He saw possibilities in his mind that nobody else did. Think of the young Yehudi Menuhin, or a more recent prodigy, Anne-Sophie Mutter, seeing a Stradivarius for the first time, and you have an idea of what happened in that dingy pool hall in a dirt-poor town in Pampanga province.
Coming from these humble antecedents to winning the richest prize ever in pool in Reno, Nevada, last September, that is quite an amazing leap. As bucking adversity goes, it is nothing less than heroic.
If a hero is someone who inspires, then Bata has a better claim to being one. His antecedents were exceptionally humble not just because he was impoverished but because he played a game that fell under the upraised brow of society. What Bata wrought I glimpsed ironically in a joke told by a friend. Before, he said, when your parents asked you why you came home late and you answered that you had just been in the pool hall, you got a creaming in a language that in cartoon-balloon form would contain lightning bolts and swastikas. Today, when your parents ask you why you came home late and you answer that you had just been in the pool hall, you are told, “Ah, pagbutihin mo, anak." ["Ah, do it diligently, son.”]
None of this is a lesson in “Go far, be truant.” All of it merely says that there is no human preoccupation, other than crime, that is so lowly that it cannot be turned into an art. There is no profession that is so lowly you cannot take pride in it, and feel like a champion whether you end up having your arm raised by Michaela Tabb or not.
If a hero is someone who doesn’t just survive but prevail, someone who doesn’t just withstand pressure but shows grace under pressure, who doesn’t just lift life on his shoulders like Atlas the world but scratches his head when he misses with a glint of laughter in his eyes, then Bata has the best claim to being one. He hasn’t just made an amazing leap, he has shown an amazing grace. That’s what sets him apart from Pacquiao, notwithstanding that the latter is a rags-to-riches story, too. Bata hasn’t just played the game of pool brilliantly, he has played the game of life luminously.
“I am just a simple man making a living by doing what he does best.” Aren’t we all? But, as Bata shows, you can always do that miserably, complaining life is unfair, and asking why it can’t give you an even break. Or you can flash a toothless grin at it, and take it, win or lose, like a champion.
And live it, up or down, like -- a hero.
http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=36577
posted by dqfan06 @ 2:20 AM
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