Cricket, the magical glue invented to keep a nation bound as one, did not have many moments of excitement, barring the willow smacking the ball with a thump once in a while, sending the cherry groaning its way to the fence. Such intermittent happenings rudely woke up the snoring gentlemen nestled on their neighbours’ shoulders. They clapped groggily and resumed their snores. Circumspect and sedate days!
The younger generation must be told of Bapu Nadkarni, the left-arm spinner who created history by bowling 21 continuous maiden overs in Madras against England in 1964. I watched it. Can anyone doubt my monumental patience?
Not that all spectators enjoyed such a lacklustre style. There were seekers of excitement too. A group would come with trumpets, bugles, hooters, cymbals, whistles and played vigorously, some dancing spiritedly, a poor substitute to the performance of the pom-pom girls in the present day.
Disgusted with the sedate pace, some would shout ‘hit out or get out’, at the batsman beyond their earshot. My Sundhu uncle, who came specially to the city from his rural seat, to watch the six-day saga of inaction, with one rest day (rest from what?), called a Test match an “idle-worship”. We would readily agree with whatever he said since he financed the jamboree, the tickets, lunch, crisps, drinks, caps, flags and such.
He felt there was more admirable action in the stands than at the pitch. Once on the fourth day, during the post-lunch session, when the match was crawling sluggishly, he jumped up all of a sudden. “Look there,” he cried excitedly, pointing at a sombre procession inside the stand. A funeral march was in progress, the bier with a live model, draped under a shroud, carried by four pallbearers, a mourner in the vanguard blowing a conch lustily, yet another strewing puffed rice, petals of marigolds, roses and such. The principal one carried a pot with curls of smoke spiralling out. All authentic of a final journey, but the discernible oddity was the figure under the shroud, instead of maintaining a dignified immobility, turned and twisted under the wraps
My uncle’s eyes sparkled. “Now there is life in the stadium. The money, time, effort are all well spent,” he said, beaming, checking himself with a visible effort from turning a step or two in tune with the deadly beat.
J S Raghavan
Email: jsraghavan@yahoo.com