What happened on January 5: Tiger Pataudi was born and Jekyll and Hyde started a reign of verbal terror

The Tiger of Indian cricket was born and the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Hyde came into existence
Pic: Edexlive
Pic: Edexlive

It was on January 5 in 1941 that Nawab Mohammad Mansoor 'Tiger' Ali Khan Pataudi was born. The Nawab was appointed India's cricket captain at the very young age of 21. He was reputed to be the world's best fielder of his time by several commentators and contemporaries. But the strange thing was that his cricket career would never have been what it was without the intervention of a certain surgeon by the name Dr David St Clair Roberts. 

Pataudi was involved in a car accident in 1961 when a shard of glass penetrated his right eye to leave it permanently damaged. The doctor managed to rescue his left eye. It was feared that this would spell the end for his cricketing career but the Tiger, against all odds, made his test debut against England not even 6 months after his accident. A fitting name for a warrior of a man indeed!

The phrase Jekyll and Hyde could be attributed to being born on this day back in 1886 when the famous book Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson was first published. The book is about a London legal practitioner named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll and the evil Edward Hyde. 

The novel created such a huge impact that it became a conversational phrase to say Jekyll and Hyde to refer to a person's unpredictably dual nature of being good on the outside but shockingly evil on the inside. The novel also went on to be adapted for the stage and film over 120 times. 

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