by M Krishnan
I was far from happy, however. I cannot remember many occasions when our team has passed the 50-runs total, but that had not worried me. After all, with so much practice, we could take defeat like cricketers and sportsmen. What oppressed me was the thought that a ferocious fast bowler, vexed by what he thought was an unfair decision against him, might develop pace unsuspected even by himself. It was plain that the Doctor had similar thoughts. He inspected his Emergency Bag (he never went anywhere without it) gloomily and as he tied the pads to his legs with borrowed handkerchieves (pads rarely have buckles in our cricket) I could see that the man was in low spirits. However, our other opener, the Lawyer, seemed unaffected—a thing that I could not understand at first, but enlightenment dawned on me as I turned round and saw Vulcan pulling on the wicketkeeper’s gloves. Of course he was their wicketkeeper. To this day neither the Doctor nor I can explain why we took it for granted that he was a fast bowler—it was one of those apprehensive mistakes that go to make cricket, such things are in the game. They had no fast bowler, not even a medium-paced one. But there were two engineers (one of them was the Underwater Expert) who bowled leg breaks with a brand-new ball. By the time we had made 13 runs, for 3 wickets, the sub-aquatic wretch was turning the ball a good yard from the leg.
Old Doc was still there, placing the ball unerringly over the slips off the edge of his bat, and while he was there I had hope. But someone had to keep him company, and as I untied my pads to hand them over to the next batsman (having been bowled by a grub), I pondered deeply over this. Their captain, standing nonchalantly and with eager, outspread hands, four yards from the bat at silly mid-off, was responsible for our collapse even more than the leg-spinners. Unnerved by his imminent presence, our batsmen tried to play strokes behind the wicket, and so got bowled. I wished we had someone who could hit the ball good and hard to the off, but as the fifth wicket fell (one of the schoolboys putting up a catch to Vulcan), I could think of nothing constructive to say to the next batsman. Things were made worse by the incessant encouragement of the History Assistant, who kept on providing parallels from famous battles where defeat had been suddenly turned to victory at a late stage. It was impossible to concentrate on a major problem with that sort of talk going on, so I sent him in next to get rid of him.
He missed the first ball comprehensively, then lunged forward at the next and spooned up a tame catch to the vigilant silly mid-off: the fieldsman leaned forward, clutched at the ball with both hands, missed, and got it plumb on his kneecap. Play was held up for a few minutes while the Doctor massaged his knee, and thereafter he retired, limping, to deep square-leg.
Several of our former Test players believed that it was quite all right to hit the leg spinner against the break, and it was evident that the historian belonged to this old school of thought. He swiped with a cross bat at every ball, and the ball flew off its edge to the most unexpected corners, leaving the fieldsmen baffled. The score shot up to 20, and then the schoolmaster got a ball right in the middle of his bat. The ball went soaring to square leg, straight to the tennis player. He clutched wildly at the oncoming missile, missed, and got it on his toe—he hopped about in agony, while the callous batsmen took 7 runs, before it occurred to mid-on to retrieve the ball. This was an unexpected slice of luck, but their captain was determined it should not be repeated. He limped away to third man.
When the Doctor sliced the ball into his wicket as he always did in the end, the score was 60 for 6, as pretty a total as one could wish for, and assured that we could not be disgraced, I gave no covetous thought to victory. But the historian was still there, swiping furiously at every ball, and at 73 for 8 wickets he was still there, still swiping. Only the other schoolmaster and the other schoolboy remained, but already we were aware that the win on foreign soil, which had eluded us all these years, was possibly within reach. I implored the second schoolmaster to stay in somehow, and leave things to his colleague, but he played every ball with a foppish straight bat, essayed cover drives, and was soon back, bowled round his legs while attempting a glance.
Schoolboy II, last man in, raised our hopes again. He was slashing at every ball with a vim and vigour that was refreshingly historical. The score began to rocket upwards, propelled by this dual onslaught of sweep and slash, and then, before we knew it, it was 90. We held our breaths and hoped. Vulcan missed a ball and two byes were added to the score. Then the schoolmaster flourished his bat in a terrific sweep, and the ball rose off its edge vertically—upwards and still upwards it soared, till it seemed a mere speck, and then descended swiftly right behind the bowler, right over the tennis-playing skipper’s head. He flung his arms above him, braced his body for the shock, and embraced the ball as it hurtled down on him. We had lost the match, as usual.
But who cared? We were as excited and happy as children, and we gave the History Assistant a terrific big cheer, and the slashing schoolboy, and the tennis-playing grocer. We congratulated the Dam Site XI with a grace born of practice, and I made a feeble pun about how they were a damned sight too good for us, and the Doctor laughed loyally. Only when we were back in the bus, and headed for home, did this spirit of joy depart, almost physically. For we were suddenly aware that there was a long gap, a long wide gap, between now and the days of Krishna Deva Raya, and we were in for it.
1951
66
The Revenge
The Lawyer and I almost purred in satisfaction as we discussed the prospects. The Dam Site XI, which had beaten us narrowly on their own grounds, were due at our place next day, and the poor chaps had not the ghost of a chance this time. For one thing they had been considerably weakened by visitations. Their best leg spinner, an underwater engineer, had developed a whitlow on his right index finger and was out of action, and their next best (also an engineer, as all of them were) was down with the ’flu. And we had it from the same reliable source that two visiting bosses, the Chief Engineer and the District Engineer, had expressed an urgent desire to play the dear old game they had played in their lost youth, which disposed of two able-bodied dam-men automatically. Further, we had to reckon additions to our own strength besides the enemy’s losses. Now we had the Find, and the Doctor’s Form.
The Find was a schoolboy, certified a moron by the History Assistant (a regular member of our team now) and a pretty hefty one at that. He had a long, fluent, sinuous run to the wicket and bowled at a terrific pace. The History Assistant, who lived somewhat in the past, called him ‘Spofforth, the Demon’, and the moron really did deserve the name. His only defect was a strong, native inability to distinguish between the bowling crease and the runner’s popping crease, beyond—but this was a disability shared by many famous fast bowlers, and we had already explained remedies to the lad.
Anyhow, even allowing for a fair proportion of no-balls, we were confident the dam-men could not stand up to his onslaught. And then, of course, we had the Doctor’s new-found form.
The Doctor, who opened the innings with the Lawyer for us, had always been our most consistent scorer. He had been a fine footballer in his youth. A tall, well-built man with a very quick eye, he brought soccer goal-keeping distinction to his batsmanship, and had perfected the technique recently. His reach made all bowling accessible to him without leaving the crease, and besides a variety of defensive pokes and pushes he had developed a magnificent sliced-drive that rarely failed to get him a four. This shot, played at a ball pitched outside the off stump, was usually on a forward lean, but he could play it off the backfoot, too. It was unique in that the ball, sliced good and hard, rose high over gully’s head and swerved violently away from third man for a four. If that fieldsman was moved squarer, for a catch, old Doc had an answer to this move: he played his stroke a trifle late so that the ball went rocketing over first slip, to where third man had been. The only logical way to get him caught off this shot was to field three third men, some fifty yards deep, from fine to squarish—but the immutable traditions of the game permit just one third man, and so Doc was s
afe. He was sure to score heavily.
The first thing I noticed, after we had welcomed the DS XI and ushered them into the pavilion, was the Doctor’s preoccupation. He was sitting on a bench beneath a tree nearby, wholly lost in a thick book. I knew already that he had been summoned as an expert witness in a criminal case so that this passion for books was no surprise, but one likes one’s star batsman to have no medico-legal distractions on the day of the big match. I held a conference with the Lawyer, and we decided to put the visitors in, after winning the toss in my usual manner, so as to give the Doctor time to shift his mind from medical jurisprudence to gyro-dynamics, and our Demon Bowler a go before the wicket lost its veneer of hardness.
Nor were we mistaken in our reckoning, though no one was prepared for the sensation of ‘Spofforth’s’ first over. Unaccustomed to handling the shiny new ball, and with his thoughts on his feet, he sent the first three balls spinning viciously to long-off, who fielded them splendidly while the umpire signalled wides. After this we rubbed the ball in the earth till it was rough enough, and our Find came off. He was no-balled, he was erratic, the ball kicked well clear of the stumps even when he did pitch it at them, but his pace completely demoralized the dam-men. When their innings closed, for 53 runs, we had reason for satisfaction, though we felt we had given away too many sundries. Besides wides and no-balls (total, 15) the stubborn pride of our wicketkeeper in refusing to have an old-fashioned ‘back stop’ had cost us 23 runs in byes.
However, the Lawyer, taking the strike after lunch, seemed determined to make amends. From the first ball it was obvious that he was at his ease. His late-cuts and leg-glances were pretty in the extreme, though unproductive of runs. By one of those curious accidents of cricket, the Doctor got no chance to face a ball for the first twenty-five minutes, and the score was still 5 for no loss. Then the Doctor faced their opening bowler, who sent down straight up-and-down stuff to an offside field, and I sat forward expectantly. Very soon it was apparent that there was something very wrong with old Doc. His bat, instead of descending in a flashing arc on the ball, was stiff and perpendicular and immobile, while he lunged forward and back from the waist; every ball beat him and many hit his pads. The spectacle was so unedifying that we wished the man would get out, but by a miracle the ball kept missing the stumps. It seemed incredible that a dose of medical jurisprudence could have transformed a dashing player of the sliced-drive-to-third-man into this groping nonentity—then I had an inspiration, and stepped across to the bench beneath the tree. There was a thick, brown-paper-wrapped book on it, the same that the Doctor had been reading with such concentrated interest, and one look into it explained everything. Of course it was no medico-legal book: it was The Jubilee Book of Cricket, with the school rubber stamp on it, bristling with faded pictures of famous batsmen of the past playing forward and back with geometrically straight bats. Instantly I accused the History Assistant, and he confessed to the deed—he had brought it along to show our fast bowler a photograph of Spofforth to inspire him, and now—this was the result. Too often one learns a lesson belatedly in this game, but others can profit by such mistakes. I warn all captains of cricket teams to see to it that illustrated books on the game are not left anywhere within reach of impressionable batsmen.
Have you noticed how often it happens, when a batsman is playing confidently and another is groping about vulnerably, that a wicket falls? The Lawyer was bowled middle stump with the score at 7, and after making three consecutive cover-drives (unfortunately they went straight to the fieldsman) I was back in the pavilion, to change the batting order. This did little good. The score at 17 for 7 was positively depressing, but what was worse was the Doctor’s metamorphosis. He was still there, still poking weakly about with his left elbow held high and stiff, still missing each ball. Then a ball caught the edge of his perpendicular bat and streaked away between second slip and gully. Third man was moved squarer at once, to cover the gap—a foolish and thoughtless move. The movement gave old Doc his lost cue, and almost mechanically and in response to the stimulus he slicedrove the next ball late and expertly, to send it soaring to the boundary over the wicketkeeper’s head. Thereafter the spell was broken, and there was no holding him back. The well-known stroke, in all its variations, blossomed out of his bat with the rush of a held-back spring, and almost in no time we had won the match, for no further loss.
Which just goes to prove, once again, what a great and glorious game cricket is, how unpredictable in its vagaries—and how suicidal it is to move third man from a fine to a square position.
1952
67
The Truth About an Old Lady
Straightaway I should make it clear that this is no sort of criticism of the recently produced Tamil talkie, Avvaiyar. It cannot be, for I have not seen this picture—those that have say it is outstandingly good, and no doubt it is so. But the acclaim it has won has a curious quality.
Auvvaiyar is a recurrent feminine figure in Tamil literature, whose life the picture purports to depict. What is remarkable about the acclaim is the number of eminent men retired or retiring from politics, the judiciary and other high walks of life, but with no great pretence to knowledge of Tamil, who have come out in emphatic print over Avvaiyar. According to these incognoscenti (I coin the word solely for purpose of classification) the picture is true to life, ‘historical’, and a vivid portrayal of a specific poetess whose ‘limbecks’, though ‘dry of poison’, still held a potent morality. The pity of it is that just now, when classical Tamil is at a discount and moral armaments at a heavy premium, the words of these good people will be accepted by thousands unquestioningly.
Was there really one Auvvaiyar with an unmistakable identity? Of course not, for there were three of them at least, so far as we know. It should be realized that the word ‘Auvvaiyar’ is not a personal name, not a proper noun so much as a respectful term of reference to an old lady. ‘Auvvai’ in Tamil is only a mode of reference or address to a woman—it does not connote motherhood or venerable age in itself and is an address no longer current in the Tamil country. But in Kannada the word is still in use; in colloquial Kannada you may say ‘auvva’ when speaking to a girl of fifteen or to a grandmother of eighty-five. In Tamil today we employ the word ‘amma’ in the same way precisely. The suffix ‘yar’ merely denotes respect—not necessarily to antique years but to a person of some maturity. ‘Ammaiyar’ is common in Tamil now as a title of dignity in referring to a lady—‘auvvaiyar’ has the identical connotation.
So, to three women verse writers who were respected in their time and afterwards the title ‘Auvvaiyar’ was given. Who were these three and what do we know about them?
The earliest Auvvaiyar seems to have lived some 2,000 years ago. No sizeable work that can be definitely ascribed to her survives, but there are occasional verses and other pieces. From the diction, prosody and stray references to contemporaries in these verses we can say that she lived about the time of poets (and patrons) of considerable antiquity and that she belonged to the Sangam period which was, approximately, 2,000 years ago. Her work has the quality of authentic poetry and is not moralistic.
The next belonged to the age of Kamban, Pukhazhendi and Ottakkoothar—a period that I may term the golden age of court poets, and which is now fixed at about the thirteenth century AD according to a Tamil scholar whom I consulted. This Auvvaiyar has more popular identity than her predecessor or even her successor, and seems to serve as a link between them, since it is difficult to be positive that neither of them had anything to do with some of the verses usually credited to her.
She seems to have been far advanced in years (her predecessor, also, appears to have been quite elderly), cantankerous, and much given to the ‘venba’ form of verse which attained its zenith during this period. A number of occasional verses attributed to her show that she had a fine contempt for mere opulence, a bitingly sarcastic tongue, and a willingness to fell the mighty.
At this stage two things should be explained.
First these qualities were by no means peculiar to Auvvaiyar II, Many Tamil poets (some of them men capable of magnificent poetry) possessed them, and vituperative verse is quite a feature of Tamil literary traditions. Kalamegha-p-pulava and, to cite a recent example, Ramchandra Kavirayar may be mentioned among those prone to instant repartee in verse. Even today, when verse is a lost art, men of traditional literary blood are apt to relapse into verse if deeply provoked.
Secondly, I am not relying on the versicular duels between this Auvvaiyar and Kamban in saying that she had a quick and caustic tongue. The well-known passage of arms between them that is sustained by a pun on the Tamil name of a sort of greens is too elaborate and apt to hold conviction—I don’t suppose any Tamil scholar would care to guarantee the genuineness of this and similar verses, or affirm that they cannot be interpolation. But even otherwise the Auvvaiyar of this period seems to have been a formidable old lady, as evidenced by her addresses to niggardly patrons and men of pride. There are many such, but one will do for sample. When Aazhvaan of the village Koraikkaal was larger in his promises to her than in the performance, this was her comment: