No more reason

For years now, the only reason I've had for making an effort to watch cricket on TV -- and it is an effort, because I have no TV -- has been Rahul Dravid. For a long time before that, there were two reasons: Brian Lara and Rahul Dravid.

Now there are none.

I've been wondering just what I found so attractive in these modern greats of an old game. I think (no surprise) it's the visual treat of their styles, the flashing elegance of their strokes.

No batsman I know of moved as swiftly and yet delicately on his feet as Lara did. He married that to a bat speed no other batsman could match. Suddenly the ball had rocketed over a despairing bowler's stretching fingers for a straight six, or past a man who'd still be in the act of turning to chase when the ball reached the boundary at cover. That slight crouch, then the precise steps, then the bat like Inigo Montoya's slashing sword, ending up over his right shoulder: as a pure spectacle of batsmanship, Lara had no equal.

Except, of course, for Dravid. Three strokes were his alone. The first, that precise pull, the wrists visibly rolling over at just the right instant, the ball seemingly tracing a path perfectly perpendicular to the pitch, all the way to the boundary. The second, that on-drive he played off his pads, leaning forward, his body and the bat and the ball's path, all straight lines. The third, and my favourite by a whisker, that fierce cut in which he seemed almost to be stepping backward as the bat made contact, the image again a splay of straight lines.

Lara the sure-footed destroyer. Dravid the master of pure, elegant lines. For me, there were no others.

But for me, what made Dravid in particular such a compelling cricketer was the way he put that elegance in the pot with a fistful of grit and a generous helping of grace. I certainly learned the virtues of hard work and determination much later in life than I should have (and too often I have to learn them again). But I know that if I want to teach them to my kids, I could hardly do better than offer them the example of Dravid. Of this man who visibly worked harder than any of his contemporaries at his game, at finding excellence in himself, at finding it anew when it inevitably would fade.

More accomplished cricket writers than me have been poetic about Dravid's various bursts of batting splendour: the 180 in Calcutta, the 148 at Leeds, the 233 and 72 in Adelaide, the two half centuries at Kingston and more. But for me his finest moment was last year's tour of England. Not for the runs, plenty though they were. But this was Dravid fighting tigerishly when not a single one of his team-mates seemed up for the fight; this was Dravid showing how much the team and the game mattered to him; this was Dravid painting a canvas of resolve and soul, heart and intellect. This was Dravid setting an example not just to his cricket colleagues, but to us all.

To every one of us who, faced with a large, difficult task, thinks "Ahh, I'll give it a shot tomorrow" -- that tomorrow that never comes -- this was Dravid showing that there's only one answer to such dilemmas: Just step forward and do it. No excuses, no dilly-dallying, no shying away, no hiding from yourself above all. None of that.

Just do it, that's all.

I have no particular interest in one-day cricket or this thing called T20. Power to those who do, and who do well at them. But I get intoxicated with Test cricket. That's because at its best, it ebbs and flows, it exposes, it redeems, it celebrates. It demands that its practitioners give of their best. It shows up the pretenders. It rewards depth and substance, grit and strength. It offers lessons for our own more mundane lives that nevertheless fling challenges at us time and time again.

It's for those reasons that Test cricket is so captivating. It's what made Dravid, for me, the consummate Test cricketer. For me, he is India's greatest Test cricketer. For me, that makes him, without doubt, India's greatest cricketer.

I can't claim to be a good friend of Dravid. But I have met him a few times -- a meal here, a coffee there -- and he released my book "Roadrunner" at a bookstore in Bangalore. Several days before that evening, in the middle of playing a Test at the Wankhede stadium, he called. "I'm really nervous about speaking at your book function," said this man who faced the fastest and wiliest bowlers in the world for a living.

It struck me: for him, this business of speaking about a new book was one more challenge to be faced and overcome. He could have simply shown up and mouthed some platitudes. Instead, he read my book, thought about it, got nervous about it, then came there and said some thoughtful things. That's the measure of this man. What more could an author ask for?

So here it is: it's more than the style in that fierce cut that made me want to watch Dravid bat. It's the grace and fibre he brought to the game, and indeed to everything he did.

And that's why I now have no reason to watch.

Past laurels

Seventeen years ago, India played Sri Lanka in a cricket Test in Bangalore. Sri Lanka crumbled to a heavy defeat by an innings and plenty, but that was hardly the story of this match.

In their second innings, chasing 310 just to make India bat again, Sri Lanka had subsided to 179 for the loss of seven wickets at the end of the third day. When play began on the fourth day, India's captain, Mohammed Azharuddin, asked his premier spinner, young Anil Kumble with his stellar career still in front of him, to "bowl wide of the stumps".

Kumble had taken two wickets already. Against this team that "seemed to want to get the match over as soon as possible", victory was in sight. There were only Sri Lankan tailenders to remove. Why did Azharuddin tell Kumble to bowl like that?

Because another bowler on the team was chasing a record: the (then) highest haul of Test wickets. On that fourth morning, the equation was simple: this bowler needed three more wickets to break the record, there were three more Sri Lankan wickets to winkle out, and all three were tailenders. Thus it was that Kumble got his instructions to bowl wide.

Unfortunately, Kumble didn't fully follow the script, because he took the first wicket to fall that morning, at 188. Now the best that the record-chasing bowler could hope for was to equal the record, not beat it. No doubt the instructions were delivered to Kumble again, more sternly this time.

He must have complied this time. 27 lustily-hit tailender runs later, the last two tailenders had fallen to the record-chaser, India had won, and he had equalled the record. "He broke down as the emotions of the moment overwhelmed him." Azharuddin was awarded the Man-of-the-Match award, but handed it to him.

Of course, what this meant was that the record-chaser needed one more Test to actually break the record. That came a little over a week later, in Ahmedabad, also against Sri Lanka. "The [first] morning had been reserved for the wicket" he needed to get there. He took it in his 8th over, "sparking off a long round of celebrations". Having reached his record, he bowled only one more over in that innings (a measure of the faith his captain had in his abilities, really), only five in Sri Lanka's second innings, and didn't take another wicket as Sri Lanka lost heavily again.

But Kapil Dev had his record.

No matter that he took exactly 50 percent more Tests to reach the mark than Richard Hadlee had taken to set it. (Hadlee, 86 Tests. Dev, 129 Tests).

No matter that he had limped to it in a fashion that was a painful embarrassment to the stellar performer he once had been for India. (Kumble aiming outside the stumps? Please! Makes you cringe. Should have made him cringe.) In his last 20 Tests, he took 54 wickets (2.7 per Test); in his last 10, 20 (2 per Test) -- a clear indication of decline in his once magnificent skills. More evidence of this decline: compare to the 240 wickets he took in his first 60 Tests (4 per Test).

But Kapil Dev had his record.

So when this man tells us, referring to the current Indian team, that "past laurels shouldn't help you retain a berth" in the team, about what happens if "you are not performing" … well, you'll forgive me if this stuff sticks in my craw.

Big time. Record or no record.

***
I've written in similar vein about Kapil Dev before: Have to move one. Also about Kumble himself (and Kapil again) -- Aditya in comments below, please note -- here: Ten but tarnished.

Don't cry for me Ranji-ana

I'm doing a column on my city, "City-Crity", for FirstPost.com. For my second effort, I did a pile of hard-nosed journalism: I sat through the final day of a Ranji trophy cricket match. (Our premier domestic cricket tournament, for those who don't know or have, shame on them, forgotten). It turned out to be a fascinating day in many ways.

Take a look at what resulted - Don't cry for me, Ranji-ana.

If you don't understand Hindi, some possibly loose, possibly literal, translations:

* "Jeetega bhai jeetega, Mumbai jeetega" - Mumbai's gonna win!

* "Arre Jaffer-bhai, timepass mat kar!" - Hey Bro Jaffer, don't waste time!

* "Tea break mein masala chai pi ke aa!" - Go drink some spicy tea during the break!

* "Oye paape!" - Hey you [typically Punjabi] dude!

Incidentally, I need to tell you that I was delighted that the headline for this article attracted the attention of the good folks at Cricinfo, who noted its grave-turning possibilities.

This is therefore a good time to proclaim that this title that I have - that is to say, which is mine - is mine.

(Yes, a pat on the back if you recognize something there).

Mr Tendulkar's Neighbourhood

One day while Sachin Tendulkar was building his new home opposite where I live, there was an effort to move many tons of marble.

I know you want to know about that.

Check my essay in the November issue of Caravan: Mr Tendulkar's Neighbourhood: Living next door to Sachin.

Comments always welcome.

Nawab of Pataudi

To remember a man today, these few words.

Who wrote that he had "never forgotten the spectacle of my Oxford contemporary, the Nawab of Pataudi (one of India's greatest cricketers, even after losing one eye) fielding for the university and throwing the ball with devastating speed and accuracy at the wicket"?

Go well, Mr Khan.

Not necessarily a century

I've been writing a column in Housecalls magazine for over a year now. The September-October issue carries "Not Necessarily a Century". It's readable online, but it's probably easier read below.

Comments welcome.

***
These words, soon after the end of a cricket Test at Lords. In which, perhaps you'll remember, England hammered India by a huge margin. And in cricket, as it often happens, there are some life lessons.

The result of the match, you'd think, would be the primary concern of Indian fans when it started five days earlier. You'd think Indian fans would be urging the team, silently or otherwise, to play to win, first and above all. I'm sure there were some fans like that. Except that if you read and heard all the pre-match hoopla about the game, you'd be forgiven for thinking that victory wasn't on too many people's radars. What was, instead, was a certain cricketer's personal milestone.

Sachin Tendulkar's 100th international century, of course. Ah, what poetry if he scored it here at Lords, the venerable home of cricket, where he has never done well. What joy if he got his name on the famous honours board at Lords. What perfect number magic, if in this 100th Test between India and England, in this 2000th Test match of all time, he managed to score his own 100th hundred.

Yet I don't remember seeing in any of this breathless adulation one simple thought: what if we won? What if Tendulkar scored a century while crafting a famous Indian victory? For surely that's what teams play the game for, to win. Surely not to provide a vehicle for one player to achieve greater heights than he already has.

Our obsession with such heights, I believe, encourages us to lose sight of what's important. Like, in this case, winning a Test match.

Now I can hardly suggest that the Indian team itself was similarly obsessed with Tendulkar's records and lost the Test right there. After all, there are plenty of exemplary cricketers in that team -- Dravid, Raina, Kumar, Sharma -- who fought hard all the way. But there's something to be said about this adulation of a man for his individual records, mighty though they are, in a team game.

In fact, there's something larger to be said.

If you merely look around, much of our country's landscape is dotted with adulation like this. Think of giant cutouts of whoever the current Chief Minister is in Tamil Nadu or Karnataka; think of how that cutout culture is spreading elsewhere. Think of the enormous statues of Mayawati in a new park on the outskirts of Lucknow. Think of the crowds that collect outside Amitabh Bacchhan's home every day, jostling for a glimpse of the man. Think of the obsequious reverence with which we greet the rich, famous and powerful: whether Anil Ambani or Bal Thackeray or, yes, Sachin Tendulkar. Think of men tattooing "JJ" on their bodies to mark Jayalalitha's birthday, enough tattoos to match the lady's age.

Because they reach a certain place in life, we turn these people into figures on a pedestal, give them flowery titles, worship and adore them. Thus Tendulkar is "God", and at least one book about him actually puts that word in its title. Jayalalitha is "Puratchi Thalaivi", or "Revolutionary Leader". Anil Ambani is MTV's "Youth Icon."

Yet perhaps we must remember that these are just more men and women, with qualities and foibles and failings like all men and women possess. Just people, really. What do we do to them, to us, when we turn from respect to worship?

Take Anna Hazare, for example, and the number of times he's been compared to Gandhi. ("Grandparents are taking children to see the Gandhi of this generation", said one ecstatic bit of mail someone forwarded to me when he was on his Jantar Mantar fast last April, a message that did not so much as mention what Hazare was fasting for). Why should he have to fill those oversized boots? And if we keep expecting him to fill them, should we be surprised when he fails, as he inevitably will? When we regularly mention both names in the same breath, in a mistaken excess of respect, we lay a burden on Hazare that nobody should have to carry. The comparison is unfair, above all, to Hazare.

But if we've all heard plenty of times about the dangers of putting people on pedestals, there's a subtler point here that worries me more. With a not-even subliminal parallel to Gandhi in place, our focus shifts: from the effort Hazare is making, to the man's character and moral stature, especially because he is stacked up against Gandhi. From the Lokpal Bill and how we can improve it, to what kind of man he is and what he did or did not do, prior to this moment in history, in Ralegaon-Siddhi and the Army.

The point, and it's a crucial one, is that Hazare does not have be "the Gandhi of this generation", or even to measure up to Gandhi in any sense, to make a difference to this country. His single-minded pursuit of the Lokpal Bill stands on its own, and can be judged on its own, certainly for the debate it has generated on the evils of corruption. I realize that we're unlikely to see grandparents taking children to see the Lokpal Bill. Yet if it comes to fruition and is able to curb corruption in this land, that's the achievement that will mark Hazare's place in Indian history. In exactly the same way, plenty of us now question the character of Gandhi and his colleagues from our freedom struggle. But what those men achieved speaks for itself.

Freedom is like that. Freedom from corruption might be like that too.

Back with cricket. Something I read on the morning of the last day of the Lords' Test summed up what I'm trying to say here. You will remember that India started that last day facing a long struggle even to save the game, let alone win. Tendulkar had been ill for most of the previous two days, and thus off the field. According to the rules, therefore, he could not come in to bat until nearing lunch time.

So that morning, someone wrote a short article titled "Why you don't want to see Sachin come out to bat". Since he would only be able to bat later in the day, it said, he would have "little time to get his 100th century even if he gets going." And therefore, "with India in a tight spot and battling to stay in the Test, this may well be one time that Indian fans could end up praying for Sachin to not come on the pitch at all."

Funny: with India in a tight spot and battling, one Indian fan -- me --  yearned for Tendulkar to bat us to safety, period. Yet going by this article, mine was by no means a universal yearning. Evidently there are people who would prefer that Tendulkar bailed out of trying to save the Test, because batting in such circumstances might interfere with his chances of scoring that century.

And so after England finished administering its Lords hammering, I wondered if these people were disappointed (as I was), and if so why. Because Tendulkar came out to bat after all? Because he get nowhere close to scoring a century?

Or because India lost?

Surrounded by a sea of mediocrity, of what most of us perceive as half-men and women, it's natural to long for heroes. That's fine as far as it goes. But it's worth remembering that what makes them heroes is what they do for those around them.

That may not necessarily include a 100th hundred.

My foundation, my family

"Fans of different races, castes, ethnicities and religions who together celebrate their diversity by uniting for a common national cause. They are my foundation, they are my family. I will play my cricket for them. Their spirit is the true spirit of cricket. With me are all my people. I am Tamil, Sinhalese, Muslim and Burgher. I am a Buddhist, a Hindu, a follower of Islam and Christianity. I am today, and always, proudly Sri Lankan."

The last few words spoken yesterday at Lords' by a man of clearly uncommon substance: Kumar Sangakkara. Read his whole Spirit of Cricket Colin Cowdrey lecture.

Is there an Indian cricketer who will speak like this?

Soothing the pain

So Shahid Afridi's got on a lot of people's nerves, after he returned home? Yes, mine too; in that sense rather reminiscent of Shoaib Malik apologizing to Muslims across the globe after losing the T20 World Cup final to India in '07.

But let's make a shortlist of things Afridi may have had in mind, why not?

* "Once he gives the aadesh, who can flout it?" -- a Shiv Sena leader tells us last February that his leader will "decide" whether Pakistan can play in Mumbai if they reach the final.

* "randee key bachay u give full toss to javed" and other choice abuse directed at Chetan Sharma. Part of one of the comments on this clip, of an event that happened a quarter century (!) ago. (i.e. it's even odds that the commenter wasn't even born when the event happened).

* That same event from a quarter century ago described as a "collective traumatic wound".

* The Indians who buzzed around my neighbourhood late into the night after India beat Pakistan in the semifinals, shouting "Pakistan ke maa ki chut!"

* Remarks such as "you fuck afridi have biggest heart for terrorist extremist rapist", besides plenty more.

* Gautam Gambhir being asked if beating Pakistan "will soothe the pain" of the victims of 26/11, and replying "I am sure the win against Pakistan would have helped."

* Gambhir is told: "whatever we do, whoever we play, we should never lose to Pakistan".

Some of this is just the usual paranoia about Pakistan too many Indians seem unable to shake.

I wonder though, about cricket "fans" who seem uninterested in who else the Indian team loses to, so long as we "never lose to Pakistan". My hope is that someday we will tell Gambhir: go play your heart out and win every time, whether your opponent is Australia or Pakistan or Zimbabwe or Fiji. We're not obsessed merely with beating Pakistan.

I also wonder how beating Pakistan helps "soothe the pain" of the 26/11 victims. Leave aside the "it's just a game" (it never is) rhetoric. What is the connection between the murderous scum who came ashore to kill Indians in November 2008 and Afridi's team?

The scum and the team are all Pakistani, you say?

Then consider this: what is the connection between the murderous scum who killed 3000 Indians in Delhi in 1984 and Dhoni's team? Those scum and the team are all Indian, right? So how would you react if someone said that beating the Indian team will help "soothe the pain" of the 3000 victims of the 1984 massacre? How would you react if someone said our loss to South Africa in the league stage of the World Cup had helped "soothe the pain" of the victims of the 1984 massacre?

I know how I'd react: with revulsion and nausea. The absurdity of such a suggestion is matched only by the absurdity of Gambhir's suggestion about 26/11. Yet not only was Gambhir not asked questions about this absurdity, the headline on that news item is "I play for India, I play for people of my country."

I've seen some baffled comment about Afridi, saying that since he was applauded for his remarks in Pakistan, the middle class there must agree with him, they must have similar attitudes towards India. Well, what should we make of the reaction in India to Gambhir's remark, as also to the other remarks I've quoted above? Do we agree with Gambhir's remark?

Be outraged over Afridi, sure. (I am). But there may be something to be learned from the friendly neighbourhood mirror.

Fixed, or as it was meant to be?

Two memories from this cricket World Cup.

The first was in the Delhi Metro, the day India crumbled against South Africa. I was waiting for a train at some station or the other, with no real idea of the score -- the last I heard, India was cruising.

But something catastrophic had evidently occured, because a tubby gent stalked up to me and barked in my face, "It's all fixed! Dawood's put 2500 crore into this match! Each of those *$!@#! Indian players has been paid 100 crore to lose!"

I tried remonstrating, not least because I didn't know this guy from Adam and wasn't thrilled that he was barking at me. But it was futile. He was serious and angry and would not be deterred, carrying on almost as if he thought I was responsible. "How else can you explain six wickets gone for 25 runs? Can you? Hmm?"

Inside the train minutes later, everyone in the packed car, and I mean everyone, was going on in much the same vein. I found a seat and listened, astonished at the inventiveness that was being passed off as cricketing wisdom. Some snatches: "Dawood … 100 crore … Sachin never wins the match … what do you mean, how can you blame Sachin? … I'm just saying, he scores centuries, but how often do we win the match? … fixing is easy, just show these !*!@#* cricketers some money … they'll never win anything."

Weeks later, I have no way of finding out, but I'd love to hear what those same men have to say today. Today, after India has won the Cup.

The second memory is from a petrol station in Panvel. During the afternoon yesterday, we drove out of Bombay to where I'm writing this from, on the coast several hours south, for a long-postponed family moment.

Our first stop yesterday was for petrol in Panvel, and the match commentary was blaring through large loudspeakers. The man who filled my tank told me the score -- Lanka was then at something like 73 for 3, I think -- adding: "It's a good score for India!"

As I was paying just minutes later, I heard a cheer and a round of applause from the attendants at the station. I hadn't been paying attention to the commentary, so I asked one of them, what happened?

"Four by Sri Lanka!" he said, smiling.

And I smiled too, and thought to myself: cricket as it was meant to be.

The manjutis, maybe

It's just a match after all. Therefore, here's a shortlist of things to do during the afternoon/evening today, while Pakistan plays India in a World Cup semifinal, because it's just another cricket match.

* Visit the lady in the neighbourhood who owns a Rhodesian Ridgeback, because you once had one of those and he was a handsome, spirited member of the family for years and you have fond memories of him.

* Hold a "Numbers are fun" session for the kids and their friends, aimed at ridding them of their wariness of mathematics, getting them excited about the joy of numbers.

* Go see a film, secure in the knowledge that tickets for pretty much any film will be available by the bucketful today.

* Take a walk on the seaside promenade; if it's low tide, walk out to sea on the rocks. It's a good bet that even the lovelorn couples usually found cooing on those rocks will be home today, convinced that cricket comes before kisses.

* Bike through the local fishing villages, where you can sometimes still catch glimpses of Bombay as it once must have been.

* Get out on the tennis court and hit some balls. By yourself if there's nobody else to hit with (as is likely) -- after all, your serve can always use some practice. Plenty of practice.

* Take the kids on a trip collecting manjutis, the small round red seeds.

* Get down to that practice session that you've been postponing for days, with the harmonica or piano or sitar or other musical instrument of your choice.

* Watch the parrots. And the crows. And the kites. And the sparrows. And the barbets. And the stints above the waves. Maybe the flamingos. And the mynahs. And the innumerable other feathered charmers out there.

It's just another match. Believe it.

Climbing a mountain

"I believe the citizens of our country are left with very few things to have faith in. The past year has been one of scams and we are now reeling under double-digit inflation. Getting a child admitted to school is like climbing a mountain; Delhi is called the rape capital. Religion is still being used to push political agendas and then we have our quota of natural mishaps. Amidst all this if cricket can provide some respite, we'd have done our job."

Gautam Gambhir, speaking to the Hindustan Times.

No lift to our spirits

The edit page of today's Hindustan Times (Jan 28) carries an article I actually wrote over two weeks ago. It was a reaction to news about the death of several labourers when the "temporary" lift they were riding in, in an under-construction building, collapsed.

Read the epaper version of the article here: No lift to our spirits.

Or, since epaper versions seem to vanish after a while, my original text is below. (I called it "Tale of two photos").

Comments welcome.

***
Tale of two photos

The photograph is stark, and tells a story all its own. A 22-storey building called La Sonarisa in Matunga, I read on the front page of the Hindustan Times (January 10), has two so-called "passenger elevators". On page 5 of the same newspaper is another report, with a photograph of what's scribbled on the door of one of these elevators: "LABOURS NO ARE ALLOWED" (sic).

That is, those passenger elevators are meant only for the residents of the building. So since there was still construction going on at La Sonarisa, and since the labourers doing the construction were not allowed to use the passenger elevators, they had to use a "temporary elevator rigged up in a shaft" to go about their labours. This elevator was in a "dilapidated condition" and "shouldn't have been there", according to municipal officials quoted in the news reports. The PWD even said it doesn't "recognize" such lifts as lifts at all, because they are only "used for ferrying goods." It never issued "permission" for this one to operate.

Permission or not, on Sunday morning the temporary elevator in La Sonarisa plummeted down that shaft from several floors up. It was not ferrying goods. It was carrying people. Labourer people. When it hit the ground, the impact killed five labourers; a sixth died in hospital a day later.

I wonder if the builders and residents of La Sonarisa have stopped to think about their policy, scrawled on the face of their recognized elevators, that forced labourers to use an unsafe elevator that authorities would not even recognize as one. I wonder if they have thought about the implications of dividing people in their building into two classes, with considerations of safety being an unimportant triviality for one of them.

Of course such division is by no means a new phenomenon, nor is it unknown to those of us who live in multi-storeyed buildings. In fact, there's a range of ways people consider these devices that ferry us up and down.

In a building I know of, one resident induced a deal of resentment among her neighbours because the kids who came to her for music lessons would use the lift to go up to her 9th-floor home. In another, vegetable and fruit vendors are barred from using the lift, even though all who live there buy from these vendors on their doorsteps anyway. In a third, residents were annoyed with "outsiders" who cause "wear-and-tear" to their lift, holding to the eccentric notion that their own use of it causes no such wear-and-tear. In a fourth, I once found a sign on the ground floor that said, and I quote, "servants and dogs are not allowed to use the lift."

And now I know about La Sonarisa where labourers cannot use the lift. Yes, that photograph says a lot.

On the edit page of the Hindustan Times (January 11), Anil Dharker finds that another photograph altogether says a lot to him. This one is of Graeme Smith and MS Dhoni, after the recent Test series ended. Dharker tells us that Dhoni's look in the shot is not one of "an upstart who is delighted to be in august company", but "one of confidence, just a bit short of arrogance." A lot to read into one smiling cricketer's face, but that's what Dharker does.

But he uses that smile to expound at length on a theme I keep thinking folks must be tiring of -- but no. Dharker says our cricketers' performance these days reflects new attitudes in India itself. Our "increasing prosperity and [our] rise as an economic power", claims Dharker, is the reason Dhoni has "the confidence of one who belongs … on the world stage." We must love hearing this stuff, given how many people speak like this.

And naturally, this is a contrast to days gone by, when our teams were "beaten before they started." In fact, Dharker tells us, in the 1970s and 1980s "Indians were embarrassed to be Indians". We're having none of that now. These days, he writes, "embarrassment has given way to pride."

As always when I hear this rhetoric, I wonder: just who are these Indians that Dharker is talking about? I lived through the 1970s and 1980s myself, here and abroad, and I know this much: I don't recall once feeling embarrassed to be Indian. I don't recall any of my Indian friends and colleagues feeling embarrassed to be Indian. In those years when we were young, many of those friends and colleagues began successful careers at the world's best-known universities, or high-powered research labs, or widely-admired corporations. Some started immensely successful businesses on their own. Embarrassed is not what comes to mind, thinking of them.

But if Anil Dharker was embarrassed to be Indian in those years, he should speak for himself. Not for hordes of other Indians. Not for me.

But apart from that, if we can divine all this meaning about India from one routine photograph of a cricket star, I wonder what meaning we should read into the photograph I mentioned to start this essay. What does that sign on the Matunga lift, "LABOURS NO ARE ALLOWED", say about India?

Does it speak of a "new-found swagger [that] suits the new India"? Or is it a reminder of an old India that refuses to go away?

Hope, dashed

In the just-concluded first Test against South Africa, India came into the fifth day in a fairly hopeless situation. Having scored 454, the team needed 30 more runs just to make South Africa bat again. But they had only two wickets left.

But as has been the case for the best part of two decades, India could hope because India had the greatest modern batsman, Sachin Tendulkar, still batting. He had just scored his 50th Test century, looking as solid and serene as always. With him there, India could legitimately hope, first of all, to score those 30 runs. After that, who knows? With Tendulkar batting as soundly as he had been, perhaps he could shield the tailenders and put a large enough score on the board and take enough time doing so that a draw became possible. Winning was likely too much to hope for, but after the first innings 136 debacle, a hard-fought draw would have been a tremendous achievement.

That's the hope that Indian fans like me held on to as the fifth day came around. Slender, but real.

After all there was that famous and electric performance by that other great modern master, Brian Lara, to inspire hope. Playing Australia in March 1999, WI were 248 for 8, needing another 60 runs to win. But Lara was still batting. With only two modern batting incompetents, Ambrose and Walsh, for company, Lara systematically took most of the strike and shepherded his team to one of Test cricket's great triumphs.

So we hoped for India. So how did that fifth morning, so filled with hope, pan out?

SA's fastest bowler, Steyn, started the day. He had to bowl four balls, to complete his over that had been interrupted by bad light the previous evening.

Off his second ball, Tendulkar took a single. That left Sreesanth to face the last two balls. Great, we thought, Tendulkar is farming the strike. Sreesanth survived the two balls.

Morkel bowled the next over to Tendulkar, a maiden. As far as I can tell there was no attempt made to score, especially not off the last couple of balls.

Steyn had six balls next, to go after Sreesanth. Sreesanth survived. As far as I can tell, there was no attempt made to score, especially not off the first couple of balls so that Tendulkar could take strike.

Morkel bowled the next over. Off the third ball, Tendulkar scored a single, leaving Sreesanth to face three balls. He was out off the second of those.

The new batsman, Jaydev Unadkat, played out the last ball of Morkel's over.

Steyn up again, to bowl the next over, Tendulkar on strike. Off the first ball, Tendulkar scores a single. Unadkat is left with the rest of the over -- five balls -- to negotiate, which he does with some unease. After the last ball, Cricinfo's commentary team has this to say: "Not sure if Tendulkar would want to give him the strike first ball."

Morkel bowls next, Tendulkar on strike. Off the second ball, he takes a single, leaving Unadkat to face four balls. The fifth ball of the over, Unadkat defends and "Tendulkar calls to take the single" (Cricinfo again). Tendulkar plays out the last ball with no attempt to score.

Steyn now has a full over to target Unadkat. He needs only one ball to take him out. SA wins the Test.

Far from 30 runs, India scored just five on the fifth morning. Of 35 balls bowled, Tendulkar faced 15, and six of those were in one Morkel over in which he seemed uninterested in scoring at all. (Compare with Lara, who fronted up for 74 of the final 118 balls -- after the fall of the 8th wicket -- of that 1999 Test).

And Indian fans like me were left to wonder: just what was Sachin Tendulkar doing on that fifth morning?

Cover, not water

All right, I didn't win. I got a honorable mention, which is better than 98.5334% of you out there, I bet. Take a look here and see for yourself why I'm inordinately proud of myself.

And lest you harrumph in scorn, I did win the thing about a year ago. Oh yes I did.

This game's for the birds

The November 2010 issue of Caravan has an article I thoroughly enjoyed writing: it's about following Ranji, birds and Vinoo Mankad in Jamnagar.

Take a look, here. All comments welcome.

Lo, the hero!

"But lo! He was a hero back home in Ukraine."

This gem is only one of the reasons to read this report about a certain no-ball. There are others, including "legally, the bowler did nothing wrong but it was the spirit of the game that took a mauling."

The grunts start

"The first time I heard the ape grunt -- the barking sound that supporters make when a black player gets the ball -- it was so foreign I couldn't figure out what it was ... A black player touched the ball and the grunt started: uggh, uggh, uggh, uggh, uggh.

...

The grunt was coming not from a few lads, but, it seemed, from everyone on the terraces -- old, young, fathers, whole families. Everywhere we looked we saw the ugly faces of men grunting, sticking out their lower jaws in their crude imitations of apes ... until finally the black player passed the ball on and the grunting stopped.

And then another black player got the ball and the grunt resumed."

Question 1: Who wrote these lines and where?

Question 2: Is there much of a difference between this description and this picture (and the news) from nearly three years ago?

Not two, but four

On the road in southern India, still unable to find enough time to post here. Never mind. But I did read that Lalit Modi has submitted a reply to the show-cause notice the BCCI has issued to him. That reply runs into thousands of pages. It occasioned this comment from his legal counsel, Mehmood Abdi, as quoted in The Hindu yesterday (May 16):

"For an eminent lawyer and BCCI President Shashank Manohar, it should not take two hours to read 2000 to 5000 pages ... He should be able to read all the pages and wind up in four hours."

Ah, that's a relief. For a moment there I thought Abdi expected Manohar to read the pages in just three hours. Luckily he's allowed four.

On reflection

I'm all for professional cricketers getting big money for their skills, like NBA/MLB/NFL/AFL/EPL/tennis/etc players get big money. (Though I do wish other sports played in India were able to attract similar bounty). I'm all for free enterprise and business acumen. I'm all for pointing out the hypocrisies of politicians across the spectrum, and I'm definitely, no definitely, all for cheerleaders.

I mention all that because Amulya Ganguli -- whose writing I've found thought-provoking for years -- mentions it all in his recent article about the ongoing IPL drama. (It's now appeared in plenty of places, including in the Economic Times, where for some odd reason it is not attributed).

There's plenty I agree with in that essay. And yet something about it leaves me troubled. I think it is this: the pronouncement that the IPL "reflects young, emerging India".

Now no doubt "young, emerging India" enjoys the frenetic entertainment the IPL offers. Also the free enterprise and so forth that's in that first paragraph above.

But on the evidence of the last several front-page days, the IPL also offers kickbacks, opacity, overweening arrogance, politicking, murky financing and plenty more. All of which is why the Economic Times itself, just a few days ago, referred to the IPL as a "slippery world of cricket politics", an "unholy mix of cricket, money and corruption".

Do these phrases reflect "young, emerging India"? Do the youth of this country really want themselves characterized like this? And if so, should we all wonder just what kind of India is actually "emerging"?

The irony is that Ganguli himself refers to all this: he writes of the IPL's "fall from grace", the "scam-tainted atmosphere enveloping IPL" and about "bringing greater transparency" to it. He demands, and rightly: "clean up IPL".

But does this "scam-tainted atmosphere enveloping IPL" also reflect "young, emerging India"? Should we ask whether it is possible at all to disassociate the glamour, the entertainment, the big money, from the "scam-tainted atmosphere"?

Ganguli ends by saying, again rightly, that "nationalising" the IPL, as some politicians have demanded, "will be disastrous". But what does he suggest instead? "There is no alternative, therefore, for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), whose brainchild the IPL is, to take matters into its own hands."

Yes, the BCCI. The body that's not exactly covered itself with glory in its years of administering cricket in this country. The body whose brainchild grew fat on that excellent free enterprise strategy: "ban" the competition.

Is that a reflection of our youth too?

I have no idea what should be done with the IPL (I'm not sure I care, either). But would you ask Al Capone to clean up his Chicago mafia?

***
Postscript: Immediately after posting this, I opened my copy of today's DNA to find that Amulya Ganguli's article appears on page 5.

Four pages later in the same paper is a full page feature titled "Wanted: a Board of Control to Control the BCCI". It refers to the attempts of a lawyer called Rahul Mehra to bring accountability to the BCCI. It speaks of the "rotten core of the BCCI ... how skullduggery and political intrigue are par for the course". And Mehra suggests that "reforms won't come from within the BCCI; the government has to step in to clean up the act."

Take a look.

Unholy mix

I know next to nothing about the IPL. Through three editions, I've probably seen a total of about half an hour of TV coverage of IPL matches, and that because I've been in a shop or somewhere else that has a TV on, showing a match.

Part of the reason for all this is that I have no TV.

Part is that the IPL's attitude towards the ICL always struck me as perverse and indefensible. When it arm-twisted cricket boards around the world into "banning" players who signed with the ICL, it lost me forever. (One of several posts I've had expressing my feelings about this: Me saint, you rebel). Yet this "banning" somehow never interfered with the notion some had, that the IPL was the coming of the free market to cricket.

Part is the attitude of the IPL's Grand Vizier, Lalit Modi. There's a smugness in his remarks that leaves me glad that I have never met the man, let alone deal with him. Besides, it amazes me that the glitz of the IPL seems enough to stifle any questions about the time he was charged with drug trafficking, assault inflicting serious injury and conspiracy to kidnap. Enough said.

And now the IPL has claimed a minister: Shashi Tharoor. Everything about the affair is too fresh and well-known for me to need to run through it all. But I think Tharoor brought to Indian politics a taste of openness and frankness that it has not had in living memory.

It dismays me that we have lost that. But it dismays me more that we lost it on account of what the Economic Times called an "unholy mix of cricket, money and corruption".