from The Week March 05 2000 (thanks Sarah)
Shaun Pollock, regarded by some as the Gary Sobers of the future, asked the
children crowding around him, "Do you know we are playing India tomorrow?
And that South Africa will win?" The children shouted: "India,
India." Shaun smiled.
Bowling them over: Shaun Pollock strums for a boy in Kamathipura
These were no ordinary children but those of prostitutes in Mumbai's red-light
district, Kamathipura. Their eyes shone with happiness as they jostled to shake
hands with the lanky South African.
While most of the children were small, nine of them were grown up. They had been
successfully rehabilitated by Anson Thomas, a customs officer who convinced
Shaun to accompany him to Kamathipura. For Anson, it was nothing new. In 1996,
he had taken Andrew Hudson and Nicke Boje during the previous South African
tour. West Indians Joel Garner and Ian Bishop had also interacted with the
children of Kamathipura at the instance of Anson, who believes that sports and
sportsmen can do wonders to the lives of these children, who would otherwise
become pimps and prostitutes. One of the children he has rehabilitated has got
admission to the Sports Authority of India and another will soon gain entry to
the Air India academy for hockey.
Shaun, a born-again Christian, did not know some of the songs which Anson had
taught the boys. But he joined them enthusiastically when they belted out This
is the day the Lord has made. "People may think that it's because I love
cricket that I am in the team and I am playing, but it's because the Lord loves
me," he told the boys.
Anson started working among sex workers eight years ago, dissuading
pleasure-seekers in the streets and educating the sex workers. It is with their
children that he succeeded the most. In 1994, he started a project for such
children with the help of the Navjivan Centre of the Mar Thoma Church. The needs
of about 50 children are taken care of in a boarding at Vapi.
If the cricketers including Sachin Tendulkar and Ajay Jadeja tolerate Anson when
he walks into the dressing room, it is because they know he is not asking
anything for himself, not even an autograph. They allow him to pray for them and
sometimes join him in his prayers.