Why I don't call Rahul Dravid 'Sir'.

Why I don't call anyone 'Sir', and neither should you.

Last week, I spent four days at the National Cricket Academy, Bangalore, as a part of the BCCI Level 2 Coaching course I’m pursuing. There was lots of learning, catching up with old friends I hadn’t seen in years, and of course this mandatory picture. 

cricketwithsnehal

A post shared by @cricketwithsnehal

Here’s the caption I wrote on Instagram: “What an opportunity to learn from Rahul Dravid. Completed my Level 2 coaching on site course with the National Cricket Academy, and got a chance to learn about cricket from the wonderful batting and bowling coaches here. Best of all, got to learn directly from NCA Director Rahul bhai, who was actively involved in all our sessions. Can't wait to share all this knowledge with you guys through the Cricket With Snehal Online Academy!”

Of course, there has to be someone who disagrees, even with a photo of someone as agreeable as Rahul Dravid. An enthusiastic follower -I won’t name him; but of course it is a him telling a her what she should and should not do- had this to say. 

‘You could have (afforded him the correct respect and) called him Rahul Sir’. Parenthesis mine. Translation also mine. Unsolicited opinion, not mine. 

My choice of ‘Rahul bhai’ over ‘Rahul Sir’ is uncommon: AFAIK, I was the only one in the batch of 22 women international cricketers who didn’t call Rahul Dravid ‘Sir’, despite his 13288 Test runs. How impudent of me. 

But it’s quite important to spell out why I deliberately do this:

As a player, I had very ‘guru-shishya’ relationships with the various mentors I worked with. Those martial arts movies where a master is laying down the law, and the disciple must follow, but in cricket. There’s some tremendous upsides to this, including a very fast learning curve, but also some significant downsides. It’s not the kind of relationship that has room for disagreements, counter questions, or different points of view. And this is not a reflection on my mentors, who were outstanding guides overall. But it is a reflection of the person I was, someone who used to shy away from difficult conversations. 

Having been on that side of the fence, I knew that’s not what I want the people I teach, mentor, and coach to feel. I want them to feel they’re able to challenge, question, and doubt what I’m doing. I want them to ask questions until they’re satisfied. I want them to only walk the path because they believe in it, not because someone said so. If you don’t ask, you won’t get, is a lesson I’d shared with my YouTube community here:

And I realised, the first, small step to doing that, is to get them to stop calling me ‘Ma’am’. 

On a deeper level, what I’m trying to do is dismantle the trappings of hierarchy and authority. By calling someone ‘Ma’am’ or ‘Sir’, we confer them arbitrary authority, whether their position in hierarchy is earned or not. I resent this. I’m thinking back to my days working in Western Railway, where even the laziest clerks had to be a ‘sir’ but the most sincere peon could never be. The default ‘Sir’ and ‘Ma’am’ we apply to many in our lives is yet another post-colonial vestigial organ that does more harm than good.  

This authority becomes a barrier, always unnecessary, often obstructive, sometimes lethal. In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell describes how cultural hierarchy between pilots and co-pilots contributed to plane crashes. It was his theory that in Eastern cultures with more ‘power-distance’, “You are obliged to be deferential toward your elders and superiors”. To the point of not pointing out that the superior is flying dangerously. Gladwell’s examples were from Korean Air in the 1990s, but this is obviously still an issue in India. Air India last month revealed guidelines whereby the co-pilot must address the pilot-in-command by their first name or rank, and not ‘Sir’. 

So in order to remove this easiest of barriers, I make it a point to tell anyone I’m working with not to call me ‘Ma’am’ and use my name instead. This is easier in the sports media class I teach; in this industry, it is the norm to use first names, largely irrespective of age or seniority. It is harder in my cricket coaching programs, where a 15-year old student calling me ‘Snehal’ is too far a cultural leap for them. I settle with replacing ‘Ma’am’ with ‘Didi’ or ‘Tai’. It’s easier to challenge a sister than it is a teacher. 

And so I in turn have made it a point to not call anyone ‘Sir’, especially new people I meet. A few habits, decades old, are fossilised: The coaches of my youth will always be ‘Sirs’. But I’ve worked to rewire my brain when it comes to people I’ve recently met. For instance, I defaulted to ‘Sir’ for WV Raman, who I met in the capacity of coach of the Indian women’s team. I made a mental correction to ‘Mr.’ Raman when I ran into him next, as a guest on the Lunch show with Sony Sports Network during the 1st Test between India and England. (Harsha Bhogle, hosting the show, had already landed a giggle about Raman’s ‘accomplished’ aura, was quick to point out that I referred to Sanjay Manjrekar by his first name but WV as Mr. Raman. You can watch the whole interaction here.)

Which is why, by the time I got to the NCA, there was no doubt in my mind what I was going to refer to Rahul Dravid as, despite many higher honorifics being richly deserved. The NCA faculty, distinguished coaches all, received the same courtesy (or lack of it, depending on your point of view).

I don’t know him well, but I’ll go out on a limb and say Dravid would prefer to not be called ‘Sir’. I say this based on another little moment during the course: On Day 1, as he walked in to deliver his opening address, many of the class rose. ‘Please, don’t stand’, he said immediately. 

Yup. Rahul bhai it is.