So What If Peter Roebuck WAS Gay?

I logged in to check if I had any comments or mails to moderate or reply to and I was hugely shocked to see this on the stats tab of the blog:

Initially I had thought that the spike of visits was because of this post I wrote about my experience of the AIIMS PGMEE this Sunday, but I was being naïve! I was feeding the mass frenzy that sought the salacious gossip on one of the best thinkers cricket has or will know. I do not condone any act of sexual predation or underage sexual exploitation, but come on people, in 2001 he was convicted of hitting the 3 kids with whips on their butts. And though there was a LOT of speculation on him exploiting them, there were no substantial proof and none of the 3 boys even went ahead to charge him with sexual aggression.

So what if he was gay? There were a lot of rumors flying around him ever since his playing days, but I thought we had come to an era where being gay was no longer considered to be a crime. And I thought we believed in sexual choice, emancipation and right to express the choice! So, on the day of his demise, let us not let these cheap media thrills take our attention away from the fact that the game has lost one of its sharpest critics, one of its most honest analysts and someone who did not hesitate to call a spade a spade.

This reminds me a little about Alan Turing (brilliant website: worth spending the time there). Well, he was a brilliant Mathematician who was one of the key personalities behind the cracking of the Enigma codes the Germans used. (Popcult reference: The Oxford Murders, an engaging movie, has a passing reference to him). He was also gay.

In 1952 he was arrested on charge of being a homosexual. And in 1954 June, when he was handed a choice between chemical castration and a prison sentence, he decided to end his life. He committed suicide by consuming cyanide, probably in an apple or something, if I remember right.

Once again, I hope to write about Turing some day (I know I am due to write about Trendelenburg before that!) and outline some of his thoughts in Biology. yes, he was one of those rare people who worked in Biology and Mathematics, both.

Anyways. I believe this post is going to bring some more people looking for salacious details on Peter Roebuck’s gay romp with underage children, but I will kindly request the reader to refrain from this line of discussion at least for a few days. After all:

De mortuis nil nisi bonum

Roebuck, may your soul rest in peace.