|
Karan Johar,
get another job. They don't make Indian mothers from Nirupama Roy-prototypes
anymore. The modern variety is like mine, who takes a phone from Port
Elizabeth and responds to inquiries about her health with, "I'm okay.
How can they say Sachin was ball-tampering? Arre, this must be costing
you money. Bye."
Of all things that happen on assignment, nothing is worse than being
sandbagged by your own mother at 7:30 a.m. Until that moment, Port Elizabeth
had produced a familiar script of Indian touring ineptitude. Then Mike
Denness decided to drop a grenade in the henhouse.
 The
demands of a weekly mean that gunshot reactions take a back seat to cool
analysis. But cool was to be found only in Antarctica, and analysis was
overtaken by nationalistic outrage. Rumours flew at the speed of sound.
"He did it," hissed the India camp, as ex-player and pathological
India-baiter Pat Symcox walked smugly by, accused of asking TV cameras
to zoom to Tendulkar's hands.
 Then
there were the players: Virender Sehwag looking like he wanted to drown
in his shallow bowl of cereal. Tendulkar clattering up a flight of stairs
at St George's Park, replying to questions with a grin and shrug. The
moment the BCCI took over, the team exhaled and opinions came in a flood:
"Oye, Denness must have been thinking, yaar how come no one is talking
about me?" It took two days of talk, oaths of confidentiality, reading
of cricket's codes, and an all-night shift on the computer for four pages
on crimes and punishment. Then came the day before the third "Test",
enshrined as Traumatic Thursday. It began with an avalanche of threats
to withdraw from the tour (BCCI), appeals to stay (UCB) and rumblings
of anarchy (ICC). The death sentence came at 7 p.m. local time, 10:30
p.m. India. "It's cover." It is India Today's version of the
air-raid siren and it means scramble, scramble, scramble. With a few hours
to deadline, all you can do is communicate pure panic down the phone and
appeal to the kindness of sources. They were merciful. "President
Mbeki, he had to step in," said one at dinner, after his partner
had grudgingly passed on his cell phone. It was back to the computer,
another night shift and the satisfaction of knowing, so what if you were
falling asleep on the keyboard, there were people in India doing the same,
waiting for the pearls of wisdom the temperamental laptop was reluctant
to produce. No one would ever say to me again: "A cricket tour? My
God, aren't you the lucky one!"
 
|
Register Now 
CURRENT
ISSUE DEC 31, 2001
){kind=link}