My father’s relationship with golf could seem unhealthy to the outside world. To us, who witnessed it over the years, it probably didn’t hit us immediately. There were all the investments. Clubs being brought by relatives from the U.S., balls being brought by my brother from the U.K. and in the early years a large collection of golf books. There were also the classes. I walked in on him once deep in meditation. Just as I was tiptoeing out, I heard a voice from his computer go “And now…. your swing plane will be ideal”
My god he has a golf Shaman.
The biggest symptom was of course the time spent arranging, getting to, and playing games. Multiple mornings you could see him waking up before 5 a.m. to get to the golf course in time. I can imagine a birder tracking his movements.
“The Sridhar, a bird of the family Ramanujam, is a morning bird. It has more elaborate calls than other birds (“Bugger!” “Cheers!” and the occasional “Relaxing Milkha Singh”). It has a short attention span and is usually found near watering holes carrying Single Malt. Like many Tamilian birds, the Sridhar is partial to curd. 5 to 5:30 a.m. is the golden hour to observe its migratory pattern to the golf course, somewhere before Dairy Circle.”
This investment was the most pronounced at this one phase where bookings for games would open at 3:30 a.m. They were open online and offline. Some of the members had conveniently relied on friends and family abroad to make this booking at a reasonable hour in their geography. My father and his fellow titans of industry were unable to figure out how to do this online. Their work around was to have my father drive there at 3:30 a.m. to physically book the slot.
“Bloody NRI bastards” he fumed to me as he laced his shoes up. I was catching him on his way out, on my way in after a night out drinking.
I’d later find out from my mother he would book the slot and then sleep in his car in the parking lot for a few hours before his game started! Finally, the mosquitoes motivated him to walk to the coffee shop of the hotel next door, the next few times he had to do this. What motivates this madness? I’ve seen other people play golf, but I have seen this same strain in just a few people like my father. Those who were replacing a sport with golf. Some of them were big on Badminton or Tennis. For my father, it was his first love, Cricket.
He had spent the better part of his school and college years playing. This would continue with the bank that he worked with and when he did his MBA. Even when my brother and I were very young, some of our outings were to go along with him as he would play a cricket match organised by the ad club. And of course, constantly watching the game when feasible. My brother took to the sport a lot more than I did. It was even something that other adults had noticed about him.
There were two things my father would enjoy doing with us if we were sitting together and had time to kill. The first was mental maths.
“What’s 38 x 21”
My brother would blurt out the answer as I was still mentally calculating 40 x 21 and deducting 2 x 21. The other was to test my brother’s knowledge of cricket statistics. Even at the age of eight, he could have been produced before a doctor because he gave the impression of having swallowed a Wisden Almanack. It could be at home or an office party. You’d find him seated at a table while sipping 7up (Citra if he was feeling wild) and enlightening adults on facts they didn’t know.
“Well actually, Border’s batting average of 55.11 is exceeded only by one other Australian”
“It’s Boon..”
“Yes, my knowledge is quite the gift. Thank you.”
“...”
My dad also got us started on playing the game. The house we were staying in for some time had a long driveway which we could play cricket on. He would dutifully bowl to the two of us and the kid who lived next door. Both my brother and the neighbour's kid seemed to pick it up faster than me. The neighbour’s kid even used to threaten to bite you if you got him out. Intense.
But he made an effort for us to improve our game as well. We got bats, balls, and cricket books for kids. He had also rigged up a cricket ball, tied to a rope in the garage. We were meant to keep hitting the ball back and forth in that darkened room. It was almost like he was preparing me for middle management in a large corporation.
It was fairly clear that my brother had a better eye for the ball. I had fashioned myself to be a bowler. We would go on to join a cricket coaching camp. It was held every summer and we would head there bright and early every day to practise or to play a match. But we weren’t a part of the same camp. If I remember, you had Junior, Intermediate, Senior, and time-to-buy-Gillette camps and luckily for me my brother and I never overlapped in any of these. Having bought a full kit and a set of cricket whites at Olympic Sports, we embarked on our journey of taking over the cricket world starting with the kingdom of Jayanagar 7th block.
I have faint memories of the actual drills that we used to do but I came away with life lessons that are applicable even today. I remember one day when we reached at 6.30 a.m. and had begun to do drills. About 15 minutes in, the assistant coach got a message that he was urgently required and cancelled that day’s session. Rahul Dravid would have continued to practise and locked the gate on the way out (after levelling the field). Sagar and friends decided we should get juice down the street along with idli-vada. Once we were done, they all walked back home when I realised I was five kilometres away and done two hours early.
I walked to the palatial house opposite the cricket ground. It could have been out of any South Indian movie in the ‘80s barring the lack of a Doberman that hated poor people.
“Auntteeeeeee”
“WHO THAT. MORNING MORNING DISTURBING?”
“Sorry aunty, I need to call my mother to pick me up.”
She relented and let me in to use the landline that was next to the door. I called my mother, smiled, and thanked her as I turned around to head to the gate. After 30 seconds of being stationary, I realised she was pulling on the other end of my cricket kit.
“50 PAISA KODU”
“.....”
Lesson 1
Pay your dues (Too bad Vijay Mallya didn’t go to my camp)
I did learn a fair bit on the pitch as well. I had fashioned myself as some sort of pace bowler. At this age, I didn’t have the muscle to produce pace. But it was the glory days of rasam-rice fed pacers like Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad. This even my coach told me.
“Pace will come and pace will go man. Line and length. That only main.”
Line and length were my north star. I would practise all the components that he had told me about. The first being a consistent run up. I chose ‘Start 37 degrees west of the pitch and imitate Salman Khan doing a straight sober walk and end with a convulsion.’ CHECK. The second being a consistent delivery: ‘Right bicep must graze your right ear as you deliver the ball’. No biceps but CHECK.
And the most important being aim. Do drills where you try to land the ball on the same spot on the pitch every time. The one that I remember was me bringing a one rupee coin every day that I would put on the pitch to mark the spot. I don’t remember my aim being super accurate but I know that the wicketkeeper some years ago bought a three bedroom flat on Kanakapura road.
Lesson 2
Persistence pays (especially for Sagar itsims, bastard)
This is just a small excerpt from one of the chapters of my next book, One and half.
What’s it about?
More humour like this on topics ranging from cricket to crypto, spread across 3 decades with the most visible character in most chapters being Bengaluru.
When is it releasing?
Like a Vijay/Ajith Movie, I am hoping to do a Deepavali release. Google informs me this is November 12th. My mother is informing me that “YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS WITHOUT GOOGLE NO”
What does this mean?
I am putting out something that as per publishers is as attractive as Delhi AQI during Diwali but hopefully the hundreds of you who read this feel differently.
Where can you buy it?
It will be available on Kindle and Paperback in India, the U.S, Canada, the UK and a bunch of other countries. Stay tuned here for the launch!
Tell your friends about this newsletter
Tell the people you are not friends with also. Share my newsletter like its a Whatsapp forward about Unesco rating anything remotely Indian as “Number one best in the world mama”