by Justin Brown
‘Shall we use Vicky?' I asked, pulling her out of the team bag.
‘No way,’ said Stew, pointing to the windows.
‘This is the High Court, remember?’ said Reece, while the kids glued themselves to his score book.
The pitch was hard and even, with a brilliantly consistent bounce. (But I guess that’s what you’d expect from a road.) We won the toss and batted. As Stew had pointed out, there was a plethora of windows in the general vicinity, so I tried my best not to hit the ball too hard. As it turned out, I needn’t have worried having contracted Stew’s ‘Run Out First Ball’ disease. A highly contagious syndrome, especially when it comes to batting with the farmer in question.
‘Yes!’
‘No!’
‘Wait!’
‘You go!’
‘No, you go!’
‘Wait, I said!’
Them: ‘YAY!'
‘Shit, sorry.’
The Black Craps put on a solid 28, and the India Under-Nines appeared to be in no trouble at all. These boys could bat. Left handers resembling Yuvraj Singh tucked deliveries down to third man for one. Right handers the spitting image of Mahendra Dhoni smashed balls over mid wicket, calypso-style, onto apartment balconies. Old men playing backgammon ducked for cover. Mothers hanging out washing evaded tennis ball rockets with consummate ease, as if they had done it all before. And Stew and I were left to chase balls down the road that, due to the very nature of the outfield –. smooth, solid concrete – rolled merrily to the other end of the High Court.
The India Under-Nines had victory in their sights, until I brought out my secret weapon. (OK, truth be told, the only bloke who hadn’t bowled.) Stew gave his sun hat to the umpire and came into bowl the final over. We needed one wicket; they needed two runs. Pace and accuracy combined to see Stew’s first ball rifle into the makeshift wickets – a judges' parking’ sign.
We celebrated.
‘No wicket!’ the kids yelped. ‘Didn’t bounce!’
This was obviously a local rule, and one which we had to abide by if we were to stay friends with this bunch. With a single run needed from the final ball, Stew went to the top of his run up (about three steps) and came into bowl.
Then the sound of tin, another wicket, and we had won the game.
Stew was humble and gracious in victory:
‘We were unbeatable! We were on fire! We are the Black Craps!’
‘Stew,’ I said. ‘They were nine.’
SCORECARD
India High Court Under-nines, Kolkata
New Zealand won the toss and batted
BLACK CRAPS
Justin run out - 0
Kishor not out - 11
Raju caught Dilip, bowled Babul - 4
Sonu hit government vehicle - 0
Gunn did not bat
Extras - 14
Total - 29
Bowling
Monu – 0/7, Babul – 1/3, Rajesh – 0/4, Dililp – 0/5
INDIA
Monu run out - 2
Babul run out - 3
Bipin caught Gunn, bowled Brown - 3
Rajesh bowled Kishor - 2
Dililp bowled Gunn - 5
Extras - 13
Total - 28
Man of the match – Kishor, who wore his new Auckland Aces cap with pride.
New Zealand won by 1 run and lead series 2-0.
After the obligatory high fives, backslapping and autographs, (it’s tough being a touring side) we jumped in the van and set off to eat. Having only been in Kolkata for only a few meals, this was always a slightly apprehensive time because what goes in your mouth in the next hour determines how well your next few days will go.
‘When I was a tour guide,’ said Reece. ‘I used to know how a group would be from how quickly they talked about their bowel motions.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Brendon, a little squeamishly.
‘Well, if we sat down to breakfast on the first morning, and someone said, “I’m too scared to fart,’’ and the next said, ‘‘I’m already on the blockers,’’ I knew they’d be a cruisy group. Alternatively, if everyone avoided the subject altogether I knew I’d be spending two weeks with a humourless bunch of gonzos.’
‘Stop the van!’ said Brendon. ‘I think I need to go!’
‘That’s the spirit,’ said Reece. ‘This is a good group.’
‘No, seriously!’ wheezed Brendon. ‘Stop the van. I need to go!’
Khaled gave a wry smile and pulled into a five-star hotel. Brendon disembarked and walked gingerly through reception to the magic signs.
‘Don’t you want a newspaper!’ I asked. But he was gone.
Brendon returned to a barrage of abuse which, due to his inner rumblings, he couldn’t rebut. We knew Delhi Belly would reach us all at some time, probably sooner rather than later, but when it wasn’t us, we had to make the most of it.
We continued through Kolkata’s streets and lanes. The horns continued. The familiar ‘Cor! Cor!’ of crows, overshadowed only by the screeching of a nearby bus’s brakes. We all marvelled at the face of Kolkata: the yellow Ambassador. Otherwise known as the Morris Oxford, this piece of history on wheels is from a time gone by, straight from your granddad’s garage. And its horn means business. Deep and resonant, it resembled a classic tune from a 78 on a wind-up gramophone rather than the stripped-down, ring-tone styled horn on a modern vehicle.
Typically, on each of these eye-popping jaunts around the city, we'd see some poor bugger on a push bike, minding his own business, utterly oblivious and out of harm’s way, getting a rocket up the arse in the form of a bus horn at full volume. Unbelievably, the rider in question wouldn’t, as would be in the case in most ‘civilised' countries, give a stern middle finger, but would instead accept his fate and move over obligingly. We saw this time and again, and it never ceased to make us smile.
Eating lamb curry for lunch – even Brendon - we were reminded of a sticker we saw on our taxi van in Singapore: wonderful, bright photos of parrots, kittens, puppies, sheep and roosters, with the slogan: ‘Love us, don’t eat us.’
‘Do you believe that, do you?’ Stew asked the driver.
‘Sorry, sir?’ said the driver, tuning into Stew’s conversation.
‘That sticker with the animals, is that part of your belief?’
‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘I don’t eat meat.’
We all looked at the sticker again.
‘I eat meat,’ I said. ‘But I don’t think I’d eat most of what’s on that sticker.’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Brendon. ‘That macaw looks pretty tasty.’
‘And don’t knock kitten till you’ve tried it,’ said Reece.
‘What about you?’ said the driver, looking in the rear vision mirror. ‘Are you a vegetarian?’
‘We’re from New Zealand,’ said John.
‘Oh,’ said the driver.
‘And we’re sheep farmers,’ chimed in Stew.
THE DARJEELING NON-EXPRESS
'Nivea puts back into your skin what the city takes out.' The billboard we saw as we left Kolkata said it all. As our van made its way to the airport, we all felt a twinge of excitement, knowing we’d be in Darjeeling, in the far north east of the country, by sunset. But first we had a van ride, a plane ride, and yet another van ride, which we were told take three hours to cover sixty kilometres.
‘That’s got to be bullshit,’ I said to Stew.
‘I reckon as well.’
In the newspapers, cricket was everywhere. Ganguly had scored a double ton against the Pakistanis, and every Indian we spoke to was salivating at the prospect of the forthcoming tour of Australia. Also in The Telegraph was a tragic tale of a boy who lost his left arm and leg trying to retrieve a tennis ball in a game of street cricket. Fourteen-year-old Shivranshu Chhuneja used to be the most popular boy in school. Now his friends were ‘too scared to look at him' and his right thumb was the only workable part of his limbs. He had bee
n playing cricket with his friends when somebody smacked the ball over a wall. When Shivranshu jumped over, eleven thousand volts gripped his body. ‘He was burning like a candle,’ said his distraught mother. ‘He could not make a sound, not even shout for help. Then he just fell off, virtually smouldering.’
Our first flight in India, to Bagdogra, was successful and uneventful apart from the curry, which was so hot you needed gloves. As we now had a small collection of bats, we needed somewhere to put them. Taping them to the outsides of bags became the only option, although some Black Craps doubted they would arrive with us later in the day. There were four bats in all, on three bags.
‘Fifty rupees says they don’t all make it to Bagdogra,’ said John.
‘No one will steal them,’ I said as the last one, the horrid girly Galaxy with the purple handle, was being strapped to my backpack. ’Fifty rupees says they don’t.’
Travel calculator: $2. OK, can proceed.
‘Indians respect cricket,’ I said.
‘Fifty rupees.’
And we shook hands.
‘How much did you pay for that bat again?’ I asked.
‘Four hundred and fifty,’ said John.
‘Could have got it for a hundred and eighty.’
‘Fifty rupees,’ reinforced John.
The flight was short, only an hour, and we soon arrived in the ‘B’ place. (Every country has its city whose name you forget; Bagdogra was ours.) As we waited for the bags to arrive, I started to doubt India and its people. Maybe the bats would be stolen. Maybe John, with all his travel and ‘Fuggoffs’ was right. After all, packing them like that was a pretty dumb thing to do.
When they arrived safe and sound, all four of them, I felt proud. ‘I never doubted India and its people,’ I said. ‘I knew they wouldn’t be stolen.’
‘Yeah right,’ said Brendon.
‘Where’s John?’ I asked. ‘I want my money.’
Then, in the distance, a barely decipherable – but clearly audible, rant. ‘What the fuck’s wrong with this country! You used to be able to smoke where you liked! Honestly, this place has gone to the pack! Rack and ruin! Hell in a handcart!’
‘He’s over there,’ said Brendon.
The rest of us were comforted to hear what was becoming a typical outburst from John. The fact that India was mirroring the rest of the smoke-free, PC world was just too much to take. Plus, he reasoned, the Indians could handle it. ‘They like a bit of gyp. Being polite isn’t really an option.’
Indeed, so far on the trip, John had taken great pleasure in doing as he’d always done when visiting India: bartering down to absolute base price, then tipping like crazy.
India demanded you had your wits about you: ‘I was having a fag just before we left Calcutta,’ he said, passing me my fifty rupees. ‘There was a group of sixty or so Americans sitting next to me. They asked their tour guide where the shopping hot spots were. He proceeded to tell them all the places he would get a kick back. I sat there thinking, should I tell them it’s all bullshit? No, fuck it, they’re Americans.’
First timers do it hard in India.
Kabir, our new guide, was waiting outside the terminal. An instantly likeable guy, if a little uptight, he had greased-down hair with a part in the middle. His English was spot-on, and he gave each of us a Mala – a lei made from marigolds, a traditional offering made on religious occasions, or as a presentation to honoured guests. Saffron, the colour of marigolds, is also the most auspicious colour of Hinduism. More importantly, it made us feel like we were in Fiji.
After the chaos of Kolkata, the air in the ‘B’ place seemed clean. There was room to move. There seemed to be less noise. And soon, we would be on Highway 55, northbound to a place fondly known as Queen of the Hills. But not before we passed bizarre billboards: 'Café cum bar,' 'Flame throwing bartenders,' 'Hot DJs and a hotel goat.'
About half an hour into the trip we passed through the city of Siliguri and crossed a bridge over a riverbed. For as far as the eye could see, Indians were excavating and breaking rock with little more than prehistoric-looking tools. Later, we were told, a truck would turn up and take their efforts away to be sold. We got out of the van and listened to the donk, donk, donk of metal on rock. It went for miles. Whole families had set up camp, chiseling what ultimately became sizeable mounds of fine shingle, resembling a concrete version of Hobbiton in The Lord of the Rings. Watching tired, weathered-looking women, bent over, knee-deep in water, hammering rocks loose from larger ones made us, not the first time, feel that fate plays a huge part in where you are born.
Further down the road, much excitement as we spied a game of cricket being played on a barren field. (As the tour was still in its infancy, seeing a game of cricket was – we thought anyway - akin to spotting a white rhino in Gibraltar. Later, it would be as common as seeing Brendon sprint stiff-legged, to the gents.) Kabir resembled the confused-looking guide we had left behind in Kolkata. ‘You want to stop here?’ he asked. ‘Why?’
‘When’s the last time you played cricket?’ John asked.
‘I haven’t played since I was in school,’ replied Kabir.
‘Well, that’s about to change!’ we said, exiting the van.
The boys in the middle looked as puzzled at our arrival as Kabir. I guess it did look pretty strange, five wide-eyed Kiwis traversing India in a mobile goldfish bowl. Reece grabbed his blanket and scorebook. He didn’t need to be asked anymore. He knew his job. Brendon and John sprang out to take some pictures while Stew and I prepared for arguments.
The pitch was as hard as ice, a solitary piece of baron, bumpy dirt in the middle of a cow paddock. Even Tony Greig (R.I.P) would have had trouble slicing his keys into this sucker. Although, full credit to the groundsman - when you tapped the strip with your bat, it sounded like a real pitch from a game on TV. Like any backyard wicket it had its quirks, namely gaping holes and unpredictable, dangerous mounds, but other than that it was a fast, grassless piece of Indian turf.
As cows glared, and geese fled, Stew and I approached the apprehensive looking kids. ‘You wanna game?’ I asked, mimicking a leg spinner.
Aliens, they thought. One bald. One wearing a blanket. Two with movie cameras. And one with eyebrows so big you could knit a jumper out of them.
‘Cricket!’ reinforced Stew, swinging the Galaxy. ‘You wanna play?’
More blank looks. Reece asked the same question in Hindi. The boy with the bat marched over to the stumps and started pulling them out.
‘What’s he doing?’ I asked Reece. ‘Don’t they want to play?’
Reece translated. The boy replied.
‘Ah,’ said Reece. ‘He says this is their number-two ground. They want to play you on their number-one ground.’
One thing we had started to do in India, almost unintentionally, was mimic the Indian accent. Unlike us, Reece actually did it for a reason: ‘It’s easier to be understood if you put on an accent.’
‘Even if it makes you sound Welsh?’ asked John.
‘Yes.’
‘Or Irish?’ asked Brendon.
‘Yes.’
‘Or like a complete spanner?’ I added.
‘Not hard for you,’ said Reece.
And he was right. Even though many Indians spoke English, many couldn’t understand our bastardisation of it. They spoke fast, like us. We were speaking the same language, but no knew it. Sometimes it took a good five minutes before both parties heard words they understood. If we ever did have any trouble, as was the case with the boy moving his troops to the number-one ground, we’d yell, ‘Reece, get your arse over here! Can’t understand a word this joker’s saying!’
‘Reece,’ yelled Stew. ‘Get your arse over here!’
We had moved to the number-one ground, a fifty-metre walk uphill from the number-two ground. These boys were surely the only backyard players on the planet with home and away venues. Not only that, the pitch we were standing on was absolutely identical to the
one we had just shifted from.
‘What do want?' said Reece, trying to write down some sort of batting order.
‘Tell them to pick a captain,’ Stew said.
‘You tell them to pick a captain, I’m busy.’
Clearly Reece was still flustered by his nemesis, the scorebook. You had to feel for him. Three days ago, he’d never so much as seen one. Now he had to know the difference between leg byes, wides, sundries, and dead balls. Actually, screw him - he was getting a free trip.
I attempted to take the initiative, putting on an Indian accent worse than Peter Sellers,' and asked our new mates to name a captain.
‘You sound Welsh,’ said John.
Incredibly, the accent worked wonders. The boys gathered around and the boy holding the bat pointed to his mates. Then someone yelled. Within a minute or so, a bike carrying three more young teen boys turned up. They all pointed to a lanky one with an infectious smile, sitting on the carrier.
‘This is your captain?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ they laughed. ‘Samson.’
They continued cracking up, but the joke was on us. As the first two boys got off the bike, Samson literally fell off, landing on his hands. He crossed his flaccid, floppy legs, and looked at us as if we had the problem.
‘Our captain!’ the others squealed with delight.
We didn’t know where to look. Was this funny? Were we allowed to laugh?
‘Samson!’ they yelped. ‘Our captain!’
Samson walked on his hands to the wicket-keeping position and got ready for the first ball. There was no sympathy or pity. After the initial prank, no one referred to it again. It made us wonder whether this wasn’t the first time they had used their polio-victim friend to get a cheap laugh. If it was a regular occurrence, Samson showed no signs of bitterness. I guess in India, like anywhere, you make do with what you’ve got.