Bowling Through India Read online

  With detention averted, the boys dragged us to a barely open gate by one of Delhi’s town halls. What greeted us was a concrete coliseum, complete with four-metre cast-iron fence to prevent stray sixes. A few stray layabouts smoking bidis by the town hall’s steps attempted to thwart our plans, but such a perfect setting demanded action. One abandoned game was as much as we could stomach. We needed to get the tour back on track, as our last game had been on that awful day in Varanasi.

  ‘What’s the series score again?’ I asked Stew, marking my run up.

  ‘Three-all,’ he replied.

  ‘No pressure, then.’

  And none was felt. For once we had India on the ropes, my ‘blockers’ convincing my bowling arm that putting the ball on the stumps actually gets results. Suddenly, we had the Jain Sanskrit Community School five for two and looking shakier by the minute.

  Then, as if he had a direct line to Granddad himself, the manager of the town hall shuffled and spluttered his way towards us. He was a big unit, and the process of his joy-killing probably meant pushing his body to places it hadn’t been since Ganguly was a nipper. We didn’t need to know Hindi — we could tell what was coming from the look on his face.

  ‘Sorry, fellas,’ said Reece, after a brief discussion with Red Tape Guy. ‘We’re not allowed to play here. The manager’s just informed me the match is abandoned.’

  ‘Tell him we just came from an abandoned match!’ I said.

  Blanket Boy smiled. ‘You tell him.’

  ‘We don’t speak Hindi,’ Brendon said.

  ‘At least ask him if we can finish,’ said Stew.

  We watched as Blanket Boy smiled like a drunk and spoke a language which still made us laugh every time we heard him speak it. Red Tape Guy’s reaction, a stern shake of the head, was not promising. And so it was that the second game in ten minutes was called off thanks to the Indian Fun Police.

  The boys from Jain Sanskrit didn’t take the abrupt ending well. Once again, the Chubster tapped my shoulder. ‘Please convince him,’ he implored. I told him we had tried our best. I could see the disappointment in his eyes. It’s only a game, sure, but he and his mates were obviously keen to have a go at the Kiwis. Plus, it was better than going to calculus.

  If we couldn’t play, the least I could do was interview their Man of the Match, sixteen-year-old Salam Mohammed. ‘Favourite players?’ I asked, opening my note book.

  ‘Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting,’ he grinned.

  I looked to the Black Craps. ‘Same answer every time.’

  ‘Never a Kiwi,’ added Stew.

  ‘Family?’

  ‘Two sisters, two brothers.’

  ‘Favourite subject?’

  ‘Computers. I want to be a com-’

  ‘-puter engineer,’ I said finishing his sentence. ‘You wouldn’t be the first in India. Favourite film?’

  ‘Doom.’

  ‘Favourite singer?’

  The answer, Himesh, was an artist the rest of the boys laughed at. Maybe because nothing is cool, even the cool stuff, when you’re a teenager. (Himesh Reshammiya, a Bollywood composer, singer and actor, is a pretty big deal, and was the first Indian star to perform at London’s Wembley Stadium.)

  We presented Salam with an Auckland Aces cap and started to head to wherever the next abandonment lay. I still felt like a bag of arseholes, but when you’re travelling even the better days are better than Mondays at home. As the boys moped off, Reece, who up until now had been loitering around the Town Hall, rejoined us. ‘The man who just ruined our game wants us to join him for tea.’

  Such is India. It was hard to believe that Mr Hansraj Sharma was the same guy who had rained on our parade. Stoically proud of his town hall, which looked no better on the inside than the out, he gave us a short tour of his workplace. It was cold, dark and concrete. I couldn’t imagine a performance in such an uninspiring venue.

  ‘Very busy!’ said Mr Sharma, showing us another empty area. ‘That’s why you mustn’t play cricket.’

  ‘Not too busy today,’ said Stew, his voice echoing through the chamber.

  ‘Very busy!’ he continued. ‘Ceremonies, functions, weddings!’

  He showed us two bride rooms then offered tea, which we declined in favour of finding a game of cricket which would last longer than a Bob Dylan song.

  SCORECARD

  Town Hall, Old Delhi, Delhi

  INDIA

  Rahul (15) bowled Salman - 0

  Sumit (15) caught Justin - 2

  Vivek (15) bowled Justin - 0

  Bowling: Milan (16) 1-3, Justin 2-2

  Match abandoned due to uncooperative town hall management.

  COWBOYS IN INDIA

  Like any red-blooded male I’ve taken part in my fair share of cowboys and Indians encounters, but never had I seen an Indian dressed as a cowboy until we sat down to eat at Rodeo, a Mexican restaurant that served margaritas and non-stop country music in Delhi’s commercial centre. As our big-grinned waiter, resplendent in cowboy hat, bandana, boots and holster passed us menus, Stew and I thanked our lucky stars that Cliff Richard was nowhere to be heard. But Wham were. And so was Chris de Burgh. Lady in Red filtered through the overhead speakers while we set about ordering Mexican food in an Indian city. Brendon, still a casualty, took his slowly. I ordered and again, to Reece’s great pleasure, passed my plate to him as soon as I saw it.

  ‘She’s an interesting place, I’ll give it that,’ said Stew, alluding to Delhi and all her quirks. Having walked, taxied and bluffed our way around the city centre, where people nagged, touched, pulled and prodded, we’d finally decided on the most Western place we could find.

  Maybe we were going soft.

  ‘Used to have some great piss-ups here,’ said Reece, looking over to the mock-saddle seats at the bar. ‘We used to come and sing karaoke after work.’

  ‘Hold me back,’ I said, now tolerating Wham’s Last Christmas, which actually comforted me in a funny sort of way.

  ‘I’m just glad to be out of Very-Nasty,’ said Stew.

  ‘You guys didn’t even see the place,’ said Reece. ‘Try living there.’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Brendon. ‘We’ll leave that up to you.’

  ‘Next time we go to Very-Nasty I’ll enroll you on the six-month yoga course I did back in 1991,’ said Reece, grinning like a fool.

  ‘Something tells me it wasn’t just yoga,’ said Stew, sipping his lager.

  ‘No,’ said Reece. ‘We also had to drink our own urine for six months.’

  ‘What?’

  Reece sat back and wallowed in nostalgia. He downed another Old Monk and cola that Brendon would be putting on his credit card. ‘Indians believe that cow’s urine is a good tonic. Some take it to the next extreme — your own urine is the best. Everyone on the course had to drink it.’

  ‘For six months?’ Brendon asked.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Every morning?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘While it was still warm?’

  ‘Yep.’

  This, you can understand, took a while to sink in. Typical dinner-party conversations are about house sales, school fees and politics. Being told by someone wearing a blanket that he used to drink the contents of his bladder rendered us speechless. But not for long.

  ‘Surely,’ I said, coming up for breath, ‘you didn’t have to drink the whole lot. I mean, some mornings you can piss for five minutes.’

  ‘We didn’t have to drink the first hundred mills.’

  ‘Oh, right. Walk in the park then.’

  ‘But that’s the most potent part,’ mused Stew. ‘Darkest in colour.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Reece. ‘That’s why they don’t make you drink it. Look, if you have a sound diet, eat and drink all the right things, your piss should be clear and taste almost like hot water.’

  If my tortillas and enchiladas seemed abhorrent before, news of Reece’s past dietary disasters rendered them inedible. Blanket Boy, however, once again failed to gr
asp that instead of being shocked by his stories, we often wanted more.

  ‘When you drank it,’ said Brendon, as if finally tuning in to how dire Reece’s past had been, ‘did it actually make you feel better?’

  ‘Not really,’ replied Reece.

  ‘Then why did you do it?’

  ‘It was all part of the course. It was about stamina, control, diligence.’

  ‘Fucking insanity more like,’ said Stew, ordering another lager.

  ‘Did anyone go mad?’ I asked.

  ‘Lisa, a Swiss girl, went a bit crazy. She took a bit of convincing that drinking her own piss was a good thing to do.’

  ‘You think?’

  Then the questions we really wanted answered came to the floor. ‘Did you gargle?’ Stew asked.

  ‘Can we just drop it?’

  ‘This Lisa girl, did she go nuts?’

  ‘She was already nuts! Look, let’s just — ’

  ‘Was she hot?’

  ‘No, not really. She married a sadhu.’

  ‘Did you have to drink her piss as well?’

  ‘Stop!’ cried Reece. ‘Please, just stop!’

  Like shooting fish, I tell you.

  As we left Rodeo we were attacked once more by lepers and beggars. In a sounder frame of mind I wouldn’t be so direct, but Delhi’s smell of kerosene, burning plastic and coal, with a sickly-sweet aftertaste of incense and raw sewage, made me almost dry-retch. Reece, too, lost his cool when a beggar yanked his arm and didn’t let go. ‘Jao baseriwala!’ he yelled.

  And they skedaddled, quicker than lager turns to urine, which was ironic given our dinner discussion. Stunned by what we had seen, we gathered around our new hero. ‘What the hell did you say to that guy?’ we asked.

  ‘Jao baseriwala.’

  ‘Which translates to?’

  ‘Fuck off, you homeless piece of shit.’

  ‘That’ll do it,’ said Stew.

  This less than typical outburst from Reece was proof that he was slowly losing it. And we were partly responsible — which made us feel very, very proud.

  Something we hadn’t achieved in Delhi was a full cricket match. The next day, bellies full of runny eggs and stale coffee and minds racked with Cliff Richard melodies, we headed to Delhi’s famous Red Mosque. The Masjid-i-Jahan Numa, or Jama Masjid as it is known locally, was commissioned by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (who also built the Taj Mahal) and completed in 1656 AD. It took five thousand workers six years to build; the courtyard alone can hold twenty-five thousand worshippers.

  Due to the early hour, many of Delhi’s estimated one hundred thousand homeless people were still asleep on the mosque’s concrete steps. Space was at a premium, even on such an unforgiving surface. Toddlers, however, are the same the world over. When we threw one group Vicky, they put down their makeshift bat, a jandal, and joined in. An attempt to leave, however, was thwarted by an older boy who tried to trip me up and grab my bat.

  ‘Give me bat!’ he demanded, trailing close behind.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Give me bat!’ he hissed, this time inches from my face.

  I was losing my nerve. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Fuggoff!’

  As luck would have it, we went from the most aggressive man in India to two of the most charming. Rahul and Sajeet were old pros when it came to the gift of the gab, insisting that we accompany them to a nearby park to set up a proper game. They jeered at the boy who demanded my bat and soon Stew and I were sitting on the back of Sajeet’s bike, Brendon and Reece on Rahul’s.

  ‘Do you live in Delhi?’ I asked Sajeet, as he started pedalling.

  ‘Yes, we sleep at the police station.’

  These boys were fantastic riders, and fit too, neither showing any sign of strain despite lugging Westerners who had a soft spot for butter and beer.

  ‘We find you a park, and then we play,’ said Sajeet.

  ‘Righto, boss,’ said Stew. ‘You lead the way.’

  A game of cricket, a good tip and no need to find customers the rest of the morning. No wonder the boys were smiling.

  We might have had wheels instead of legs, but the hustle of Delhi was still merciless. Along with the mandatory cars, donkeys and Tata trucks were Muslim mothers on mopeds, burqas conveniently preventing them from unwanted fumes. Other women held their biker hubby’s love-handles as newborns dozed on their backs. The next cycle rickshaw housed seven kids. Here were Delhi-ites wearing scarves, jackets and beanies, even though you never imagine an Indian city outside the Himalayas having a temperature in single figures.

  Animated stallholders prepared jelebi, orange toffee fritters swilling in rosewater syrup; puri bhaji, big balloon pastry breads served with jeera potato curry; steaming hot samosas served with pickled chilli and mint paste’ and Reece’s favourite, idli, fermented rice cakes served with sweet coconut chutney. Street food like this is always served in small bowls made out of leaves, often from the peepul tree, while spoons are often fashioned out of twigs from the neem tree. The idea is that, once replete, you toss your leaf plate and neem-stick spoon on the road and a nearby holy cow mops up the remains.

  What I’ve just explained may sound exotic, but the pile of fish on a neighbouring cart wasn’t quite so inviting. ‘Oh God,’ I said, catching a whiff. ‘I want to vomit.’

  ‘Smells pretty good though, Delhi,’ Stew said, videoing the madness for his kids.

  ‘Are you joking?’

  ‘Better than Kolkata, anyway.’

  ‘You’re just lowering your standards.’

  ‘Maybe I’ve lost my nose,’ he admitted.

  I never fail to feel guilty on a ride such as this. It’s the same part of the brain that rebukes you for hiring a cleaner when you’re more than capable of vacuuming your own floors. Here was Sajeet doing everything but die while we discussed the trivialities of life.

  ‘Today you can watch Victoria play Tasmania live,’ remarked Stew, the trip’s news and sports encyclopedia. ‘A domestic game from Australia, live on Indian TV. Isn’t that incredible?’

  An elderly gentleman lapped us, carrying a university student a quarter his age. By the side of the road, more people slept in freezing shade amid constant yelling, chatter and horns. Scrawny dogs sunned themselves on the footpath, their paws overhanging the curb, Sphinx-style. Their hogging the best spot reminded me of what Mark Twain said of India: ‘All life seems to be sacred except human life.’

  ‘Who are these people?’ I asked. ‘And where are they going?’

  Sajeet’s riding technique continued to daze, a vertical line of sweat on his back the only evidence that he was exercising at all. When the going got tough, he grabbed onto the back of Rahul’s bike: tricks of the trade.

  ‘That’s the way!’ said an admiring Stew.

  ‘Twenty rupees if we beat those pricks,’ said Brendon to his driver upon realising what was happening.

  Rahul had his mind on far more pushing affairs. ‘If you don’t mind,’ he said, ‘Sajeet and I will play cricket with you. We are six,’ he said, counting us all while riding. ‘We find more when we get to park.’

  Guilt was soon replaced by exhilaration. But now we faced a fresh challenge: a Delhi intersection. Clearly the initial part of our journey had taken place on one the city’s calmer side streets. Suddenly, bicycles like ours were a rarity; auto-rickshaws and cars were king. A massive eighteen-wheeler lounged in the crossroads like a stubborn bull. Car alarms sounded. No one moved. Yet, amid this, drivers directed each other into impossible paths. In India, there’s always a way.

  Sajeet and Rahul spotted such a slight gap and entered the slipstream. ‘Good luck,’ Stew said to me. ‘It’s your side.’

  Buses and over-laden trucks did everything but graze my arm as we hit the main highway. Sajeet pedalled on in a low gear. We breathed out as gusts of black smoke muddied our path. Everything in Asia with a wheel hurled towards us, only to swerve at the last second. Each vehicle seemed to take on the persona of a punter at a rock concert where someone
from the back had started pushing. The result was a moving mass of misdirection.

  ‘Ever feel like you’re right in the middle of the road?’ Stew asked.

  ‘Yep,’ I said, pulling my arm in. ‘That’s because we are.’

  I prodded Reece with the cricket bat as we rode side by side.

  ‘Bloody whities,’ he yelled. ‘They’re everywhere!’

  He didn’t take the bashing well, answering in Hindi and gaining a huge laugh from our drivers. They were still doubled over by the next intersection.

  ‘What the hell did you say to them, Blanket Boy?’ I asked, once we were stationary.

  ‘I called you a gora.’

  I put on my best Indian accent, so as to be understood, and asked Sajeet what we had been labelled. He giggled, too embarrassed to reply. Reece basked in our ignorance. ‘It’s a derogatory term,’ he said, ‘meaning ‘white honky’.’

  This sent our drivers into orbit on the laughing stakes. Like kids who’d just been gifted their first whoopee cushion, we now had our first Indian joke.

  ‘Reece,’ I said. ‘You gora!’

  Rahul and Sajeet: ‘Ha! Ha! Ha!’

  ‘Reece, you dirty great gora!’

  Rahul and Sajeet: ‘HA! HA! HA!’

  Ah, fresh ammo.

  Rahul and Sajeet dropped us at a rambling park with purpose-built concrete blocks at evenly spaced distances, perfect for lunchtime cricket matches. The outfield consisted of timber-dry grass and thousands of tiny white pieces of rubbish, like the leftover tissue that comes out of a trouser pocket after a spin cycle. Nearby factories spewed dark green sludge straight into an adjoining stream. Stacked bricks, five high, provided ideal stumps, their makers no doubt oblivious to what their products were best suited for.

  ‘Let’s get this show on the road,’ said Stew, rubbing his hands together.

  Rahul gathered schoolboys from various friendlies around the park before the toss of a ten-rupee coin mid-pitch. The boys leaned in closer as the coin took flight. ‘Heads!’ I called.