Dil se Delhi Man se Mumbai

“You don’t engage in Delhi-Mumbai argument as vigorously as others from Delhi do!!” said one of my friend’s friends. For a moment, I felt ashamed for not having rooted for Delhi, in an argument as to which of the two is a better city to live in.

Just as I was about to tell her how pathetic I found the locals, that I do not understand why people are so crazy about that Wada-Pau, that I do not like to sweat so much, that I don’t see any greatness in running around like mad for entire day and night, that I hate pronunciation of “RE” at every possible place in the sentence etc etc……. my Mumbaikar (Mumbaiya) friend chipped in, “he’s not a Delhite, he is a Gujju.”

This is the first time I felt as if a part of my being was torn away. Something very personal to me was snatched away. I had spent two years in Delhi, and really loved the place a lot. I thought myself very much as a Delhite.

Gulping this feeling, I came back home. However this little encounter made me think about the question which is a root to many heated debates, which is a better city? Delhi or Bombay?

Personally speaking, I miss Delhi. I know the reason for this is largely because of the fact that life there was surrounded by great friends and college was also great fun. Bombay on the other hand is another field. Here the people I interact with are mostly my colleagues. Friendships may develop over the time but “usme woh baat kahaan?” feeling will always be there for these colleague-friends.

In addition to fond memories, Delhi also ranks ahead in terms of the public transport. “Delhi Metro Rocks, Mumbai local sucks” was a message I sent one day to one of my friends while travelling here in locals. Arguments can be made for the kind of load that Locals take each day, but believe me efficiency can never be a substitute of discipline and good ambience. Delhi also feels lot more spacious as compared to Bombay. For those who relish space, there is no better place than Delhi.

If reading this much makes you think I am trying to be an ardent Delhite, hold your horses. Despite its all seemingly unpleasant characteristics, I find Mumbai too quite cool. One of the most important thing, different from Delhi, is that this city is run by market power and not political power!! Everything is so easily accessible and available, at its price. This fact is as risky as it is wonderful. Bombay is brimming with opportunities; there is something here for everyone. Another aspect where it ranks ahead of Delhi is overall safety of citizens. The city makes one feel at ease, at home.

Bombay and Delhi, the two biggest cities of our nation are indeed different, reasons I like them are also different. However one strand of similarity can be found from the fact that both these cities is the fact that both gives one an opportunity to meet people from entire country, entire world perhaps. And this challenging fact makes life so very interesting!

Book Review - Chinaman the Legend of Pradeep Mathew

“I find myself in the same position as the internationals who dared tour apartheid South Africa in 1980s. I am universally shunned.” This line best describes the storyteller of this novel. W.G. Karunsena is an old cynic, sports journalist.

He has been fired from three magazines, ridiculed by his peers, distrusted by his wife and disappointed by his son and has a diminishing life (thanks to alcoholism). Yet the fact remains, he too has a story to tell. And it is a story that, I bet will interest many of us.

W.G. Karunasena (henceforth, WG) is obsessed by the miraculous and mysterious character in Sri Lankan cricket, Pradeep Sivanathan Mathew. According to him, Mathew was the greatest spin bowler their country had ever produced. However, the mystery begins when there is not a single record available against his name. It looks like this character has been purposely deleted, erased and rubbed off from the canvas of Sri Lankan cricket. What could be the reason behind this? Was it due to his unbridled and brash attitude, his lack of fitness, involvement in match fixing or was it something hereditary?

His father was a Tamil and mother Sinhala. That too in a nation which has seen havocs in the name of differences between these two sets of people.

Ever wondered why we call ourselves world champion, despite the fact that all we have won is matches against just handful of countries!!!

Perhaps a sport has a great role in the way people of the nation see themselves. It is a defining part of any nationality, especially so if you are hailing from subcontinent and if the sport you love starts from C!

This fact has played out significantly in the novel, which in its search of this mysterious, mythical genius reveals certain aspects of the social-political and national structure of Sri Lanka. During these descriptions we find that Sri Lanka has some strong similarities with India when it comes to the social texture.

Nagging relatives, craving for social approval, bomb blasts, fear of both the makers and breakers of law, father-son differences, sacrifices for friends, cynicism for the system and last but the most, craze for cricket!!! We are indeed very similar.

WG breaks out of all these vagaries of day to day life through his passionate and poignant hunt f Mathew. It is through this search that he finds himself also. He anticipates his end, and plans last few months of his life extremely well. Despite all the planning, he could only achieve 2 out of the 10 things that he wanted to do before his death. His son, Garfield, sees it and thinks that he can improve the score to at least 5 out of 10 for his dead dad. (Another similarity to India).

The story ends in Garfield, finally meeting the master called, Pradeep Mathew, and writing his story fully. He even gets it published despite scheming and plotting by the Sri Lankan cricket board and politicians.

Since the narrator is a drunkard some parts of story make reader feel dislocated at times, but in the end it seems that this dislocation was by choice and not by design.

In the end, I was unable to conclude if this was a story of the old man who gave street cricket in Sri Lanka something that it always lacked, in the form of accurate LBW decisions. Or it is a story of a man who gave Sri Lankan national cricket team what it always lacked, self belief, aggression and brashness and made them the real lions.

I was also unable to conclude if the man called Pradeep Mathew ever existed, who was right in the tussle between WG and his son Garfiel, did Johnny, a Brit and WG’s friend actually sodomized kids in Sri Lanka, was WG a mad man….. the list of inconclusive is long,

But one thing that I could conclude was that,

if the sweetest sound you've ever heard is leather on willow, if some of the most exciting moments of your life have consisted of watching a five-day match end in a draw, if the most important question around the partition of the subcontinent is "who would have made it into Undivided India's cricket team in any era?", if your mind keeps returning to that one extraordinary spell by a bowler (say, Mohammad Zahid to Brian Lara at the Gabba, 1997) who, for one reason or another, couldn't hold his place in the national side, if no amount of scandal and venality within the game can keep you from spending weeks or even months living in a different time zone from the one in which you're physically present – then this book could be the best thing to happen to your life since the Ashes/World Cup/away series win against the best team in the world[1].

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[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/07/chinaman-shehan-karunatilaka-review?INTCMP=SRCH