Table For Two
I don’t like to travel solo. Living alone has its own charm, but when I have to carry a packet of solitude on my travels, it slightly decolours a lot of experiences. Sure, there is a calmness to sipping a tall glass of iced americano at an empty beach-facing shack, watching the sun tip-toe its way towards its daily dive in the Arabian Sea. But the presence of familiar faces, sharing the same view, possibly experiencing similar emotions, adds a melody to the heart’s rhythm.
Of course, summoning company for a trip isn’t as simple as tapping on a phone screen. Adulthood and life can get in the way. In such times, I turn towards those peculiar things called books. I call them peculiar because I’m perpetually fascinated by their kaleidoscopic qualities. Sometimes, they narrate tales of unknown people and places. Other times, under the glow of a table lamp, they transform into a masterclass of writing, offering a peek into a writer’s mind. And then, they become a social gathering of characters, ready to reveal their layers to a reader.
Wanting to travel light, I ditched the paperbacks and took my Kindle to Goa, loaded with a book I had bought the previous night. It was my first time there, and immersing myself in stories about Goan culture, written by a native, seemed like the next best thing to having a Goan friend come with me.
The first chapter of Susegad opens with a brief history of Goa, then meanders into a contemplation of our frenzied, despondent lifestyles, takes a detour to explore the author’s life in Goa, and finally lands on the keyword itself. Susegad, pronounced Su-say-gaad, is a derivate of the Portuguese word ‘sossogado’, translating to quiet.
It took me less than half a day to grasp what Clyde D’Souza implied when he said that many Goans live by the principles of susegad. Despite its morning flutter and famous nocturnal energy, Goa can be eerily silent in the afternoons. From a bustling weekday morning when I stepped out of my bed-and-breakfast, I returned to find empty streets baking in the sun. Even the vada pav vendor had shuttered his blue trolley and disappeared. Barring the occasional cross-city bus, Taleigao was in deep slumber. My host echoed the same sentiment: summer had moved in with all its luggage, and afternoons were best spent under shade.
I spent the next week heeding his advice. Mornings and evenings could be used for exploration, but afternoons were spent in the comfort of my new Goan friend, thick walls, and an air-conditioner. Partaking in some susegad, if I may be so pretentious. Apart from Clyde’s lovely meditation on Goa and Goans, I polished off one more book over those four-five days. Evidently, one can get a lot of reading done with three uninterrupted hours every day.
Last Saturday, however, I couldn’t spare any such time. That afternoon, even the presence of Naipaul himself in my room wouldn’t have distracted me. It was time for Delhi Capitals vs Punjab Kings — lovely, imaginative names, I know — in the Indian Premier League. To be clear, I don’t have any allegiance towards either. In fact, if I were to attempt writing comedy sketches around the IPL, I’d probably start with them.
But last Saturday, that game was anything but the Circus Derby.
The hardware was already sorted. My otherwise simple bnb had a slick 40-inch television with impressive sound and a cable connection with every channel on the spectrum available. At 3:25 pm, five minutes before the match began, I tuned into the voices of cricket commentators to accompany me through the afternoon.
Rishabh Pant was back playing competitive cricket, fifteen months after a car crash that tore three ligaments on his right knee, left abrasions on the back, and put his legs at a serious danger of amputation. The images from the morning of 30th December, 2022 serve as chilling reminders of the fine line he walked between injury and death.
Mortality is such an unpredictable storm. It could pass by without substantial damage or it could completely tear your world apart. I wonder if anyone is ever fully prepared for it unless their profession — doctors or morticians — confronts it daily. And even then, they might occasionally wobble. I don’t know what one can do other than faintly acknowledge its existence.
It’s been close to five months and I’m still grappling with the loss of my grandmum. Even now, every few days, I find myself wondering how she would’ve reacted to a piece of music I composed or the shakshouka I cooked. An accomplished musician and professional chef herself, she turned into my biggest fan every time I shared anything about my music or my extremely basic culinary experiments. The ODI World Cup was entering its last lap when she moved on. It was some form of distraction and balm, but only fleeting. Time, too, is trickier than what pop-culture quotes make it out to be. It heals, sure, but it doesn’t apply a full protective coating. I’d be going about my day, at peace with the fact that her suffering body had finally found rest, and then a random song would make me tear up. Often, while watching cricket or football, I miss the lively voice of my grandfather, whose ashes I poured into the Ganga nearly seven years ago. He always had an opinion about how aggressive bowlers win games and how football has become too risk-averse. Trust an octogenarian to demand some fizz in his drink.
With celebrity favourites, like athletes, authors, or musicians, I hope for the distance to ideally soften the blow, but so often it doesn’t. My relationship with some of them is so personal and unique, their death feels like losing a part of myself. When KK and Shane Warne passed away with weeks of each other, the distance didn’t matter.
Especially with athletes, the mental preparation becomes complex. We spend so much time watching them execute incredibly difficult things with effortless ease. How does one even associate mortality with those that constantly push the boundaries of physical ability?
Rishabh Pant, at his best and worst, embodies the phrase ‘full of life’. Mischief forms the foundation of his sledging and batting, sometimes radiating exuberance, other times concealing his command over two major skills. You could place him in a one-on-one training session with Sunil Gavaskar and Rahul Dravid, and he would still have the widest grin after ramping a fast bowler for six over the wicketkeeper’s head.
I shudder when I think of that December morning.
That he could come out of it alive was a massive stroke of luck, that he could walk again was a minor miracle, but for him to recover from all the injuries, surgeries, the intense rehabilitation process, and to return to competitive cricket, was a story straight out of Marvel Studios. On 23rd March, 2024, cricket was briefly ancillary. Mullanpur was dry and hot, hardly a poetic setting, but it would get to be the stage for a scene of immense poignancy and significance.
I was hoping for the storytellers to add texture to the visuals. I thought they would bathe us in the golden glow of the moment when Pant made his way to the pitch, donning the same helmet as before, tapping his gloves, eyes first seeking the sun, then darting around, scouting for gaps in the field. I wanted them to speak of the power of narratives that sport can weave, that a scorecard is a mere footnote in sport, that bats and balls are just tools with which athletes enact a part of their lives, and that sometimes those lives veer off in directions that we are not equipped to fully comprehend. I wanted the commentators on Star Sports to inscribe this afternoon into our memories.
My name is Sarthak, but you can call me Idiot McNaive. How can I, after enduring years of these commentators dragging the standards of broadcasting to subterranean depths, expect anything more than banal truisms?
“Somebody is walking out to the crease around rapturous applause, getting a standing ovation. It is Rishabh Pant. I am sure everybody is glued to their TVs today.”
That is, I kid you not, the actual commentary that went out on the world feed during such a significant moment. Enduring a heat-stroke would’ve been less agonising. Just imagine the boundless potential of that moment. There was ample time between David Warner’s dismissal and Rishabh Pant facing his first ball for someone to narrate a brief essay. And yet..
In due course, skilled writers will still manage to craft poignant essays about Pant and his comeback. I’m certain Rahul Bhattacharya and Sharda Ugra have it tucked away somewhere in their drafts, even if they haven’t published it yet. But they, unfortunately, don’t get commentary gigs. In the immediacy of the moment, all we’re left with are those who routinely get to sit behind a mic and gush over the girth of Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s biceps.
The Pant comeback is merely a paragraph in a thesis waiting to be published on the appalling standards of cricket broadcasting in India. Sports broadcasting is a storytelling job. The essence of commentary is to transport the listener to the stadium, to make her feel the batter’s heart-rate spike as a ball zooms past his nose. A deep understanding of the game and a mastery over the nuances of spoken language — the what, when, and how — should be the basic prerequisites for landing a gig.
Yet, a glance at the list of commentators for any semi-major cricket event reveals a lineup filled with mostly male ex-pros, who seem to have little regard for the players, the teams, or the listeners.
Check this out — one of India’s most celebrated cricketers once suggested on commentary that Player X should play more Test cricket for his team. He probably missed the small detail that Player X was, in fact, the captain of his team. Another renowned commentator digressed into a monologue about how his daughter and her friends have blocked him on social media. The list of such instances is longer than the discography of Elvis Presley and Asha Bhosle combined.
Harsha Bhogle often likens a television commentator to a guest in someone’s home. It’s crucial to respect the listeners and make it worthwhile for them to tune in. Harsha may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but you won’t find commentators with his level of thoughtfulness, let alone his craft, in the commentary box. And if I were to delve into the craft, it would warrant a separate essay, and honestly, our time could be better spent watching reels of street vendors making dhokla ice-cream.
My lack of sympathy for subpar broadcasters stems from the fact that they are in a privileged position to become good companions for millions of people. Their job gives them the potential to uplift moods, to enliven people’s evenings. A batter contains a world beyond her batting average. That’s why, when someone like Ian Bishop narrates the entire backstory of a little known youngster from Uttar Pradesh as he faces up to a T20 cricket great, it’s heartwarming. Good research and empathetic narration should be the standard, but it has become a virtue.
Great writers often regard wasting the reader’s time as a cardinal sin.
I sometimes ponder over the purpose of this newsletter. It’s not an existential question probing at why I write or questioning the worth of life, but a functional one. What am I aiming for when I publish an issue? For starters, I hope to chat with you about something cool or interesting from my line of sight. Most times, it is sport, but sometimes it can be other things that grab my imagination, like the background score of the movie Jallikattu. In the process, with each issue, I hope to share a bit of myself with you. There are a million better writers and storytellers on the internet, but if you choose to spend your time with me, even if you’re lounging at a beach shack, sipping iced coffee, I hope I can at least be good company.
If you’re here, and liked what you read, I have one small favour to ask. I am using Medium as an aux-platform, because Melon Rusk stifles the reach of Substack posts on his platform. I publish more frequently on my Substack, so if you could subscribe there, it would be massively helpful. Thanks! :)
