‘If it stayed low, he hooked it, if it rose high, he hooked it,’ Banerjee relates laughingly. ‘That’s how he broke all the window panes on that one side of the school, and I was summoned routinely to the same room we’re sitting right now, by the principal. While in international cricket, bowlers are more often than not bowling short of a length intentionally to thwart Dhoni’s attacking prowess, it was while contending with this pinball-board–like surface that the right-hander developed the ability to react to the ball rather than focus on any other factor around.
As regards the power his disciple generates, Banerjee puts it down to his pahari origins. ‘He always had powerful arms. Pahari people are generally strong mentally and physically. They’re used to going up and down (the hill trail), and in Mahi’s case, woh khaata bhi bahut tha (he used to eat a lot). Back then, he would eat whatever he got. Now he’s a raja. He can eat whatever he wants. Dildaar hai khaane mein! (He has a voracious appetite!)’
Chittu says that’s no longer the case. ‘Aaj kal toh sirf grilled chicken khata rehta hai. (These days he only eats grilled chicken.) He wants to play that 2019 World Cup and he’s ready to do anything for that. He’s the fittest that I’ve ever seen,’ he says. Chittu too says that food has always played an important role in Dhoni’s life.
‘It was very simple for Mahi. The days his team won anything, he would celebrate it with chicken. He loves chicken,’ says Chittu. Dhoni’s Twitter profile says that he is ‘perennially hungry for chicken butter masala’. Chittu recalls the morning when Dhoni was selected to the Indian team for the first time. Dhoni was in Jamshedpur and he arrived at around 8.30 a.m. with mithai. Then he picked up all his friends in the Black Scorpio that had by then become synonymous with him around Ranchi. And off they went to the all-day dhaba on the outskirts which had always been their traditional late-night haunt. There are no prizes for guessing what the order was. ‘Chicken butter masala, of course,’ says Chittu.
Now, there was only one more person in Dhoni’s inner circle that I had to meet—Chottu-bhaiya. We were to meet the next afternoon at a common spot before he took me to his now-famous sports-goods shop, Prime Sports, on his bike.
Chottu-bhaiya picked me up from our preordained spot and off we went. But before we could get there, he suddenly stopped the bike, turned around and started laughing. Slightly taken aback but still taken in by his boisterous and infectious laugh, I too joined in, albeit with a puzzled look on my face. Noticing my obvious bewilderment, he said, ‘Arré, I never thought I would be taking around a long-haired guy on a bike around Ranchi again. And that too a guy who’s come to write a book on our Mahi.’
4
Prime Time
Ravindra Jadeja recently revealed that Dhoni owns forty-three or forty-four bikes.* It’s not his fault that he couldn’t come up with a precise number. For, according to the all-rounder, Dhoni himself often loses count of how many vaunted two-wheelers there are in his garage. A couple of years ago, Dhoni’s vehicular worth was set at twenty-three bikes and ten cars. And the collection included brands that the average Indian hears of only in the movies—Ducati, Harley-Davidson and even one that sounds and looks like something that Batman would own, the Confederate X132 Hellcat.
Chhotu-bhaiya, though, remembers Mahi knocking on his door one morning and asking whether he would lend him his RX 100, India’s own racer bike from the 1990s. Dhoni then didn’t have a bike of his own. The two first met at the Royal Club in 1995 where Chhotu was a senior player and Dhoni the talented upstart. Since Chhotu had a bike, which he’d bought a year earlier, the coach had requested him to pick up and drop the shy and quiet kid from his home inside the MECON Colony. It was during these bike rides, despite lengthy periods of silence, says Chhotu, that the two began developing a unique bond.
‘His friends were going to Hazaribagh (known for its sanctuary and forests) on a biking trip. But they were leaving Mahi behind since he didn’t own a bike. He came to me and said, “Bhaiya, bike dena, please,”’ he recalls. Hazaribagh is a 95-km, three-hour ride from Ranchi. While Chhotu had no qualms about lending the bike—considering how well-versed Mahi was with riding it—there was one issue.
‘The lights weren’t working for some reason. I asked him to take the bike but return before sunset since it would be risky without the lights. He said, “Don’t worry, I’ll be back before it gets dark.” They, of course, didn’t return before eleven or twelve in the night, and I and a friend nearly went half the distance looking for them,’ he says. And Chhotu wasn’t surprised to find Mahi comfortably gliding on the empty roads, more confidently than those with perfectly working headlights.
‘The tension, as always, was all mine. He looked as cool as ever,’ he adds.
While Dhoni’s chaska (liking) for two-wheeler rides is well documented, it was on Chhotu’s RX 100 that he first indulged in it before he could afford one himself. It was also this RX 100 that witnessed the coming together of two people who became really close friends, who have never let the age difference come in the way. Chhotu says, ‘Chaska toh pehle se tha. Lekin bike se pyaar meri RX 100 pe hi hua. (He had this liking for bikes, but it all began on my RX 100).’
History repeated itself a couple of years ago, as Dhoni, though not quite directly, came asking for Chhotu’s RX 100 again. It was the Dhoni filmmakers who wanted to borrow it, and once again Chhotu readily handed over his prized possession. The lights were in working condition this time around.
Chhotu pauses suddenly and then informs me that I too had just become a part of history. ‘Sir, the bike that I picked you up on is that exact same RX 100,’ he says with a hearty laugh.
‘Mahi’s first bike was an RX 135, a more powerful bike than mine. But he never got to ride it much, and sold it off rather early,’ Chhotu adds. For the record, Dhoni had tweeted a picture of what he called his ‘first bike’, a Rajdoot which he got restored in 2013. But I’m nobody to challenge Chhotu-bhaiya’s version of Mahi’s history with two-wheelers.
Then came the fancy bikes, one after the other; there was also the Batmobile on two wheels. Chittu, not much of a biker himself, shares another biking tale. Once, he was allowed to ride one of Dhoni’s high-end bikes, but unfortunately, he fell down with it. After the incident, Chittu remembers approaching Dhoni ashen-faced and embarrassed. ‘But the first thing he said was, “Tumko chot nahi lagi, na? Bike toh ban jaayegi. (You are not hurt, right? The bike can be fixed.)”’ That’s supposed to be another instance, and there were many I heard in Ranchi, of how Dhoni still remains rooted and cares for the people who’ve stuck with him on this amazing ride.
Chittu hasn’t joined us for this midday chat near the busy Sujata Chowk, which is abuzz with people and activity. Prime Sports is the kind of sports-goods store that has more or less gone extinct in cities like Mumbai and Delhi; you might find the odd mom-and-pop version of a sports store still standing in the suburbs, but most of urban India has moved on to the Decathlons of the world. Prime Sports is a throwback to the 1990s, when sports-goods stores were like any other where the customer stood on one side of the counter and trusted the shopkeeper to get exactly what was needed. There was no question of self-service. The cramped space inside Prime is packed with boxes and cartons stacked on top of each other, while the glass shelves are filled with sundry items, including a number of unmarked trophies for sale—again, things that you don’t get to see in modern-day sports stores.
Prime Sports, which Chottu owns, is also an unofficial shrine to a man who once spent many hours within its confines. The side shelf, the one facing the busy road, is filled with screenshots of Dhoni’s first foray into Indian cricket’s public consciousness—his brutal exploits on an India A tour to Kenya, which included the two centuries against Pakistan A which propelled him to the national team in three months’ time.
Chhotu happily provides a guided tour to all comers, and does it every bit like a museum curator, to the extent of corroborating every anecdote about Mahi with corresponding pictures or newspape
r cuttings—right from the time he was anonymous even in Ranchi to becoming one of the most well-known faces in Indian sport around the world. The first picture he points to is of a fresh-faced Dhoni looking rather pleased with his brand-new sweater and wicketkeeping gloves. It’s from the morning of his Ranji Trophy debut for Bihar at the MECON stadium on 12 January 2000 against Assam.
The Dhoni journey is surreal at various levels. I tell Chhotu about how Dhoni’s face has hardly changed, and the hair is a lot like how it is now without being stylized. ‘Sir, aadmi change nahi hua hai, face kaise change hoga? (Sir, when the man himself has not changed, how can his face?),’ he shoots back, laughing. There’s another one next to that picture: Dhoni in a Manchester United jersey—not surprising, considering that’s the EPL team he still supports passionately—posing with some teammates. Chhotu tells me it’s from a trip to Himachal Pradesh with the Jharkhand team a few years later. Later, he shows a more recent poster of Dhoni, looking older and grizzled. ‘Look at the greys. This had to happen. Being Indian captain means tension and stress, even for the coolest man on the field,’ I say. But I’m immediately corrected by Chhotu. ‘Nahi, nahi. No tension for Mahi. The safed baal (white hair) and daadi (beard) is more due to all the playing in the sun. He’s spent more than half his life under the sun.’ Once more, I’m in no position to argue with him.
As I look around, I’m rather taken aback by the fact that Chhotu hasn’t moved out of this rather ageing establishment into a more plush setting. I’m further intrigued to learn that he’s not even keen on moving. ‘Things have changed for sure. There’s so much more competition nowadays. I’ve been running this right here for twenty-two years. I’ve stayed loyal to one brand, BAS (Beat All Sports), throughout and I don’t consider myself a very ambitious person,’ he explains.
It was this loyalty to BAS that helped Chhotu win the maiden sponsorship deal for his friend. Dhoni didn’t play for the Royal Club for more than a season, and soon started making a name for himself in school cricket and for the CCL on the club scene. And his name started appearing routinely in the local newspapers. The friend and entrepreneur in Chhotu thought this was the right time to invest in this budding talent.
‘I used to sit at BAS company back then, in Jalandhar, with Mr Kohli, the owner. I told him once, “Uncle, I have a player who is needy and doesn’t even have the money to buy his own kit. Anyway, you are sponsoring two kits, just help this boy out too. Naam hai M.S. Dhoni.” But he wasn’t convinced. He said, “Itni jaldi kaise hoga? (How can this be done so quickly?)”’
But Chhotu wasn’t one to give up so easily. A few days later, he was back in Mr Kohli’s office with the same request. ‘Bahut aage peeche, aage peeche hua and then he kind of agreed. (After a lot of back and forth, he finally agreed.) I rushed back and told Mahi that a company is ready to sponsor him and made him prepare a CV. I went back to Jalandhar and said, “Paaji, please give the kit today, he has a match in two days.” He looked back and said, “Two days, na? Chalo, we’ll see.” I started shaking my head and said, “Did I say two days? I meant tomorrow,”’ Chhotu says, followed by that laugh again. He returned after receiving a guarantee that the kit would be couriered soon despite multiple requests from him for it to be handed to him then and there.
The deal wasn’t sealed yet. And by the time Chhotu was back in Ranchi, Dhoni had been picked in the Bihar squad for his Ranji debut. Another round of frantic calls ensued, with Chhotu screaming, ‘Now his name has come in the Ranji squad. Ab toh samaan bhej do. (Now please send the kit.)’ It was only on the eve of the match that Dhoni’s first-ever kit arrived at his then home, N171, in the MECON Colony. Chhotu then points again to the picture with Dhoni in his BAS sweater.
The two had hit it off long before the BAS deal. The bike rides from the practice sessions soon got extended to Dhoni spending most of his free time at Prime Sports and playing badminton at the railway stadium once Chhotu shut shop for the day. Thus, Prime Sports became M.S. Dhoni’s adda. Chhotu opened the shop around 1994 while he was still a player, and in those days, was juggling the twin roles of a cricketer and a businessman.
‘This was during his CCL days. I used to close the shop by 8 p.m. We would then go and play badminton till 10 p.m., then I would drop him off at his place and head home. Around 7 a.m., I would pick him up again and drop him off for the CCL training. Around 10 to 11 a.m. he would finish practice and come to me and just sit there,’ he says, pointing at the seat I’m presently occupying.
We have a customer at hand. It’s a young boy, not more than fifteen, who wants a Cosco tennis ball and a pair of gloves. As they are all in the cartons and boxes next to me, I turn helper under Chhotu’s instructions. I lift one here, move one there, shift myself, shift the chair, push the desk a little, and finally to Chhotu’s relief, find the exact two boxes he’s looking for. The transaction takes place rapidly. No questions asked. Chhotu knows exactly what size and what brand of gloves the boy needs.
‘Did Mahi help while he used to sit here?’ I ask rather confidently, assuming that by helping him out a little, I had provided Chhotu a Mahi throwback moment for the second time in a few hours. He looks at me funnily and replies, ‘Sir, his presence was enough.’ There’s that Ranchi reverence again for their beloved son of the soil.
At that point, Chhotu-bhaiya starts laughing again. To my embarrassment, he’s spotted that my footwear is mismatched—a slipper and a floater—which I thought I’d smartly hidden from his view.
‘Mahi ke saath rehke hum bhi sab kuch observe karna seekh gaye shayad. (In Dhoni’s company, perhaps I too have learnt to observe everything.),’ he explains.
To accentuate his admiration for Dhoni’s observational skills—which seem to have had a lasting impact on everyone who has met him—Chhotu gives his own version of how his friend could spot his shy father watching him bat. Amazingly, he recalls Dhoni having done so even on his Ranji debut.
‘His nazar (eye) is all around, even when he’s on the ground. I’m sure he can even spot things that happen in the crowd in the biggest stadiums in the world, and even remember a few faces. On (his Ranji) debut when he was batting (Dhoni made 40 and 68 not out in that game), his father, as usual, was peeping through one of those grooves on the boundary wall. And he spotted his father in spite of the pressure of playing his first high-level knock,’ Chhotu recalls. You almost want to believe this to be true.
And according to his inner circle, it’s not just a quirk. They insist that Dhoni’s knack for observation makes him a great judge of people—‘aadmi turant aur achche se parakh leta hai (he reads people quickly and correctly)’, says Chhotu.
This quality of gauging a person and his credentials has come to the fore on the cricket field quite often. The Joginder Sharma example, of course, stands out, when on that famous night in Johannesburg in 2007, Dhoni handed the inexperienced medium-pacer the final over in the grand finale against Pakistan, a move that shocked the world and also eventually made India the first-ever world champions in T20 cricket. In interviews, Sharma would reveal that Dhoni not only said he would take responsibility for the decision if things went rogue but also told the young nobody that he had six balls to create history. Others around the team management would in later years emphasize that it wasn’t a ‘gut-feel’ move but one that Dhoni had discussed earlier due to various factors—which included Sharma’s ability to bowl a good yorker as well as his inherent poker face.
‘He made Joginder’s life. Everyone was underestimating him, but Mahi lifted him,’ Chottu says and then with a smile adds, ‘Your life will also change because of this book, just wait and watch.’
There have, of course, been series after series of such out-of-the-box calls that Dhoni has made in his career—many of which we’ll deal with in another chapter; and while not all have been successful, they have each had the inimitable Dhoni touch. Even the times when he brought himself on to bowl that one over—like at the Champions Trophy in 2009 or before the lunch break at Lord’s in 2011
—just to give an unsubtle hint to the selectors about the bowling options they had given him.
It comes through even in his relationships. Chittu explains: ‘Saamne se kaun aa raha hai, kyun aa raha hai, sab pata hai. (He knows who’s coming, why they’re coming, everything) . . . Nobody can escape Mahi’s gaze. It’s the same for me as well. He’ll know exactly why I have come to meet him just by looking at me. Say, I have come with a contract that needs to be signed or to introduce someone to him but I’m hesitating or talking about something else, he’ll smile and say, “Bol de, bol de. Dil mein mat rakh. (Tell, tell, don’t keep it in your heart.)”’
Now Chhotu goes on to sound like a mix of a forlorn lover and a doting parent: ‘Woh din bhar mere saath hi rehta hai . . . wahan par hai, lekin mere saath hai . . . nahi lagta hai ki woh alag hai . . . (He’s always here with me . . . He may be anywhere, but he’s with me . . . I don’t feel that he’s separate from me . . .’ While Dhoni’s relations with Narendra, his elder sibling, have always been a subject of conjecture—so much so that even those around him talk about it only in hushed tones and prefer not saying much even then—Chhotu had actually stood in as the bhaiya quite often in the early days. And he sounds like one even now.
‘It’s not like we talk to each other often. We don’t have to. We’re one. He has no time now, and I totally get that. But when he’s in town, I’ll know, and we’ll certainly try and meet,’ he says.
There was, of course, the famous Agartala episode in January 2001, where Dhoni was picked for the first time in the East Zone squad to play the Deodhar Trophy against South Zone. But Dhoni was blissfully unaware of his selection. It was only when Chhotu paid a routine visit to his friend, the Railways player Subra Sarkar’s house the evening before the East Zone team was scheduled to fly out from Kolkata, that the news sprang upon them. Chhotu never tires of narrating the episode.
The Dhoni Touch Page 6