Contesting from Moradabad — a constituency from where the Congress had not won since 1984 — rather than his home town of Hyderabad seemed like an odd choice. But a walk around the city made it clear that the former Indian cricket captain had stepped into the fight as one of the favourites, particularly because of the region’s substantial young Muslim population.

Twenty-five years ago, his arrival on TV sets across India had been accompanied by strong social implications. Having grown up in Lucknow, I had seen first hand how he seeped into conversations in school and at home as a rare Indian hero who was unassuming and elegant — traits that particularly my city, famous for its tehzeeb in the days gone by, liked to identify with.

With the passage of time, as his aura grew, Azhar emerged as a unique icon of our times. The concept of a Muslim superstar whose heritage wasn’t masked — Yousuf Khan became Dilip Kumar and Mahjabeen Bano became Meena Kumari — was still alien in those pre-Shah Rukh Khan days, and as was pointed out to me recently, Mohammad Azharuddin was the first of his kind in modern India.

But the match-fixing scandal changed the perception of cricketers in general and Azhar in particular. The aversion to him was more emphatic than it was for the others because, one, he was the only true legend found guilty by the BCCI inquiry into the CBI report, and two, what the report said he had done was so unbecoming of his public image. Et tu?

... contd.