Bowling Through India Read online

  Then, like a wave of nausea, came the part Blanket Boy despised. Thankfully, an agreeable lunch had cheered him up somewhat but I’m sure that, given the choice, he would have hurled the scorebook, which hung from his blanket like a ball and chain, into the Yamuna at the first opportunity. When at last he scribbled down some sort of disorder, we started a game in front of a monument which deserved better.

  ‘Okay,’ said Reece, losing his patience. ‘New Zealand bat first. Let’s go!’

  ‘Six a side, six overs each,’ said Stew, taking guard.

  I took my place as umpire at the bowler’s end, while Brijesh expertly guided Roger the camel to the deep fine-leg boundary before marking out his run-up.

  One of the advantages of playing your home ground is the prerogative to cheat. It is your god-given right. One small requirement, however, is letting your opposition know of any homespun rules in advance. In this case, our first mistake was to bat first, unaware of the local ‘free-hit’ rule.

  Things were about to get heated. But not before Stew, clearly conserving energy for the big games, butchered Vicky in front of an expectant, appreciative crowd. Still irate at his golden duck in Darjeeling, he dispatched almost every delivery over cow’s corner for six, his lunch diet of Kingfishers and curry a well-kept — if quick single-preventing — secret. All up, he smashed five sixes, some of which had frantic searchers scouring the sand dunes for the offending shot. Reece could barely keep up his room mate’s antics, hurriedly scrawling down what resembled an international phone number: 4,1,1,1,1, 6,6,6,6,6,1.

  When Vicky rolled into the river due to misdirected square cuts, we stood back and let our opposition retrieve her, knowing that people were being burned downstream. It was also a good time to catch up on the real reason people visit Agra. With the fading light, the Taj continued to dazzle. It was beyond grand, the spectacle addictive.

  Did these kids realise how special this place was? Hardly. To them, it was just a cricket ground with an annoying water trap at deep cover.

  ‘Wait!’ I said, upon seeing Brijesh begin a second over. ‘One over each, that was the rule.’

  ‘No,’ said Brijesh defiantly. ‘Two overs maximum.’

  I looked to Stew, who mimed ‘Whatever’ and belted the next ball to Rajasthan.

  ‘That’s over,’ I said at the conclusion of Brijesh’s effort, tossing Vicky to a fielder with ‘Murder’ written on his shirt.

  ‘Hang on,’ yelled Reece. ‘I’ve only got six balls!’

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied. ‘That’s what’s you call an over.’

  ‘But I thought there was a no-ball.’

  ‘I thought you had the hang of this,’ said Brendon.

  ‘So who’s bowling now?’

  ‘Sunil the murderer,’ I replied.

  Reece looked down at his scorebook. ‘But I have Sunil down for New Zealand, not India.’

  ‘He changed teams,’ said Brijesh. ‘He is now India.’

  While such nonsense occurred, there were dozens of perfectly capable younger boys loitering. They would have given anything to play, but were bulldozed by louder voices and pushier attitudes. Stew, having retired on thirty-eight, provided the backbone for the Black Caps, and we were confident at the innings break. As we approached Reece to tell him of our bowling order, a man with terrible eyes stood over his shoulder. Blanket Boy was concentrating on the job at hand so didn’t immediately see what we did: eyes with no pupils, whites only, a hint of smoky yellow. They were the eyes of a fish after it has been steamed. The beggar held his hand out, saying, ‘I’m blind.’

  Reece, who had now caught a glimpse but was still focused on those damn no-balls, replied, ‘I can see!’

  ‘No need to rub it in,’ said Stew.

  Defending the highest score of our tour, we were complacently delirious. Even more so when Brijesh was caught by Meenu having scored just one run. This was to be our only success. Once Brijesh took over as umpire, the good days were over.

  ‘No ball,’ he said to my next delivery. ‘And free hit.’

  ‘Yes!’ said the batsman at the striker’s end, raising his bat baseball-style.

  ‘Free hit! Free hit!’ yelled an ecstatic India.

  ‘What do you mean, “free hit”?’ Stew asked.

  ‘You bowled a no-ball. Free hit after,’ said Sunil the murderer.

  ‘You never told us that when we were batting,’ I said.

  The Indians shrugged their shoulders. I secretly admired them. Don’t ask, don’t get. Brijesh now took it upon himself to take cheating to an epic level, calling us for no-balls even when we hadn’t overstepped. This, of course, meant his batsmen could have an almighty swing at the next delivery without fear of losing their wicket. Brijesh was the kid who had all the gear but none of the talent. Hell-bent on winning, and in no hurry to make friends, his failure with the bat only exacerbated the situation.

  One thing was for sure: dirty tactics meant that the Black Craps now had a real scrap on their hands. Stew and I decided that the only solution was to stand by Brijesh as our bowlers ran up to the crease. Unrepentant, he continued to no-ball every second ball.

  ‘Free hit!’ he yelled to his batsman.

  Naturally, with pressure averted, the next ball joined the locals sitting on the sand dunes. We were dealing with a serial cheat, but could do nothing. Backyard cricketers can’t complain to the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India). We could only attempt to stem the flow. As for taking wickets, we couldn’t buy one, despite having extra fielders in the form of goats, buffalo and Roger the camel.

  Amid the carnage, however, one player who didn’t cheat or go out was our killer, Sunil. He had obviously taken a leaf out of Stew’s book, eventually hitting the winning runs with ease and, in doing so, ensuring our second loss of the day.

  ‘Mind you,’ I said as we shook hands with our opponents, ‘I bet international cricketers don’t get up at dawn to look at the city’s highlights on match day.’

  ‘Poor excuse, Justin,’ said Brendon.

  And he was right, but we needed some way to cover up our pitiful showing. One player, you may have guessed, who wasn’t going to go quietly was Roger’s owner. Incredibly, despite his unique umpiring, Brijesh continued to push for glory. ‘I win! I win!’ he jumped up and down. ‘I am Man of the Match!’

  ‘Don’t think so, mate,’ I said. ‘Sunil top-scored.’

  ‘I win!’ repeated Brijesh.

  Sunil accepted his prize with a sheepish grin.

  ‘New Zealand is bad,’ Brijesh said, giving us the thumbs-down. ‘I win!’

  ‘Your team won,’ said Stew.

  ‘No,’ said Brijesh. ‘I win!’

  Seeing the bat resting on the stumps, he quickly grabbed it, the second time today such an attempted abduction had occurred. ‘Captain keeps the bat!’

  Two boys walked us back to the Goldfish Bowl. One was Sunil, the Man of the Match; the other was Hasin, our helper from earlier in the day. We decided to give him a cap, too. He was such a cool kid, with a gentle nature and tough life. His mother had ‘expired’, he had told us, so he had to look after his sister and five younger brothers.

  It was little surprise to discover that Tendulkar and Ponting were both boys’ favourite players. Of more interest were their chosen career goals. ‘I want to be an engineer,’ said Hasin.

  ‘And what about you, Sunil?’ Reece asked the bloke with ‘Murder’ on his shirt.

  The answer came quickly: ‘I want to be a doctor.’

  SCORECARD

  Jamuna Bridge, Kachpura Village, Agra

  BLACK CRAPS

  Stew retired! - 38

  Hasin caught Sunil - 0

  Chota Patan caught Brijesh - 2

  Meenu not out - 9

  Justin not out - 2

  Extras - 7

  Total - 58

  Bowling: Brijesh 1-17 from 2 overs, Parveen 0-4 from 1 over, Sahab Singh 0-9 from 1 over, Sunil 1-28 from 2 overs.

  INDIA

  Brijesh
caught Meenu - 1

  Parveen caught Justin - 0

  Sahab Singh run out (Stew) - 0

  Sunil not out - 36

  Raj Kumar caught Justin - 5

  Anand not out - 4

  Extras - 15

  Total - 61

  Bowling: Stew 1-8, Justin two overs 2-17, Hasin 0-8, Meenu two overs 1-24.

  India wins and takes 5-4 lead.

  Once again, the most unlikely of us to own moisturising gel passed it around the van as if it was gold. Until now, Stew had cleansed his farm-beaten hands after each match but now we’d discovered his secret.

  ‘Stops you getting sick,’ he said.

  ‘Too late,’ said Brendon.

  ‘Second that,’ added Reece.

  Each Black Crap savoured the moment, rubbing his hands together and smelling the result. It’s the little things.

  ‘Well,’ I said, looking at the scorebook from the latest ill-fated offering, ‘we’re officially pushing shit up hill. Five-four down, with only Jaipur and Mumbai to go.’

  ‘It would help if they didn’t cheat,’ said Stew.

  ‘Maybe we need to start cheating.’

  ‘We’re playing kids,’ said Brendon.

  ‘We’re losing to kids.’

  Agra rolled by, its workers and occupants staring at four grown men handing around moisturiser. It would be another hour before we reached the hotel. In the meantime, our refuge was a good way to catch up on normality. Stew spoke to his family on his mobile while I viewed a text from mine saying they were off to sing Christmas carols at the Auckland Domain. Earlier in the day, Brendon had spoken to — and watched — his one-year-old daughter thousands of miles away via Skype.

  ‘I don’t know what you guys are worried about,’ said Reece. ‘I mean, aren’t these games just a bunch of friendlies with kids?’

  The ensuing silence, coupled with stern unapologetic looks, said it all.

  The next trip was on a train back to Delhi. Waiting in the hotel’s lobby, we had two choices: get our palms read or read a newspaper. As the fortune-teller hadn’t enlightened a single customer since we had arrived, we opted for real life. Which wasn’t such a sound choice, going by Reece’s look of horror upon seeing the cover of the Hindustan Times.

  FATAL ATTACK

  A visitor lies dead outside an enclosure for Royal Bengal tigers after he was attacked by two tigers at the zoo in Guwahati on Wednesday. The visitor was trying to take a picture of the two tigers from up close when they caught him and ripped off his left hand, triggering a fatal haemorrhage.

  The article, accompanied by one of the most gruesome pictures I’ve ever seen, took up a quarter of the front page. It showed a man lying on his back outside the tiger enclosure, looking as though he had been killed in a bomb blast. There was no evidence of a left arm. His white shirt was claret-red, his face sprayed by blood which had obviously shot out from the hole in his torso. Unfathomably, somebody had taken that photo before calling for help. And the tiger was still in shot at the top of the frame.

  With another hour to fill before departure, I found an internet café, one of possibly millions in this computer giant of a land. There I found that Anna had made the news back in New Zealand. The Herald had an article about the ‘fearless New Zealander who always wanted to do things the average person wouldn’t think of doing’. I looked at the screen for a long time. By now John would nearly be in Egypt, having to deal with the unbearable. I remembered back to when he and Anna used to have us around for dinner. Anna, a wonderful cook, would whip up fantastic dishes while her husband and I dreamed crazy dreams. She was great, too, with our daughter, giving her a floppy yellow cow which quickly became her favourite.

  Life sucks sometimes.

  The 2001 Shatabai Express to New Delhi should take two and a half hours, so we would hit the capital again around 2300 hours. However, since Indian Railways is one of the busiest and largest networks in the world, with well over one and a half million employees, we knew this was optimistic. While we waited, beggars raided the platform, including a break-dancing toddler whose moves convinced Reece to treat him to a packet of biscuits. In his diary, Stew put it well: ‘Everywhere we’ve been we’ve found kids who deserve better in their lives.’

  Once on the carriage, life resumed as normal. That is, Reece ate soup with his fingers while the rest of India used knives and forks. The less adventurous Black Craps didn’t eat the main, but devoured the vanilla ice cream.

  When the 2001 Shatabai Express stopped in the middle of the boonies for over an hour, we wondered whether the number on the train was the last time she’d had a proper check-up. The only way to tolerate such a delay was for Stew and me to sing ‘Hello Delhi’. Despite arriving at 1 am, we found our dour mood soon soaring when we discovered that we were about to spend the night in a palace. But not before Stew got into a fight.

  SNAKE-CHARMERS IN THE PINK CITY

  Here’s how it happened. Four deadbeat travellers get off a train at Delhi. Despite their acclimatisation to India, they are still shocked at the number of beggars sleeping inside the train station. They are desperate to find a bed for the night, but upon reaching the exit they see the farmer being harassed by a stranger. The rest keep walking. Suddenly, the stranger tries to take the farmer’s backpack. The farmer yells, ‘Hey, get out of it.’ The stranger mutters something but persists with the aim of taking the farmer’s bag, this time yanking it so hard it falls from the farmer’s shoulder. The farmer, now irate and quickly losing patience, retrieves his bag and yells ‘Fuck off’ before giving the thief a short, sharp thwack on the arm. The thief, looking offended, retreats and cowers, looking to the rest of the group for guidance. But they are too busy crying with laughter. They eventually inform the farmer that the man trying to take his bag is their driver.

  Delhi. Again. No one took the travel for granted; just seeing the same city three times — and one that we hadn’t fallen in love with — was like being held back a year at school. Any hint of disappointment, however, quickly vanished once we reached the hotel John had secretly booked as a treat. The Taj Palace was exactly that, a hotel with a foyer the size of a village and polished floors that sparkled like a lake. Most of the people who walked through its front doors wore what looked like thousands of dollars worth of jewellery. Stew took multiple photos of its incredible paintings for his art-crazy wife, Jess. Porters, cleaners and maitre d’s smiled at every corner, looking like an army waiting for its general.

  Such fuss is difficult for your average backpacker to comprehend, and reminded me of when I spoke to New Zealand cricketer Scott Styris about the treatment he received in India’s five-star hotels. When he first visited the subcontinent, he couldn’t believe players like Ganguly and Dravid clicking their fingers and an apologetic waitress arrived seconds later with toast. Alas, it seems that humans are versatile beings, and he was able to imitate his opponents’ behaviour days later. But the Indians were in for a rude shock when they toured New Zealand. Styris told me of the time they sat down to breakfast at a hotel with far fewer amenities than Indian cricket gods were used to. When the said players clicked their fingers and demanded ‘More toast!’ they received a slightly less obliging reaction.

  ‘Yeah,’ said the bubblegum-chewing waitress. ‘You know where it is.’

  Being treated to five-star-plus didn’t stop Brendon and me from going for the jugular, making Stew and Reece hold true on a verbal contract they had made on the train. The agreement was to let the idiots paying for their part of the trip take the room booked under the name of Bougen at the next stop. This suited Reece and Stew just fine, especially with the news given to us by the woman at reception. ‘I’m very sorry, gentlemen,’ she smiled. ‘We don’t seem to have your room. Would you like an upgrade?’

  The upgrade meant the Club Taj on the seventh floor. With a business centre, conference facilities and complimentary deluxe continental breakfast, it covered all possible requirements for three hobos and a man in a blanket. As we shuff
led towards bed past spotless staff dressed in morning suits, they all uttered polite greetings but clearly wondered how we’d made it past security.

  Our two rooms were exactly the same, but only an idiot would complain. Along with the obligatory chocolates and fresh guava juice was a, wait for it, pillow menu:

  Breath Easy Pillow

  Cotton willow

  Dream pillow

  Feather down pillow

  Neck comforting pillow

  Sound sleep pillow

  Polly fill pillow

  Brendon and I were both asleep before hitting our allocated ones, so there wasn’t much point in hassling reception for a replacement. The next morning, after one of those undisturbed slumbers that only hours on the road can bring, we woke to find three newspapers at our door. We had overslept and breakfast was waiting.

  Stew and Blanket Boy were waiting for us in the dining room on our floor. The Executive Breakfast was no more than fifty steps away. Waitresses in black miniskirts served us fresh coffee. Businessmen sat talking matters of state while we ordered more toast. This was all very different from what we knew lay on the street seven floors below. The only blot on an otherwise pristine landscape smelt of chlorine and hung from Reece’s shoulders.

  ‘For the love of God,’ said Stew, holding his nose, ‘it’s breakfast. Take that bloody blanket off.’

  ‘Why?’ asked an offended Reece.

  ‘All I can smell is formaldehyde.’