36 years on, still no answers for Sequeira

In close campus-proximity of one of sport’s most deathly hostage massacres as it unfolded at the Munich Olympics in 1972, Sequeira suspects he will find no sane answers to such an elementary, innocent poser. Watching the dread of Terror visit Mumbai in its most macabre 48 hours, Sequeira recalls that it wasn’t the foremost question he’d asked himself in West Germany in the immediate aftermath of September 4, when Israeli athletes — weight-lifters and wrestlers and track, shooting and wrestling coaches — were first taken hostage and then killed.

As a fellow athlete at the Olympic village, he went through the more frightful days when he asked himself, as did many others — Why did this have to happen in Munich? What might happen next? and, more desperately, what will they do next?

Sequeira wrapped up his 15-year-long career two years later, unsurpassed (till much later) as far as his 1500m and 5000m Indian records went. Injury in years subsequent to ’72 meant Sequeira never had the chance to bandage his scarred Olympic memory.

“I’ll never forget it,” he starts, “The commotion started at 4.25-4.30 in the morning, when people started screaming. The first fear that it was some problem with Pakistan since there’d been the war only a year ago. Then figuring out what had happened half an hour later, and then hearing of the killings. And the tense feeling that stayed unabated throughout the Munich stay.”

Then came the retrospect recollections — of the birthday celebration singing they’d heard from the Israeli apartments a day ago, and then a blur of some men in red track-suits and black masks — sounds and sights he’ll forever associate with terror.

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