Few things were more challengingly juxtaposed than the struggle for supremacy between the cultists of cricket and football in Poonamallee, (in Chennai). Even Shakespeare’s Montagues and Capulets in Verona might have once in a while grudgingly smiled at each other but the feeling of revulsion and loathing the cricket and football zealots had for each other always prompted them to snort like enraged bulls when they met.
Sundarji strongly felt any pastime that fails to bring out the refreshing candour in a man is not a sport but a boorish exercise to settle primordial scores. Himself a fine gentleman, he would never appear in public or remain in the confines of his residence, unshaven, unkempt or improperly dressed. He eulogised cricket since the players always wore white pants and full sleeves, (unlike foot ball players) lest their hairy legs and hands were exposed to the ladies present. Television unheard of, his bonding with cricket was confined to pictures of Test matches in sports pages and to the radio commentaries by stalwarts like Maharajkumar of Vijayanagram (‘Vizzy’), V M Chakrapani, Anand Rao and their ilk.
Pitted against the soft, wispy Sundarji was Arthur Paul, a retired havildar. He pooh-poohed cricket, in his opinion, a miniature tamasha, as epitomised by the diminutive size of its ball in comparison with a football. In football, players like gladiators attacked their enemies without a shield or sword. They ran helter-skelter like excited cockerels, dribbling the ball, with no fear for limb or life, with the sole object of shooting the ball through the goal posts, making sure they were not their own! The referees who ran along side were far better off than their counterparts in wrestling, when an enraged muscle mountain may toss them out of the ring. “Football is for the fearless. But cricket is for namby-pamby lazybones, rather somnambulists, who stood mystified coming to life once in a while, God willing!” Thus spake Arthur Paul!
Sundarji and Arthur Paul are no more. But time has proved there is little difference between football and cricket. The gentleman’s game now has ‘sledging’, a vocal process to demoralise the batsman by hurling a mélange of foul words, that will sizzle and make the eardrums singe. A shocked Sundarji may further recoil with horror at the dress (or the lack of it) of the pom-pom cheer girls. Also the players’ spirited spitting spree on the ground as if in a contest. There is indeed rank degeneration. But no. Not as bad or terrible as with politics.
J S Raghavan
Email: writerjsr@gmail.com