Sehwag and Bagger Vance

Some years ago, a book came out which I am sure some of you must have read. It was called “The Legend of Bagger Vance”. Published in the cusp of the millennium, it caught the fancy of the Californian crowd I used to see a lot of in those days. Everything was booming and people were getting wealthy on exceptionally generous stock option grants.

Given all this, naturally the thought would turn to “What does it all mean” – the money, the condo, the hot car, the hot babe…And this is when the book captured the minds of the West Coast tech crowd. Quite simply, the book placed the “Gitopadesa” in a golf course. Gitopadesa – the part of the Mahabharata where Arjuna drives his war-chariot up before the vast armies arrayed before him – his uncles, cousins, relatives and friends. Looking at all these familiar faces, and confused as to why at all the coming carnage was needed, he is filled with self-doubt and asks his charioteer, Krishna, for an explanation. A young golfer, A R Junah, is coached by his caddy, Bagger Vance, on the nuances of the perfect swing. Every man has a perfect swing inside him, says Bagger, and all he has to do is to look inside of himself to find it. It cannot be taught, it cannot be coached, says the wise caddy. Execute the swing, says Bagger Vance, and do not worry about the ball.

I thought of this when I read this post while following what was happening in the second Test being played at Eden Gardens between India and South Africa. There seemed to be two games going on in a curious multiverse. I refer to the batting of Virender Sehwag.

For a long time now, Sehwag has attracted opprobrium from the purists. No footwork, they say. Plays away from the body, they say. Susceptible to the ball coming in off a length, they say. Does not tailor his game to the situation. And so on.

In the meantime, he has one of the highest averages in Test cricket, and bowlers fear him. When he is playing, he seems to be in a different zone. So why Sehwag and why Bagger Vance?

The clue is his mindset. Apparently Sehwag never goes in to inspect the pitch before the game, trying to work out how the pitch will play – even though he opens batting for India. He never thinks about the next day before he goes to bed. No smelly caps or unwashed handkerchiefs in his pocket.

What he does is, keeps his head rock still, watches the ball, and lets his instincts take over. If he is beaten all ends up by one ball, he just waits for the next one, and regardless of bowler, if it can be hit, he hits it. It does not matter that he is batting on 194 at the SCG and he is out sky-ing the ball attempting a six.

My theory is that watching a Sehwag bat is cricket’s answer to Gitopadesa in a golf-course. No thought enters his mind, no doubt creeps in. All he wants to do is wait for the right ball and murder it. He is not worried about the scoreline, the situation, the state of the pitch. I bet he does not even listen to the sledging. Never has Sehwag been caught exchanging verbals with the opposition. No way.

He just waits for the ball and whacks it, still head, eye on the ball, confident, and bereft of doubt.

The Gestalt of Cricket - inspired by the Indigoite

...The walk to the crease is lonely, no matter if you are Sunil Gavaskar opening for India or yours truly going in at No 7 for Brondesbury Third XI. You are padded up and waiting, and as the wicket falls, your teammate or your skipper gives you the nod and says "Best of luck mate" or "...75 more mate see what you can do".

..So you get your helmet and your bat, start to pull on your gloves as you bound off the pavilion and and into the oval, crossing the boundary line. You swing the bat around in an arc over your head. You stretch your hamstrings and do little hops to loosen your knees...More in hope than in warning...

..Ahead you see triumphal fielders watching you approach. You cross the batsman who has just gotten out. If he is not happy with his performance he eyes are downcast and he shakes his head a couple of times.

..As you approach somebody sings out "New batsman in lads". There is polite applause. The older player will say "Best of luck mate". The younger players will sledge. "Its tea-time granddad, better make it quick". Or "Is the beginning of the end".

..The notout batsman meets you as you get to the strip in the middle. He offers some advice. "ball's swinging a bit mate. Watch out for the Asian feller he's quick. This is a lippy lot". You touch bats and you walk to the popping crease.

...The wicketkeeper looks balefully at you without expression as you walk up. He turns to the closein fielders and says "all right fellers let's wrap this up I want me tea". You mark your bat position and turn to the umpire and take your guard..

..Its a beautiful day. Warm and sunny. All around you is a green sward bordered by good English oak and beech trees. Beyond the trees you see sheep in a farm baa-ing in their torpor. An idle tractor rests uncaring. Little rabbits bound about at the edge.

..Its strangely silent. Everything looks so far away..

..The field spreads out around you. Slips, cover, extra cover, silly mid-off and a short square leg in catching positions. You take your stance and wait as the bowler goes to the start of his run-up and turns in at a gentle jog accelerating quickly. You try to keep your stance easy and your head level with the pitch as you banish all thought from your head and look at the ball in the bowler's hand, only the ball, as he makes his leap at the crease and lands on his right foot, right arm straining at the start of the release as his hip swivels towards you and the ball is visible for an instant, seam vertical, glistening, as his right shoulder leads his body and the ball is propelled towards you. And you feel no fear, no emotion, no expectation, nothing as you watch the line of the ball and try to judge its length as you step out left foot towards the line of the ball, head level, left arm leading the bat at the top of the backlift, elbow leading towards the line, right hand steadying the bat, as you bring the bat down on the ball as it lands and rises from a foot in front of you, barely 2 seconds after it left the bowler's arm...

...Nothing matters at that moment of truth. You've judged it perfectly, and the ball leaves the bat due to pure timing towards the outfield. Or the ball drops dead at the foot of the bat. Or, the ball swings just a bit at the point of contact and you see it flying towards slip..

...That is after the fact. All you can do is play the best stroke you can..

...Whatever happens, like Auden wrote in "musee de beaux arts", Icarus can fall from the skies or the batsman is out first ball or it is despatched to the boundary in Gower-like elegance. The rabbits will bound through the grass, the sun will shine on a rural English scene and the world will go on.

..You just play the best stroke you can.

An ordinary man

Everyone has a story to tell. And people in the unlikeliest of situations display an understanding of the world and a common sense that often jolts the jaded. As it did me, as I journeyed from Pune to Mumbai by road, and out of ennui ended up talking to the driver.

Mahesh is from Jharkhand. He has lived in Mumbai for more than 25 years. He has a wife and three children back in his village. His daughters have just attained puberty and are getting close to 18. He knows that the village will expect them to get married and he is on the lookout. His son is in school.

Leaving his family in Jharkhand was a matter of choice. He says he does not want his family to live like dogs in a slum in Mumbai when they have a perfectly respectable existence in the village. He owns land. It is scattered over the village. Every year he goes home in June or November, to coincide with the rice sowing or harvesting time. He has one crop a year, totally rainfed. In the winter his wife plants root crops and some vegetables. Asked why he did not resort to borewells, he offers the sophisticated argument that it does not make sense to invest in a pumpset when the holdings are so scattered. Besides, he says, look at Punjab. All the groundwater is gone.

What about irrigation schemes?? A big canal project was launched by Indira Gandhi when she came back to power. Much fanfare, a big occasion. A few years later she was assasinated, and coincidentally, work just died down and stopped. Now even the mud has caved in and in concreted areas, soil has filled the canal.

The discussion leads to corruption. I ask him about Madhu Koda, the infamous former Chief Minister who has set Olympic records in stealing money. He observes sarcastically that Koda will lead a comfortable existence in hospitals and then will be set free. Koda was an independent with no support, no credentials, who was propped up by one party just to deny the other. And this is what happens when you put people without any credentials in positions of power, he says. What about the current government, I ask. He shrugs cynically. They are all the same, he says.

I ask about whether the creation of Jharkhand was a good idea. He was quite happy as a Bihari and now is happier as a Jharkhandi. In the last ten years every village has been electrified. There is a sense that the development machinery is moving. He has nothing good to say about the government of Chez Yadav. Nitish, he says is doing well.

He elaborates that Bihar and Jharkhand are truly blessed. One state has very rich soil and abundant water - if only the politicians stopped stealing money from the PWD the perennial problem of the Kosi overflowing its banks due to upstream dam openings can be solved, he says. The other is rich with forest cover and natural wealth. He says there is no logical reason for the tremendous poverty in these two states.

He learns that I am Tamil, and shares with me that he has driven clients to Tirupur, Coinmbatore, Madurai etc and spent a month there. He confesses Tamil is an alien language to him. I gently tell him that for many Tamils Hindi is as alien a language. He expresses wonder at why so many Tamils learn Hindi, and he displays awareness that in the past the issue of language nearly split the country. He wonders how we stay together as a nation. He tells of taking the Alleppey Express from Alleppey to Bokaro, the number of languages you encounter - Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Oriya, Chattisgarhi and finally the Jharkhand dialect. He speculates that perhaps the fact that we are a Hindu majority nation is the reason why. That, and British Rule I add. He agrees. He says after all they built all the railways that the ministers now exploit. He wanders on to the subject of our leaders just after Independence. He says that after spending so many years in jails, Nehru, Patel etc would have had no experience of government yet they managed to create this nation. He thinks they are great men. If only they had settled Kashmir as well we would not be in the situation we are in today, he says.

By now we are nearing Sion, and I see pictures of the Thakeray family and ask him the obvious question. He then educates me on the economics and politics of labour mobility. He tells me that the average Maharashtrian labourer has high expectations of wages which the local industry cannot bear. He tells me he has heard how China makes everything cheap and exports it, and he says if India has to do the same, work has to go to those who will bear the cheapest wages. Biharis and Jharkhandis will work happily for Rs 5000 a month, whereas the average local labourer will be unhappy. Construction work in Pune and elsewhere has stopped, he says, as labourers flee, and factories are closing. Who will this hurt most, he asks. Biharis will happily go the Tirupur to work in garment factories, he says, and the Tamils dont treat them badly...

I ask him about his son, what he wants him to do. His son is in a mission school run by Jesuits. He is a hostel resident, and the boy has ambitions. Mahesh says that the son will not come back to the land. To earn a living from agriculture means you need to do three crops a year, leave part of the land fallow to recover, invest in fertilisers and inputs, and have access to labour. This is difficult, he says. So when his son gets a job, he will sadly sell the land that has been in his family for generations. I suspect his ancestors got their first "pattas" after the Permanent Settlement.

He offers the sentiment that missionaries get a bad name for doing good work. They do try and convert people, but then where are the free schools run by Hindus, he asks. Religion cannot live on empty stomachs and empty minds, he says.

I sit back in silence as he navigates the tough traffic near Dharavi to get me back to my five star comfort, and ponder this whole exchange. Nothing remarkable has been said, no insights offered. Foreigner as I am now by choice, Indian as I am in my heart, I was quite profoundly struck by how very sane this absolute non-entity of a human being was. How rooted in his sense of self, his self-confidence in his world and in his abilities. Aware of the world and aware of its possibilities.

An ordinary man - ordinary, but a man nevertheless.