The importance of being Muhammad Ali, who would have been 84 today

The phrase ‘they don’t make men like them anymore’ is often sprinkled about a bit loosely by us. But when it comes to Muhammad Ali or ‘The Greatest,’ who would have turned 84 today, the world cannot help but feel you needed him today more than ever before.

How would the boxer, civil rights activist and humanist, whose refusal to join the US Army draft in Vietnam war has been a stuff of folklore, would have reacted in today’s universe – driven by power-drunk leaders with his own country showing the way? Agreed that Cassius Clay, or Muhammad Ali after his conversion, was a product of the Sixties which gave birth to the iconoclasts but it required spine to take such a stance at the cost of the price he had to pay in his career.

Come 3 June this year, it would be 10 years of Ali’s passing and the US Postal Service on Thursday honoured the Sportsperson of last Century with a ‘forever stamp,’ which means even if the postage fee one has to pay changes – the stamp will be valid if one sends a letter. ‘’It’s like Muhammad. His legacy never changes. It’s always giving. It’s always giving back. It’s like regardless of what happens in the world, that legacy can always be counted on,’’ said Lonnie Ali, the icon’s wife for over 30 years, at the inauguration of the stamp at the Muhammad Ali Centre at Louville, Kentucky.

Speaking to Associated Press,  Lonnie shared her thoughts about Ali’s vision: ‘’Muhammad had wisdom beyond his years. I mean, if you go back and look at some of his interviews with Michael Parkinson, for instance, some of the things Muhammad was saying even then are [relevant] today. He just had that sort of global universal wisdom to know how things were and how people were and the challenges we would face and continue to face, and the lessons that he taught. But he led by action — by what he did endure as well.’’

Yes, he was someone who walked the talk – something which is an anathema especially among the elite sportspersons the world over today. The remote control war games may not need a Ali to ‘’to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home to go and drop bombs on Brown people on Vietnam,’’ but any note of dissent equals to not being politically correct for them as it may affect the mega bucks deals and sponsorships. There are no dearth of issues – it would be the brazen intrusion at Venezuela today, the genocide in Gaza last week or lending a voice behind the legitimate wrestlers’ protest on the streets of the Indian capital a couple of years before.

 Like every year, there will be anecdotes flying about for next few days on Ali, who died in 2016 at the age of 74 after battling Parkinson’s disease for more than three decades. A cracker of one which came from Lonnie was about Ali’s wishes to have a postage stamp on him: “because that’s the only way I’ll ever get licked.”

Thankfully, the term GOAT wasn't coined when Ali ruled. Nothing would have satisfied him other than the label 'The Greatest'. Happy Birthday!