Cricketers on song

Cricketers in the late 1970s carried portable 'two-in-ones' in addition to their cricket kit, in order to listen to film music and ghazals, inspired largely by B S Chandrasekhar's obsession with Mukesh's songs. Though we had few singers in our midst, there was always more than a passing interest in music in the dressing room.

Among the three or four stars I call the nawabs of Hyderabad cricket, I do not remember anything musical about the stylish Abbas Ali Baig, a man made famous by a scorcher of a kiss a young female fan planted on him when he reached fifty against Australia at the Brabourne Stadium. (The incident, in fact, led commentator Vijay Merchant to exclaim, "I wonder where all these enterprising young ladies were when I was scoring my hundreds and two hundreds.")

But the former Nawab of Pataudi had a keen ear for music. His preferences included Hindustani classical, but also music of a lighter variety, as his frequent and stentorian rendering of Mehdi Hassan's popular ghazal "Gulshan, gulshan" in the dressing room suggested. Abid Ali was no Harry Belafonte, but he belted out calypsos in the most uninhibited manner, especially one that started, "The great India bowler, Abid A-a-li."

The skipper, ML Jaisimha, had a superbly masculine voice, and he could do an impressive imitation of Frank Sinatra. On two occasions, I was to witness bravura performances by this most elegant of cricketers - once taking over nonchalantly from a live band in a fashionable Bangkok restaurant and, years later, at the V Sivaramakrishnan testimonial dinner at the Connemara, when he struck up an improbable duet with Sunil Gavaskar.

An accomplished singer in the Hyderabad team of the 70s was opener Maheshwar Singh, who specialised in the songs of Jagmohan, a crooner of KL Saigal's vintage. Maheshwar was a regular performer at cricketers' get-togethers, where many otherwise timid bathroom singers opened up because the spirit of the singer, rather than his virtuosity, mattered in these gatherings, and everyone was assured of hearty applause.

Bombay left-arm spinner Padmakar Shivalkar was a first-rate singer of Hindi film songs; so was Vijay Manjrekar in an earlier era, son Sanjay carrying on the tradition most admirably.

Decades ago, I played for Rajasthan Club in the Kolkata league. My partner in the slips was the late Ravi Kichlu, who played Ranji and Duleep Trophy cricket as an opening batsman. One half of the Hindustani classical vocalist duo known as the ‘Kichlu Brothers,’ Ravi was a gentle senior who put me, the baby of the team, at ease, and even entertained me to snatches of khayal singing in the slip cordon.

In Tamil Nadu - Chennai in particular - there has been a fairly close affinity between musicians and cricket, especially in the form of a fanatical following of the game among Carnatic musicians. Quite a few of the top young musicians of today have either played the game fairly competitively or have parents or close relatives who have done so. The best known among these is vocalist Unnikrishnan, who was a promising young batsman at the college and league levels before he decided to concentrate on his singing.

Left-arm spinner Bhargav Mehta, who took 14 wickets in a Rohinton Baria final against Bombay University, was an accomplished vocalist on the college circuit. SJ Kedarnath, a former State Bank of India opening batsman of considerable merit, is a trained "mridangam" player, but of much greater entertainment value is his wonderful talent for mimicry. Not only can he do some rip-roaring takeoffs on Tamil Nadu celebrities like VV Kumar or S Venkataraghavan, but he can also render perfectly acceptable imitations of past masters of Carnatic music like MD Ramanathan or even DK Pattammal.

(Adapted from Cricinfo, March 8, 2002)

Curdrice cricket

NOT long ago, four Chennai cricketers were barred from playing any further games for the season, following unacceptably aggressive on-field behaviour during a league match. Their ‘sledging’ prowess would have put the worst excesses of the Australian Test team to shame. All four suspended players belonged to the fielding side, the umpire who reported the incident to the cricket association finding the opponents innocent of any misdemeanour. ‘They were perhaps cleverer than those who got caught,’ the cynics said. ‘Chances are that they too mouthed obscenities, insulted the opposition, and questioned their parentage; only they did it out of the umpires’ hearing, to go by the general trend of behaviour on our cricket grounds.’

What a far cry this scene is from Madras cricket of yore. Just to give you an idea of the kind of spirit that pervaded the game as it was played here in the fifties and sixties, even the seventies, let’s join the action in the first ball of a limited over match back in the sixties. The new ball bowler K.S.S. Mani is known for movement and intelligent variation rather than speed. The batsman is R. Vijayaraghavan, an entertaining stroke-maker. To ‘Viji’, if a ball is there to be hit, it is meant to be hit, even if it is the first ball of a match. Mani’s first delivery is an inswinging half volley, and Viji flicks it imperiously over square leg for six. The crowd is on its feet, but look at Mani’s reaction. He runs to the batsman and pats him on his back, shouting, ‘Great shot da, Viji.’ Though such extreme acts of sportsmanship were not a daily occurrence, most of the cricket of the time was played in a spirit of friendly combat.

Cricket was initially an elitist pursuit, learned originally from the British by the landed gentry and educated upper crust and then percolating to the middle class. It was Buchi Babu Nayudu, a dubash well-versed in the ways of the ruling British at the turn of the century, who first assembled an Indian outfit capable of beating the ‘European’ at his own game. Soon the game spread far and wide in Madras – from Purasawalkam to Perambur, Triplicane to Mylapore and beyond, with caste Hindus and Anglo-Indians the most prominent practitioners of the game.

‘Curdrice cricketers’ was the epithet still reserved for Madras cricketers of my time, especially of the Brahmin variety (who probably form a substantial percentage of the cricket playing population of the city even today), though the demographics of the game was gradually changing, with many of the Anglo-Indians leaving India, and more and more of the ‘backward communities’ taking to the game with each succeeding generation. It was a sarcastic reference to the soporific effect of the staple diet of the majority back then. We were said to lack the steel for stern battle, our artistry and skills no match to the aggression of cricketers elsewhere.

Brilliant strokemakers and spin bowlers in local cricket, we were considered no-hopers when it came to locking horns with the more robust if less stylish combatants from Delhi or Bombay. Fielding was at best an unavoidable nuisance and the slips the preserve of seniors, with the babies of the team banished to the distant outposts of long leg and third man. Fast bowling was too close to real work, left best in the hands of those endowed with more brawn than brain.

League cricket then was relatively informal. There was no registration of players by the clubs, and you could walk in a few minutes before the toss and join the eleven. There was much banter and fielders and batsmen often traded jokes or gossip, with the umpires sometimes joining in. The action rarely approached the frenetic and the accent was invariably on style rather than substance. The spinner who did not turn the ball and the batsman of dour defence or crude power were treated with contempt by all these different constituents of the game in my youth.

To give you an idea of the cricketing values of the period, I – as an off spinner – was warned by at least one umpire that he would refuse my appeals unless I flighted the ball! To him, how I bowled was more important than taking wickets.

On most grounds, the shade of a large tree served as the dressing room and facilities were generally primitive. Lunch involved a hurried dash to Ratna Café, Udipi Sukha Nivas, Shanti Vihar, Udipi Home or Dasprakash and back, depending on the venue of the match. The effects of the blazing sun were countered by glasses of unboiled, unfiltered and often multihued water stored in mud pots or brought in buckets that resembled relics dug out by archaeological expeditions.

Most Madras cricketers were unable to afford high quality gear. In fact, you needed contacts abroad or access to visiting Test cricketers to buy bats and other gear from them at fancy prices. A Gunn and Moore, Gray Nicolls or Autograph bat could cost upwards of a hundred rupees and that was a lot of money for the average cricketer. The gloves, leg guards and shoes worn by most of us often performed a psychological rather than protective role. At the lower levels of cricket it was not unusual for batsmen to wear a single leg guard rather than a pair because that was all the team could afford. The bats could be handcrafted things of beauty, but they did not possess the carry of contemporary bats that can send a top edge out of the ground.

Despite these constraints or possibly because of them – for they served to make playing cricket seem an adventure, a privilege earned by the worthy, not something handed to you on a platter as it is today – the enthusiasm for the game was plentiful and infectious among players and spectators alike, not to mention the men behind the scenes like club secretaries, scorers and markers. Of humour, there was never any shortage and the spirit of competition was always softened by a sense of camaraderie that went beyond team loyalties.

Madras cricket of those days had its share of characters. P.R. Sundaram, a first rate fast medium bowler and an entertaining wielder of the long handle, was also one of the funniest men seen on a cricket field. He kept up a fairly constant chatter on the field, and was not above laughing at an umpire after he had given a dubious decision. He once informed an official after he had lifted his finger in response to his own loud appeal, that the poor batsman had not played the ball on its way to the wicketkeeper. On another occasion, he bowled a googly as his opening delivery of the match and laughed with his arms akimbo at the batsman who had been bowled shouldering arms.

Some others raised a laugh without intending to. There was ‘Kulla Kitta’ Krishnamurthy--he opened the innings for Crom-Best Recreation Club, one of numerous short statured players known by that nickname over the years--who, dismissed off the first ball of a match once, told the incoming batsman as they crossed: ‘Be careful. He moves the ball both ways.’ ‘Dochu’ Duraiswami bowled a series of full tosses in a junior match at the Central College ground in Bangalore and later declared to his teammates: ‘I have never bowled on a turf wicket before.’

Opening batsman Balu sat up all night reading Don Bradman’s ‘The Art of Cricket’ with every intention of putting precept into practice, only to be run out first ball next morning, his partner’s straight drive brushing the bowler’s fingers on the way to the stumps, and catching him out of the crease!

‘Clubby’ Clubwalla was another character the crowds loved to boo, for his slow batting and fascinating contortions whether batting at the top of the order or bowling his alleged off spin with a most complicated action. He was a stonewaller par excellence who once made 37 runs in a whole day of batting.

There were other unforgettable characters. Probably the best known was K.S. Kannan, the veteran all-rounder who became one of the best-loved coaches of the state, more famous for his original English than his undeniable cricket skills. For a man who was fluent in Tamil, his mother tongue, but could barely pass muster in English, he loved expressing himself in the Queen’s language, with invariably hilarious results. ‘Give me the ball to him,’ he would tell one of his wards, and ‘ask me to pad up one batsman.’ ‘Thanking you, yours faithfully, K.S. Kannan,’ were the famous last words of a speech he made at a school function.

In recent years, the stylish right hand batsman T.E. Srinivasan has been famous for his wit and eccentric behaviour. On an Australian tour, his only one, T.E. allegedly told a local press reporter, ‘Tell Dennis Lillee T.E. has arrived.’ On the same tour he persuaded a security official at a Test match to warn innocent Yashpal Sharma that he would be arrested if he continued to stare at the ladies through his binoculars. Yashpal’s panic and the resultant roar of laughter from the Indian dressing room caused a stoppage in the middle as the batsman Gavaskar drew away annoyed by the disturbance.

League matches often attracted crowds in excess of a thousand and the 30-overs a side Sport & Pastime (later The Hindu) Trophy final invariably drew five or six thousand spectators. Many finals were played at the Marina ground on the Beach Road, now Kamarajar Salai, which wore a festive appearance on such occasions, with every seat in the gallery taken, every treeshade occupied and dozens of cars and scooters parked on Beach Road, providing a vantage view of the match from just beyond a low wall. If you were patrolling the boundary line, you could eavesdrop on the most knowledgeable cricket conversations among spectators who knew not only the finer points of the game but also the relative merits of all the league teams and their players backwards. You could even receive some useful advice gratis, but God save you if you misfielded or dropped a catch!

Devoted spectators sometimes went from ground to ground watching more than one match in a single day. ‘IOB 73 for 4 at Viveka, State Bank 100 for no loss at Marina, Jolly Rovers 82 for 2 at Pachaiyappa’s,’ one of them, a league cricket fanatic of many years’ standing, would announce even before parking his scooter. Quickly collecting the scores at this new venue, he would troop off to provide similar information to players at another ground anxious to learn how the competition was faring elsewhere. Today, coaches and managers carry cell phones and information is exchanged instantly and effortlessly by all the protagonists involved in the chase for match points.

A Ranji Trophy match between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka or Hyderabad could draw a crowd of 20,000-30,000 paying spectators. A match at Chepauk, with all its historic association with the ‘Pongal’ match of yore, was a most enjoyable spectacle, watched by somnolent vacationers seated under the trees surrounding the ground. That was before the concrete cauldron that today effectively reduces cricketers to dehydrated invalids in a matter of hours came to dominate the landscape.

It was an occasion to pack your puliyodarai and thair sadam and set out on a day-long excursion to catch up with old friends, and in their company, dissect the doings of the protagonists of the drama being enacted before you, to applaud or barrack bowlers, batsmen and fielders.

Madras crowds are not only knowledgeable but generally hard-to-please as well. They will never accept Anil Kumble as a better bowler than their own V.V. Kumar, a wrist spinner in the orthodox mould unlike the Karnataka express googly specialist. Gundappa Viswanath of the steely wrists and the nonchalant artistry ranks higher with them than Sunil Gavaskar, for all the Little Master’s achievements and peerless technique.

Oldtimers even today experience goosebumps when they recall a magnificent innings of 215 played at Chepauk by the Ceylon stylist Sathasivam in 1940. According to many, no better innings has ever been played at Chepauk. But post-War cricket enthusiasts rate G.R. Viswanath’s unbeaten 97 against West Indies in January 1975 as the greatest innings in living memory, better than the best Gavaskar and Tendulkar knocks played at the same venue – and there have been plenty of those at Chepauk. The Triplicane crowds still wax lyrical about E.A.S. Prasanna’s deadly spell in 1969, when he had Australia reeling at 24 for 6, and will be the first to admit that their own local hero Venkataraghavan could not have hoped to equal the magic of that afternoon.

That is the one feature of the Madras crowd that you will rarely find elsewhere in India – the ability to transcend regional, even national bias to appreciate true sporting endeavour and artistry. This sportsmanship was never more in evidence than when the Pakistanis under Wasim Akram did a victory lap at the end of a pulsating match India almost won in 1999. I remember the drama of that afternoon as though it happened yesterday. The crowd had been roaring its approval all morning as Tendulkar led an incredible assault on the rival bowling, supported by the gallant Nayan Mongia. Unfortunately, with victory seemingly within easy reach, Sachin succumbed to the strain of the painful back injury he had been carrying throughout the innings, and soon it was all over for India.

There was a stunned silence, as if the huge crowd was still waiting for a signal from the small but significant saffron brigade in the stands that had been shouting anti-Pakistan slogans on the last day of the match (Bal Thackeray had earlier called for a ban on the tour). Like many others in the pavilion terrace, I looked back anxiously at the leader of the group, who, after what seemed like an interminable wait, gave the thumbs up to his followers. They burst into applause and the rest of the stadium joined in thunderous ovation as the victors did their triumphant march around the ground. It was a moment to make every Indian proud.

(Excerpted from SEMINAR March 2004)

Murrays Gate Road

SOME THINGS haven't changed from the Madras of 50 years ago to the Chennai of today. The name of the street where I grew up, for instance. Murrays Gate Road has remained Murrays Gate Road, and our old house, Suprabha, remains there pretty much as I remember it.

Those were the days of fresh milk being delivered at your doorstep. The quiet stillness of sleepy afternoons was punctuated by the buffalo's grunts and groans, even as her master by expert sleight of hand, emptied the cylindrical receptacle to show you it had no water in it, yet managing to dilute the milk.

The dawning of festival days was heralded by the family barber producing unearthly sounds on a battered nagaswaram. Domestic help splattering the front courtyard with cowdung solution was a daily ritual.

Journalist uncle Sundaresan's attempts downstairs at grabbing much needed sleep during the day after doing night duty were invariably scuttled by the noise of thudding feet as we siblings and cousins played deathless test matches between England and Australia in the corridor upstairs.

In the afternoon, the action shifted to the compound and by evening, to the ground across the street.

The ground was a huge expanse of land where today you see Venus Colony. It was remarkably level. The wicket was hard and even, the result of several people and cattle using it as a shortcut between Venus Studios and Murrays Gate Road.

On rainy days, quite a nasty rough was created by the hoofmarks of buffaloes returning from grazing beyond country or long-on. These rarely created any problems for the batsmen as few of the bowlers could land the ball on those spots on purpose.

The street had its share of celebrities, major and minor, besides the number of amateur cricketers there that went on to play competitive cricket at school, college, league and first class level.

Of the extended family, the late P. S. Ramachandran who lived on Eldams Road, played for Madras as a fast bowler in the very first Ranji Trophy match way back in 1934. The family produced many other cricketers of merit.

Arguably the most celebrated of the regular visitors to our neighbourhood was Sathya Sai Baba. He was a guest of one of our neighbours, though we knew nothing about him beyond his quaint hairstyle and that he travelled in luxury in a Mercedes Benz if my memory is not playing tricks.

Another famous person endeared herself to the children of our street with her unaffected ways and unfailing courtesy. K B Sundarambal, a singer of film songs, had made an indelible impression on young minds with her portrayal of Avvai, the great Tamil poet of ancient times.

A Bhim Singh, the successful Tamil film director, was another distinguished resident. His sons Narendran and Lenin were to become our playmates in the Sixties.

The highest point of their lives for most of the residents was the time the Sage of Kanchi accepted pada puja from individual households on our street. To see him at close quarters and receive his blessings was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Itinerant visitors included the Chinese seller of muslins and silks who carried his merchandise on the carrier of his bicycle and Karim with his wondrous cache of scents and perfumes.

'Anugundu Ayyavu' of wild hair, bloodshot eyes and eccentric clothing, suspenders, hat and all, regaled us with tall stories once we got used to his appearance. His claim to fame rested on the bit parts he played in the movies.

And there was this salesman of cheeppu, kannadi and colour kumkumam, with his variegated stock of multihued powders.

The Murrays Gate Road of then was a quiet place all right, but it was a happening place for the kids on the block. We were always in and out of each others' houses playing an unending variety of games from cricket and ball badminton to hopscotch and gilli- danda, depending on the time of the year.

I am sure anyone who ever lived or played in the neighbourhood carries memories of a remarkable childhood.

Beyond cricket

"OUT OF 24 hours, you spend six hours on the cricket field. What do you do with the rest? Do you read? Go to the theatre? Listen to music? You must have a life beyond cricket. Cricket is a game that demands intellect, maturity, independent decision making ability, and all this, you cannot acquire by merely playing cricket."

This was Bishan Singh Bedi, left arm spinner extraordinaire from Indian cricket's fabled past of 30 years ago. He was addressing a young spin bowling prospect, during a practice match arranged at Chennai to provide exposure to slow bowlers who had arrived from Australia to polish their art with the help of India's past masters. The visitors belonging to the Australian Cricket Academy were in Chennai, courtesy the MRF Pace Foundation, to learn a few lessons from great spinners like Bedi and Erapalli Prasanna. This has obviously been seen as a successful experiment, as the ACA has been sending its boys here for the last couple of years.

Between watching the match in progress and making notes on his wards' performance, Bedi was dipping into a book on leadership. He also found material relevant to his theme of the inter- relatedness of sport and other facets of life in The Hindu's Folio on 'Reaching Out' and encouraged his trainees to read it, as part of a mind-expanding exercise.

The sardar is a firm believer in the key role that the psychological aspects of cricket play in the success or failure of a player or a team. "I am not spending too much time on technique with these boys," he says. Instead, he is concentrating on instilling self-confidence in his young pupils, the ability to reflect calmly when under siege, and thinking a batsman out. The thought processes and confidence level of each bowler are reflected in his field placings, for instance. An off spinner who needs a sweeper cover is obviously lacking in self-belief, and he has just told the batsman and the whole world that he is making contingency plans for bad bowling. In his playing days, Bedi was a practitioner of yoga to stay physically and mentally fit and he had a few followers among international cricketers, wicket keeper Alan Knott of England one who took serious lessons from him.

All round knowledge and thinking ability are essential not only for sportsmen but also for sports administrators, says Bedi. Illustrating what can happen when these are absent, he recalled how India foolishly agreed to a proposal by England that as part of the playing conditions of India's tour of England in 1979, the number of fielders on the onside would be restricted to five. This spelled disaster to the Indian spinners, especially the off spinners, as it forced them to have one fielder more than they needed on the offside and one fielder too few on the legside. What is worse, they were simply unused to a field like that, and could not make the necessary adjustments to bowl well in the Test series.

Bedi was constantly challenging the boys to think for themselves, and to articulate their views on a variety of topics. "What is the difference between joy and happiness?" he asked one of them. The boy made a brave attempt and Bishan was quick to appreciate the effort, but he provided the answer himself, to set the youngster thinking on the right lines.

"Imagine your father has bought you a new car for your 21st birthday. How do you feel when he hands over the keys to you? Don't you feel joyous and excited? But what happens after a couple of months? You are still happy to drive a car, but that sense of unbridled joy will be missing, won't it?" he asked. "Enjoy your cricket. Don't let the joy factor disappear. That's the key to a successful cricket career," India's greatest spinner advised the spinners of the future.

(First published in The Hindu Metroplus in May 2001)

Valmiki Nagar

"WHY DON'T you buy a plot of land in Valmiki Nagar? It's only Rs. 30,000 per ground," my friend had said. I was sorely tempted, but I let the opportunity pass.

This was in 1981 if I remember right, but I first visited the lovely seaside suburb south of Tiruvanmiyur way back in 1962, my last year at school, when my classmates and I were invited to tea at our school principal's house, 'Saradindu'. Kalyan Miss and her twin sister Anand Miss were perfect hostesses and we boys, all eight of us - that's how big our class was - waded into the sumptuous spread like soldiers back from the trenches.

There were few houses in the neighbourhood then, and 'Saradindu' was a single-storeyed, spacious, airy bungalow with a huge compound and plenty of vegetation around it. A swim in the sea was an exciting bonus, followed by some sage advice from Mr. Subramaniam, the principal's father.

Eight years later, Valmiki Nagar had not changed much when my wife and I went there on a holiday, courtesy our Spanish friend Maria, who lent her house on Third Seaward Road.
It was still a sleepy suburb, with the bungalows few and far between, occupied by IAS officers and other distinguished personages of Madras.

To reach Valmiki Nagar, you took the village road past where Kalakshetra is now situated and crossed the agraharam of the Marundeeswarar temple. Lotuses floated in the temple tank, which actually had water those days. All the buildings around the temple were old, village houses that you found in temple squares everywhere.

Tiruvanmiyur itself was still very much a village, with the bus terminus located on North Mada Street, the large one on the main road still belonging to the future. Jayanti and Tyagaraja were then 'touring talkies', 'tents' that moved from place to place. Hordes of IIT students would land there on a Saturday evening, usually late, and the projectionist would restart the film to oblige them. English films were part of a two-in-one deal, which meant that you watched MGR as a prelude to "Come September" or "Casino Royale".

'Sunny Brooke' was the first block of flats to come up in Valmiki Nagar, some time in the 1980s. One recalls the sense of outrage it caused in old time residents. The owners of the property, who had betrayed the interests of their neighbourhood for personal gain, were criticised.

In time, however, almost all the seniormost residents gave in to the inevitable. Today, some of the better multi-storeyed residential apartment complexes in Chennai are situated there, outnumbering independent houses by a big margin.

Valmiki Nagar is no longer the preserve of IAS officers. Company executives, pilots, businessmen, musicians and showbiz stars reside there. It is still a pleasant suburb, but it has too much traffic for comfort. Cars zip around, competing with water tankers, which pose an even greater threat to life and limbs. School vans and office-goers in a tearing hurry make the roads unsafe for the pedestrian and the cyclist in the mornings.

The saving grace is that the locality has not been taken over completely by the rich and famous. Its middle class residents still form its hard core, with their upward mobility over the years visible in the gradual improvements in their houses and modes of transport.

One thing that may never change is the approach to Valmiki Nagar. Whether you take a left turn on New Mahabalipuram Road or enter it via the Besant Nagar-Kalakshetra route, there is no escape from traffic snarls and potholes. Nor, we are assured, will there ever be an attempt to remove the permanent obstruction on East Mada Street that reduces every motorist to tears day in and day out.

You must cross a few hurdles on your way to this quiet suburban haven.

(First published inThe Hindu Metroplus in August 2001)

Charles Goschen

THIS IS the story of a much-travelled Englishman my family and I knew, someone who visited us on and off during the 1990s. He was in his thirties then, handsome, well-read and articulate, prone to acts of kindness towards all around him.

My early memories of Charles Goschen are of those of an unusually tall man, almost doubling up with mirth at the recollection of an incident at the Chennai secretariat. This was several years ago. Charles had gone to Fort St. George in search of records of his greatuncle Lord Goschen, who had been Governor of Madras. Unimpressed by his curiosity, the clerk at the counter had told him not to waste her time with frivolous requests.

Charles was at the time writing a novel, one of three he wrote, I was to learn later, but never published. He moved to Pondicherry to continue his work there, but was still an occasional visitor at home.

Smiling, laughing, easygoing, a great fan of the cartoon serial 'The Simpsons', which he enjoyed in the company of my son, then about ten years old, Charles was equally at home discussing Montessori with my schoolmarm sister-in-law, film criticism with my journalist wife, or cricket with me and my son. He was a sensitive listener and we knew that underneath that cheerful exterior was a heart that cared for the underprivileged of the world. If he found India hugely amusing - there were always little incidents to have a roaring laugh about - he also had great admiration for the resilience and smiling ways of her poor.

I did not know then that Charles Goschen had fought the ravages of epilepsy since boyhood. His sister Caroline wrote to us: "Charles was born on 17 August 1958 in Rhodesia. My parents farmed just outside a small town called Rusape and Charles and I had a magical childhood with lots of animals, space and freedom."

Until 15, life had been a song for Charles. He had joined High School in Salisbury a year ahead of his age group. According to his father: "He achieved record distinctions at O level. At that time people were saying that it wasn't fair that Charles had everything, looks, brains and charm".

The epilepsy started when he was 15 as petit mal and affected his work, though he passed his A levels ahead of his friends. After a year's National Service, he went to the University of Cape Town to do civil engineering. The grand mal seizures started there and he had to leave.
He joined a firm of stockbrokers in Johannesburg but a seizure he suffered on the trading floor made him quit. He also had two minor car accidents and decided he could not drive and risk other people's lives.

Charles decided to try a completely different climate in the West Indies, beginning his novel writing efforts there. He taught English in Ecuador and started a fund there for a native girl's heart surgery, with a considerable donation of his own. He trekked to the source of the Amazon, to the southernmost tip of South America, and generally did a great deal of travelling.
"I think during this part of his life he abandoned thoughts of money-making ," says his father.

According to his sister, "Charles' life was a constant roller coaster of thinking he could control his epilepsy, followed by times when nothing he did made any difference and he had seizure after seizure. But he never gave up".

When Charles announced his decision to move to Srinagar, I was surprised because I had always believed him to be a south Indian at heart, though an Englishman by birth, born and brought up in Zimbabwe. It was much later that I learnt that Kashmir indeed had been his window to India when he first visited there with a friend years ago.

This second visit to the valley was to prove momentous. After seeing a cow's carcass floating on the Dal Lake, Charles launched what has now become famous as the Green Kashmir movement, beginning with distributing wicker baskets to shopkeepers for them to deposit their rubbish. He also wrote a regular column "Environment Watch" in the local newspaper, gave talks to school children and generally raised the level of awareness about pollution.

The "Green Kashmir Conservation Trust" which Charles set up received a grant from the local government, with which he extended the scheme, using shikaras to collect rubbish from other houseboats and other parts of the city.

All this resulted in a noticeable improvement in the ecology of the lake by 1998, and GK drew much media attention. BBC has telecast programmes on the project and several newspaper articles have been published on it.

1999 was a bad year for Charles. On a visit to South Africa, he had taken his internationally known wine maker brother John's wife and children to the beach, when they received news of John's death by electrocution. Six months later, his mother died.

His epilepsy once again went out of control. A bout of malaria in South Africa was followed by a broken leg while back in Kashmir.

When Charles went to South Africa to recuperate, his father took him to an old family doctor and soon his epilepsy was responding to treatment. He started swimming regularly to strengthen his injured leg.

On the morning of January 31, 2000, Charles Goschen was found dead in a swimming pool.
"John's wife said at his memorial service that she thought of him as being a travelling man and that he was just off on another one of his travels", writes Caroline. That is how most of his friends would like to think of Charles Goschen's passing.

(First published in The Hindu Metroplus)

Calypso magic

Proudly wearing the rosette of my skin
I strut into Sabina, England boycotting excitement
Bravely, something badly amiss.
Cricket. Not the game they play at Lord’s,
the crowd (whoever saw a crowd at a cricket match?) are caged,
vociferous partisans quick to take offence.
England sixtyeight for none at lunch.
‘What sort o battin dat man?
Dem caan play cricket again, praps Dem should a borrow Lawrence Rowe!’

And on it goes, the wicket slow as the batting and the crowd restless.
‘Eh white bwoy, ow you brudders dem does sen we sleep so?
Me a pay monies fe watch dis foolishness? Cho?’
So I try to explain it in my Hampshire drawl
about conditions in Kent, about sticky wickets and muggy days
and the monsoon season in Manchester
but fail to convince even myself.

This poem, At Sabina Park, by Stewart Brown, poet and professor of Caribbean studies, is a sample of the joyous impact of West Indian cricket on its crazy, partisan spectators. But long before Geoff Boycott and Dennis Amiss had arrived on the scene, to appear wooden by unfair comparison with the gifted Lawrence Rowe, thousands of fans had been hooked. By the three Ws, Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine, Garry Sobers and Rohan Kanhai, Denis Atkinson and Clairmonte Depeiza (if only for one heroic stand that went into the record books), Wes Hall and Lance Gibbs.

The first time I followed a Test series involving the West Indies was when Australia toured in 1954-55; Clyde Walcott lit up Sabina Park with two outstanding innings of 155 and 110, yet Australia had won by an innings and 82 runs. That was the fifth and final Test, and Walcott had made 110 and 39 in the first Test too, on that same, lightning-fast pitch, against the pace of Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller and the wrist spin of Richie Benaud. Incredibly, Walcott also scored a century in each innings at Port of Spain (with Everton Weekes contributing 139 and 67 not out), amassing 827 for an average of 82.7 in the series. Still West Indies lost 0-3. It was at Bridgetown, Barbados, that Atkinson and Depeiza put on 347 for the seventh wicket to force a draw.

A young left-hander named Garfield St. Aubrun Sobers also made 35 not out and 64 in the final Test, compiling in all just 231 runs and taking six wickets in the series, in what was a modest beginning to the greatest all round Test career of all time. Notice of his greatness had already been served, the very first time he batted against the Aussies. Benaud was to recall years later that, fielding at gully, he had to run for cover, seeking protection from Sobers’s fierce square cuts!

Those were still the Dark Ages of West Indies cricket: no dark-skinned player could captain the team. That had to wait until Frank Worrell was handed the reins for the 1960-61 tour of Australia, a historic series that brought the crowds back to Test grounds, after controversies and dull county cricket had driven them to other sports.

Worrell and Benaud were the rival captains involved in what was to be a major diplomatic victory for cricket — for the spirit in which the series was played, but also in the game’s first tied Test at Brisbane. The West Indies were gallant losers of a closely fought series and might have fared better but for a contentious umpiring decision that cost them a victory in the fourth Test. Australia scraped through with a two-wicket margin in the final Test, to emerge as a 2-1 winner of the series.

Two grand innings of 125 and 168 confirmed Sobers’ burgeoning stature as the world’s leading batting talent, after his world record 365 against Pakistan, but he was yet to achieve the phenomenal success that prompted John Arlott to declare: ‘‘No aspect of his cricket has been more amazing than his capacity for combining quality and quantity of effort; it is as if a single creature had both the class of a Derby-winner and the stamina of a mule.’’
Sobers was also still some distance from burying the ghosts that haunted him after his dear friend and co-cricketing star Collie Smith had died in a car accident with Sobers at the wheel. In his autobiography, Sobers confessed that after that shocking loss, he steeled himself to bat and bowl and field for both of them. How the cricketing nations of the world had to pay for that resolve!

Worrell was the great binding force, the calming influence on a team of brilliant but mercurial individuals. He took Sobers under his wing and groomed him to be his successor. By the time Sobers led his team to India in 1966-67, he had been unofficially crowned the greatest all rounder, and we in India were treated to some wonderful samples of his genius. Hall was a fading colossus, and so was Charlie Griffith, but Gibbs was still a force to reckon with. Basil Butcher, Seymour Nurse, David Holford — Sobers’s cousin and partner in a couple of historic rearguard actions — Clive Lloyd and Jackie Hendricks made up a powerful batting combination.

Another crowd favourite in India as elsewhere was Rohan Babulal Kanhai, the man who matched Sobers knock for knock in daring strokeplay that disguised technical excellence of the highest order. There was a keen rivalry between these two heroes of West Indian cricket, but it was tempered by a chivalry natural to both of them. It helped them to come together to make common cause on several occasions. If Sobers’ run as captain came to an unhappy end after his sporting declaration resulted in a series defeat against a touring England in 1972, Kanhai’s reign began with a series defeat to Australia despite great personal form, aided by the brilliance of Lloyd. One Garfield Sobers was sorely missed, though, as he was out of the series, mysteriously injured.

Sobers and Kanhai combined briefly to post huge personal and team totals in the 1973 English summer, but the new generation was already upon them, with the elegant left-hander Alvin Kallicharran playing several delightful innings and the ursine Lloyd launching murderous assaults against the world’s best attacks.

The Indian tour of 1974-75 was Lloyd’s first as captain. A batting sensation answering to the name of Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards was unveiled on this tour, and Lloyd himself gave evidence of his enormous power in the final Test at Bombay. The West Indies won 3-2, but not before India put up a hard fight, levelling the series 2-2 at Madras. None noticed yet, but the greatest battery of fast bowlers in the history of cricket was in the process of being assembled. It took an abject whitewash in Australia and a magnificent win by India chasing over 400 at Port of Spain the following season, for Lloyd to marshal his fast bowling resources into a fearsome quartet, an unprecedented combination in Test cricket.

It is precisely the manner in which the fearsome foursome was developed that took away for me the lustre and gallantry of West Indies cricket. Michael Holding, Wayne Daniel, Bernard Julien and Vanburn Holder unleashed a barrage of short balls on the hapless, helmetless Indian batsmen, often bowling round the wicket on a ridge around leg stump and traumatising them with viciously intimidating bowling. The tactics showed Lloyd in a poor light, desperate to maintain a winning record.

It was also the start of the total dominance of world cricket for over a decade by Lloyd and his men, the great fast bowlers backed by the greatest batsman in the world, Richards, and the captain himself, still as destructive as ever. Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Kallicharran, Larry Gomes, Derryck Murray, Jeffrey Dujon, Malcolm Marshall, Andy Roberts, Joel Garner, Colin Croft and Keith Boyce were some of the names to etch themselves permanently in the memory of the West Indies cricket fan.

An ugly side of West Indies cricket was revealed, at least in the eyes of ‘‘the victim’’, when Kerry Packer’s coup d’etat in 1977 resulted in all the leading West Indies players joining his ‘‘circus’’. Kallicharran refused to toe the Packer line and was rewarded with the West Indies captaincy, but he was unceremoniously axed when Lloyd and the other Packerites returned to official cricket. Kallicharran cried foul and even claimed that his Indian origin worked against him in the inter-island politics of West Indies cricket. Similar murmurs had been made by the other great East Indian icon, Kanhai, in his playing days. During the Richards era, the murmurs were louder and clearer, with the captain charged with racial prejudice in the team composition he favoured.

This was a far cry from the early days of West Indies cricket, when it was a disadvantage to be black, as in West Indian society. According to C L R James, for the dark man, ‘‘the surest sign of…having arrived is the fact that he keeps company with people lighter in complexion than himself.’’

To me, the golden period of West Indies cricket was not the era of Lloyd, Richards and the four-man pace battery, but the journey that began with Worrell’s historic tour of Australia with his gallant men, and ended with Kanhai and Sobers (almost) bowing out in style with individual scores of 157 and 150 not out in the Lord’s Test of 1973. (The next series was their last together — at home — an anticlimax for both.)

It was a time when the team was united as never before, and it set the pattern for Lloyd and Co. to follow. Under Lloyd too, West Indies played their cricket fair most of the time, though harder than any team before or after. The blot on their record of sportsmanship was provided by that ugly Test at Jamaica against India and the tantrums of their bowlers in the face of poor umpiring in New Zealand.

Richards ranks with the best batsmen of all time, as does Brian Lara; while Richards was part of a champion side, Lara belonged to a struggling, loose conglomeration of no-hopers most of the time. As captain, neither has succeeded in inspiring the West Indies to great heights. That honour must go solely to Worrell, Sobers and Lloyd.

(First published in The Sunday Express)