The Legend of Pradeep Mathew

by Shehan Karunatilaka

  Brian’s off-screen persona is much more charismatic than what we see on television. Though he is prone to bouts of toe-curling corniness.

  ‘Dhani, how to say no to Wije and Ari? These men are encyclopaedias of cricket.’

  I interrupt. ‘I will script, Ari will produce, Brian will direct and present.’

  ‘Sha. Brian, you can direct?’ Today is a casual Friday and she is wearing a shawl and beads.

  ‘Why not? Why not?’ smiles Brian.

  Brian picks up a transparency that I helped type and places it on the projector. The square of blinding light on the opposite wall fills up with text. ‘This is our list.’

  First slide:

  Aravinda de Silva Batsman 80s/90s

  Sanath Jayasuriya All-rounder 90s

  Gamini Goonesena All-rounder 50s

  Sidath Wettimuny Batsman 80s

  Mahadevan Sathasivam Batsman 40s

  Duleep Mendis Captain. Batsman 80s

  Pradeep Mathew Bowler 80s

  Arjuna Ranatunga Captain. Batsman 90s

  Muttiah Muralitharan Bowler 90s

  Rumesh Ratnayake Bowler 80s

  ‘Pradeep Mathew?’ says Danila. ‘Was he that good?’

  I spy Mr Cassim stealing glances at her low neckline. The mousey girl takes notes. Brian jumps in, as rehearsed.

  ‘Dhani, let us go through the concept and then we will debate content.’

  God bless him. While Ari and I can bullshit with the best, it helps to know the lingo.

  Second slide:

  Aravinda The Artist

  Sanath The Punisher

  Goonesena The Gentleman

  Sidath The Stylist

  Satha The Genius

  Mendis The Strongman

  Mathew The Mystery

  Arjuna The Warrior

  Murali The Magician

  Rumesh The Fighter

  ‘We will give each cricketer a persona,’ says Ari, ‘and do ten-minute segments on each, using themes and music appropriate to…’

  ‘Warrior and Fighter are the same thing,’ says Cassim with relish.

  ‘Not necessarily…’ I begin.

  ‘This is mainly the concept.’ Ari has had many battles on semantics with me and knows that things can get violent. ‘We will tweak where necessary.’

  ‘I’m not sure my boss Mr Jayantha Punchipala will be happy about including Pradeep Mathew,’ says Danila. ‘Otherwise, very nice concept.’

  And then just before Christmas, in Jonny Gilhooley’s room, watching Sri Lanka beat the West Indies at Adelaide in the first match of the legendary 1995/96 World Series, we receive a phone call.

  Graham Snow is commentating with, who else, Bill Lawry. ‘This Shree Lankan batting line-up has developed over the years. Flair at the top. Maturity in the middle. Discipline at the bottom.’

  ‘Heard that? Heard that?’ exclaims Ari. ‘I only said that! Fellow is quoting me.’

  ‘For the first time they are real contenders for the World Cup,’ continues Snow as if the words are his own. ‘And real contenders here.’

  ‘How’s your documentary, lads?’ asks Jonny.

  The years have been good to our friend. We no longer camp out at the High Commission. By the mid-1990s, he had built a villa by Bolgoda Lake and moved his TV room there. We make the trip whenever an important match is on. Though less often than we used to.

  I shake my head and wave my hand. It is not a topic I wish to discuss while watching Sri Lanka beating West Indies, a feat unthinkable a mere ten years earlier.

  And then I hear a series of Morse code-like squeaks and I feel the drinks table vibrate. Ari has purchased a cellulite phone, a brick-like contraption that sucks batteries and weighs a ton.

  ‘Ari, it’s the mothership,’ says Jonny.

  Ari picks up the block and walks towards the veranda by the lake. He returns moments later, wiggling his hips like a hula girl and waving his arms. ‘Bring out the Chivas, Jonny boy. They approved original concept. MD wants to meet us.’

  And then captain Ranatunga late-cuts a 4 as Sri Lanka inch closer to the improbable. And I’m thinking that if there is a God, he too may be watching the cricket with his feet up and a big smile on his face.

  The List

  Aravinda, Sanath, Gamini, Sidath, Satha, Duleep, Mathew, Arjuna, Murali, Rumesh.

  Consensus reached between me and Ari and Brian Gomez on 9 December 1995. This is a list of bitter compromise. One player is there because he is fourteenth on all our lists. Two of my top five are not even present. But it has taken much statistical analysis, pleading of cases and arrack to arrive at this final decision. And as this is the Gibraltar on which our documentary is to be built, we all agree to stand by it and desist from criticism.

  I will say three last words on the subject and then be forever silent. Guru? No? Why?

  The Wall that I Stare at

  I cannot face a window when I write. I cannot begin the writing of anything on a Friday. I cannot write without liquid passing my lips. I have learned over the years that it pays to nurture your idiosyncrasies. Even a hack must respect his muse.

  I begin my assignment on Monday, 4 January 1996. I am asked to stay at home and manufacture scripts that are everything to everybody. Ari and Brian will haggle, renegotiate, coordinate, source and organise. I am grateful to be excused from the tedium of production meetings.

  Before we are given the equipment and the budget, we are given the deadline. We must be ready to shoot straight after the World Cup. ‘In case we get to the semis,’ suggests Rakwana.

  ‘In case we whack the Cup,’ says Brian.

  I spend the first two weeks drinking stout and going through my library. Throughout my life, even when times were tough, I never stopped buying books. Or, come to think of it, booze. My library is dusty and well stocked. My liver is well worn. I skim through my cricket collection and delve into my favourite wastes of time. Byron, F. Scott and the Bible.

  To me, the Bible is perhaps the greatest book ever written. Not as a step-by-step guide to life or as a travel brochure for the afterlife. In that respect, it is positively dangerous. But as a tightly written work of fiction, it is magnificent.

  There is a knock on my door and then a turning of the handle. I see the unruly hair before I see the ungrateful lad.

  ‘Thaathi. Busy?’

  ‘A bit. Why?’

  My office is strewn with paper cuttings and books. Garfield looks about and nods. ‘Ammi says you and Ari Uncle are doing a TV show?’

  ‘With Graham Snow and Brian Gomez,’ I say nonchalantly. ‘When are your results coming?’

  ‘Next month.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Need to discuss… things.’

  ‘Bit busy. After lunch?’ I say, knowing that I take my lunch when others take their tea.

  He is gone.

  That was our first conversation in three weeks. He had caught me off guard. I usually prepare for my meetings with Garfield by making my heart into a fist.

  Our fights began shortly after his fifteenth birthday. First he joined a rocker band. Then he was suspended for smoking. Then he was dropped from the Wesley College 2nd XI cricket team. Sheila broke the news and I accidentally broke one of her vases. That conversation ended badly.

  ‘He is playing in a band, smoking, running with girls, of course he will be dropped. What do you expect?’

  Sheila spoke quietly. ‘Gamini. This is good in a way. Now he can concentrate on studies.’

  ‘This fool? Concentrate on anything?’

  The boy never talks back to me. At least I have taught him something.

  Our last argument had been over his choice of A-level subjects. I recommended he study commerce or science and he went behind my back and enrolled in history, Japanese and logic.

  The reason he was now breaking the silence was obvious. Money. But what for? To travel to Japan and study Confucius? To marry some girl he’d impregnated? To buy guitar strings for his rocker band?


  I turn to Ari’s notebooks. I have borrowed his collection of 1985–95. The blue ones include scorecards and written summaries for each match he has seen. And Ari claims to have seen them all. The yellow ones are the fattest. Scrapbooks of paper cuttings. The pink ones contain undecipherable diagrams and formulae.

  With our combined libraries, I have enough data to hammer short films on each cricketer. Except for one. I appear to be the only person to have written about Pradeep Sivanathan Mathew in the last ten years. By the time I am ready to meet Garfield, it is five in the evening and he has left for tuition class.

  I spend weeks scribbling and pasting notes on walls. For inspiration I have a mess of books, a window overlooking flowerpots and a wall that I stare at. The wall gazes down on my flimsy table and my flimsier typewriter. It is a 1971 Jinadasa, gifted to me by my sister, the only relative not to file me under lost causes. The keys are as brittle as my bones, but the ribbon is fresh and the ink is wet.

  I type career summaries for my top ten and paste them on the wall. I draw up a list of potential interviewees and a list of potential questions. I compile a list of memorable footage to be sourced. Mendis’s twin centuries vs India in ’82, Ratnayake’s catch in our first test win in ’85, Aravinda’s 267 vs the Aussies in ’88 and Mathew’s ’94 Zimbabwe tour. I then type random sentences and paste them on the wall. Pretentious stuff that I may never use.

  ‘Goonesena, a gentleman to his fingertips, placed etiquette above aggression.’

  ‘Ranatunga was a fox in a grizzly bear’s clothing.’

  And then, with three days to deadline, with the wall I stare at full of scribblings, I sit in my banian and sarong before my 1971 Jinadasa and daydream as hard as I can. It is the compulsory procrastination before each assignment. I think of Garfield and of our history of silences. I think about opportunities squandered. I think about Sathasivam. And then I start typing.

  I quickly realise that everything – Satha, Garfield, even this Jinadasa typewriter – isa product of its era. The Jinadasa company was propped up by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, under the assonant slogan ‘Stationers to the Nation’. The products were hardy and underpriced. But after just three months of free market capitalism under the United National Party, the company collapsed spectacularly in 1978.

  They say countries with the word democratic in them usually aren’t. Throughout the 1970s, the SLFP’s policies involved the culling of economic freedoms. For most of the 1990s, the UNP have been hopelessly divided.

  Back to Satha. He was perhaps the most elegant cricketer of them all. A gentleman drunk, a playboy who could play. Notorious for turning up at games minutes before the first ball, attired in the previous night’s evening dress, smelling of alcohol and someone else’s wife, Satha would order eggs and bacon at the clubhouse, shower, knock back a hair-of-the-dog scotch and score a scintillating double century.

  Writing at the speed of arrack, turning article to voice-over is easier than I thought. Then we pick out as many friendly commentators, coaches, has-beens and current players as we can think of, and post them questionnaires for interviews. The rest would be up to Brian and Ari.

  When Garfield barges in, I have finished the questionnaire and written eight profiles. I am also pretty tanked up. He brings Sheila and I know I can no longer avoid this. I stop jabbing at the Jinadasa and remove my glasses.

  ‘Sorry to disturb, Gamini,’ says my darling wife. ‘Juices are flowing today, no?’

  She looks at the typewritten sheets on the table and thankfully, not at the empty bottle by my chair. ‘Garfield wants to talk to you.’

  They sit on the cane chairs by the window. I swivel around and light myself a cigarette.

  ‘I thought you gave up?’

  ‘Writing, no?’ I grin.

  Smoking history of W.G. Karunasena:

  Years 0–16: 0 cigarettes.

  17–48: 12 a day, sometimes 25.

  49–59: 0 cigarettes.

  As of last year: 2 a day. Before writing and after.

  Sheila shakes her head and says nothing. She points her chin towards our son. ‘So. Tell, tell.’

  Garfield doesn’t look me in the eye. His eyes dart along the books on the floor and rest on the empty bottle of Old Reserve. ‘I want to do an engineering course in India.’

  It takes all the muscles in my lower body to stop me from falling off my chair. ‘Without science subjects?’

  ‘They need good A-level marks. They don’t care what subjects.’

  ‘So will you get good marks?’

  Garfield looks at me for the first time and nods.

  ‘You can study Japanese and become an engineer?’

  Sheila butts in. ‘He wants to study sound engineering.’

  ‘Sound engineering? Like Sony Walkmans? That’s why you need Japanese?’

  I only mean to smile kindly. I end up letting out a high-pitched giggle.

  My son gives me a look. A look I recognise instantly as one I gave my teachers and elder siblings. A look I frequently got slapped for.

  ‘Putha, go and check if the kettle has boiled,’ says Sheila, as our son exits. She stares at me. Despite my behaviour, I’m in a good mood. Good booze, a good day’s work, my son having not impregnated a Japanese teenager.

  ‘OK. OK. How much?’

  ‘Airfare and fees will come to three–four lakhs. Then accommodation…’

  ‘Sheila, I don’t have anything. We sold the family plot to buy this house.’

  ‘What about the leftovers?’

  ‘Nothing’s left over.’

  ‘I have a bit I saved up.’

  ‘Where money for you?’

  She puts her hands in her lap. There is no raising of voices. She has obviously prepared for battle. ‘I saved, Gamini, I didn’t waste.’

  Sheila didn’t like me going overseas on assignments, unless the newspaper or the sponsor paid my expenses. Sadly, the per diem I received was not enough to enter a homeless shelter and obtain a bowl of soup. I always returned in debt.

  ‘You must ask your Loku Aiya.’

  My cigarette over, I pour myself the last drink of the day. I have no desire to talk to my eldest brother.

  ‘Now why are you drinking? How many times have they offered? If we say for Garfield’s education, they will give.’

  I shake my head. ‘You know what Loku Aiya said about me, no?’

  Sheila says nothing.

  ‘No need of borrowing from anyone, I will give.’ I squeeze her arm. ‘Write down the amount and give. I will somehow get it.’

  That night, the three of us eat at the table, though we keep the TV on. Sri Lanka, invited to make up the numbers at the 95/96 World Series, look about to beat Australia and perhaps even book a place in the final.

  Garfield doesn’t say a word, but his face has something resembling a smile. Sheila is happy and has cooked kiribath, the only dish she can make better than anyone else in the world. I’m having my third last drink of the day.

  And even though I have no idea how I am to raise nine lakhs, I decide to put off worrying till tomorrow. Another day, another bottle. Procrastination is as much a group activity as watching cricket.

  Old School Tie

  School cricket is what feeds the Sri Lankan national side. We have no counties or Sheffields or shields and earlier, had no academies or strong first-class tournaments. Before the 1990s, two schools in particular fed Sri Lankan cricket, fed Sri Lankan politics and fed themselves from the fat of the land.

  All of our male prime ministers and presidents have been from Royal College, Colombo, or St Thomas’ College, Mount Lavinia, except for the Rt Honourable Mr StopGap in the 1960s and His Excellency Mr BenevolentDictator in the 1980s.

  It’s funny how legacies are passed on. They say in a mixed marriage children are beautiful. This is true if you get a pleasing combination of white features and black complexion. Not so, if vice versa. With age, I have realised that we are doomed to be parodies of our parents and that if there are virtues
and vices to inherit, we will get a fraction of the former and a multiplication of the latter.

  Nations are prey to my genetic Murphy’s Law. Ideally, we Sri Lankans should have retained our friendly, childlike nature and combined it with the inventiveness of our colonisers. Instead, we inherit Portuguese lethargy, Dutch hedonism and British snobbery. We inherit the power lust of our conquerors, but none of their vision.

  The old school tie is one such trait. Ari tells me that its influence is on the wane. ‘Look at our World Cup squad. Ananda, Nalanda, Richmond, Mahinda, St Servatius, St Sebastian’s. One Josephian. Royal–Thora no show. Same with all the top jobs.’

  The unwritten school hierarchy is as follows. The top table is occupied by Royal, STC, St Joseph’s, St Peter’s, Ananda, Nalanda, Trinity. The next table would seat Thurstan, Isipathana, St Sebastian’s, Prince of Wales, DS, Wesley and Bens.

  ‘So this means the cream is rising to the top and replacing the cherries.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ says Ari. ‘The cherries have all gone to London, Washington and Sydney. The dregs at the bottom are rising to the top.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call Sanath and Kalu dregs, my friend.’

  ‘Maybe so. But I tell you, Wije, they are intentionally keeping us Thomians out. The Ananda–Nalanda brigade. Payback for the Brown Sahib treatment.’

  Legend has it that when teenager Arjuna Ranatunga, an Ananda boy, first arrived at the Sinhalese Sports Club and addressed stalwart F.C. de Saram, a proud Royalist, the latter smirked, ‘It speaks English, does it?’

  Ari is an old Thomian who played for College in the 1940s and secretly believes that because he went to one of the Royal-Tho-Jo-Pete, he is somewhat less of a savage. I grew up in Kurunegala and attended Maliyadeva College. The old school tie bullshit neither benefits nor impresses me.

  Like my office, Ariyaratne Byrd’s front room is littered with paper cuttings. He has lived down the road from me since Sri Lanka got test status. His office room is as dusty and dingy as mine. But it is neat. Cobwebs hang on alphabetised shelves, teacups with fossilised cockroaches are stacked in symmetrical towers. Another important difference: air conditioning.