Bowling Through India Read online

  We lost the toss. It was decided that the game would be seven players a side, each facing three balls. By the time we batted, after a lengthy twenty balls, Stew was adamant the pitch had dried out. ‘Good toss to win, I reckon,’ he said.

  We were on a paltry seventeen, needing to double that off the last ball to win.

  ‘No pressure,’ Brendon said, as Stew took guard.

  ‘Yeah right,’ he said, hitting what looked to be a definite six before holing out to a brilliant catch just short of the boundary, where cows were happily grazing. It was Ganguly, the batsman who had peppered the boundary himself whilst batting.

  Samson was given the cap as Man of the Match. At first, I was worried that this might have highlighted his disadvantage or showed unhealthy favouritism. Memories of a forty-eight-hour train ride when I backpacked across Tanzania came flooding back. Having broken down in the middle of nowhere, and this being Africa (i.e. no one was in a hurry to move), we were swamped by a bunch of kids from a nearby village. Judging by the way they were staring, they had never seen the likes of us before. Then a German man next to me did something I’ll never forget. He picked out a disfigured boy from the back and physically pushed the other kids aside to get to him. ‘Not you!’ he said, pushing one kid away. ‘Not you!’ he barked, clambering past another. He finally reached the boy - whose injuries could only have been caused by a dreadful fire - handed him a soft toy, then got back on the train. I don’t know how this story ended, as the train was soon on its way, but the others kids’ vitriolic resentment was clear. It was fine for the German; he had a beer, a nice camera and a future. The burns victim had a soft toy and another reason to be victimised by his fellows.

  Samson, I reasoned, was different - as were all of the cricketers we gave gifts to. We weren’t giving money; we were rewarding them for whipping our butts on the cricket pitch. Even better, they never expected anything and were genuinely surprised when we pulled a cap from our bags for their talent.

  India and the Black Craps shook hands and huddled for a hurried team photo. Kabir, meanwhile, was getting restless; we had a mountain to drive up. You could tell what he was thinking: most tourists don’t stop for a backyard cricket match on the first cow paddock they see. Samson adjusted his hat for the picture and smiled alongside his good, decent mates.

  SCORECARD

  The Cow Paddock, Dajimor, Siligiri

  India won the toss and batted

  INDIA

  Lahul don’t know how out, Reece never wrote it down - 3

  Ravinder don’t know how out, Reece got confused - 1

  Taposh don’t know how out, Reece was flustered - 2

  Sarfraj don’t know how out, Reece’s pen ran out - 5

  Ganguli don’t know how out, Reece told us to fuck up - 7

  Diraj don’t know how out, Reece asked what a no ball was - 4

  Chanan don’t know how out, Reece asked why he had to score - 6

  Extras - 5

  Total - 33

  Black Craps Bowling

  Dilip - 1/5, Santosh – 0/2, Suraj – 0/9, Kabir – 0/5, Gunn - 0/4, Brown – 0/4

  BLACK CRAPS

  Vijay ‘How many runs for a wide?’ - 4

  Dilip Was that a leg bye?’ - 3

  Santosh‘Well, if you don’t tell me, I don’t fucking know!’ - 0

  Suraj ‘Who caught that? -1

  Kabir ‘Hasn’t he already batted?’ - 5

  Brown ‘Do we have to write down the score?’ - 4

  Gunn - ‘This is supposed to be a holiday!’’ - 0

  Extras - 6

  Total - 17

  Bowling

  Lahul 0/4, Ravinder 0/2, Taposh 0/2, Safraj 0/5, Ganguli 0/3, Diraj 0/5, Chanan 0/0

  India win. Black Craps lead series 2-1

  With our first loss in the bag, we hit the road. The corners were as blind as most of the drivers. I guess that’s why signs, a few kilometres apart, littered the roadside.

  Take it easy on the ride, don’t be suicide.

  Donate your blood to the bank, not to the road.

  Caress my curves gently.

  Kindness is giving the right of way.

  Take it slowly in life – don’t speed to eternity.

  Life is a gift from God – save it.

  The terrain changed quickly. Gone were the dusty, billboard-laden main roads advertising Pepsi, soap and cell phones. Tea plantations and jungle, complete with wires running along the edge to keep out wild elephants (they eat farmers' crops, especially rice), were a welcome change. But progress was slow. Highway 55, the road to Darjeeling, runs beside a railway line. It’s a tight affair, at its widest barely allowing two vehicles to pass. Smoky old vehicles chugged up steep inclines, often changing to first or second gear to get a good run up. The blind corners forced drivers to use their horns.

  Meanwhile, Reece’s abilities with the score book were coming under fire.

  ‘You seem to be having a bit of trouble with this thing,’ said Stew, analysing today’s match stats, as we rumbled round another blind bend.

  ‘It’s bloody impossible!’ said Reece.

  ‘One of these overs only has six balls,’ said Stew.

  ‘That’s what you told me,’ said Reece. ‘Six balls to an over.’

  ‘Not if you bowl a no-ball.’

  ‘You get an extra ball for a no-ball,’ said Brendon, sensing this was going to be fun. ‘And another run.’

  ‘What about a wide?’ asked Reece.

  ‘Same,’ said Stew. ‘You haven’t even written down how he was out. Or who got him out. And you don’t put runs and bowling figures in the same column.’

  ‘Ah, Jesus!’ said Reece. ‘Why don’t you do it then?’

  ‘I can’t score and play,’ said Stew.

  ‘It’s not easy, Blanket Boy,’ I said. ‘But you did an admirable job in Kolkata.’

  ‘That’s because John was helping me!’

  ‘How much further, Kabir?’ John asked our guide, putting an unlit fag in his mouth. The ‘Darjeeling’ sign read 58km.

  ‘Three hours,’ said Kabir.

  ‘That’s got to be bullshit,’ I said to Stew.

  ‘I reckon too,’ Stew said, with a certain amount of apprehension.

  During the British Raj, Darjeeling’s temperate climate attracted residents escaping the heat of the plains during the summer. Kabir’s mother for many years did the same. Darjeeling produces about a quarter of India’s tea. And its toy train (operational since 1881) is listed as a World Heritage site, and is one of the few hill railways still operating in India.

  While these were all interesting facts Kabir was regaling us with, it didn’t get us up the hill any faster. We were now going at a crawl, trailing every other decrepit vehicle attempting to reach the clouds. We snaked, squeezed, stopped and started. And John was starting to get pretty snotty. He even faked needing to take a leak, just so he could jump out and have a cigarette. We played my four-year-old daughter’s yellow ukulele. We told dirty jokes. I tried to read page 504 of Shantaram, but quickly felt carsick. Brendon puckered his butt cheeks. John fiddled with his cigarette packet. As we inched up the mountain, we started to believe what we told back in the ‘B’ place: sixty kilometres equals three hours.

  It feels wrong not to enjoy every moment of travel. You think that every minute, every mile, every meal should be unforgettable. But sometimes, it’s just long and tedious. Every corner looks the same. Change down a gear. Beep the horn. How do these drivers do it? Wonder what my family are doing. Hungry. Thirsty. Sign in distance. Desperately want it to be ‘Darjeeling eight kilometres.' It’s getting closer. I think I can make out what it says. Surely a hot meal and a beer are only minutes away! Maybe even a shower…

  ‘How much further, Kabir?’ John asked.

  ‘Two hours,’ he smiled. ‘We should be there by dark.’

  ‘I believe him now,’ I said to Stew.

  ‘Me too,’ he replied.

  The best thing to think about was not
hing at all. With that in mind, we finally approached civilisation. It was the road into Darjeeling, and it looked just like a movie set, as if a scene from a children’s’ story had been transported to the Himalayas. Precariously perched on unbelievably abrupt cliffs, each dwelling was made of clay, with tree hut-sized wooden balconies. Oil lamps aided the dwindling light. Many homes were also shops, with proud owners giving a toothless smile to the gormless cricketers in the Mobile Goldfish Bowl. Despite the cold, a few front doors were open, leaving an unobstructed view through lounges, straight out to Mount Kanchenjunga, towering over an azure sky.

  The rose tinted glasses we wore, however, weren’t shared by the Himalayan locals, who were busy going about their afternoon schedules. Men ambled forlornly, hunched over with the weight of potato sacks. Black exhaust fumes choked open-air stalls. School kids walked home, arm in arm, more for warmth than kinship. And still the horns – always the horns! Even at the foothills of the mighty Himalayas, impatient, road-rage filled drivers were desperate to get home.

  Kabir must have read our minds as we passed over another terrifying drop. ‘In the monsoon season, some houses have been known to fall off,’ he said.

  We peered over the edge and felt ill.

  ‘A few years ago an entire family fell from these cliffs. They all died.’

  ‘Don’t they move away to try and protect themselves?’

  ‘No, they go down with their property.’

  A GOOD CUPPA CHAR

  The Windermere Hotel on Darjeeling’s Observatory Hill is straight out of a Jane Austen novel. Established in the nineteenth century as a boarding house for bachelor English and Scottish tea planters, it was converted into a hotel just before the outbreak of World War II. It is extravagant and over the top in a post-colonial, ‘let’s pretend it’s still the Raj era’ kind of way. Porters, resplendent in morning suits with white gloves, helped unload our grimy backpacks from the Goldfish Bowl. They then escorted us to reception, where a woman, similarly dressed, spoke with the proverbial plum in her mouth. It was all terribly British. Maybe it was the cold, or the altitude. Whatever it was, within minutes we were all bent over laughing.

  There was a bell sitting on the counter. I couldn’t resist. Ding! ‘Manuel!’

  The Fawlty Towers reference was lost on the receptionist, but not on the Black Craps. Aside from the view of the Himalayas, this hotel wouldn’t have been out of place next to Basil’s Torquay residence. Once the laughter had died down and we had passed over our passports, we were shown to our rooms. John and Stew shared theirs, which had an open fire and a painting of Darjeeling’s own Tenzing Norgay. Another porter was stacking wood and coal.

  ‘What, what!’ said Stew.

  ‘What, what, indeed!’ we replied.

  ‘Shall we have a quick bath then meet for a sherry before dinner, chaps?’

  ‘Right you are!’ we said. ‘Toodle pip!’

  Some rooms at the Windermere - complete with creaky floorboards and peach coloured curtains – had the smell of a rest home. Others housed obscure relics from a time gone by. This wasn’t a hotel; it was a museum, a time warp, a lost world of grace and elegance not fit for five bumbling Black Craps.

  Our porter took us to our sleeping quarters. Once there, we looked at the lonely double bed in the corner of the room. An uncomfortable laugh from three men not happy with the way their evening was shaping up.

  Reece scratched his head, searching for the right words. 'Small problem, gee (a term of endearment in Hindi),’ he said. ‘We are three.’

  ‘No problem,’ said the porter, pointing to the double bed.

  ‘Yes, big problem!’ said Brendon. ‘One of us snores, and the other’s a sleepwalker.’

  ‘I told you,’ I said. ‘I only do that sort of thing every couple of months.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Brendon.

  Reece had to convince the porter, who was still stacking the fire with fresh coal, that the room really was unsuitable. This might be a boys'-own trip, but sleeping three to a bed, spoons-style, put shivers down our spines.

  ‘Gee!’ he stressed. ‘Quite seriously, we are three. We need three beds.’

  ‘You don’t have to sleep touching,’ said the porter, uninterested.

  Reece earned his keep. The porter was soon fixing us a new room. We arrived in the dining room to more Fawlty Towers quotes from Stew.

  ‘Papers arrived yet, Fawlty?’ he asked.

  ‘Not yet, Major,’ I replied.

  We sat where we would be seated for every meal. There didn’t seem to be any one else staying. Maybe it was too cold. It certainly was hard to believe that a few hours ago we were playing cricket in short sleeves. As Edith Piaf played on the stereo, we wondered who had vomited on the wallpaper. We drank an Indian white wine that tasted like it had come straight from the drains of Kolkata. But the meal, when we weren’t laughing our butts off due to the altitude, was superb:

  GINGER & CARROT SOUP

  ROAST CHICKEN WITH

  ROASTED POTATOED

  SEASONAL VEGETABLES

  OR

  PANDOORI ROTI

  RAJMAH

  KASHMIRI PULAO

  FISH TIKKA

  PALAK PANEER

  PAPAD, ACHAR & CHUTNEY

  STEAMED JAM PUDDING WITH

  HOT CUSTARD

  COFFEE FROM BABA BUDAN HILLS

  OR TEA FROM DARJEELING

  It was a set menu and the food just kept coming. No doubt about it, sitting down to eat, particularly at breakfast time, was fast becoming the highlight of the trip. At home, with families and schedules, we often eat on the run or not all. To take your time, crack jokes, and have nowhere to be (apart from on a cow paddock or alleyway), was a luxury no one took for granted.

  As the bottle of Indian white neared its end – and those of us drinking it reached for a bucket – John asked Brendon why it was he didn’t drink. ‘Not saying you have to,’ he said. ‘I was just wondering. Is it a choice thing?’

  ‘Heavily allergic to it,’ said Brendon, slurping a Coke. ‘Had a beer when I was in my teens. Made me really sick. Can’t stomach any alcohol at all.’

  ‘That’s probably a good thing considering this wine,’ I said.

  ‘Second that,’ said Stew.

  The greatest hits of Edith Piaf continued. It felt like we were about to go to war. Our waiter, still not so much as a scuff on his immaculate suit nor or a speck of dirt on his glistening white gloves, asked if we’d like a hot drink.

  ‘Coffee for me,’ said John, patting his stomach.

  ‘Coffee?’ said Brendon. ‘This is Darjeeling!’

  ‘I don’t care,’ replied John. ‘I’m having coffee.’

  ‘It’s the home of tea!’ I said.

  ‘I want coffee!’ said John.

  ‘Darjeeling tea!’ said Reece.

  ‘And can I smoke?’ John asked the waiter, ignoring us.

  ‘No, sir,’ he smiled. ‘No smoking.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ John muttered. ‘Rack and ruin, this country, I tell ya.’

  At its best, life is full of surprises: having a party you knew nothing about; discovering someone else has paid for your parking ticket; watching your room mate run down a hotel hallway in Kolkata, yelling, ‘Stop, stop, stop!’ But nothing, absolutely nothing on earth compares to jumping into bed in the Himalayas and finding a hot water bottle in your bed.

  ‘Ooohh!’ said Reece, wriggling under his covers. ‘I haven’t had one of these since I was a kid!’

  Reece promised he would be the last to fall asleep, so Brendon and I could nod off before the snoring started. It didn’t matter; we all slept the sleep of babies under duvets the weight of a yak’s coat.

  The next morning, as a bone-chilling wind outside whipped off some of the planet's highest peaks, we sat at the same table, had the same waiter, looked at the same vomit coloured walls, and John had more coffee in the home of tea.

  Darjeeling is world-famous for its cuppa char.
There are three different types of tea: the ‘first first;’ ‘second first;’ and ‘third first.’ The ‘first first’ is a light, fruity tea, which is generally the first of the tea leaves to be harvested for that season (around March.) The ‘second first’ is the second harvest, which usually occurs in late spring or early summer. These leaves have had all the time in the world to mature, and their flavour is strong and fully grown. The colour of the brew is a lot darker, too. Finally, the ‘third first’ is a tea not as prized as the other two, but if it was to be compared, would probably be most like the ‘first first’ then the ‘second first.’ Given the option, my first choice would be the ‘second first,’ as it’s generally less acidic than the rest. On the other hand, the ‘first first’ and the ‘third first’ could be the first choice for those who don’t like their cuppa char too strong.

  Confused? Just have coffee like John did.

  At the gentlemanly hour of 9.30, our driver arrived and asked about our day’s plans.

  ‘We want to find a game of cricket, gee,’ said Reece.

  Once again, a look of dejection from the driver. His shoulders slumped as he slipped the van into first. You could see what he was thinking: why do I get the Kiwi backyard cricket freaks who wouldn’t know a Kashmir from a Pasminar?