Bowling Through India Read online

  ‘I had the shits so bad,’ he said, loading his plate with fries, ‘I soiled every bed in the empty dorm, before having to do a runner.’

  ‘How many beds were there?’ I asked.

  ‘Six or seven.’

  ‘You’re all class,’ said Stew.

  ‘Speaking of which,’ continued Reece, looking at me, ‘nice of you to hang your wet underpants on our veranda.’

  ‘I had to,’ I replied.

  ‘Why?’ asked Stew.

  ‘It was a protest. You promised in Delhi that we’d get the best room in the next hotel. Isn’t that right, Brendon?’ But he was gone.

  ‘Since you and Brendon both have young families,’ said the understanding farmer, ‘we’ve agreed to let you both have the executive room in Mumbai so at least you can have a sleep-in before returning to reality.’

  The next hurdle was leaving the Pink City, banking on the fact that the F-word wouldn’t affect our connecting flight from Delhi. It didn’t, and next morning we were on our way to the city formerly known as Bombay. Much like Kolkata versus Calcutta or Burma versus Myanmar, it’s intriguing when cities change names. In Mumbai’s case, the city officially adopted its new handle in 1995 in an attempt to reclaim the city’s Maratha heritage and break away from Bombay’s associations with the Raj. ‘Bombay,’ however, remains in common usage, especially among the city’s English-speaking residents. It must be a logistical nightmare — I get panicky enough changing an email address.

  It was 32 degrees, hot and clammy when Jet Airways touched down. And this was winter. Our taxi driver, who resembled a bearded Dustin Hoffman, informed us that there were only six weeks of the year where Mumbaiites don’t have to tolerate rain, monsoons or oppressive heat. The latter was all too evident — my lower body felt as if it was on fire. Had this car, I wondered, ever been switched off?

  ‘I have eight children,’ Dustin said, chewing betel nut. ‘Four boys, four girls.’

  I unsuccessfully tried moving my seat back, the hairs on my legs feeling as if they were about to be singed. Dustin couldn’t have been closer to the windscreen, nodding in time to nothing in particular.

  ‘And how often do you work?’ I asked.

  ‘Seven days a week,’ replied Dustin. ‘Six am to midnight.’

  We are so soft.

  Traversing India is a drug, each city becoming the hit. Just when you think nothing can shock, another place slaps you square between the eyes. Mumbai is different again. Where Kolkata is the working-class brother who never gets the breaks, its west-coast equivalent is the younger, smarter, pushier one who scores the girls and cushy jobs. From its humble beginnings as a Portuguese fishing village in 1498, Bollywood’s capital is now a juggernaut of trade, glamour, brashness and poverty. It’s the LA of India, proudly pumping out nine hundred movies a year. It’s also home to a million rickshaws and eighteen times as many people, where million-dollar apartments overlook million-population slums. While we’re on numbers, despite Mumbai's unwelcome track record of slum dwellers, its literacy rate is 85.6 per cent (female 82.7 per cent, male 90 per cent) compared with India's overall literacy of 65.4 per cent. And how about this: India boasts more billionaires than China but 81 per cent of its people live on less than two dollars a day, compared with 47 per cent of Chinese.

  As we walked up to the hotel foyer, looking as though we’d had a squash workout, my room mate and I, quite understandably, looked smug. We were, after all, about to score the room booked under Bougen for the final two nights. Finally, the two payers would get their just desserts while the great unwashed, who hadn’t opened their wallets since Auckland, could experience cattle class. As we settled into our Executive room, my backpacker instincts kicked in. I dialled zero.

  ‘Can you please tell me what extras an Executive room gets?’

  ‘You have wooden floors and two extra pieces of fruit,’ said the woman.

  I located the fruit bowl, which contained two apples and two bananas. Then the phone rang.

  ‘Wala?’

  ‘Yes, wala.’

  It was Reece. ‘Thanks for swapping the booking.’

  ‘No problem,’ I said. ‘We’re enjoying the additional fruit and wooden floor.’

  ‘Wait,’ Reece said. ‘So you didn’t get your own room?’

  ‘Course not.’

  ‘Ha! We did.’

  The tinny little bastards had done it again. Free trip. Best rooms. And whoops, sorry, seem to have left my credit card at home. Unbeknown to us, John had booked a single for his final night in India, which meant that Stew would also get a room to himself. As it stood, Blanket Boy, Brendon and I would have had to share a triple. Alas, as there were no spare triples, reception assumed that Brendon and I still wanted to share and so gave Reece, like Stew, his own room.

  With a view.

  Of palm trees and ocean.

  ‘We’ve got a lot to learn,’ I remarked to Brendon.

  He shook his head in admiration. ‘Bloody freeloaders.’

  We met at reception some time later, refreshed and ready for Mumbai’s onslaught. ‘Let me take you out for lunch on Brendon’s credit card,’ said Reece, putting down his newspaper. We followed him through a jumble of street stalls and heat. Enterprising touts were selling chaat, savoury snacks; limbu paani, lime juice; snazzy electronics; garish perfumes; and neke, shoes. Despite the temperature, not one local wore shorts. Just as were to about to accuse Reece of instigating a wild-goose chase, we stopped at an open-air restaurant in the tourist district of Colaba.

  ‘This is Leopold’s!’ I said, seeing the name alongside the legend ‘Since 1871.’

  ‘Yep,’ said Reece. ‘Bit of a Mumbai institution.’

  ‘But this is in the book I’ve been reading!’

  ‘Have you finished that thing yet?’ asked Stew.

  ‘No, but this is the place!’

  Leopold’s was jam-packed but we fluked a table. Open twenty-four hours a day, this expat hangout hummed with life. But was it heaving because of its reputation from Reece’s days or, more likely, because of the recent bestseller? Had a once-cult restaurant become a Disney ride, as happened to the city of Savannah after Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil? Did people come because of the book and, like me, did each customer expect each scene from its s to unfold as we ate? Nothing did happen, of course. People ate and paid, like anywhere else. As we devoured delicious curry and beer, I saw ten copies of Shantaram piled up by the cash register.

  At least they didn’t have a gift shop.

  Chowpatty Beach is Mumbai’s centrepiece, a welcome breather from the lunacy of the inner city. Particularly popular on Sundays, it attracts families and sunset watchers. For the Black Craps, however, it meant a chance to play beach backyard cricket. But where was the action? The place was surprisingly devoid of people playing any kind of sport. Surely the home of Sachin Tendulkar hadn’t transformed into a home of picnickers and kite flyers? Grown women played tag with their families, their saris trailing and bangles jangling as they did so, but that seemed to be the only action.

  The only thing to do was start our own match. As usual, bat and ball in hand, we created attention by being our ridiculous selves. We found some school kids dressed in Muslim attire for Eid, and Reece begrudgingly took down their details. Two things hadn’t changed: everyone fought and no one wanted to play for the Black Craps. We won the toss and sent India in. As the first ball was bowled, by a delightfully cheeky boy named Ibrar, literally hundreds of bystanders formed the largest slips cordon ever. The stumps, we decided, were to be a mostly limbless tree, which would also suffice as a wicketkeeper. The Arabian Sea, horrendously polluted, had third man covered. At fine leg were balloon sellers and chai boys, while ice-cream men looked after deep mid-wicket. Others, selling roasted nuts and corn, looked on from long off.

  With all in readiness, a man who introduced himself as Noman Waghu told us, ‘You can expect much humidity out here.’ We thanked him for his concern. Then, barely two overs into the
match, when Ibrar was bowling the spell of his life, a policeman parted the eager crowd and demanded our bat. ‘No cricket!’ he said, swiping the bat from India’s opener, Amur.

  ‘No cricket?’ we asked, laughing nervously.

  ‘No cricket, no football!’

  And he confiscated our bat. The Black Craps, along with over a hundred Mumbaiites, looked in wonder as he marched in silence, Vicky in one hand, and our Galaxy bat in the other, back to his post by the roadside.

  ‘How about just a team photo with one of us holding the bat?’ we asked.

  ‘No,’ he said, no doubt reckoning we would keep playing.

  We treaded lightly behind the policeman, following him to his post.

  ‘No cricket, no soccer on the beach,’ he repeated, not slowing down.

  Once he reached his station by the promenade’s footpath, two other policemen joined him. Both had a perplexed look on their face, although nothing compared to ours.

  ‘Do you want your bat back?’ he asked, sounding like a stern Dad.

  We resembled four boys who had hit their ball over the grumpy neighbour’s fence one too many times. ‘Yes, please,’ I said, looking at my feet.

  ‘Lots of people,’ the policeman said, shaking his head. ‘Security problem. There is terrorism in Mumbai. You mustn’t play these games. Crowds are bad.’

  Suddenly it all made sense, having read that morning that the terrorist attack on the Mumbai Suburban Railway in November 2006 was still being investigated. Two hundred and nine people lost their lives and more than seven hundred were injured in the attacks. According to the police, the bombings were carried out by Lashkar-e-Toiba and Students Islamic Movement of India. All the bombs had been placed in the first-class ‘general’ compartments (some, called ‘ladies’ compartments, are reserved for women) of several trains running from the city-centre end of the railway line to the western suburbs. Home Minister Shivraj Patil told reporters that authorities had some information an attack was coming, ‘but place and time was not known’.

  This was our first match to be abandoned due to security risk —a little more rock and roll than having a game called off by a town hall manager in Delhi. It did, however, hit home that even in the most scenic of surroundings, in India the fear of attack is always there.

  SCORECARD

  Chowpatty Beach, Mumbai

  INDIA

  Mustaquim bowled Ibrar - 0

  Nasim bowled Ibrar - 2

  Bowling: Ibrar 2-4, Jed 0-2

  Match abandoned due to ‘pandu’ intervention (security threat.)

  The series was still tied up at five games each. With just one day left, we wondered who would take out the Inaugural Indian Backyard Title? No one likes a draw. The heat was getting to us; we needed beer. We ordered three pitchers and a pepperoni pizza, feeling utterly awful because a beggar, no older than thirty, who appeared to have no lower body sat on the footpath outside our window. His lower torso just seemed to stop, as if the concrete path were quicksand and had swallowed his legs. His hands, his only way of getting about, were grey and scuffed. When we left, we gave him fifty rupees. His eyes lit up. Then he folded his toddler-sized legs into his chest and scrambled towards a busy intersection in a city that barely noticed.

  Before bed, a text:

  FROM JOHN BOUGEN:

  IT’S EID. EVERY EGYPTIAN IS LEAVING EGYPT. I’M TRAPPED

  Now it was our last day in India, and we were determined to win our last game on Indian soil. Memories of Brijesh’s match-fixing in Agra were still raw but, if nothing else, we were professional backyard cricketers. With the help of Kingfisher and Gordon’s we were able to move on admirably. Perhaps the best preparation would be to visit the Cricket Club of India, the old stomping ground of John Wright’s, former coach of India — and Stew’s cousin. One of the oldest and most prestigious cricket clubs in the country, the CCI was conceived as India’s Marylebone Cricket Club, or MCC, and is every bit as exclusive and luxurious as the pompous beast itself.

  Stew had a contact scribbled in his diary: President Mr Raj Singh Dungarpur. We found him in a swanky office, filled with photos of Kapil Dev, Clive Lloyd, Gary Sobers, Ricky Ponting, Vivian Richards and Sachin Tendulkar, all of whom are honorary life members of an establishment fit for Rajasthan prince.

  Mr Dungarpur was a polite host, and impressed with Stew’s royal cousin. ‘John was a very good coach,’ he said, showing us around a spotless stadium which, despite mostly being used for club games, would put most international equivalents to shame. Along with serving as the headquarters for the BCCI, CCI had tennis courts, a swimming pool, fitness centres, a billiards room, squash courts, badminton courts, cafes, bars, a library and a reading room.

  ‘I can see why Wrighty liked it here,’ I whispered to Stew.

  ‘Too right,’ he replied.

  On an outfield a shade of green we hadn’t seen since home was a game between a Mumbai XI and a bunch of posh school kids from Kent. The latter were getting a hammering from their Indian counterparts, many of whom had clearly tasted first-class cricket. Mr Dungarpur sat us down on wicker chairs, more of which were being woven by hand in a nearby shady stand. We could handle the heat only long enough for a posed photo. Thankfully our host noticed, proudly moving indoors to a hallowed hallway showing off the world’s hundred top cricketers. But you didn’t have to play cricket to receive an honorary life membership; HRH Prince Philip and Ratan Tata (chairman of the Tata group, India’s largest company) could also stay and play whenever they wished.

  One obvious omission from the list was India’s former coach himself. ‘How come your cousin’s not a lifetime member?’ I asked. ‘He’s a god over here.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Stew.

  ‘Not good enough,’ said Reece. ‘He should be. And while you’re at it, could you pull some strings and make us all lifetime members?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, eyeing up the Wet Wicket bar. ‘I could get used to this.’

  ‘I don’t think even Stew could bluff his way through that one,’ said Brendon.

  How fitting that our last game in India should echo our first. Mumbai’s Oval Maidan, much like Kolkata’s, covers a fair old chunk of land. The ground used to be owned and run by the state government and as a result was poorly maintained, and frequented by beggars, prostitutes and drug dealers. In 1997 the residents association stepped in and cleaned up its twenty-two acres, allowing every cricket nut in town to bat where Tendulkar did. With the magnificent Mumbai High Court as a backdrop, we watched first-grade games take place in the maidan’s centre. The players, dressed in white and competing on perfectly rolled pitches, were desperate to impress. On the ground’s periphery, hackers, amateurs and hangers-on missed more balls than they hit.

  ‘That’s more like us,’ I said, wiping my drenched brow.

  ‘I agree,’ said Stew. ‘Let’s get this thing over with before we die of heat exhaustion.’

  Our opponents had bushy beards and an unhealthy disrespect for India. ‘They’ll probably be blowing shit up in twenty years,’ said Reece as we watched the twenty-year-olds in question argue over a batting order.

  It could have been the Mumbai heat, or the fear that our opponents might be carrying weapons, but nothing could hide the fact that the Black Craps saved their worst game for last. After Pakistan posted a score of 51, we were just glad to be under shade. Normally backyard cricketers want to open the batting, but not in Mumbai’s searing heat. For once, getting first bat was to draw the short straw.

  When our innings at last began, Reece could barely keep up with the speed in which wickets fell. Stew missed a straight one and suddenly we had lost two wickets in two balls. I was facing a hat trick. All those awful memories of getting bowled at school came flooding back. Keep it out, keep it out, I told myself. It would have made for a funnier story to be bowled first ball, but my ego couldn’t stand it. This was only a game, but no one wants to be on the wrong end of a highlights package.

  Alam came into bowl
. He was swift and slippery, that much I had seen from Stew’s innings. His team mates shouted to him, no doubt something along the lines of ‘Get the sister fucker out!’ He approached the bowling crease like a crazed fool. I tried to watch the ball leave his hand, doing my best not to visualise a death rattle and ensuing celebratory holler. The fielders moved in. The ball left Alam’s hand. I didn’t see it, just stuck my bat somewhere near its proposed destination. I hit it! I looked behind. It hadn’t hit my stumps. Success! I belted the next delivery over long-on for four, and was destined to become top scorer with a scorching half century and lead the Black Craps to victory, levelling a hard-fought series in award-winning, heroic, swashbuckling style.

  If I hadn’t been caught next ball.

  Man of the Match was 21-year-old Taffek Umar, fluent in Arabic and, at twenty-one, halfway through a degree at an Islamic polytech. Reece found it strange to meet Indians who adored Pakistan, yet despised their own country. Taffek confirmed this by saying that his favourite subject was Urdu and his favourite cricketer, most unlike an Indian fan to admit, was Pakistani power-hitter Shahid Afridi.

  ‘Isn’t it ironic,’ mused Stew. ‘Yesterday’s game was abandoned because it was a terrorist risk, then we end up playing a group who want to be martyrs of Islam.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘And when they do blow something up, they’ll do it wearing an Auckland Aces cap.’

  SCORECARD

  Oval Maidan, opposite High Court, Mumbai

  INDIA

  Taffek Umar (capt) caught Mohammmed Asif - 14

  Mohammned Alam retired - 6