My Boy.

My boy is a bit over five.  

The other day, in the car, he asked me to play his favourite ‘dolphin’ song. Now, this Tamil song from ‘Boys’ goes ‘Enakkoru girlfriend vaeNuma-da’ translating to ‘I want a girlfriend’. Smug in the belief that he’d misheard it as dolphin, I slid in the CD silently. 

A friend of my daughter was in the car as well. Hearing the opening of the song, she corrected him with

‘It’s girlfriend, not dolphin’!

And he whispered back urgently

‘Shhhh! I know, be quiet or I’ll get into trouble!’ 

Barely five, and already street smart.

Banner prose.

There are times like Sunday, when unexpected wins are gained. These are indeed the moments we live for, hoping against hope.

 However, an observation, hopefully shared by others, is that memorable wit on Indian banners held aloft for the cameras is as rare as a Bangladesh victory over Australia. 

Lack of imagination, paucity of ideas and laboriousness of doggerel are more likely to be encountered. 

Living as I do in Melbourne, I can safely hazard that the bulk of the Indian supporters at the MCG would be well educated, in professions requiring the application of brainpower and also have a formidable representation of 2^nd generation Indian-Aussies.

 Fertile ground you would think, for displays of cutting wit and wisdom. 

And yet, thought is noticeably absent. They either read “Chak De India”, “Incredible India”, “Kangaroo curry”, or variants thereof. To leaven the dross are laboured acrostics on Sachin’s name or long paragraphs on bedsheets.

Nothing near as original as the Aussie kid in Perth (if memory serves) over ten years ago who, once Sachin had crossed ten runs, crossed out the first three letters of his daubed sign that read “Tendulkar” and kept score till a century was struck. The camera kept panning on to him regularly through the day.

I accept there can be just the one Bharat Dabholkar, however should not a talent pool as large be capable of more memorable work?

Or is this a metaphor for the Indian condition as a whole?  

-Soundar.

Just not on.

Unfortunately, the racism message has not sunk in-even in urban India.

I received one of those mails from a friend in India with a picture of Symonds next to a monkey, drawing attention to the physical similarities.

This really got my goat.

Most Indians privately agree India is quite a racist, colour conscious, caste conscious society. Can’t do much immediately about the hinterland where these abominations are entrenched.

However one expects better from educated friends. To receive such a mail from a friend made me angry.

I let him have both barrels.

Maybe he is now an ex-friend.

If there be a heaven on earth..

..it would have been the SCG yesterday when Lacchu’s grace brought to mind, among other things, Brearley’s immortal lines about Azhar.

“..if his genius could be bottled, the future of Test Cricket is secure” or words to that effect.

Watching the extended highlights on Foxtel reminded me of two pieces of poetry.

“Mazhai, pala koti thanthi-hal udayadhorr isai-kkaruvi.” Subramanya Bharati.

The bard was listening to the raindrops on his roof when he made the observation about rain being a multi stringed musical instrument.

Lacchu’s bat as a musical isntrument? Not far fetched at all.

Sab kucch dekh liya

tujh ko dekh kar

utthe nahin hain haath mere

is dua ke baad.

A substitution of ‘dekh’ for the original ‘maang’ in Agha Hashr Kashmiri’s original urdu couplet and, batting-wise, I had seen all there was to be seen and I have no desire to see any more after this benediction!

Simple really.

Yuvi and the Wall had gone in for lunch. You could say India were in some trouble at 4 down.

The PYT in our office squealed ‘Odd weather we are having..I mean, like it is supposed to be summer and look at the raiiiiiiiiiiiin!’

And everyone looked at the sheeting rain outside. 

It is not everytime that my timing is Vivek perfect.

‘There’s quite a simple explanation really’

And they all looked at me.

‘God is now an Indian. He has seen the dire straits we are in and has intervened.’

Rain.

We were following the game on the net while pretending to work. We got up and stretched as the boys went into tea around 4pm…..and saw the storm front sweeping in from west by southwest.  

There is something about watching an approaching storm from an elevated space like the 15^th floor. Lightning cracks and fills the bowl of the expanded horizon. A long time later thunder is heard. The front is all ominous darkness in a relatively light sky. In surprising speed, it is upon us. First the grey blue water of Port Philip Bay is hidden by this grey wall. The buildings are enveloped next. In a short while, the first drops splatter on the plate glass, followed by sheeting gusts of rain.  

As everyone drifts up to watch Nature’s show, one of the Aussies says “ I know we are in a drought here, but surely you blokes aren’t young enough not to have ever seen rain!”

Moksha

The day the Curry Munchers kick off with their game against Victoria. Gloomy weather with a forecast top of a muggy 28’c.  Rain later in the day.

Evidently a lot of the Indians in Southgate will gain moksha. Everyone has sighted the boys either individually or as a team.

Given that they will be in Australia off and on until March, it is likely we will have enough darshan of them to make our janma paavana many times over.

 One of my Kannadiga colleagues got close enough to exhort Anil and Venky ‘gedd-kond barbeku!’

Day 2

The boys returned from their nets around quarter past six. The reception they got in the forecourt as they stepped off the bus must be one of the reasons they enjoy touring overseas.

It was a grand total of two.

One was me, passing through en route to Flinders Street Station. Neither of us yelled ‘Sachin..Sachin’ or rushed them to liberate shoulders from sockets.

 Evidently all the kit had been left at the Junction oval, as they stepped off with just their bats. Even these bats were pristine. Not a single mark on them. One imagines they were going to continue knocking them in. If so one wonders what the other patrons would say to the sound of bat mallets on willow in concert after hours.

The Curry munchers are here.

That paragon of tabloid muck-raking, The Herald Sun, wrote that the Indian team landed to a ‘hornet’s nest’. Certainly did not seem that way when I passed the nivaas-sthaan of Anil’s boys, the Langham, en-route to work. But for the doorman in his khaki-beige clobber, not much stirred.

For those among the Indians on my floor who had not clapped eyes on the living gods of India (nadamaadum deivam-s as we have it in Tamizh), not much work was done. They spent a good portion of their billable hours riding the lift down to the concourse and the Southgate food court to see if they could gain darshan and ensure release from the cycle of birth and death.

And they were rewarded.

Irfan Pathan accosted one of them (!) with a ‘Bhai-saab money exchange kidar hai?’. Irfan was duly escorted to the money bin manned(?) by the Indian girl who I always thought was how Soundarya would look like had she lived to hit her late thirties.

Another one of my bhai-log saw Irfan-bhai and Wasim-bhai together.

By now you can be sure all pretense at work was being cast aside. Two of them stood watch at the doors as the bleary eyed boys boarded the bus at 4 pm for some nets-cool dude Yuvi in the last seat of the bus, earphones in place.

Incidentally, they were all amazed at how wasp waisted our ‘boys’ were. Here we were, proud of our 32″ waists, maintained despite idli, dosae, garam samose, aloo-ki-tikki, gur-ki-chikki and there were the boys, none over 26″ measly inches. Maybe they should have brought along ‘porgya’ Powar, if anything to make us feel better.

There were hurried consultations. Would the ‘boys’ be headed for the nets at the Junction Oval? Which tram? Route 3 and 67 along St.Kilda road?

Luckily sane heads prevailed. Someone placed a call to the MCG and found that the ‘boys’ were practising indoors and ’sorry guys, I don’t think this one is open to the public’.

And so the caravan rolls. Odds at the TAB for India winning are quite attractive. An outlay of a buck will fetch you eight if the boys deliver. If I was a betting man, I’d be tempted. I remember the story of the Indian punter at the ‘83 world cup who placed a bet of STG1000 on odds of India winning at 50:1.

He walked away with more than Kapil’s devils did.

There’s a thought.

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