EXTRACT: THE DHONI TOUCH

MS Dhoni: Behind the camouflage

'Dhoni is a complete soldier, in heart and mind' - Col. Vembu Shankar
'Dhoni is a complete soldier, in heart and mind' - Col. Vembu Shankar ©AFP

On the morning of 17 March 2017, the Jharkhand one-day team had to hastily evacuate ITC Welcome, a five-star hotel in Delhi's Dwarka area. The players were having breakfast when they suddenly encountered thick smoke emanating from a fire that had broken out in one part of the property. There was understandable panic in the restaurant area. But one member of the Jharkhand team that was in Delhi for the Vijay Hazare Trophy (fifty-over domestic tournament) was in a strange way feeling exhilarated.

It was he who took charge of the evacuation procedure, coolly and calmly asking his teammates to not go hunting for their mobile phones and instead, assemble at a particular spot before getting out safely. This wasn't M.S. Dhoni in his Captain Cool avatar. This was honorary Lt Col Mahendra Singh Dhoni from the 106 Parachute Regiment of the Territorial Army leading his troops towards safety in a perilous mission.

Thankfully, the Jharkhand team escaped unscathed but their match had to be postponed since their kitbags were stuck inside the hotel. A few days later, Dhoni would recount the incident with great excitement to Colonel Vembu Shankar, his close army associate and dear friend. The hotel fire was, after all, exactly the kind of crisis scenario that the two would often discuss dealing with. In these discussions, they often imagined Dhoni making a quick escape through kitchens and secret doors to avoid the mob eagerly awaiting an opportunity to catch a glimpse of him in every hotel lobby around the country, and at times, even overseas.

As Col Shankar reveals, there would be a very obvious spring in his friend's stride as they would reach Dhoni's car parked in an undisclosed section of the hotel through a dark alley. In these brief yet thrilling moments, he would get to play the one role that he's most desperately wanted to in life - and one that's unlikely to ever come his way: M.S. Dhoni the fauji.

"Most of his exit routes would involve some part of the basement with no phone signal, and even as we would be guided out by one of the hotel staff, he would ask, 'Abhi kuch ho gaya toh, kaise niklenge? (If something happens now, how will we escape?)' His mind is always working at how we can improvise and react to emergency situations. He was quite thrilled about having taken charge during that Delhi fire incident," Col Shankar says.

The colonel, himself a gallantry award winner who has now retired, isn't the only Dhoni confidant who insists that "woh dil, deemag se pura fauji hai (he's a complete soldier, in heart and mind)". Col Shankar goes on to say that if he'd been in the army, Dhoni would have made a great leader, even if he didn't rise to being a general or a brigadier, because, as he explains, "MS is not too great at long-distance running and I'm not sure if he would have had an interest in the studies needed to finish courses and rise through the ranks."

But Col Shankar is confident that Dhoni would have led good and successful operations, and been a great leader to those serving under him. He points to the Delhi fire incident again as an example. "Such thinking at a juncture of adversity is what a leader should be able to do. I can suggest lovely ideas while speaking, but if I don't do anything when there is such a thing as a fire, then I'm not a leader." He also believes what makes M.S. Dhoni probably the best fauji that isn't to be is how he understands the core of the army and the pulse of the soldiers. "The core of the army is the soldiers, how they live, how they train and how they fight. He understands it the best."

There's perhaps a link there somewhere between Dhoni the hypothetical military leader and Dhoni the former cricket captain of India. He was neither the most successful player in the team - at the point when he took over - nor the most distinguished, another traditional expectation from an Indian captain, and didn't hail from one of the major cricket centres of the country either. He was if anything the first small-town superstar to take over the most coveted job in Indian team sport. His decisions were not always popular and often perplexing, but everyone watching knew they were taken with the kind of conviction that you see on the frontline.

Most importantly, there are very few who played under him who don't vouch for his leadership skills as he led them through many a successful operation. He was in many ways, India's first and only fauji captain. But Dhoni didn't have any soldier friends while growing up. Even Chittu [Dhoni's childhood friend] is bemused at just when or how his longest-standing friend developed this love and obeisance for the armed forces. He doesn't even remember him talking much about the military or the army, which is not surprising considering he doesn't usually say much.

In his meetings with Dhoni though, Col Shankar came to know that Dhoni had an innate desire to join the army, a childhood obsession even. Though circumstances didn't quite allow him to pursue his dream, the drive remained as strong as ever. As his cricket career advanced, Dhoni was lucky enough to experience a few brushes with the military and even a few of their establishments like the National Defence Academy (NDA) and the Indian Military Academy (IMA) - places he could only dream of visiting as a young man.

Grooming the next leader
Grooming the next leader ©AFP

The NDA visit was with the Indian team in the mid-2000s and he'd visited the IMA with a friend. Then came his first encounter with the Parachute Regiment in 2006, when the then Indian coach Greg Chappell decided to take the Rahul Dravid-led team to its training centre in Bangalore. It wasn't simply a feel-good exercise though, as the Indian players were put through the grind, and had to undertake activities ranging from shooting, rock climbing, grenade throwing and many obstacle courses. By all accounts, Dhoni topped all the obstacle courses and proved to be even better than some of the jawans.

The video-game buff also got a taste of simulation exercises like infiltrating enemy territory and rescuing hostages. Dhoni also learnt a trait during that five-hour visit, which would in years to come make him the most popular non-army visitor at every military camp across the country. He has learnt to talk in the jawan tongue. "Being a Hindi-speaking guy, he could easily relate to the jawans more than anyone else. Typically, he would always find a fellow Ranchi guy and he would say, 'Aap mere gaon ke ho. (You are from my village.)' Things like that. People would also come to him and say the same," says Col Shankar.

According to the colonel though, the tipping point in Dhoni's enduring love affair with the military came when he paid the National Security Guard (NSG) commandos a visit in Manesar on Republic Day 2009. It was part of an NDTV programme, and Dhoni could be seen in commando gear, overcoming his fear of heights by successfully completing a rock-climbing drill. But not before a quip to his trainer about needing an external boost to calm his nerve. Later in the show, he delivered an emotional ode to the NSG for their efforts in the terror siege of 2008 in Mumbai: "When the attack started and I watched it on TV, my first thought was, "Where is the NSG?" I knew that once you guys step in, the victory would be ours. What you did was remarkable and I thank you for it."

There, he also showcases his dry humour while narrating a Rajinikanth joke to the commandos as well as while clamping down on their queries about the then bachelor's marital plans. On the latter, he said, "Udte huye panchi key par kyon kaatna chahtey ho? (Why are you trying to clip the wings of an air-borne bird?)" Dhoni also got to meet a lot of other army officers in addition to the NSG commandos during his full-day visit and became great friends with a few of them - some still remain a part of his fauji circle. Dhoni, Col Shankar says, then wanted a taste of the actual stuff by getting a feel of where the jawans lived and the sacrifices they make at the border. "What we get to see in Colaba (Navy Nagar and a few other military colonies), for example, is the peacetime army. He wanted to know the army from the bottom-up and not by looking at it from a general's view," he says.

One of his friends from the NDTV-NSG visit to Manesar took Dhoni around Manesar and even got him to experience one of the most challenging and testing posts in the army. And Dhoni perhaps became the first Indian cricketer to take his position at a sentry post, even if it was for a brief while. "He wanted to see how a sentry feels at night. In the night, everything seems to be moving. Even static objects seem to be moving. That's how the night is. He actually wanted to know how people react at that sentry post. Because, a sentry is guarding so many people. Even if you're a sepoy with just two years of service, you can't be waiting for any general's orders to fire,"Col Shankar explains.

And standing at sentry posts is also what young trainee officers are made to undergo. "Just how he knew it was the right thing to do without any formal training like us boggles my mind," he says. I hear a lot of declarations of astonishment from Colonel Shankar during our chat. Dhoni came out of the NSG visit more determined than ever to form some sort of association with his real passion. "He mentions that visit many, many times. He'll keep referring back to running into some of the soldiers he had met there. He's met thousands of faujis in the years after that, but he keeps mentioning those guys in particular, and has stayed in touch with them after nearly a decade. The boot camp in 2006 gave him the feeling that "if I were in the army, I would have done well".

"But it was with the NSG that he was properly exposed to training and weapons, and made fauji friends," Col Shankar says. To be one of his fauji friends comes with certain concessions and even greater privileges. It means you're often on a higher pedestal than anyone else, including Amitabh Bachchan. His phone might remain unreachable regardless of who you are, but he's the most active member of the WhatsApp group that he shares with his fauji friends.

He might fail to pick up Bachchan's phone call on his birthday but he never fails to call Manoj-bhaiya - a former military man turned security head at the Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA) stadium in Ranchi and whose special chai Dhoni considers his true poison - and wish his family every new year. Dhoni's almost strange apathy towards his phone is legendary, so is the list of people who have been on the receiving end of the Dhoni no-show on the phone. And try as he might, Col Shankar struggles to mask the envy in his voice when he talks about the activity on MS's fauji WhatsApp group which he shares with his closest army friends. On that group, Dhoni, who's the last person to use his phone as a social-media tool, shares pictures of himself and discusses the goings-on in his life, which even the colonel isn't always privy to.

The above story has been excerpted with permission from Penguin Random House India and must not be reproduced without due consent.

The Dhoni Touch: Unravelling the Enigma That Is Mahendra Singh Dhoni, authored by Bharat Sundaresan, is available for order on Flipkart and Amazon.

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