The Hindu Business Line : The rumble in the jungle

BEFORE you start grumbling, let me explain that the topic for discussion is not about a bandit of all times who got fatally boxed in only recently but about an iconic boxer.

Thirty years ago, it was on October 30 that `The Rumble in the Jungle' was fought in Kinshasa, Zaire, at pre-dawn hours to suit the US viewers on the telly. Muhammad Ali deployed his secret plan, the rope-a-dope technique — of standing flatfooted against the ropes even as Foreman lost his steam. At the end, Ali regained his title.

As a tribute to Ali, `Greatest of All Time', there is a book from Taschen (www.taschen.com) , titled GOAT. The communiqué from the publisher informs that the `Champ's Edition,' priced at $10,000 (around Rs 4.54 lakh), is limited to only a thousand copies, each one to be signed by Ali. The media has already acclaimed it as "the biggest, heaviest, most radiant thing ever printed in the history of civilisation," and the book comes with a sculpture by Jeff Koons, comprising "2 inflatables and a stool." There is a `cheaper' version, too, priced at $3,000 (around Rs 1.35 lakh), and it is called the `collector's edition,' weighing 34 kg. Not for the weak muscled, this.

GOAT is bound by the official bindery for the Vatican, "in pink leather, the colour of Ali's first Cadillac," informs Taschen. It seems the bindery specialises "in the most elaborate and oversized editions of the Bible and the Koran," and enforces such strict quality standards that "only several hundred copies can be assembled per week." Some books, Bacon didn't say, are to be worked on and on.

On the site www.telegraph.co.uk, Don King, for whom `Rumble' was the first major promotion, reminisces about the event: "At the time, for me, for others, it was just the beginning — the beginning of globalisation of a sporting yet political event." It went out live via satellite from the banks of the Congo River.

On the Rumble, again, Wikipedia would add that Zaire was in need of a positive image in the eyes of the world, so Zaire's president had asked for the fight to be held there. Writing this on a day when India played meekly even as the Aussies romped through, it looks like Zaire was a lot luckier than Nagpur.

When staying there for the fight, Ali sought to establish a relationship between the blacks in the US and Africans. So, he travelled to the jungles and endeared himself to the people. But www.counterpunch.org would talk of how Zaire's boss Mobutu Sese Seko was a murderer, promoted by the US, to serve its own interests. "From 1965 to 1991, Zaire received more than $1.5 billion in US economic and military aid. In return, US multinationals increased their share of the ownership of Zaire's fabulous mineral wealth," says the site, citing Ellen Ray. Mobutu fell out of favour with Uncle Sam after his "stolen billions had become a world-wide embarrassment."

The public face of Ali, despite suffering from Parkinson's disease, has been good going by the sentiments he stirs up during appearances.

"Long after his achievements as an athlete have been forgotten, he will be remembered as one of a handful of peaceful revolutionaries whose universal appeal forced Western society to re-examine its attitudes to race," writes Paul Thomas in The New Zealand Herald.

Wonder if any of our cricketers would fit such praise, long after their debacles are forgotten.

SayCheek@TheHindu.co.in

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The rumble in the jungle