INDIA
By AST Tour Member Greg Tunn
Greg Tunn's autobiography - "A slip of the Tunn" is a collection of tall tales and anecdotes from a very humorous character. It is available for $20 by contacting Greg on gtunn@integritynet.com.au or phone (02) 4385 5627. "India" forms chaper nine of the book.
STEVE WAUGH didn’t make it to India. However, inspired by an Indian Summer of batting led by VVS Laxman, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, I joined forty other cricket enthusiasts on a tour of India in October. With this being the last chapter written perhaps it should be at the end as an Appendix. As far as I know, there are no rules for writing books and you can have an appendix wherever you want to.
The tour was like a school excursion with a similar amount of preparation required. Medical forms had to be completed, visas obtained and other forms seeking information on sleeping, snoring and social habits also to be completed. A vast range of vaccinations was suggested. After a lot of deliberation, I chose to risk the Japanese Encephalitis and settle for a combination Hepatitis A and B with Typhoid as an entrée.
One photo was required for the visa. I tried to explain this at the Photo Express shop but the guy there insisted that his camera could only take eight photos at a time and that I would have to pay accordingly. I think one photo of me is bad enough, eight, all with the required “neutral expression”, was a bit too much. For a roommate I requested a non-smoker and non-snorer. That part was fairly straight forward but finding somebody who stays up late and gets up early wasn’t so simple.
I had always wanted to go to India. Two tours previously, I listened to a ball-by-ball commentary of every test led by Mike Coward and Peter Roebuck. Both commentators love all things Indian and have you feeling the same as they create an atmosphere that is both enthralling and captivating. I had Foxtel for the last series and watched every ball. With the games starting around 3.00 pm, our time, it was perfect to come home from school, jump in the pool for a quick swim and then spend the rest of the afternoon and night watching the cricket. I’ve seen no better cricket, either live or on television, than the day Laxman and Dravid batted throughout the day to set up an unlikely Indian win in Calcutta.
At first I was going to organise the trip myself but not having been there before chose to go on a tour organised by Australian Sports Tours. It was a good decision. Not only did I go to the cricket but I met and enjoyed the company of forty other cricket enthusiasts for three weeks.
The flight to Bangalore, via a three hour stopover in Singapore, took seventeen hours. It was a one book trip. The book I chose to read was another version of Burke and Wills’ expedition to inland Australia. It re-affirmed my understanding of Australian history that Burke and Wills disappeared somewhere near Cooper’s Creek, not as Amy would have you believe in the Watagan Mountains.
The first morning in Bangalore, the IT capital of India and one of its most Western cities, was spent on the mandatory city tour. Like all tours, churches, cathedrals and temples figured predominantly. Early in the tour these were regarded as AFT (Another Fantastic Temple) but after three weeks of such buildings another letter was substituted for the “F”.
Bangalore like all of India is a place of many contrasts. Outside beautiful Western style shops, hotels, colleges and apartment blocks we found people begging and urinating in the streets, but not necessarily at the same time. BMW’s competed for road space with carts, tuk-tuks, buses, trucks and even the occasional cow and elephant. Whatever the form of transport, a loud horn was necessary. Forget about faulty brakes, bald tyres and failing lights – all that is needed in India is a loud, clear, ringing horn. In Australia, the use of a car horn is regarded as a form of “road rage”. In India using the car horn is regarded as a common courtesy, saying “look out – here I come”.
All forms of transport had to negotiate Bangalore’s notorious potholes. The pothole problem was an election issue with Bangalore’s top selling newspaper The Hindu, in a sustained campaign against potholes, having a feature story and picture on page three on the Pothole of the Day. Obviously if Mark Latham had chosen to campaign on potholes he could now be Prime Minister. Bangalore has a rapidly increasing population (even by Indian standards), evident in the number of buildings under construction. There is no high rise, most buildings appearing to be no more than eight to ten storeys. I think this has something to do with the twine and bamboo used for the scaffolding.
Our tour group stayed in the Grand Ashok Hotel, which was also the same place the Indian team was staying for the week. It was advertised as a Five Star Hotel but I think this meant an average of five because Saurav Ganguly would not have tolerated some of the electrical failures, collapsing beds and plumbing problems that we experienced, in his luxurious wing of the hotel. There was continuous speculation during the week whether Sachin Tendulkar would be fit enough to play. He was suffering from a “tennis elbow” type of injury and was to have a fitness test prior to the start of play on the first day. We knew he wouldn’t play. We could see what difficulty he was having each morning trying to eat his Fruit Loops.
The hotel was across the road from Bangalore Golf Club which, no doubt, had a “Royal” title before India’s independence. Golf remains in India a game for the rich and for every person playing each day there would be four to five less fortunates caddying, sweeping greens, raking bunkers, weeding gardens or cleaning tables.
There was an excellent swimming pool and gymnasium at the hotel, which I was able to use each day before losing my swimmers and goggles. I sought help from the pool attendant and tried to explain that in Australian pools and schools there was a Lost Property Box for all left behind swimmers, towels, goggles etc, but he had no idea what I was talking about.
Mark Waugh was included as part of the tour group to provide valuable insights into what we could expect during each day’s play. On the first morning, he told us that India would miss Tendulkar. Mark was an interesting choice as a tour host. He confessed that he didn’t really like watching cricket, didn’t like getting his photo taken and was reluctant to sign autographs. In fairness to Mark, I don’t think he really understood the adulation and awe the Indians have for him and his brother. To sign one autograph would mean to sign three hundred.
Mark was able to arrange for the very respected and popular Indian commentator, Harsha Bhogle, to speak to our group each morning. Harsha was an absolute delight. He lived in Bombay and was staying with his parents while in Bangalore. He was driven to the hotel each morning by his nephew who was apparently practising to get his driver’s licence. The sort of test you would do to get a licence in India is beyond my imagination.
Harsha was one of several media contacts I made during the Bangalore test. I spent the first four days watching the game with Clinton Grybas, host of “Whiteline Fever”, on Fox Footy. Clinton was supposedly on holidays but was in India covering the series for the Southern Cross radio network. Each day, he would take up to thirty calls from stations around Australia for live updates. Before play each day, I would have a chat with Mike Coward, who was writing for The Australian, and was one of the men responsible for me being in India. He was very friendly, approachable and appreciative one day when I was able to correct a story he had already filed for the following day’s paper. He had written that Michael Clarke (photo right), had become only the second Australian to make a century on debut overseas. Harry Graham, who I had never heard of, was the first. When I mentioned that Dirk Wellham had also scored a century on debut in England a quick check was made in Wisden, before a frantic call to Australia to correct the story.
I became somewhat of a media celebrity myself, being randomly selected at the ground for newspaper interviews and appearing on a morning television show. I went to India wanting to met and talk to the people and what better way I thought than appearing on a show with an average audience of twenty million.
The Bangalore test was fantastic with Clarke’s century and local hero Anil Kumble taking his 400th test wicket. Only writers with the skill, of Mike Coward or Peter Roebuck could do justice in describing the atmosphere at the ground. It is certainly beyond any skill I possess. There was a cacophony of noise, starting an hour before the commencement of play and continuing all day. Drums were beating, whistles were blowing and there was even thunderous applause from the thirty thousand excited Indians when the umpires walked onto the field. However, despite being the IT capital of India both the PA system and the electronic scoreboard failed to work on the first day. Each day there was an Indian version of the Mexican Wave. The Indian version was frantic with the crowd impatient to jump from their seat and throw their hands in the air before more conventional applause or drum beating was required. A simple scoring shot for a single would bring the wave to a halt before starting up again the next over. In between waves scribbled messages were written on pieces of cardboard, more for the cameras than the players. One message suggested that Australia would be better off with Mark Waugh in the slips but unfortunately Mark missed the message because he was at the races.
Each day started at 9.30 am with lunch at 11.30 am. A large buffet dinner was provided which we scarcely needed after an even larger buffet breakfast. We got used to it though as we did having to pay 30 rupee ($1) for a seven ounce beer. There was no bar, simply one keg placed in ice with one person pulling the beer and another collecting the money. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were one keg days but Saturday was a three keg day until another keg was delivered to the ground after tea. The test finished shortly before lunchtime on the Sunday, which gave everyone a chance to go shopping. An early finish was anticipated because it was back to a one keg day.
I chose as my shopping partner, Ray Kyatt, an eighty-year-old retired pharmacist from King Island. Despite his age, Ray was the modern day traveller spending time each day in the Business Room going through his E-mails and checking his share prices. He knew a good bargain when it was staring him in the face and spent ten minutes negotiating the price of a silk scarf. Once he had the price of one scarf locked in ,he immediately stunned the salesman, who was delighted to simply have sold one, by then re-negotiating for five, then ten twenty and finally thirty. My understanding of King Island is that it is a cold place, more suitable to woolen scarves, but Ray apparently believed there was a place for a silk scarf stall at the King Island markets.
Ray may have been a modern day traveller but he was from the old school when it came to cricket tactics. He couldn’t understand why Glen McGrath was taking the new ball with only one slip. Ray Lindwall always had four slips he continually told us throughout the day. That night we met the Australian team while they were celebrating but not even a lengthy detailed explanation from Adam Gilchrist could appease Ray.
Bangalore was not all beer and curry. There were down moments, none more than when I arrived home from the cricket one day to find I had been robbed. With things so cheap and most meals included I had been struggling to spend the 27 000 rupees that I arrived with. One hotel house-boy soon solved that problem. The money was in my wallet in a drawer and what was over three year’s wages to him proved to be irresistible. I reported the theft to the local police station. It was very small, made even smaller with twelve policemen presumably discussing India’s chances of saving the test and an elderly lady crawling around the floor trying to sweep between their legs.
I thought it would be a good idea to enquire about licences in India and whether it was possible to lose a licence in a country where there is no apparent speed limit, few rules and definitely no speed cameras. No one loses their licence in India I was later told by a tuk tuk driver in Chennai. Any serious driving indiscretion is overlooked by smiling at the police officer, promising not to do it again and handing over a fifty-rupee note.
The 2nd Test was at Chennai, a forty minute plane trip from Bangalore. This was after spending another forty minutes getting through security and having your ticket checked seven times. That’s how things are in India. Because of the massive population what we see as one job is a job for twenty in India with a twentieth of the wage. Any attempt to browse through a shop would result in twenty eager sales people putting a shirt in your face, in a restaurant there would be twenty all trying to serve you at once and even one of Bangalore’s notorious potholes would require at least twenty people for it to be repaired.
In Chennai, we had the compulsory temple, church, museum tour. Chennai’s roads were a lot better than Bangalore’s and obviously there had been a sustained and successful campaign against potholes in previous years. The temple we were to visit was next to a school and I was happy to forsake my thirty minutes temple time to visit a classroom. There was no six-foot security fence. It was simply a matter of walking in off the street. They obviously hadn’t heard of the “twenty is plenty” campaign in NSW schools because in India apparently eighty is average in a classroom. The children were all sitting on the floor, working on slate boards and paying more attention than most of 5 Tunn.
I’ll remember the Chennai test for two reasons, no beer sold at the ground and for the use of chairs and umbrellas for the batsmen during the drinks break. Surely if anyone needed to sit down during the drinks break it would be the umpires but the 3rd Umpire neglected to look after his colleagues and provided his drinks in the hot sun. It will be remembered as when the role and duties of the 12th man expanded to such an extent that the position of 13th and 14th man had to be created to keep up for the requests for constant drinks and changing gloves and helmets continuously. It could also have been for a great finish but unfortunately the final day was washed out with India needing 200 runs with all wickets intact. It is impossible to forget the amount of noise 30,000 Indians can generate when Sehwag hit a four or Kumble took one of his thirteen wickets for the match. Most of the noise came from beating two plastic bottles together or over the back of a chair in perfect rhythm. Most grounds in Australia have a cooling breeze that blows in around tea time, the “Fremantle Doctor” being an example. Not so in Chennai. Each day around 3.00 pm the “Chennai Stench” would arrive that no doubt sent many people to the doctor. The ground was advertised as being located next to a canal but this was no more than an open sewerage drain. Somehow we became oblivious to the noise, smell and lack of alcohol and enjoyed the experience of watching cricket in India.
Not only was there no beer at the cricket but finding a bar or restaurant anywhere in Chennai that sold beer was next to impossible. On the last night Bernie Moynahan, a very experienced cricket supporter from Melbourne, found one in M.G. Road (every city in India has a Mahatma Ghandi Road). We went there with two girls from Ararat we had met at the cricket. Unfortunately, we were wearing shorts which did not comply with the dress regulations. The doorman, the manager and the 20 people waiting to serve us couldn’t be persuaded to overlook this strict policy and allow us to enter. There was no one in the restaurant and obviously wanting some business the manager suggested that we swap our shorts with the jeans the girls were wearing. He was serious. I was able to get my jeans just above thigh level but with a loose shirt hanging to just below thigh level I was able to, with a certain level of discomfort, satisfy the dress regulations. We spent two hours in the restaurant, moving very little. Only for Sachin Tendulkar would the dress regulations be relaxed said the manager with a smile on his face.
Harsha Bhoglee had no relations in Chennai and was forced to stay in a hotel near the ground. He has the top rating cricket show in India, “Harsha Unplugged” screening at 9.30 pm on Friday night. Top rating in India means about twenty four million viewers. Harsha was doing a segment about the Australian Tour groups and other spectators for a coming show and obviously wanted to feature Mark Waugh. Someone was required to interview Mark. Having a sports show on a Central Coast community station with an average audience of a thousand was more experience than any of my fellow tourists had and so I got to spend ten minutes interviewing Mark Waugh. I had spoken to Mark a lot during the trip but never in front of a camera.
He was an interesting character. At times he appeared to be absorbed and distant, obviously wishing he was back in Australia studying the form guide for the Spring Carnival. I think, and he admitted that he was in love and seven thousand miles away is not the place to be when you’re in love. He said he intended to get married but wasn’t sure of the process and was looking for some guidance. Being ten years older and never married I told him he was talking to the wrong person. He was very open and honest when he was with us but spent a lot of time on his own. Some were critical of this but I could understand being single that you do your own thing and often enjoy being alone which is often misunderstood. He talked about himself, his family, football, school sport, his former teammates and his passion for race horses. He could remember most innings he played for Australia and his dismissals, many of which were very unlucky. One of his greatest disappointments was being overlooked for the NSW captaincy in 2003/4 when he and all the players were very keen for him to do it.
After the Chennai Test we had four days of rest in a beach resort in Kerala before going home. It was a much needed rest for all forty tourists. It was an interesting tour group who were all very experienced travellers and obviously cricket enthusiasts. You needed to be very careful about your facts in any discussion with the depth of cricket knowledge sitting around the bar at any time. The group consisted of many retired couples. There were men who had spent two years mowing lawns and taking daughters to dance lessons enabling them to get away, leaving wives and children behind. There were women who told their husband they were going and to look after the children and iron their own shirts for three weeks. And there were the single men and women like myself. It was an extremely compatible group and during the three weeks we all found ourselves with different company each day for drinks, meals and sightseeing.
The days at the cricket were long, hot and draining, having to negotiate the traffic and people each day. Kerala was a chance for all to reflect on the cricket and India. We all had different memories and stories. All shared a near death experience with a tuk-tuk driver and all had the disappointment of not seeing Tendulkar bat. Some of us though did get to see him fail the Fruit Loop fitness test. Everyone heard Hotel California at least 15 times in Hotel Chennai or Hotel Bangalore or while having tea at the Marari Beach Resort.
India is a country obviously beset with problems – transport, health, education, poverty to name but a few, but most Indians seem to accept their status or position and get on with life as best they can. Whether it is a reflection on the “caste” system or not, they are mostly polite and respectful and any request for help from tired, lost tourists is answered with “No Problem”.
Despite having 365 million living below the poverty line there is a huge number of millionaires in the country. The Marari Beach Resort, where we stayed in Kerala, was for these millionaires, who, like us, spent the day sitting beside the pool waving a yellow flag whenever they wanted a drink or something to eat. You didn’t have to walk too far up the beach to see the contrast that is India today. Village fishermen could be seen pulling their boat out of the water using logs and ropes that would have seemed to be primitive a hundred years ago. Young girls were urinating on the beach while waving and smiling with beautiful white teeth at the same time. How such beauty and hope survive amongst such simplicity and poverty is the mystery of India.
Twenty hours into the trip home I was never traveling anywhere again. Having recovered and spending two days trying to find my car keys, paying bills, mowing lawns, shopping, cooking etc I realised why I travel. The pothole in the driveway can wait for another two years. Friends who have listening on the radio or watching on Fox TV have commented on the noise and atmosphere they have been able to experience seven thousand miles away. Get two plastic bottles, beat them together furiously for six hours, then multiply that noise by 30,000 and you will get something close to the atmosphere. As to how they can recreate the stench and smell, I’ll let them work that out themselves. |
Sachin gingerly poses for a photo, noticably grimacing after getting through his Fruit Loops
Mark Waugh opens the batting as Australia take on a Marari Beach Resort Invitational XI
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