Chinaman : The Legend of Pradeep Mathew – Shehan Karunatilaka

I read through the book in one go. The last time I did this was with the book on the Martina – Chris rivalry, about 2 years back.

I just could not stop turning the pages of this one, even when it was not night anymore, and even when the Hyderabad heat streamed through from the outside.

Unfortunately, there have not been much sports-based fiction written. What you get are almost biographies, analysis or semi-travelogues. Not that I dislike them… I am a sucker for anything based on sport… but the fiction pieces do have a … what’s the right word here… directness(?) / anger(?) / terseness(?) that the realistic bounds of the fact-based books cannot capture (ps. I thank the stars that Mati Nandi wrote in Bangla).

And here’s one of the highest order. The books I enjoy the most are the ones that tell more than one story. And this is one of those kinds. And Shehan Karunakilaka weaves them all in this wondrous maze of a book. He has a lightness of touch, one that you will come to realise only after you have finished the book. He is able to say a lot of rather pithy things in the garb of humour.

You have read the gushing reviews; you have heard the whispers that this is a must-read. Let me do my bit of gushing to add on to all that. This is a must-read. One of the best sports-based books I have read in a while.

Here’s a proper – and fine – book review – on ESPNcricinfo.

Review: What I love about Cricket – Sandy Balfour

Is not a cricket book. In fact, the parts about cricket are some of the more laboured ones in the book. Sandy Balfour probably has the same problem as most of us have, in that he is not able to articulate too well the deep love for cricket and his village green matches. He doesn’t do half bad with the internationals though.

However, this is a nice, well written, occasionally very-funny (in a stiff-upper-lip british way might I add ….. Balfour has left his South African past behind), sentimental (why, even maudlin at times) and slightly eccentric book about a cricket-mad father and his daughter and her skateboarder boyfriend. You will probably appreciate it more than me if you do have a daughter.

Fever Pitch this is not – as the jacket cover claims. But you don’t have to find a Fever Pitch in every personal memoir on sport. And I was not expecting a Fever Pitch when I opened this.

I rather liked the book. A pleasant, quaint, easy read, it pretty much unfolds like a test match – which is a good thing. Definitely readable. Three stars out of five.

Rushmore – Mati Nandi’s sports novels

1. Aparajito Anando – Melancholy. Vivid. An all-time favourite.

2. Kolaboti – Everybody loves Kolaboti. She’s fun.

3. Shiba’r firey asha – A powerful story of redemption and resurrection.

4. Striker – Is probably the iconic Mati Nandi novel. Prasoon Bhattacharya is inspirational.

Best Cricket Books – Tender Leaves

This post is about two things in one….

First- I have guest-posted on ol’ Bschool mate Harish (bvhk) ‘s start-up endeavor, Tender Leaves ‘ blog, on the 7 (indeed, 9) favourite cricket books of mine.

Go have a read if you may. And if you do so, do check out Tender Leaves. I think you should really do so if you are in Pune. Also, I have checked out the collection on cricket books, and there are some absolute hidden gems.

Good luck on this, Harish.

It Never Rains: A Cricketer’s Lot

It Never Rains: A Cricketer’s Lot (George Allen and Unwin 1984), by Peter Roebuck, is a wonderful, wonderful read. Probably the best book on sports that I had read this year.

Peter Roebuck (photo courtest Cricinfo)

In fact, this is hardly a book, it’s a diary, a journal, a blog. Peter Roebuck was a player for Somerset in 1983 (and by then a senior player, a gnarled veteran of some five years in the county circuit). A top order batsman, sometimes an opener, for whom the word dour and doughty almost come as compliments, so defensive he confesses to be as a batsman, he was part of the crack Somerset team of the early eighties of Botham, Viv Richards, Garner, Vic Marks and Brian Rose. This book is a journal of Roebuck’s and Somerset’s 1983 county season, and shares wonderful stories of the life of a traveling pro cricketer, and the various characters, some legendary and some forgotten, that he shared the dressing room with.

And most of all, this is about Roebuck the man. In his present day writing, it is almost impossible to trace a hint of lack of confidence or a shadow of a doubt, in Roebuck. As a cricketer, he was hardly that. In this book, Roebuck is as finicky, over-analyzing and bewildered as a batsman could be, albeit one skilled at the art, you don’t become a pro cricketer (and a respected, almost-played-for-England one) without being quite good.

He is a brilliant analyst of people and behaviours, of course. And he writes well, his opinions are intelligent, direct and if sometimes acerbic, never anything but honest. It is indeed not (yet) the writing of one of the best cricket writer of our times as he later turned out to be, but that of a cricketer who has a talent for observation, who has top-class writing skills, who has humour by the shovelfuls, and one who does not take himself so seriously as to not to be able to laugh at himself (albeit it’s a completely different story about his batting technique and his average).

I cannot recommend this book highly enough to fellow followers of sport. Read it, it’s a joy.

It Never Rains – Peter Roebuck

Just completed this most wondrous, delightful book. Review to follow, hopefully very soon.

Mati Nandi: The man who gave me sports

I had visited Kolkata for a short while a few days back. And I came to know through magazines and newspapers that Mati Nandi has passed away in January this year.

Mati Nandi, for the lack of a better expression, was the person who gave me sports. Let me speak to you about Mati Nandi today. Let me speak to you today, blogging friends, about sports.

Our family is non-English-speaking, and my sister and I are the first generation in our family fluent in the Queen’s language. Anandabazar Patrika was the staple newspaper of our family, and The Statesman, the English language daily that used to be standard fare at most (supposedly) intellectual Bengali homes, was only a weekend visitor at ours.

Along with being a reputed novelist, Nandi was a sports journalist with Anandabazar Patrika. Well, not a very regular journalist when I started to read the newspaper, his reputation as a novelist was already big enough by then for him to tend to only cover the major sporting events. Rupak Saha, Gautam Bhattacharya and a few others did the regular sports coverage. The standard of sports coverage was high, and the analysis was far better than what you would find today in most English-language national dailies. And reading the Anandabazar back pages (while Baba or Ma would be reading the front page), remains a cherished memory.

And then there was Anandamela, the sleek, stylish magazine for kids that Anandabazar used to come out with every fortnight. In the days of yore, Anandamela used to come up with the Pujabarshiki (Durgapuja special) edition, and Mati Nandi’s fictional sports stories were a major attraction for me. Nandi was a serious novelist, and his non-sports-based novels and novellas were (as I was to know later) also of a considerably high quality. However, it was his writing on sports, mainly for kids, that I remember him for, and what this post is about.

I remember vividly the first novel of his that I had read. It was one called ‘Stopper’, the story of an ageing central defender, Kamal Guha. Upright, honest and dignified, Kamal Guha had been humiliated and hounded out by his club a few years back, notwithstanding his great record as part of that club. Guha believes that he has that one big match still left in him, where he can prove his detractors (and there are many of them) wrong. His life is built around football, his wife had passed away a good few years ago, and he is estranged with his son. And this one match, against his former team playing for a relegation-contender, becomes his raison d’etre, a metaphor of his life and all that he stands for ….

The comparatively unheralded ‘Aparajito Anando’ (Anando the undefeated) is in my opinion his masterpiece. Teenager Anando is a promising quick bowler and tennis enthusiast, whose life as a sportsman is cut short when he is detected with an incurable heart ailment. In his bed, looking over the playing ground next to his house and the various characters that inhabit it, Anando dreams of debuting for India against the mighty West Indies of Sobers, Kallicharan, Holding and Anando’s favourite Andy Roberts. Or of playing in the semi-finals of Wimbledon against the seemingly indestructible Jimmy Connors, with the winner to play Ken Rosewall on his swansong appearance (Anando hopes to beat Connors, and then forfeit the match against Rosewall so that Rosewall can at last win the Wimbledon title that has slipped his grasp thrice previously). And as the rearguard eighth wicket partnership between Gavaskar and Anando reduces the first-innings deficit and takes India to a somewhat respectable second-innings lead; and as Anando fights back against Connors to take the match to the deciding fifth set, we know that neither of the two matches will finish… these two matches are what Anando is living for. If they finish, so would Anando…

Nandi’s heroes and heroines are you-and-I sportspeople, people we know, people we can relate to. Sometimes they are fun, sometimes they are tragic, and sometimes they are triumphant. But Ananta of ‘Jeeban Ananta’ is not defined by his 9-21 against New Zealand in his first test match but rather his friendships with Jeeban and Bhramara; Naran is a winner despite not being able to meet his hero Emile Zatopek; We root for Prasoon Bhattacharya in ‘Striker’, for Nanida in ‘Nanida Not Out’, or for Koni the swimmer (and for Khid’da her coach) not because of their skills as players, but more for their unbending, principled personalities. We love Kalabati not only because she is a fine cricketer and a dedicated journo, but also because of her joie de vivre and compassion for the world around her. Those little victories – Shibaji winning the National boxing event in ‘Shiba’r Firey Asha’, Naran completing the Kolkata marathon, the protagonist being able to sign for the club he wants to in ‘Dol Bodoler Aagey’…. Even in ‘Dwitiyo Innings-er Por’, Raminder Singh coming in to bat while his life is falling to pieces around him, is a triumph as much for him as for Saroj the journalist, who is covering the series.

Most of the protagonists, while skillful, are common everyday people, with everyday chores, everyday worries, and everyday failings. Skills are important tools for Nandi’s heroes and heroines, but what makes them successful is their moral character, their heart, their effort. The immensely talented (but of loose moral fiber) Bhabanishankars of the world are never glorified. And the ones who had strayed, but had then mended their ways, are always allowed a fresh start. In Nandi’s stories, winning is very important, but not at the risk of a compromise on human values. Glorious failure is not an option, but neither is cheating to win. In sports, as in life, Mati Nandi’s heroes celebrate winning the right way. Nandi celebrated life. And truth. And honesty.

Nandi’s stories gave me sports. He made me understand sport from a broader perspective than the next win or loss, and what it stands for. And I am glad that he wrote in my native language.

Let me leave you with these few lines from ‘Striker’, said to the protagonist Prasoon by his mentor Harsho-da, loosely translated.

…. And a man’s challenges come in many shapes and sizes. A tree grows because of its base, its roots. A man’s moral character is his root. If one’s character has disintegrated, he cannot face his demons, he cannot make it.

Ali, Pele, Lillee and Me – Brian Viner

Ali, Pele, Lillee and Me: A Personal Odyssey Through the Sporting Seventies, by Brian Viner, is an absolutely delightful book. I loved it, and may write a long review of it soon.

Here’s a funny line from this book:

……….I should also admit to being very fond of the question: which four Formula One drivers share or shared their first names or surnames with places in Scotland, the answer of course being Stirling Moss, Johnny Dumfries, Eddie Irvine and Ayr Town Center.

Read it, if you were one of those kids who stayed late at night watching Becker win against Anders Jarryd and Kevin Curran at Wimbledon, or still reminisce Azharuddin’s magical entry to test cricket, or the even more magical Mexico ’86 World Cup.

A foreign field no more…

This, I wrote a long time ago…. replicated here for you, dear readers.
_______________________

Book: A Corner of a Foreign Field
Author:Ramachandra Guha
Genre: Society/ History/ Sports.
Publishers: Picador India 2002
Pages: 496.

I love social history. I love sports. I quite like cricket. So I picked up “A corner of a foreign field” with hardly any trepidation. I had to like the book…. And you know what? I did.

Now I am not a greenhorn in the cricketing history of our country. I remember actually identifying Palwankar Baloo’s snap at some quiz somewhere. I did know him as the first in the line of great spinners that India has produced, and had read of the famous unofficial tour to England in the early part of the last century where this great dalit cricketer, with only two English words in his vocabulary (How’s that!) wrecked havoc among the best of the English batsmen (After reading Guha’s book, I tend to believe that this story of Baloo and his command over the queen’s language was more of romanticised urban legend that anything else). I did know him as one of the first few truly national figures among the dalits. I had in fact heard of the Triangulars (of Mumbai) which eventually became the Quadrangulars and then the Pentangulars. I have heard and read of the exploits of CK Nayudu, and the paeans written for him by musty-eyed old cricket writers. I had heard of such names as Buchi Babu and Lord Harris and CB Fry.

And there were many take homes for me from this book. In a clipped, honest, sturdy rather than poetic style, the writer details for us the whole history of Indian cricket, especially of its pre-test status era. Ah, and would a social historian just give one the facts and figures? Would he stand back from analysing the data that he has collected? Thankfully, Guha does not. His analysis is precise, correct to an extent of assurance most of the times, and I should not really complain, for the only situations where I differed with his views completely in the first three parts of the book was about Calcutta football, clearly not one of Mr. Guha’s fortes.

The book is divided into four chapters to indicate the four great social waves into which Indian cricket could be divided. To start with, the establishment of cricket in the country, and the osmosis of the stiff-upper-lip fish-and-chips sport into the spicy kitchens of India ( a simple example: the conversion of the popular proverb “it isn’t over ‘till the fat lady sings”, often used in the game of glorious uncertainties, to the manifold more colourful “it isn’t over till the fat sardarni from Bulandshehr does the bhangra” which I happened to read somewhere); the opposition Indian cricket had to face in its infancy from the British rulers who hardly considered Indians capable of ever playing the game at the standards of the founders of the game; a nice analysis of why this game more than any other, took the fancy of the Indian public in general, on how the nature of the game was perfectly suited to the Indian’s tastes and behavioural idiosyncrasies; are all perfectly reproduced in the first part of the book, termed ‘Race’. The next chapter deals with that bane of the Indian Hindu society, caste. As cricket grows in the country, so does the country develop and try to eradicate the bane of untouchability from within it. Rather, how the dalits make their presence felt in the arena of sports, this serving as just a precursor to their presence at all other segments of society, in spite of all the despicable methods adopted by the higher castes to keep them from the mainstream Hindu folds. It is here that the chief characters of the book, the Palwankar family, are presented to the reader. The third part of the book deals with the most direct intermingling of the freedom struggle and cricket in the country. Religion, an issue which was hardly a major factor in the previous two parts of the book come into serious focus in this part, due especially to the times (the 30’s to the 50’s), and the religious uncertainty permeating the country at that time.. CK Nayudu, possibly the most dominant Indian sportsperson (definitely in the minds of the public) in pre-independence Indian sport, comes to us with all his spectacular brilliance as a sportsperson and with his most human flaws. The fourth part does not deal so much with the cricket as with the fans of the game, and how they underwent the transformation from a genuine cricket-loving race, appreciating good sport and yet wanting their side to win, to rowdy partisans, who want the team to win at any cost; now putting the cricketers on a pedestal as national heroes, now unceremoniously pulling the images down after one shoddy performance.

Guha’s style of writing befits that of a historian with a knack for writing. For all his love for the cricket of the Palwankar brothers, he never goes at lengths into the beauty of Palwankar Baloo’s follow-through, neither does he go ballistic in his praise of Vithal’s batting and fielding. He presents the facts exactly as they are. Economical with his words, he says what he has to say exactly the way he wants to say it. His analysis is almost always supported with facts and numbers and reliable anecdotes. I was really glad to see that he does not go into comparison between cricketers of different ages, a common bane of sports writers. He presents the facts as a historian, does his analysis as an analyst, with the help of numbers and vignettes rather than any pre-conceived notion, and is convincing throughout.

But if I could say, the bane of this book, and of Guha himself, is the bane of most historians. Very true to the facts in his analysis of history, he never overshoots, neither does he miss any single strand of information in his accurate analysis of Indian cricket before Independence. The first three parts ring true because of the meticulous research and impartiality of his observation and analysis, And this is precisely where he misses out in the last section of the book, where his personal feelings come in (obviously so, for how can you be impartial and observational as a historian to something you have yourself seen with your eyes), making this part more strident, clearly taking sides, the Ramachandra Guha in him comes into prominence with his preferences and dislikes, his political and his social beliefs; the impartial, impassive historian in him gradually sliding into the woodwork. The voice, economical with words, clipped, with an honest ring to it, becomes shriller, with the analysis becoming more and more the case of one trying to prove his point by hook or by crook. And that has to be anticipated too. Historian or no historian, no Indian, especially someone with so much passion for the game and the country, could be completely impartial in their observations of the two major panacea of the country, cricket and politics.

What comes across the most at the end of this book is the intense love for a game by the author. It is possibly because of this love that he is able to be impartial and honest in his analysis in the first three parts, and even more so, this great love could be sited as the reason which prompts his to sometimes be a bit opinionated in the last part of the book.

All in all, a knowledgeable, intelligent, researched read, which thankfully never becomes tedious in its pursuit of the unrecorded and unregistered. I would call it a definite success, Guha did reach where he wanted to in the end. I think it’s quite a landmark in the Indian sports writing arena, and would suggest it to everyone who has a love for either of social issues, the Indian freedom struggle or cricket, and can at least appreciate the other two. It, I guarantee, will be quite an enchanting read and a rewarding experience. Thank you, Mr. Guha.