Travelling INDIA with CRICKET
by Michael Roberts
This is a tale about touring India, with cricket as a footnote. It
will disappoint those who expect a story about cricket buffs, with all
their eccentricities, on a tour of this great land in order to watch,
say, the English battle it out with the Indian cricket team.
The India I speak of is RAJASTHAN, though Aurangabad, Ellora, Ajantha,
Fatehpur Sikri, Agra and Delhi also featured in the travels that my wife
and I indulged in during the winter months of January/February 2002. So
our story begins with Udaipur, as magnificent a starting point as anyone
could wish for.
The centre of Udaipur is Lake Pichola with the princely islands of
Lake Palace and Jagmandir adorning its waters, verdant green terrain on
one bank and ranges of dusty hills all around. The old city nestles
along one side. It is dominated by the Maharana of Udaipur's City Palace
and enlivened by a maze of narrow streets bustling with people and
energy as well as a temple cluster of some consequence.
This is the heart of tourism. Our abode was Kankawar Haveli, a small
family run guesthouse along the lake. As with most such hotels there was
a rooftop restaurant that provided scenic views as one enjoyed Indian
repasts and basked in the winter sun, such welcome warmth after chilly
nights.
The term "haveli" is both architectural and social in its meanings,
encompassing the substantial urban mansions that were built by rich
Rajasthani families in the halcyon days of Rajput power during the 16th
to 18th centuries. A haveli generally has at least one stone-paved inner
courtyard and at least three storeys.
It is a complex building with many rooms and passageways. Its
stonework is marked by intricate designs on balustrades, doorways,
capstones and facades. Some walls may be adorned with frescoes.
It would seem that the building form is directed towards retaining
coolness during the intense heat of the summers. But it also serves the
needs of extended patriarchal families where several brothers, their
wives and their progeny may share the lineage house with their parents.
Its now time to move from elite abode to its environs.
Hustle and Bustle
Our move is to movement. The narrow passageways of heartland Udaipur
capture the essence of urban India today, its tumultuous movement, it's
intense hustle and bustle. Three-wheelers, motorbikes, scooters,
cyclists weave, scuttle or jab their way through. Pigs scurry,
pedestrians stroll, dogs meander, cows stand immobile or lazily wander,
forcing more weaving and adjustment on bike and pedestrian alike.
The sounds match the hustle and bustle. Beep, beep, toot toot, the
buzz of many human voices, the piercing announcements of hawkers and
peddlars. "Come look, no buy" from smalltime shop owners or their touts.
This is India, kaleidoscope India, seductive India, sometimes even
grasping India.
It is also colourful India. Rajasthani women in their bright, gaudy
and striking garments, men with headgear in orange, red and yellow as
the case may be, shops with a wide range of textiles that have been
skillfully woven from a range of material in a land famous for its
skilled craftspeople.
And carpets, yes, carpets hung out on display with their striking
tapestry and rich mosaic. So, we have the original mosaic within a land
that expands into a terrain that is metaphorically mosaic in its best
sense.
There is a seamier side, of course. There is dust and grime, lots of
dust and grime. And with cows come cowpats, lots of cowpats. Cowdung
competes with all sorts of rubbish: rags, discarded water bottles, the
flotsam and jetsam of massed urban life. Loads of rubbishy-rubbish. Jarƒ.
These effects are compounded on occasions as bad odours assault one's
senses. The polluted scent of drains that carry sewerage and serve as
loos, the waft of stale urine, yes that's part of` kaleidoscope India.
Craftmanship
But such warts within the urban scene are more than recompensed by
what kaleidoscope India provides as feast for the eyes. Rajasthan has
for centuries been a blossoming centre of exquisite craftsmanship. Such
efflorescence surrounds you. It is inscribed into building form, from
balustrade to archway, to frescoed walls and embellishments of roofs
with cupolas and other artifacts of shape.
And such sculptured skills extend to all forms of material: stone,
terracotta, iron, brasswork, pottery. Whether small or large, oftentimes
these products contain such intricate detail that they provide too great
a repast to absorb as neophyte without trained eye. Truly, the craftwork
is a feast that gathers surfeit.
Their expansive effects even urge me to put pen to paper.
These effects are also filled out by the grandiloquent exuberance of
the large palaces and forts that dominate some urban skylines, centres
of royalty around which the crafts developed in the pre-capitalist era.
Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Jaipur, Kota, Bundi, et cetera, those sites of
Rajput power and magnificence, in individual part as well as greater sum
they add to India's marvel. Whatever their failings, these royal
families also functioned as patrons of the arts and crafts as well as
the martial art of wrestling. They were apical inspirations of
excellence.
Though artfully sustained as semi-autonomous states by the British
colonial power, these royal dynasts were sufficiently Indian patriotic
to jettison much of their political power in 1947 in favour of the
Indian federation, while yet promoting the eventual emergence of the
provincial state of Rajasthan.
They retain their wealth, however, through entire capitalism as well
as entrepreneurial activity as hoteliers and businessmen.
They also remain at the peak of social status in their territorial
domains. None more so than Gayathri Devi of Jaipur, the second wife of
the Maharaja of Jaipur who was widely reckoned to be among the most
beautiful women of her time during her adult prime. The leading men
continue to serve the interests of state, the great Indian state. In
keeping with their Rajput martial traditions, many serve as military
officers. The present Maharaja of Jaipur is High Commissioner for Brunei
and, in keeping with his honour, works for the princely salary of Rs 1/
per month. Noblesse oblige.
Thank you, Sanath and Company
The joys of our Indian journeys were also embellished by the amiable
networks of cricket. At least three trishaw drivers told me they admired
Sanath Jayasuriya immensely. These unsolicited remarks occurred after
they discovered that I was Sri Lankan. Indeed, to say "Sri Lankan" was
often enough to draw a warm smile (and perhaps a comment "I thought you
were Indian").
In brief, "Sri Lanka" carried the potential to open doors to lighten
our paths. It certainly produced a few small favours such as free
telephone calls purely on the strength of kin sentiment. But more than
these pragmatic benefits what it brought was a common point of interest
and a focus of conversation: CRICKET. One could while away an evening or
night debating the merits of this or that cricketer with young
well-spoken shopkeepers or travel agents.
I could lounge lazily in their little shops and watch India play
England or Australia, New Zealand and South Africa contest each other.
Cricket then was cream on the sumptuous Indian cake. Its ready
availability added the sort of spice that is not available to a tourist
in, say, Turkey, Malawi or USA. It was available too in the excellent
English-media newspapers of India and within the admirable Sportstar.
So it was that I could follow the Under 19 World Cup in New Zealand
and the ODI series in Australia with the sort of narrative detail I
require. To cap it all, the Times of India gave me access to Rohit
Brijnath's crisp and exuberant accounts, in cultivated brilliance, of
the Australia Open tennis engagements. We travelled India with yet
another jewel to crown our tour.
|