#
There is this glip takedown of a saying, there are two kinds of people in the world, those
#
who think there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don't.
#
I am wary of generalizing, but I will add to this list of false dichotomies by speculating
#
that there might be two kinds of people in the world, those given to self-reflection
#
and those who do not reflect on themselves.
#
Now there is obviously a continuum between the two, so it is perhaps better to talk of
#
the tendency to self-reflect, which exists in a lesser or greater degree in most people.
#
When I was younger, I was not given much to self-reflection, I never got meta about myself
#
I was sure of the talents I had, blind so often to my good fortune, unaware of how my
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character was shaped so often by things outside of me, even unaware of my own character.
#
I didn't think about why I wanted what I wanted and why I reacted to events around
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I'd like to think that I know myself a bit better now than I did then, but perhaps not
#
And in life, I see people who do no self-reflection at all and those who do examine themselves
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and in doing so, can point me to truths about myself as well.
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That is why I love reading memoirs, a good memoir by definition is a reflection on the
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self and that's true of the wonderful memoir written by my guest today.
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This is also why I love being able to have the long conversations that I have on this
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Most of my guests trust me enough to open themselves up to me and to speak without filters.
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And most of the time, they give me a lot to think about, even after they've gone home
#
and the mics are off and all is silent.
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Have you also felt that way?
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Welcome to The Scene in the Unseen.
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My guest today is a legendary cricket journalist and editor, Pradeep magazine.
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When I started off in cricket journalism in the early 2000s, Pradeep was already one of
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the most respected figures in the game and was sports editor of the Hindustan Times.
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I didn't get to know him too well in those days, but I heard a lot about how he kickstarted
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the careers of so many young writers by giving them jobs and mentoring them, teaching them
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In the decades before this, he had been a fearless cricket writer, writing a book on
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match fixing that began in 1997 and came out in 1999.
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And you'll remember, the match fixing scandal really broke in 2000.
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He was so far ahead of his time.
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The book he wrote then was called Not Quite Cricket.
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His latest book, which I love reading, is called Not Just Cricket, A Reporter's Journey
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It has all the qualities of a good memoir, it has self-reflection and it tells a story
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not just of the writer, but also of the times he lived in.
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It gave me a lot to think about, not least of which was the role of serendipity in our
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I'm sure you'll enjoy the conversation as much as I did.
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But before we get to it, let's take a quick commercial break.
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Do you want to read more?
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I've put in a lot of work in recent years in building a reading habit.
#
This means that I read more books, but I also read more long-form articles and essays.
#
There's a world of knowledge available through the internet.
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But the problem we all face is, how do we navigate this knowledge?
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How do we know what to read?
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How do we put the right incentives in place?
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Well, I discovered one way.
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A couple of friends of mine run this awesome company called CTQ Compounds at CTQCompounds.com,
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which aims to help people up-level themselves by reading more.
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A few months ago, I signed up for one of their programs called The Daily Reader.
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Every day for six months, they sent me a long-form article to read.
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The subjects covered went from machine learning to mythology to mental models and marmalade.
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This helped me build a habit of reading.
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At the end of every day, I understood the world a little better than I did before.
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So if you want to build your reading habit, head on over to CTQCompounds and check out
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New batches start every month.
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What's more, you get a discount of a whopping 2,500 rupees, 2,500 if you use the discount
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So head on over to CTQCompounds at CTQCompounds.com and use the code Unseen.
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Pradeep, welcome to The Scene in the Unseen.
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Thank you for having me here on your podcast.
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It's such a pleasure seeing you after so many years.
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I was on that tour of Pakistan in 2006, and we kind of traveled as part of the same contingent
#
And I really loved reading your book, especially the parts of it which are personal and which
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go beyond what you know.
#
Like at a professional level, we know about it, but just sort of to go back to your childhood
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to learn about how once you were a cricketer and you were a ferocious hitter, it seems.
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So it's refreshing to learn that.
#
And I want to start by talking about something that you mentioned just before this recording
#
began, where when you were asking me about my podcast, I was talking about how it's
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probably changed me as a person or maybe age has done that in the sense that I am less
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judgmental of people, I am a better listener, I am much more open.
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And then you mentioned that had you written this book 10 years ago, you would have been
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more judgmental, it would have been different, so on and so forth.
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So I'd like you to elaborate on that a little bit, that in what ways do you think with the
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passage of time, have you changed as a person and what role has sort of this book or just
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a passage of time as it were played on that?
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Well, yes, look, if you look at my first book, Not Quite Cricket, which had to do with my
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experiences as a cricket reporter with what I saw regarding match fixing and it's again
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a kind of a eyewitness account and oral kind of a history.
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There is a lot of anger in that I realized when I see that book, I realized that I come
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from a point of view which is very judgmental and which is even angry like, look, I thought
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a world would be like this and when I entered that world, there is so much of wrong things,
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so much of corruption and everyone else is to be blamed except for me in a way.
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This book came I think 20 years later, much older, I would think much wiser if that's
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the right word to use and let me say that I of late, a few years before even I started
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this project, I got deeply involved with Buddhism and that too, it just happened that one day
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suddenly I thought I'm going to die, this feeling of fear.
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This fear struck me, I was more than 60 and out of the blue I became a different man.
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It seems like depression had gripped me, I couldn't enjoy anything and it lasted for
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a very, it was a brief period and my daughter suggested that why don't you do some meditation
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and she found out there is a Toshita center here which is Dalai Lama and at various places
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they have these meditation centers.
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So I went there and more than meditation which obviously has a calming influence, the whole
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Buddhist thought of philosophy of causes and conditions and all human beings basically
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want to be happy and emptiness and that slowly changed me, that slowly made me realize that
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whatever one does, whatever evil or good, there are reasons behind this, it's not as
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if a person does it, just it gets gripped by an evil thought and he said I will do this
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thing wrong or I will do this right.
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There are conditions in which a person is born and those conditions influence him, he
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influences those conditions around him and that's how a human being interacts with the
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world or the world interacts with that person.
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So that made me less and less judgmental and when I started writing this book, every time
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I would sit to write, I would calm myself down with a bit of meditation and then tell
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myself that look though it's my memoir and obviously these are my memories, they will
#
be colored by my judgments but let me at least try my best not to be accusatory, not to blame,
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just to see things as from a distance.
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So I think I tried that and I don't know if I succeeded or not but a lot of people feel
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that yes, one of the strengths of the book is that it's not judgmental despite the fact
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that there is so much in it which could have been like, I could have taken very strong
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stance that this is wrong or this is right.
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So yes, it has helped me.
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Being non-judgmental has also helped me to understand things better.
#
I think that's been one of the major factors which in a way I have changed.
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I think I have changed a lot in the sense that I don't straightaway see a person and
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say that, oh, I don't like him, I don't like his.
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I may not like what he's saying but I try to understand why he's saying that and yeah,
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Do you think that we sort of live in more judgmental times today because what I kind
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of see around me is that one, of course, our public discourse is much more polarized but
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there is also this tendency today to automatically treat someone who disagrees with you as a
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bad person, especially when it comes to political discourse on Twitter and so on.
#
The assumption is that if there is someone who disagrees with you, their character is
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bad and part of this is, of course, what happens within the discourse where the incentives
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People go online, they find their ideological tribe of choice and then they are trying to
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raise their status within the tribe by posturing in whatever ways they do and one of the ways
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of doing that is that you attack people on the other side and you attack people on your
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own side for not being pure enough and you're always passing judgment and you're always
#
looking at people and not arguments and we lose nuances here.
#
We lose nuances like whenever I bring guests on the show with every guest, I try to first
#
learn more about how they are as human beings and then we can talk about their ideas because
#
then I think one becomes more receptive to their ideas that even if you disagree, at
#
least you understand a little better that this is coming from here, this is the place
#
So do you think that in modern times the way the discourse is that has become very shrill,
#
you know, even perhaps the fan discourse around cricket maybe, you know, that has become shrill.
#
People are just shouting more and perhaps earlier the times were a little gentler in
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the sense that, I mean, of course it would be gentler because many less people had a
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voice which is not a good thing.
#
It's a great thing that so many more people have a voice today, but is this something
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Well, I think A, I would say I'm not very sure how much of the social media, which obviously
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is very divided, very shrill, very accusatory.
#
I mean, some of the language which is used is not done like people are threatening someone
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who doesn't agree with their worldview.
#
But is that social media reflective of the world we live in, I mean, or is that social
#
media space limited to certain people?
#
But we think that's the world around us.
#
A, one, because I go to play in the mornings, I go to the stadium and meet a lot of people.
#
I don't see that world as shrill and as angry and I mean, I meet people, they have their
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I may disagree with them.
#
I still find that those people are, maybe they are older people.
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Maybe my interaction with younger people is limited to social media and then you have
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I mean, you watch TV news and I'm sure if you are a healthy man, you should be advised
#
not to watch it because they kind of manipulate you and they want you to get angry because
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they want you to get involved and so this shrillness is obviously bound to affect more
#
It is affecting more and more people.
#
As I was saying that I interact with the older people, say in the park or wherever I go to
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But I guess it must be difficult to interact with the world which is younger, which is
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more prone to formulating opinions on the basis of social media or WhatsApp groups.
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So that world, whether it is heading towards more and more anger, like we were just now
#
discussing about calmness and about non-judgmental, now this is a world where if you don't have
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a judgment and if you don't have a judgment which is aggressive, which is like on your
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face, which is accusatory, I don't think that person will think that I belong to this world.
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He has to say, no, you are wrong.
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But yes, from thinking from my space or from us shared space, it looks a bit scary what
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No, but the question you asked is a really good one that is a world really like this.
#
With social media, what I described really is a vocal minority.
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I think the silent majority is not like this and they are the kind of people we encounter
#
And to one extent, the reason they are the silent majority is the reason they are silent
#
is that they want to avoid the shrillness and they want to avoid being attacked for
#
saying anything at all, which is kind of what social media is like these days.
#
But moving on to more pleasant subjects from a time before this existed, you know, tell
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me about your childhood.
#
I loved reading your opening chapter and in a sense, at the end of your book, you go back
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to the theme, but your opening chapter where you talk about 200 magazine house, Karan Nagar,
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But tell me a little bit about your childhood, what you remember of it.
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What was it like growing up?
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It's difficult going back in time.
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I realized when I was doing the book, it's, it's, it's, I mean, you have so many memories
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and you pick and choose and you, my childhood in Srinagar, look, I lived there for, as a
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child, I was there only for five, six, six, six, seven years after that, because my father
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had a transferable job and not that I used to go back to Srinagar, my grandparents and
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other relatives were there.
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So every summer we would be back in Srinagar.
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So my memories are very pleasant memories and I mean, I'm sure every child would have
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similar memories of playing of, of, of the mother, especially I was very much attached
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Most of the kids are, you would feel the world begins and ends there with your mother.
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If your mother is not there, the world is a fearful place.
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If your mother is there, it's such a peaceful and wonderful place.
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And it's only when I look back from later, when I looked back at my childhood and realized
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the significance of, of people who are living in places where there is, there is a conflict,
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although at that time that conflict was not on surface, yet there was a society where,
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which was a divided society.
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I mean, we, the Kashmiri Hindus, minorities, but well off, doing well in life, most mostly
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in government jobs and, and the majority Muslims, our interaction was as I described in the
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book also a little bit limited to their being as domestic helps, not allowed in the kitchen
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as I said, because my grandparents, my grandmother and other elderly aunts were very, very conservative
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and Muslims were not supposed to enter the kitchen.
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They were very particular about it and, and, and the kind of impressions it must have formed
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in my mind, though I wonder why I remained the way I have, maybe because of my father,
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my mother itself, she was, she was not superstitious.
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She, she, she embraced others, if you, if you can say that.
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So I had a childhood, which I know it wasn't anything different from, I think, childhood
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I think where I, I had a, like most of the people have many migrant experiences, I would
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At seven, eight from Srinagar to Haryana, then from there, after four or five years
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to Punjab, then Punjab to, especially in North, but these were different cultures.
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I think that probably, I think, built a kind of a complex in me, maybe a kind of an insecurity.
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I mean, you don't, if you are in a secure, like if I was at home in Srinagar with my
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same language, same culture, secure environment, from there to be plucked out and put in a
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place where you don't understand the language, you are a small kid, even your parents don't
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know what's happening around.
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I mean, they, they, they are interacting with the world, which is a different world from
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So what would a child impressions be?
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I'm sure it, it, it would, it would affect his, the way he would interact with the world.
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I was a very reserved person till probably in the profession I started drinking.
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I mean, it was only when I used to drink, I would open out with people, otherwise I
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would always be, and this feeling was always in me that am I good enough to compete with
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Am I good enough in profession?
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So, so this migrant experience, I think I was lucky in a way I was in a profession which,
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which helped me to travel around the world.
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So I could, could see these migrant experiences across, especially Indians in, in West Indies,
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in England, in Australia, in Pakistan, partition people who, Muslims who went from here, they
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have a, a, a, an incident, an episode there of, of meeting someone who had gone to Pakistan
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in 47 and how miserable and unhappy had been there.
#
So I, I think this whole rootlessness and this whole desire to somehow find an anchor,
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I think maybe it's a human desire, maybe it's a human emotion, which it, it tries to sustain
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itself that no, there is, there is a past which I can hold on to.
#
And this kind of a struggle to hold on to a past, to find a past in my travels, in my
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own personal experience, I think that's probably played a role in, in, in, in my being what
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And as I said that had I not in the last few years been influenced by my Buddhist teachings,
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in a way you can say that I have at least at the moment found an anchor at something
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which I, I can hold on to and, and, and feel, feel the world isn't all that bad a place
#
So many things I want to double click on here, but for, for a moment I'll sort of digress
#
from the biographical path, which I want to come back to and talk about and ask you a
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Like there's a lovely paragraph you've written about your father, Kishan Lal Ji, where you
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write quote, I considered my father to be a recluse as he barely interacted with us,
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but in rare moments of conviviality, he would always tell us that Gandhi and Nehru were
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leaders with great vision, who believed in religious harmony and peace and fought for
#
social justice and equality.
#
I still wonder where he and many others around him had acquired this deeply pluralistic worldview,
#
living as they were in an orthodox and conservative environment, where suspicion of the other
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was cloaked in civility and the fear of the unknown lurked in the shadows, stop quote.
#
And this last sentence is so, speaks so deeply to me because one of the sort of ways in which
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a scale has sort of fallen off from my eyes and something that I didn't see, I think I
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now see is in the fundamental nature of our society.
#
Like I grew up in a sort of a elite English speaking bubble where you, which, you know,
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has a broadly pluralistic secular view of the world and you imagine ki India aise hi hai
#
and to some extent, yeah, India, we've assimilated everything, we are a delightful khichri of
#
cultures and languages and all that.
#
So at one level, yeah, but at another level, the divisions that we see in our society today,
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the bigotry and the sexism that we see in our society today, the casteism has always
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been there and has been extremely deep rooted.
#
Like I did an episode with Akshay Mukul, who wrote this great book on the Gita Press, which
#
sort of reveals that our society has always been like this, but it's always been lurking
#
below the surface in the words that you used here, cloaked in civility, right?
#
And so what has happened now is not that a toxic politics has created a toxic populace,
#
but rather it's the other way around, that your toxic politics is supply responding to
#
demand and our society has always been like this and now it has finally found expression.
#
What are your thoughts on this?
#
Like has our society always been like this?
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Were people like your father and yourself, were we the exceptions always, were we the
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outliers or are there ebbs and flows and this is just how it is?
#
What are your thoughts?
#
Well, I think it's quite a complex question and my response probably may be also complex.
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I mean, in a way, yes, my experiences with my relatives, with the people I have grown
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up with has been that they beneath the surface have always been deeply conservative and what
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has been unleashed now in public was their worldview right from the beginning.
#
It's only that the political environment was not encouraging for them to come out openly
#
and say that yes, they believe in their superiority of the religion, that's also okay even if
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you think your religion is very superior, but the belief that the other religions are
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inferior and it's my religion is the only religion which can teach civility to people.
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I've seen that in my childhood, one of the memories I describe in the book is of one
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of my uncles getting furious at that one Hindu girl has married a Muslim or there is a dispute
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that has she married or was she abducted or did she elope and the kind of anger which
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was on display even as a child, still some of that memory has remained in my mind, that
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anger, that image of my uncle getting so furious and angry.
#
See I also have had unlike a lot of my friends, later friends who have as you say that we
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so-called liberals have been educated in public schools and I had this mix.
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I had one year in a public school in Srinagar, then Yamuna Nagar, Panipat, this whole absence
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of proper public schools, I would probably have also had the same experience, but I think
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I'm lucky that I didn't have that experience.
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I had my schooling in Panipat in a pure Hindi medium school which was steeped in the very
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conservative Indian traditions with all class consciousness being there as I do describe
#
So those experiences of mine, I mean I probably must have been soaking in a world which wasn't
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as liberal as a lot of my friends later would.
#
I mean I remember till a long period of time the reference points of my friends who were
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public school educated were very different from my reference points.
#
I mean I wasn't schooled in or I wasn't taught about the western music, I wasn't aware of
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what it is all about and suddenly I would see my friends singing those songs or talking
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about them and I would feel this inferiority complex that look I'm not.
#
My mother was deeply involved with watching films like every Indian is and she was deeply
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immersed in listening to Hindi film music like most of the Indian families are.
#
I still retain that my love for old film songs.
#
In fact I have this, one of my greatest strengths is that I tell people that play any song from
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50s, 60s, 70s and the moment you put on that song, the music within one second I'll tell
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you which that song is.
#
So this is how like we have grown, I have grown.
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These probably were my reference points.
#
So your question that were we, we were always a very conservative society I think, we were
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always a society which took pride in their own religion and look as a kid I never knew
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that there are caste divisions like the school or even at home.
#
If there was a caste talk it was always in a very derogatory sense that these people
#
were like the chuda or the cleaner in the house and so this is how you grow.
#
You never taught in school that all these things why, from where they came, how wrong
#
It's only later my own education.
#
I think in the book I tried my best to be true to what I was whenever I was there because
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I took a very conscious decision to try my best to tell a story of a middle class boy
#
who's not even aware of, I mean what is it my fault that I'm being made aware of things
#
as a lived experience and I have to connect, I have to find out why is it so.
#
So yes I think with the political environment of today is such that it has encouraged people
#
to unleash all those beliefs they had which we thought we didn't have.
#
So it's all in the open now.
#
I'm sure if in late 50s, early 60s I was in Srinagar if there was a state which was radically
#
right-wing I'm sure they would have been openly talking about all those things and they would
#
I was very struck by this one story from your time in Panipat where you speak about your
#
friends and of course your classmate was Shekhar Gupta and you know and he reappears at different
#
points through the book and plays a part in your life but I was struck by another classmate
#
you mentioned, someone called Suraj and you said that Suraj used to come to the school
#
in kurta pajama and then one day he stopped coming and nobody knew where he had gone and
#
one day when you were on the road you saw him as part of a wedding band and he's marching
#
along with it and you called out to him and he completely ignored you and the fact that
#
you remember this is to me something you know obviously the story struck you and stayed
#
with you and when I look back on my life I try to sort of identify the many layers of
#
unseeing as it were which gradually kind of fall you know you grow up in a certain way
#
you might not be aware of say how class functions or how caste functions or you know how gender
#
functions and gradually those layers slip away and you sort of realize you see something
#
you never saw before even though it was in front of you so were there moments like that
#
for you like it seems to me that at some visceral instinctive level this story must have affected
#
you a lot that 50 years later you're telling this story right so what were and again when
#
you speak about in srinagar how the muslims were treated and if they touched a vessel
#
it would be washed and it was almost like they were a lower caste as it were now this
#
is something I'm assuming that you're looking back and in hindsight you are beginning to
#
see ke kya ho raha tha and at the time obviously you would have been too small so through your
#
life what are the different kind of layers that have fallen away like this if you can
#
put a sort of a finger on those you mean which have deeply influenced me which have influenced
#
you or where you just felt that you began to see something differently you know so you
#
might go to school and all the boys are just boys they're all just your classmates but
#
with the sooraj incident he leaves and you see him playing in a wedding band it's like
#
it does the story just underscores that no these are not all just classmates there are
#
so many other things going on here which are so poignant and so sort of tragic see I think
#
is my father despite the fact that we didn't have a very I mean it was not there was a
#
relationship wasn't bad but in the sense that you know that that period if the father was
#
supposed to like come back tired and don't disturb him and no it wasn't like what you
#
see today or what must have been at that time also with a lot of other kids it was neither
#
bad neither was it very like you know like you were full of warmth or my mother but my
#
father was a very deeply pluralistic person and he was deeply involved with talking on
#
politics so I would listen when even when he used to interact with other people he used
#
to have a lot of arguments with his own relatives on this so I probably it seeped into my mind
#
know it subconsciously yeah I asked mostly subconsciously like I got influenced my mother
#
as I said was despite being I mean she was she wouldn't eat outside any non-veg she was
#
a non-vegetarian like majority of Kashmiri Hindus are Brahmins are but she wouldn't eat
#
outside because she would think it's beef she had this I have this story in the book
#
where she we visit a Muslim family much later in life and and they give they serve us kebabs
#
and she's reluctant to eat because she thinks it will be beef and and and that friend of
#
ours my brother's friend convinces the family convinces that's not beef it's it's mutton
#
like so those things must have influenced me I think the Suraj incident I think Mandal
#
influenced me very deeply in this I remember I have in the book itself there is this character
#
my friend Jatinder Chadda who is at the other extreme spectrum of he's not today but at
#
that time he was RSS supporter yeah he was an RSS supporter he used to drink with him
#
used to have a lot of debates with him and that was a period when I was used to debate
#
with him the whole caste structure and and you know you wonder why are people I mean
#
it's not my fault if I am born in a privileged family anyone's fault similarly if you are
#
born in a in a in a lower caste or a poor family do you blame that person for that it's
#
not his fault or her fault but but this disparity this disparity now whether it is why is it
#
so we all grapple with this question we try to find an answer that what is the reason
#
behind this disparity of at birth forget that you transcend that and you work hard or whatever
#
you're lucky but there are in India there are more percentage of people whom you say
#
it's bad luck that they are born in in in those environments but is it bad luck is it
#
to do with karma is it to do with what is it to do with so we used to have these massive
#
debates while drinking then why is the society the way it is and somehow the conclusion used
#
to be that it's possible that their karmic past may have been bad so they were born there
#
so I would maybe I was not convinced that this is like like the way it is but I was
#
not deeply questioning it also when mandal happened and the it's the reaction of my
#
people my friends surrounding neighbors relatives the way it surfaced took me my great surprise
#
it shook me to see that they had so much of disdain for for people who were poor for people
#
and that is where I think Suraj that memory may have got even more deepened in my mind
#
see I I was there this Suraj was a protector in the school because even though people in
#
school would see me as a very fair as I say Chikna like like this upper class guy who
#
is in a school with students who are don't belong to maybe that class lot of them so
#
they would take pleasure in sadistic pleasure in troubling me and this helpless poor boy
#
as I was and then found a protector in Suraj who would like know tell these guys to get
#
lost and and because of him I could be in peace at school so now this guy vanishes and
#
I have lost my protector and then I see him and and the very fact that he's playing a
#
band was a shock to me that at that age and and then he refuses to recognize me I go towards
#
him with so much of warmth and so much of feeling of gratitude or happiness that I have
#
finally seen him where he is and I want to know where have you vanished and he just treats
#
me with almost with in a way with contempt that I don't recognize you so when Mandal
#
happened and this connection in the book it had happened when I was while I was writing
#
about Suraj I had this Mandal and I in fact it's it happened that I I somehow realized
#
that I was living in a world which my people were not telling me the real story I realized
#
that this is there is a deep inbuilt exploitation in this caste structure okay you're born poor
#
but that doesn't mean that you should not be given self-respect and dignity which which
#
you I realized that we lacked that we lacked that sensitivity it it it made a major impact
#
on me I started re-looking at that a lot of things re-looking at caste re-looking at Ambedkar
#
re-looking at Gandhi itself so that that and then Babri Masjid demolition also I mean all
#
these things were running parallel to each other are and since my being from Kashmir
#
and and and my own relatives having had to flee that place and and so all this was playing
#
in my mind and and I sort of realized that instead of coming from a pulpit and saying
#
that look we are being wronged I realized that there were a lot of wrongs which we ourselves
#
had committed so so why why be so judgmental and so feel superior introspect I started
#
introspecting and and then I had a I was living in in in this period of terrorism in Punjab
#
I had sick friends I had I had some very close couple of sick friends one was Randhir who
#
was a I mean who wasn't interested in the entire politics of what was happening but
#
I had another friend Dhaliwal who was a very keen political animal and he would tell me
#
about exploitation by Brahmins exploitation by Baniyas I would not like it because I I
#
I wasn't at that period of time I was in myself in a flux what is what is what what is right
#
what is wrong but Mrs Gandhi's assassination the reaction to it operation blue star I think
#
all those factors changed me completely I mean I I started forming a world view which
#
I didn't have at that time my world view was like whatever my majority around me used
#
to tell me these things made a deep impression on me and it was I was 40 when I had almost
#
formulated my my world view I came to Delhi to a bigger bigger city more insecure insular
#
city than wherever I had lived earlier.
#
So you know before we started recording we were sort of chatting about how sort of how
#
opinions and worldviews get formed today like one experiment which listeners will be familiar
#
with I tried a couple of years back was I you know wanted to sort of delve into the
#
extreme side of the Hindu right wing to see what they're up to so I opened up so so but
#
I didn't want my social media algorithms to get affected by my searches so I opened up
#
YouTube in an incognito window and discovered people like Yathinarshan Anand and all that
#
all these toxic folks well before you know they were in the news in the way that they
#
are today and over time therefore what happened was and because I was doing that under another
#
Google account and incognito windows so completely different is that I found that I had two
#
YouTube's and one is a regular YouTube which is me all the things I'm interested in the
#
chess and the music and whatever reflects who I am and the other one is completely different
#
and it's so completely different that there's no relation between the two and it also therefore
#
strikes me that how does a worldview get formed if you're 15 years old today and your friend
#
sends you a video and the video is about oh look the Muslims are doing this or this is
#
happening and so on and so forth one of those videos then your algorithms will pump out
#
more of the same and they pump out more of the same to the extent that your entire world
#
is so dominated by the world view that it seems a complete aberration that anything
#
else exists or that any other way of thinking is reasonable so you automatically then begin
#
to believe that anyone who disagrees with you is evil or they're under the pay of someone
#
or they're foreign agents and all of that nonsense and it is not the fault of the person
#
it's just the way the world is and I was struck by again a beautiful self-reflective passage
#
in your book where you talk about how when you were young you could also get carried
#
away by jingoism and this and that and at one point you write quote I am not sure whether
#
I really believe this in my heart or all this aggressive talk was just an outpouring of
#
my own insecurities and frustrations as a middle-class youth aspiring to a life of comfort
#
and security as led by some of my friends who belong to well-off business families while
#
it was possible that this insecurity could have influenced my ideas it was also true
#
that my well-dear friend said even more militant aggressive and xenophobic mindsets than I
#
did stop good so now this self-reflection of course is coming later but what has also
#
happened is that you didn't remain like that you know there is a josh of youth where you
#
are proud to be part of a tribe and you're aggressive and all of that and then that dissipates
#
and then you become who you are but many people for many people it doesn't dissipate it remains
#
it remains it gets solidified you know like your friend Jatinder Chadha you mentioned
#
who you know kind of stayed in that space so just sort of looking back through your
#
life the people you have known and so on and so forth is it the outliers who change is
#
it the outliers who can do the self-reflection who can who can allow something like mandal
#
to remind them of a friend from 20 years ago in school is it the outliers who change and
#
and and if not if it is possible that many people can change these early views and come
#
out of it and look at the world differently in a more tolerant liberal way what can cause
#
that to happen well it's it's quite a scary thought that if if are the generation which
#
is today living the if i go back and and and there was no social media there was just interaction
#
there were reflections because you had space and time for reflection also which is no longer
#
here everyone is busy even i am busy with my mobile all the time and i i i tell myself
#
that what am i doing like my mind is being all the time being controlled and i i'm much
#
older like we are older and yet we fall into this trap with younger people that's the way
#
they they have seen the world they are they are they are living a life which is there
#
existing already there it's not as if they have created this world so this technology
#
as one of my friends tells me has hacked see the the minds of younger people or all people
#
have been hacked already by this technology by the use of this technology if the mind
#
has already been hacked so what is left there you are no longer thinking or doing something
#
with the reflection with a pause with with and i i think the biggest loss i remember
#
i i had gone to calcutta for my book release and there we met there was there were a couple
#
of sessions on satyajit ray and this great actor dritman chatterjee he was doing one
#
session and then after the session there was a get together where we started talking and
#
we start talking about ray and and then this discussion about whether ray is a film maker
#
because there is a lot of criticism about ray is that he he was not a political animal
#
like ritwik ghatak or or mirnaal zain or no his films kind of avoided getting into these
#
real serious subaltern issues so dritman chatterjee said something which which has stayed with
#
me after that not in that context but in in the context of your question as well he said
#
that look ray of course was an elite he was an elite and a lot of lot of the subaltern
#
things he he couldn't understand also but what rescued him was empathy i mean that was
#
a wonderful summation of i think not just ray but but what can rescue us okay fine we
#
see so much of wrong things happening around us should our reaction be to act the same
#
manner unless we have empathy unless we we need to be rescued by empathy i think this
#
present civilization or india it it can only be rescued by empathy but but where will that
#
empathy come from it will come from i think some kind of reflection maybe a miracle one
#
would hope but unless a society or a community or a religion does not have that empathy that
#
compassion that sensitivity it will be difficult to for that for those people to to live in
#
peace because they'll be always in rage always in anger always in a mood to take revenge
#
and and and finally when you take revenge when you when you live with those emotions
#
whom are you harming you may be harming the person whom you are attacking but in the end
#
you are harming yourself as well so i'm i'm actually a big fan of satyajit ray and i don't
#
agree with that criticism i mean if you look at films like protidwandi or seema bodho and
#
i think they're politically very yes i discovered that after that i saw those films again and
#
and even even aganthok or they are all deeply political films yeah and and and his gare
#
bare is a deeply anti right film yeah i discovered and i i said that no maybe it is not just his
#
empathy maybe he was as well involved with uh with these issues but only thing is being
#
the great master he was he wasn't overstated he was understated yeah it was subtle it wasn't
#
overt but through the human stories of the people in his films that kind of came out
#
taking off from this point about empathy which is a beautiful and very deep point so thank
#
you for that story another theme that i've been thinking about and i sometimes discuss
#
with my guests on the show is of the difference between the concrete and the abstract and
#
uh the anchal malhotra who wrote this beautiful book on partition when she did an episode
#
with me spoke about how once she was you know while interviewing people for a book she was
#
sitting with a family in pakistan and who had come come across during partition and
#
obviously they were uh you know raging against what the hindus had done and the hindus are
#
like this and the hindus are like that and at one point they noticed that she's sitting
#
there and they said tum nahi beti tum nahi tum toh theek ho right and to me this is the
#
difference between the abstract and the concrete that i think that many of the things that
#
make us hateful are abstract concepts like nationalism and purity and race and all of
#
these things but in the concrete when you encounter another human being sometimes your
#
instincts are not quite like that you know uh sometimes then you see the humanity in
#
them you know you so it's it's you know a lot of bigots will say oh but i have muslim
#
friends right it's become a cliche and a joke but the thing is that they might actually
#
be right they do have muslim friends who they consider friends but that's a concrete but
#
in the abstract they are full of hate and abstraction scale faster than the concrete
#
and where empathy comes from the point that you bring about is the concrete i can feel
#
empathetic for something that is in front of me in flesh and blood i can't feel empathetic
#
at a conceptual level for a people or whatever you know so if you demonize a particular set
#
of people as the other it's hard to be empathetic in the abstract sense but you're in front
#
of me and i can be empathetic because i see that you're like me with my insecurities
#
and fears and you know some amount of shared journey and all of that and and that possibility
#
exists so i just feel that for empathy to take place there has to be more of the concrete
#
and unfortunately like you pointed out we are actually all the time staring into our
#
smartphones you know you go into a cafe today if you sit alone and you're just looking around
#
you're like a sociopath nobody does that right yeah everybody is looking into their smartphone
#
they're not looking at the flesh and blood people around them who are who are and everybody
#
so fascinating everybody has a story you can learn something from everyone you can find
#
warmth and comfort in everyone but we are looking into our smartphones leaving the concrete
#
for the abstract so i mean i'm just respond there's not really a question in this i was
#
just sort of no i i agree with you completely because even i have had these experiences
#
there was a time in delhi when one of my friends vivek rayna who's in the book also he had
#
he and another muslim friend of his that started this group called like let everyone let us
#
be inclusive and be together it's a line from her poem like let let everyone sleep in the
#
same quilt and pull the rope in the same direction so so that started this group in which muslims
#
and kashmiri hindus would interact and went there even anger and one of they held a meeting
#
in delhi where physically all of us went i also went and and there was this young muslim
#
who was angry he said that i've been told at home that hindus are like what you were
#
saying same same kind of a tone and tenor of of the hindus have done this to us and
#
they're bad and this thing and then when my turn came to speak i made an emotional speech
#
so after that he he came to me and saying that you are different like you're different
#
you're then i try to explain to him that it's it's not i'm different it's like you haven't
#
interacted physically with with the other side because i'm most of the muslims in kashmir
#
valley haven't interacted with with their kashmiri hindus because 90 of them left that
#
place or 95 so yes this this this abstract world and the concrete world and right now
#
the tragedy is we are living in the more and more in abstract world there is there is no
#
concrete world around us so unless people who are hacking this mind realize the dangers
#
of of hacking a mind and what what can it result in unless they realize i think we we
#
are facing scary times so you know i'll just go on a little sort of rant about the hacking
#
the mind sort of point so i was a professional poker player for about five years and it's
#
of course a game of skill but it's the only game of skill you'll play inside a casino
#
and of course you're not playing against the house you're playing against other players
#
but every other game in a casino is obviously you know a losing proposition for the players
#
and i read this very interesting book i've forgotten the name i'll link it from the show
#
notes about how casinos historically have been hacking the mind so to say how they have
#
been sort of manipulating their users in such a way that they can direct behavior so for
#
example way before the age of the internet or whatever you know you'll have a slot machine
#
a person is sitting on it and all of that so one all the lights and the sounds and everything
#
that happens is meant to just lull you into the state of near hypnosis where you're just
#
sitting you can't take action you just keep playing two from the pattern of your play
#
they have a way of figuring out that this person is about to get up in the next 10 minutes
#
so whenever they figure this out there'll be an alarm that rings in whatever the control
#
room is and somebody will go down from there to this player and they will say sir you've
#
been playing for so long we'd like to reward you with a free drink and some free snacks
#
and they put it there and the guy continues playing right so everything that therefore
#
you use the gambling industry really nailed it because they have the best incentives to
#
control human behavior now what's happened in modern times is that hacking the mind is
#
a perfect phrase but it also can lead to a misunderstanding where people think that there
#
is directionality that somebody some evil force is trying to manipulate us and hack
#
the mind and actually that's not always the case what social media sites and platforms
#
want to do is maximize engagement the longer you spend there you know the more data they
#
have on you and the more ads they can serve you and so on and so forth so they maximize
#
engagement now a result of maximizing engagement and unpleasant side effect is that you get
#
served more and more of the same content that you kind of want to like in the case of that
#
15 year old kid you send a one Hindu to a video and that's you know going to be the
#
majority of what he gets so the problem here isn't a problem of evil the problem here is
#
a problem of an unintended consequence that some site has maximized engagement which is
#
after all what they are rationally going to do but the result of that is that we are having
#
a divided and polarized society and all these other things are happening that's one of the
#
unpleasant consequences and yeah it's just a mini rant that you know because hacking
#
the mind you can think that oh there is BJP is hacking your mind or even the left will
#
hack your mind even the right will hack your mind everybody will yeah I think when it
#
gets mixed up with with business it becomes even a greater deadlier cocktail because because
#
they they know that this man or this woman is is looking at these videos so they want
#
to hold your attention on to they'll feed you that and if I am looking at completely
#
different kind of write-ups or videos they'll provide me that because they want to retain
#
that attention and now in retaining that attention they are not bothered about how it's affecting
#
me or you or so that that becomes even even more dangerous yeah and I mean we are talking
#
in a time where this is an open question you know 10 years later maybe is resolved and
#
maybe it's just this point in time where it's a problem because I get deep unease when people
#
talk about the state regulating social media because my sense is that the state is now
#
going to regulate and decide what goes and what doesn't go I feel that that can lead
#
to really suboptimal solutions like because the state is what it is right but you know
#
what are the incentives for social media platforms to do this themselves is an interesting question
#
and I see that people in social media platforms do think about this stuff you know so like
#
for example on Twitter sometimes you know I wrote a piece once and somebody tweeted
#
it so I was just clicking on the retweet and the quick question came up that do you want
#
to read this first before you retweet it right so it is noticing that you haven't read a
#
piece yeah so do you want to read it first which I think is a great initiative which
#
Twitter does and you know Facebook does kind of similar things WhatsApp will tell you that
#
this message has been forwarded many times so you you kind of get a sense of that it's
#
something that is being propagated but yeah it's it's sort of very much a sort of open
#
question another theme that I want to sort of double click on which you mentioned earlier
#
is your experience in a sense as a migrant that as a child you go to Panipat then from
#
you know and Haryana culture is like I was born and brought up in Chandigarh so I have
#
a little sense of that and Haryana culture is a whole different thing and then you go
#
to Amritsar and you know Sikhs all around you and that's a whole different thing and
#
and then you come to Chandigarh where you spend a while and then eventually Delhi and
#
then of course you're traveling the world so you are exposed to all these different
#
cultures including Pakistan so you know do you feel that that experience of migrating
#
and seeing different cultures different kinds of people has the effect of taking a person
#
out of their shell and out of any bubble that may be forming around them and broaden their
#
worldview or is it only in your case that it happened and I might be overthinking it
#
by just asking the question well I was about to say that in my case yes I I'm thankful
#
and grateful to my circumstances and I could see the world literally see the world without
#
spending my own money cricket helped me to travel the world and travel across India as
#
well it is it opened my mind it's like you are in a frog in a well they say so I was
#
a frog in a well if I had stayed in Srinagar my worldview probably would have been the
#
same as majority of people have there it changed it changed so so it it just it does change
#
your worldview but I think you need certain other triggers with it to I mean you have
#
to latch on to those triggers you know some people do latch on some people some some people
#
may be so obdurate or so stubborn in their thinking that they they instead instead of
#
latching on to those triggers they they probably reinforce their you know you there is this
#
comfort zone which we all like to live and that comfort zone is like you the same ideas
#
which you have you want to like you know recycle them and feel comfortable with them instead
#
of going into this uncomfortable zone where you're questioning those ideas it's not easy
#
it's not easy but but yes I think travel makes a person more you accept you realize there
#
are differences you know in in my case and I'm sure in majority of the cases once you
#
see that there are people different there are people who have a different religion they
#
have a different way of eating food different way of of culturally they are different and
#
and yet you see that they are as good as bad human beings as as your own people are so
#
you accept you accept them once you start accepting them you your worldview also opens
#
you also try to to you also want to see the world from their perspective in my case yes
#
because interacting with as you said in Haryana with with with different culture and Punjab
#
in Chandigarh my my interaction with the whole Sikh community opened my eyes to a world which
#
which was very different from my world I mean very different from my my gods my my religious
#
beliefs and so yes it has helped me it has helped me to to reach a stage where where
#
we are interacting here and trying to explore a more pluralistic world and why there isn't
#
a pluralistic world is it getting destroyed.
#
Let's talk about your childhood now and your love for cricket and and like one aspect of
#
it I'd like to sort of explore which I think is hard for people today to kind of grasp
#
is that all of us who meant so many of us who loved cricket back in the day loved the
#
cricket that was played in the imagination because there is no television you know all
#
your sporting heroes you've never actually seen them you might not even recognize them
#
if you run across them in in the road so tell me a little bit about how you fell in love
#
with cricket how would you consume cricket when did you feel that you want to be a player
#
yourself you know just what was that sort of mahal like where I think it was that the
#
school I was in Srinagar Bernal school it was a missionary school and and cricket was
#
the main sport and I would see young boys playing the game in their whites and this
#
you know it's it's beautiful to be playing in those trees Chennai trees surrounded by
#
Chennai trees the beautiful green it's more like an English British setting whites and
#
red ball and then my brother was a good cricketer so so it it somehow it somehow happened that
#
I don't even remember when I started playing it no it it just it happened school simultaneously
#
and then he used to play in our lanes in around our house with young kids playing and and
#
then I came to Panipat I I as a I was a very terrible student and and then because of this
#
whole mismatch of first English medium then Hindi medium I couldn't like it the language
#
itself had become a problem I was neither here nor there I was neither good at Hindi
#
neither good at nor good at English and cricket came to my rescue I I mean a very terrified
#
student with fellow students troubling me and not good at studies there was this trial
#
in the school I think I was in seventh or eighth and somehow I went to the gave the
#
trial I started like they all thought that I was very good and I probably must have been
#
good enough for that school and that place because I remember that we won the inter
#
school championship we we had three school rivals and I must have taken if I am not wrong
#
ten ten wickets in almost every match with my off spin amazing so I was brought in a
#
procession after we won the championship from the ground to the school wow Pradeep Chhora
#
Jindabad with so from from a frightened young kid in a in an environment which he can't
#
relate with and fearful I suddenly became a hero in the school I mean there was I went
#
in the principal called me and they said oh we have won the championship holiday was announced
#
and my name was taken in the podium next day that he helped us win so obviously that
#
but fortunately or unfortunately small town meant I mean once we shifted to Amritsar which
#
was a bigger place with the Amarnath brothers and Madan Lal in college teams and some of
#
very good players of the region playing I just I chickened out I thought that I can't
#
you know what what happens this is this whole complexity or complex of inferiority complex
#
comes in and I I almost gave up but yet my love of cricket and another thing which fueled
#
that love of cricket was radio which was I remember this Amritsar my grandfather my mother's
#
father parents he was there he was working in customs like my father and must have been
#
sixty because this was the Jasu Jasu Patel's taking spell in which we defeated Australia
#
for the first time so that commentary like no we used to we used to go to buy something
#
and then look for a pan wala where the radio was on and there used to be a huge gathering
#
listening to the commentary so so that love of the game came from radio it was as you
#
were saying I mean we had not seen those cricketers we didn't even know how they looked like
#
but in our imagination we had like created those figures larger than life larger than
#
like great heroes and and and and that's how the love of the game at that time people
#
fell in love with that game you know there's this passage of you know when you're in Amritsar
#
you mentioned what a big deal it was to see a West Indies versus North Zone game and you
#
pointed out a couple of things there which I found charming and one was that because
#
you didn't know the players you were listening to radio commentary simultaneously and Tony
#
Cozier was on and his commentary was so good that you said that it was like he was describing
#
what would happen and then it happened which is such a lovely way of sort of you know he
#
was setting the scene and then I mean this is this I this is true the way he would and
#
a lot of those other commentators had discovered would anticipate through the batsman's actions
#
or the this thing that you would actually feel that how did he like know that this fellow
#
is going to come forward or he's going to go back or this fellow's fielding is outstanding
#
because it would the action will unfold after what he had speak it it it it really happened
#
like that so it was amazing and it's mind blowing and just a little nugget for listeners
#
who have never been inside a press box you know press box in my days of covering cricket
#
it was just the opposite so what would happen is that you could be typing something and
#
action happens and then the television shows it a couple of seconds late because there's
#
a delay and that's useful for someone who's writing a piece because you don't want to
#
see action but the moment you hear a crowd scream you can just look at the TV and it's
#
like you are you see it fresh and the other thing besides this Tony Cozier comment that
#
you mentioned the other thing was that it was an educative experience for you to see
#
the West Indies team fielding because they seem to the moment the batsman would you know
#
begin his footwork the they would anticipate where he's going to hit the ball or what shot
#
he's going to play and they would start moving and this got me to thinking about as viewers
#
how we learn about the game like I think what happened was that when the television revolution
#
really happened in the 90s and satellite television came in I think there was not just a boom
#
in watching cricket but there was a boom in understanding cricket in term there because
#
you had so many commentators who were ex cricketers talk about the values of the game that they
#
this is what he's doing and this is why he's doing and see this is a technique and look
#
at the running between wickets and look at the fitness and therefore what happens is
#
that those values then percolate down to all the young players of tomorrow who then are
#
much fitter much better the basics are more right and what is of course today happened
#
is that the IPL actually turbocharged this so the levels of fitness that you see and
#
everything are just way higher in the current generation and part of it is incentives but
#
part of it is also how they are consuming cricket with because they are getting everything
#
in real time they are seeing every short every action from multiple angles they can go on
#
YouTube and watch it again and again a hot star and watch replays and all of that and
#
in our time that wasn't the case you couldn't you know you learnt about the world in dribbles
#
not just cricket but the world you learnt about the world in dribbles and you learnt
#
sort of whatever you could and so as you know what are your sort of thoughts on this because
#
you've lived through and written through in a sense all these eras well now you say this
#
I start thinking that what if I had been watching those matches live on television like this
#
one match I saw live changed my whole orientation towards I realised how does one feel how does
#
one bat correctly I realised that and it helped me immensely imagine now watching every day
#
the best cricketers in the world in front of you and as a kid it's what an education
#
it must be no wonder we have such large number of players I mean India will probably make
#
four five six seven international teams that's the number of people who watch play and if
#
you go to ground if you take a look around everyone who's playing wherever he's playing
#
is playing correct cricket because they watched it in our times it wasn't like that we didn't
#
even know like I remember in the school I when I was batting I remember this is quite
#
interesting actually since you talk about it I had never faced a fast fast bowler I
#
was just seventh eighth and there was this guy we were matting I went to bat and these
#
short balls outside the house stuff now I in my life had never seen the ball bounce
#
so much and I didn't know how to play that because I had not seen anyone bowl like that
#
and actually I I had to like figure out ask people that how does one play this ball I
#
didn't know that there was a stroke to leave or to cut or because I had not watched it
#
if I had at that today's kid has watched these things how to play how to bat in these
#
kind of circumstances or conditions right from when right from there when their memory
#
started so imagine the kind of training they are getting which which is good it's good
#
that so many people are watching it live and learning the game learning it properly through
#
watching the best players in action so I'd like to propose a controversial sort of just
#
thinking aloud I'd like to propose a controversial statement which I already know you'll disagree
#
with but just to throw it out there which is that one because your ecosystem is so much
#
wider today because you know many more people have access to the game and are affluent enough
#
to play it and so on and so forth and because the level of education is so incredible in
#
terms of you know just learning about the game from so many sources that therefore and
#
not just in cricket but perhaps every sport that every generation has to be the best generation
#
there has ever been so a batsman so the best batsman in the world ever is very likely to
#
be somebody who is playing now because as you get younger you kind of get better and
#
better and of course your book is full of how much you you know idolized with Richards
#
and the way he played and you've got such beautiful descriptions of his batting and
#
the impact it made on you and there might be outliers from a previous generation who
#
are at and who were at an incredible level so you know the Bradman Sobers Richards they
#
have their own place but in general I would say that you know the quality of talent that
#
is there in every sport just because of these factors that you will have many more people
#
who are able to afford the leisure time to actually play when they're kids and who can
#
actually afford it and you have far more access to education and pedagogy and just you know
#
you'll find seven-year-olds who are playing cover drive with the elbow in the right position
#
foot is moving perfectly all of that so therefore I would imagine that the quality of cricket
#
that you see today is in absolute terms way better than say what it would have been in
#
the 60s or 70s what's what's your response to no no I agree I won't disagree with this
#
the quality of batsmanship or bowling maybe not as much in bowling maybe I'm I'm I mean
#
maybe you could go back because they used to play on tracks which are not covered so
#
they're more difficult to this thing see the fitness levels have improved techniques have
#
not only improved but people have rediscovered that it's not necessary to have one technique
#
to to in our times anyone playing across the line would be hanged in today's time playing
#
across the line as long as you're succeeding is a wonderful shot yes see the another way
#
to look at it is that had anyone any great player good players of any generation would
#
have been good players wherever they were if if today we think Virat Kohli or or Sachin
#
Tendulkar is a Bradman if Bradman had been born today because of see these cricketers
#
have been given conditions access which those people didn't have it's not as if they they're
#
born in a vacuum they're playing in a vacuum so to compare say a Bradman with Tendulkar
#
and say Tendulkar fitter more this thing better would be I think a wrong way to look at it
#
because Bradman didn't have Tendulkar's support which Tendulkar has or Virat has or any anyone
#
Ricky Ponting has or so things change techniques see different way to look at it is let's pick
#
up tennis now to think that anyone can play like Nadal or Djokovic or Federer in the earlier
#
era when you watch with wooden rackets so you think that oh these guys are so superior
#
why are we saying that those guys were as great but they were as great because they
#
were playing in conditions which were provided to them in that they were the best so if they
#
were to rebound today in these conditions they would also be as good as they were then
#
so that's why comparing one generation to another generation is very difficult and judgment
#
should be made by watching them and saying oh look this fellow is far superior.
#
Yeah and that's a great point and that's a point I sometimes make in the context of
#
writing like I remember in one of my I teach an online course on writing and a participant
#
in one of my cohorts asked me that why are writers of the 19th century or 18th century
#
so boring like you know you the question he asked me was you respect Adam Smith and John
#
Locke so much but their prose is so turgid and my point is that look today we are surrounded
#
by all the books in the world and there has been you know this evolution in the way people
#
write that our values have evolved along with that how to write crisp prose how to structure
#
a piece all of that we have so many examples to choose from our learning is much better
#
but if you're writing in the 18th century there is so little literature around you and
#
you have so little access to most of it that you it's almost like you're writing sui generi
#
right you're having to make it up as you go along almost like you playing that short ball
#
on a matting wicket in the nets when you've never seen before so given those restrictions
#
to see the kind of writing that a Locke or a Smith did is amazing they are still incredibly
#
lucid and cogent and all of that but they will of course they will sort of you know
#
be different they will sort of read differently so it's a category error even to compare a
#
Bradman to a Tendulkar or I would say even a Tendulkar to whoever the hot 18 year old
#
at the moment is because so much has just changed and to compare Virat with Tendulkar
#
I mean these were unfair concrete yeah yeah exactly exactly so there's another really
#
interesting nugget that is there in your panipat chapter where you talk about how you would
#
you know look at sports magazines or whatever and you write quote the pictures that would
#
fascinate the most were those of white players besides their outstanding performances this
#
could also have something to do with our subconsciously admiring their white skin even today I remember
#
the names of the Australian Paul Sheehan the Englishman MJK Smith or the New Zealander
#
Graham Darling not because I remember any of their feats but because they were fair blue
#
eyed handsome debonair young men in whites adorning the cover or the center spread of
#
the magazine battling these giants of the game were up uni Indians stop quote and I'm
#
again relating this to something that is been a broader thing in our society that there
#
is this almost postcolonial mindset where we behave as if the white person is superior
#
to us right like I remember in my cricketing days I was when I was the managing editor
#
of cricket for I had gone to cover a game live with a colleague of mine who was from
#
England so he's white so technically in a sense I'm you know senior to him and all
#
that I'm his boss but when we walk into the ground you know I am stopped and asked 1000
#
questions but he's just waved on through which is fine but which reflects that sort of mindset
#
like in certain tourist spots the way they speak to white people and the way they treat
#
you which is not how it happens in most of the rest of the world where they'll treat
#
everybody equally and I see this sort of inferiority complex even in the case of something like
#
the development of the English language like the reason you know so many of us speak in
#
a speak English or write English in suboptimal archaic ways is I believe because in India
#
English has been a marker of class or a marker of where you stand in society for all these
#
decades so if you want to signal that you're socially superior to the people around you
#
you do it with your sophisticated English and one way you do this is by optimizing for
#
seeming sophistication by being two verbose so instead of somebody say using a simple
#
beautiful word like stop they'll say put an end to put an end to this pontificatory nonsense
#
you know using five words where you could use one word and and so on there are so many
#
examples of this and the British have left these pomposities behind you won't see them
#
speaking like this or writing like this but we still do it and this complex has been there
#
and there is one narrative that which I broadly agree with is that with liberalization and
#
globalization and opening up to the world we began to be more self-confident and come
#
out of it and assert ourselves some people look at you know Ganguly opening a shirt at
#
lords as a really good thing a sign that we are not cowed down by them anymore you know
#
we'll take them on and beat them and all of that but just as a broader sort of social
#
thing you know is this something that we have come out of it is behind us or is it something
#
that still sort of bedevils us and still afflicts our society because even now the validation
#
of the white man seems so important you will find our prime minister respond much more
#
never you know negatively to something published in New York Times to something published in
#
an Indian newspaper it's almost like that validation of the white man is still kind
#
of important where you know the films that when the Oscars are still you know at a pedestal
#
compared to you know what we might produce here.
#
I think this is a very very interesting question and my reason for including that was also
#
the fact that I wanted to convey that at that period how we were like you know we would
#
adore like we'll say oh white man and in our in our conscious and subconscious English
#
willow and their pads and everything was like we were like no poor people under not only
#
bad players but maybe inferior culturally as well in our minds that was the kind of inferiority
#
I think we have we still may need their validation we still may suffer from that kind of inferiority
#
complex and I think that is the reflection of that I feel is that we have gone to other
#
extreme also like we are today we are like there is in this book the Guardian I think
#
he was the Guardian correspondent who was in Bombay and this is I think Dravid's hundred
#
test match and we all are there at the ground and as you are mentioning that people are
#
if they see a white skin man the police will say go.
#
Now there this man also is being hassled and he is part of our entourage and he is being
#
pushed around and he says that look 10 years back or 20 years back this was my white skin
#
was a passport a pass for me to enter anywhere in India today India has changed they will
#
lynch me so this reverse kind of a mentality you know we have to if we think that we have
#
we are now a self confident assertive nation then we have to reach a stage where we treat
#
them with as much respect and dignity as any human being deserves and if we feel there
#
is something wrong we react with respect and with dignity not like we will kill you and
#
who are you and you have cheated us and I think this kind of a discourse reflects again
#
our inferiority I feel I may be wrong it reflects a kind of a that inferiority complex which
#
says that okay you treated me badly now since I have I have reached a stage where I have
#
I have money I have a space in the world I will also treat you badly what does it reflect
#
I don't think it reflects good on our part I think as I was saying earlier also okay
#
fine you people it's individuals as we are saying the abstract and the concrete individuals
#
will be some may be good some may be bad but to to interact with the abstract becomes a
#
whole different world so tell me about this journey from sort of playing cricket to thinking
#
that you could write about it like cricket at one point you mentioned that you after
#
being initially intimidated by the scene in Amritsar you I think even when you moved to
#
Chandigarh you got back to playing again yeah I played for my campus team so yeah yeah and
#
you were a swashbuckling stroke player was it I was a little bit both baller and a batsman
#
bit of both incredible and and then you had a back injury and you kind of stopped playing
#
and all of that a great loss for cricket but not for cricket journalism nothing like that
#
so were you always interested in writing or is it something that but love serendipitiously
#
it happened that you got that chance and we'll speak about how you got into it also but you
#
know before that would you read a lot would you think I want to write it was that something
#
that sort of I I had never imagined or thought about myself to to become a journalist or
#
to become a writer I was like like most of the students around me wondering what I mean
#
you get into be a graduate because my parents like any other parents wanted me to do become
#
a doctor but I wasn't a good enough student I was hardly get pass marks so it was at that
#
stage Shekhar happened to be with me in school and then I met Shekhar again in the university
#
and he he already was thinking of becoming a journalist he had done his journalism course
#
he was freelancing and and then express opened its edition in 78 in Chandigarh and he straight
#
away got a job and then he pulled me in and then Prabha Joshi was their editor we we watched
#
cricket together as I described in the book so my getting into journalism was sheer connection
#
I mean I I do realize when I look back that when I these days when journalism students
#
probably come from journalism schools they appear in tests and in my case and in most
#
of my generation I think they happen to come into journalism because they knew someone
#
somebody's father was there so his son became a journalist so no I I had never even I could
#
never I look back I just think it's a miracle that was Shekhar my classmate in school and
#
he happened to meet me in in the university was it some kind of a miracle that that some
#
destiny wanted me to become a journalist because I had never even thought about it yeah and
#
you've described about how you know there was some series and you and Shekhar and you
#
know other people would go to this place to watch television kyunki ek hi jaga tv thi
#
and Prabha Joshi who was Indian Express Indian Express resident editor started chatting with
#
you about cricket and then said okay do you want to join me I'm you know hiring a couple
#
of writers and that's how it happened and it just strikes me that how it's so how so
#
many things are so contingent ki thora sa timing badal do and it doesn't happen like
#
if you're in a different class or a different school and you never meet Shekhar this sort
#
of never happens have you ever thought about the counterfactual like what would you have
#
been in those days where did you think life was taking you and how would it have look
#
I was I was I mean I don't remember how much worried I was my parents must have been I
#
was I was just enrolled in MA literature this thing it was not as if that was my passion
#
and I was planning something big that I will become a professor or a teacher and I was
#
just thinking of enrolling trying to look at bank exams you see those days I think banking
#
jobs were important somewhere in LIC or bank or anywhere where you could get a job I was
#
I was thinking about should we went to apply and I was also worried thinking that I'm not
#
I didn't have the confidence I'm not good enough to and my math was like a lot of people's
#
maths is very bad and in those exams your maths should be good so I was worried wondering
#
what to do what not to do and and I probably if I had not met Shekhar if I had not gone
#
into journalism because of these connections or chance happened I would have been a bank
#
clerk or something maybe through promotions maybe I retired as senior officer or I don't
#
know and and you know reading your book there is one moment which really startled me because
#
something that happened to you also indirectly changed the course of my life which is that
#
you were in the early 2000s you were being considered for the role of the editor of the
#
Wisden magazine right and you almost got it but then at that final interview stage you
#
didn't get it and the person who got it was Sambit Baal started Wisden Asia cricket and
#
and I joined Sambit and what happened was before that in the 90s my experience was television
#
channel V and MTV and then I tried to do a startup around 2000 but Nasdaq crash oh yeah
#
everything collapsed and so I had nothing in no way to go but I happen to know Sambit
#
so the same connection thing right you happen to know Shekhar so I happen to know Sambit
#
so I got a job working with him and then we bought crick info and all of that sort of
#
happened and so I don't know what direction my life would have gone in and what else I
#
would have done I don't have a counterfactual but I can guarantee you that it would have
#
gone in a different direction that shahid yahan nahi hote matlab because just the events
#
you know it's a it's a set of dominoes so the set of dominoes would go in some other
#
You know something very interesting what you're saying I'll add to it I was in Chandigarh
#
and Rohit Mahajan who's the Tribune sports editor who helped me in the book he saw the
#
manuscript and this thing so we were there it's only a 15 days fortnight back and we
#
started laughing he said that look if Shekhar had not met you you wouldn't have become
#
a journalist and if you had not become a journalist there are so many people whom you hired or
#
you you were connected with they also would have suffered so this is a chain yeah these
#
are all chain reactions which you don't know what connection where and how and actually
#
one doesn't even know what the alternate would have been yeah could have been far better
#
I mean how does one know one doesn't know you also wouldn't know that you are happy
#
with what you are doing yeah that's why you feel that over my but if you are not happy
#
with what you are doing you might have thought that oh what my bad luck why did I know this
#
man he got me no I would have thought that oh Shekhar I wish I had not met Shekhar there
#
I'm so unhappy in this profession which I was say at one point when I when I am in Delhi
#
I mean I believe that I will be going to become the sports editor there which they don't make
#
it I am so miserable and unhappy and that's the stage where I might have been thinking
#
that why did I come into this profession damn Shekhar Gupta yeah no no it's interesting
#
how you know little things it's like a butterfly flies its wings and suddenly the weather
#
in another country is completely different I mean that's of course sort of overstating
#
it but that's it's yeah so I read that little bit and I said oh my god because I didn't
#
know you right so I'm never joining wisdom because I don't know you I happen to know
#
somebody then he used to edit gentlemen and another magazine and I had written for them
#
also so there was some kind of connection but otherwise I am going on a completely different
#
path and who knows where it takes me and so it's really interesting to sort of I think
#
reflecting like this on these accidents of life should make all of us humble because
#
jo bhi achcha hua hai na wo matlab usme itna itna luck involved hai the things that have
#
happened to you we live in a interdependent world you are dependent on me I am dependent
#
on you we nobody no individual is operating in a vacuum if anyone thinks that things are
#
happening because of him or her is living in a in some kind of a world which doesn't
#
exist unless we realize this interdependence and this is again I've learned from Buddhism
#
because for them this is a very very the most important concept is interdependence this
#
interdependence has to be understood in its proper context to make you realize that be
#
humble you are nothing on your own you are nothing you are empty yeah absolutely and
#
you know if for all the listeners if you're listening to this why don't you pause take
#
a few moments think about the accidents in your life that you know got you to wherever
#
you are it could be a good place it could be a bad place I think you know one of the
#
one of the things I learned from my years playing poker one of the learnings I took
#
out is that in our lives we underestimate the role of luck massively you know good things
#
happen to us and we let it get to our heads we think ki are I am so good I am so talented
#
and we become arrogant or bad things happen to us and we let it you know get us down and
#
we think ki mere mein nahi hai mere se nahi hoga ye you know instead of realizing that
#
most of what happens to us is luck right from where we are born to the genes we have to
#
the circumstances we are in to meeting Shekhar Gupta in school and to keep meeting him again
#
and again in different cities so there's just you know so much of luck and that's a humbling
#
thought so you know we'll let's take a quick commercial break and when on the other side
#
of it we'll you know get back to your fascinating journey through journalism have you always
#
wanted to be a writer but never quite gotten down to it well I'd love to help you since
#
April 2020 I've taught 20 cohorts of my online course the art of clear writing an online
#
community has now sprung up of all my past students we have workshops a newsletter to
#
showcase a book of students and vibrant community interaction in the course itself through four
#
webinars spread over four weekends I share all I know about the craft and practice of
#
clear writing there are many exercises much interaction a lovely and lively community
#
at the end of it the course cost rupees 10,000 plus GST or about 150 dollars and is a monthly
#
thing so if you're interested head on over to register at india uncut dot com slash clear
#
writing that's india uncut dot com slash clear writing being a good writer doesn't require
#
god-given talent just the willingness to work hard and a clear idea of what you need to
#
do to refine your skills I can help you welcome back to the scene and the unseen I'm having
#
a delightful conversation with pradeep magazine and we've we've just sort of covered his life
#
to the point where you know where you've joined journalism so you know what's interesting
#
is that all the other journalists have spoken before you on the show spoken to before you
#
on the show have wanted to be writers from the start so they will be like I used to read
#
so and so and I used to try reading this writing this and all of that and in your case in a
#
sense is your love of cricket and it's your you know sort of the circumstances and everything
#
which take you into writing about cricket so in that early phase where you're being
#
a journalist how do you sort of learn to be a journalist that somebody was getting into
#
journalism now you have the world's journalism available to you you have journalism courses
#
online available to you you have how to videos available to you writing ke baare me bhi a
#
videos ek skti ho you can do all of that but back in the day we didn't have all of this
#
again everything would come in dribs and raps so what is your notion of journalism and how
#
do you begin then to learn the values of journalism ki what is a good practice what is not a good
#
practice aise likte hai are there any role models you have or people who impress you
#
you see when I got into journalism maybe my I see when you're young especially when you
#
haven't entered the adult world of jobs and I was an idealist like I'm sure like my friends
#
and others like like there are always these as a student these values of wrong right are
#
very strong in you I guess they were in me as well I got introduced to since I was doing
#
a English literature so I was at least reading books which were fictional like Dickens or
#
Shakespeare studies and though I was a bad student but at least they're leaving impressions
#
in my mind I was and so I had this I think strong strong beliefs in right values and
#
right values in the sense that you should be objective though the understanding of objectivity
#
is changed now how objective can one be one always comes from a point of view when I joined
#
I realized that my language skills were bad I mean my mind may have been involved with
#
lot of different things but my writing skills weren't good first thing I did was I tried
#
to find out what book can I read to understand the game better because I realized that unless
#
you are on top of your subject and that that you should know the technique I had played
#
cricket but that doesn't mean the level of cricket I played wasn't that high but even
#
that doesn't guarantee your understanding of its technicalities the book I read was
#
Don Bredman's art of coaching I mean that was the book at that time everyone art of
#
cricket art of cricket yes so I read that book it changed my whole writing style also
#
because I got into the technique of cricket far more seriously which I hadn't done as
#
a as a student of the game it was like go and play at the nets and if somebody offers
#
you an advice you take it then I realized Times of India had Ray Robinson writing in
#
it I got deeply influenced by because I found that economy of words I mean there used to
#
be a four or five six paragraph report and he used to say so much in that limited space
#
it was it was an amazing experience and I started copying him I mean I realized that
#
I had based my writing style on rare or whatever it was impossible to copy him I wasn't good
#
enough my language wasn't my forte but I had started trying to you know be precise and
#
condense so these are two people Bredman's book and Ray Robinson's writings which which
#
helped me to write better and maybe I used to reflect a lot also because I would like
#
anyone else read my reports and only find errors in it that why did I write like this
#
why I didn't write like this so I guess that's how I try to improve my writing skills yeah
#
and that's what you said about you know reading your reports and always finding faults in
#
it is something that I think all of us do consciously and these days like when I talk
#
to my writing students I talk about that process through the frame of thinking about one's
#
writing facilities being divided into two things and one is the ability to write and
#
the other is a judgment of writing so what when you write something and you read it and
#
you think oh this is shit what is happening is that your judgment is ahead of your ability
#
at that point in time but that's all and that's a good thing because it means that you keep
#
working harder your ability keeps catching up so the more you read and the more you write
#
the more your judgment evolves and at the same time with all the practice that you put
#
in your ability is catching up one step at a time so it's actually an extremely useful
#
process for a writer to look back at their work and not like it because it means their
#
judgment is evolving and the ability will kind of sort of get there which is another
#
reason I sort of tell my students that if you write something and you think it's rubbish
#
you know that is not a reason to stop writing and to beat yourself up and say oh mujhe nahi
#
aata merese nahi hoga that is actually a reason to continue because it means that your judgment
#
is evolving and it always evolves quicker than your ability itself and it's just a question
#
of putting in the work and the ability catches up and Ray Robinson is a great model like
#
the other you know I often contrast Ray Robinson with someone like Neville Cardas and I find
#
Neville Cardas too poetic and flowery and all of that and you know and I think there's
#
a danger for a young writer to try to be like Cardas I would be like if you just go for
#
economy of prose like you said char para mein itna kuch bol diya you know and Robinson
#
is sort of a great example of that.
#
What is the journalism world like in terms of you know the hierarchies and the kind of
#
things you're allowed to cover like you have a very interesting story before you became
#
a journalist in fact when Shekhar was a journalist where he went to he was covering this tennis
#
tournament in which Ramnathan Krishnan and Ramesh Krishnan who was in a young teenager
#
were both playing and he covered the whole tournament to the point they reached the final
#
and he knew it was going to be a front page story he was very excited father versus son
#
in the final and he goes there and at one point then he sees the sort of the resident
#
editor or the sports editor R Sriman walking in and he realizes that shit that guy is going
#
to write the report and that guy also had good reasons because R Sriman had seen Ramnathan
#
play with his father many years back so waha bhi narrative aakh to hai hi but you know
#
poor Shekhar the young journalist misses out and I remember you know when I entered cricket
#
journalism with Sambit's team back in the early 2000s and I remember I was with a bunch
#
of you know I had a bunch of young colleagues like myself like Rahul Bhattacharya and a
#
bunch of us later on you know Sidwi who you mentioned in the book Anand Vasu who you mentioned
#
in your book and I remember at one point I sensed this resentment from the older journalists
#
who were in their 40s or 50s and one of them who used to work for a news agency one day
#
took me aside and said you know what I started as a stringer in this news agency then I worked
#
with this big newspaper it took me 12 years before before I was allowed to cover an India
#
cricket match because first you're covering your local tennis match your local this your
#
local that you move up the ranks to be able to cover an actual match by India is such
#
a big privilege and you have to do so much to get there so obviously there are these
#
young whippersnapper kids like myself who are like too over smart right you think the
#
world of yourself because you haven't seen enough of it and and you're immediately covering
#
test cricket and you're like sitting in press box and being a hero so what was that journey
#
like through journalism for you see when I started international cricket wasn't that
#
much there no the Ranji cricket was huge they were lead stories even interclub matches used
#
to get huge treatment so this aspiration to straightaway become an international reporter
#
in the sense to write on India matches wasn't there that much because opportunities were
#
very few and far and used to get your proper bylines by covering Ranji cricket a b there
#
was also this feeling which was among all my colleagues when I was young that there
#
are these seniors who cover almost everything on their own beat all of the games there used
#
to I mean there were no specialists right now you have like somebody's covering cricket
#
somebody's they're different people in my period wasn't like that I think the sports
#
editor or whoever was senior and had greater access would cover everything they go to archery
#
man has covered would cover world hockey would cover Olympic games would cover cricket series
#
though Times of India had K N Prabhu was probably more senior than him and so there was this
#
hierarchy was there and it was difficult to break that hierarchy so I'm again I would
#
consider myself lucky that I was in Chandigarh which wasn't the main center for Indian Express
#
Express was in Delhi and yet I started getting people thought maybe I write well I think
#
more important than that was that you see journalists used to have a annual gathering
#
get together or if there was a federation and they used to organize interzonal cricket
#
tournaments so I since I had played a bit of cricket I was a major star for North Zone
#
and that period so I helped them a few times win the championship that actually probably
#
played an equally important role in other people accepting area cricket a cheeky that
#
those go chance though even the office thought so those things I think I was lucky to get
#
those breaks and but there was a very strong hierarchy very strong hierarchy which is less
#
now I mean there would be more heartburns now because there are more people more I would
#
say the quality of journalism today unfortunately maybe print is not giving providing enough
#
space is far better than it was during my time there are people who are trained who
#
have done proper studies they were they are not people like me were just happened to get
#
a job and become a journalist the people who aspired for it trained for it they're better
#
writers there but there may be greater heartburns because they are better writers and their
#
numbers are high so they they compete with each other younger people get chances to cover
#
international cricket so maybe that is there but at the same time for me to say that in
#
our times things were wonderful would be very wrong wrong perception or wrong convey a wrong
#
wrong thing no it wasn't it wasn't the people were we were all like upset all the time like
#
look we don't get chances I would get a chance to cover a Ranji game outside Punjab because
#
Faridabad happened to be in Haryana but though close to Delhi so even going to Faridabad
#
my getting a Ranji game was a big deal for me and there's another beautiful passage I
#
want to read out from sort of from your book where you write quote until the 80s publications
#
use metal typesetting the operator or typesetter keyed in the stories from the journalist typed
#
copy with editing marks the lino type machine created a mold of each line of type using
#
lead and these were assembled into the various pages of the newspaper by a page maker a specialized
#
job under the supervision of the sub editor or the chief sub editor it was a difficult
#
job but it was made to look easy by the skill from today's perspective a technology has
#
made the job so easy that the same person can write edit and make the page the work
#
these guys were doing seems impossibly hard the monotony of editing a piece giving it
#
a headline then proofreading the manually typeset copy and finally supervising the page
#
making would take about 10 to 8 hours stop code and I'm not reading this out only out
#
of a sense of nostalgia or to tell people today that hey you have it so easy and all
#
of that but I also want to sort of then think about how the process shapes the work that
#
you do like I think the big advantage of say being able to sit down and just type out a
#
report and hit enter and it is published immediately and people can read it means a number of different
#
things where on the negative side of the ledger it means that you don't perhaps take as much
#
care as you normally would if you were you know going through this entire process writing
#
one piece in eight days and all of that but at the same time on the positive side of the
#
ledger what it means is that you're getting much more writing done all these little points
#
of friction have vanished you can just focus on the actual craft of the writing or the
#
storytelling and because you're getting much more of it you're getting better at it much
#
faster you know it's kind of it's just something that I think about that you know when I first
#
started writing it was by hand and then I used a typewriter for a little while and then
#
computers happened but to me it seems there are different processes when I'm writing by
#
hand you know it is much slower it can't go at the speed of my thought when I'm writing
#
by a typewriter there is still a consideration that has to go into it because there is no
#
backspace if I make a typo or I change my mind I can't just backspace it and write it
#
again the computer is a different process you've been through all of this from writing
#
with hand by typing stuff and somehow finding a place to fax whatever you know all the technologies
#
do you feel that the process itself also then changes a kind of work that you are able to
#
do you know just in terms of something is more considered and thoughtful or something
#
can be longer for example when you're writing for the internet the great advantage is the
#
advantage of space you don't have to be four paragraphs or five paragraphs or a Robinson
#
you can be longer if you feel it justified so what are your thoughts on the different
#
ways in which form has evolved and how that's affected your work well I think human beings
#
have great capacity to adapt I mean if I look back and reflect on your question which I
#
have done earlier also I also began by writing with hand I was not I learned once I got the
#
job I learned a bit of typing in a typing school what I think there is this lazy dog
#
runs over the which in which you can like all the keys your ten fingers use all the
#
keys typing I mean at that time one didn't think this as a as a disadvantage when one
#
was doing it but now looking back obviously typing has this huge disadvantage of not whatever
#
you have written unless you change it I mean throw the paper and insert the paper if you
#
have made mistakes or if you think no this chain of thought is not okay see the computer
#
has this huge advantage of you can write first and then readjust paras which were or redo
#
them also which is not possible while you were typing but that also meant that subconsciously
#
since you're aware that you can't afford to make mistakes you were more attentive to you
#
were more because you know you know that look it will be difficult for me to now I finished
#
one page so let me be more thoughtful let me think a bit more seriously before I start
#
typing so I guess that training because of the requirement of what you are doing because
#
you you can't keep on throwing papers and it takes time and journalism is what it's
#
like you have to meet a deadline it's a work in a hurry so yes I think today's people have
#
this great advantage I have with this great advantage now if I write anything and it happened
#
in I think the first time I used a laptop was I think in for England tour in 96 you
#
had you sold your car to buy a laptop you've mentioned yeah that was in 97 so here was
#
this office laptop I was in express at that time and it's the first time and it was it
#
it was a wonder machine I mean you would wonder that look I can do anything like I can like
#
write a para and change it and without bothering about the typewriter it will make less noise
#
also it looked mostly can and it saved a lot of time and at the same time since you were
#
at such later age in the early 40s being introduced to a technology which was widely different
#
from your typewriter typewriter was like a metallic machine which could pick up and throw
#
laptop or something which was which was so precise and so I mean technically like no
#
you felt that you have to safeguard it and and you were fearful also I would I remember
#
that one would press a button and say press a wrong button the delete I mean you are not
#
used to it copies would vanish then you would be in panic so you would always key in with
#
a lot of fear that's nothing should go wrong the copy shouldn't vanish it happened with
#
me a couple of times you have written a report and obviously now I know I'm much more technical
#
technically laptop is likely using a typewriter now so I knew I used to press say delete
#
so you frantically search for some expert to tell you what to do what not to do but
#
yes your writing skills obviously would be better better because you spend less time
#
but do more it has changed it has changed but at the same time I am saying that when
#
you look back at people who have written at that period I'm sure if they were using laptop
#
also the language would have been the same because languages as you are saying product
#
of the times we live in it's not as if their language would have changed maybe they might
#
have become written more carefully with less attention but more care because you have time
#
you can do faster but but we adapt so you know when you talk about your wonder at seeing
#
how a laptop functions and I totally shared that I think of this quote by Arthur C. Clarke
#
where he said quote any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinct visible from magic
#
right and that's how it seemed to us that you know and you know you mentioned in your
#
book about how in 97 I think when you were in the pioneer you needed a laptop to go on
#
this tour and you actually you needed thirty thousand rupees you had to sell your car to
#
you know raise the money for it and I remember around that time perhaps and I wasn't a journalist
#
of course I was working as a scriptwriter in television but I badly wanted a laptop
#
as well because in my office I didn't have access to you know access to computers was
#
not so smooth I worked in Channel V at the time I remember and we just had sort of one
#
computer in the entire office and it wasn't with the scriptwriters it was with the PR
#
department you know and we had to there was this big political fight that we you know
#
wanted to use it but they would be very possessive of it so yeah so and something that we take
#
so completely for granted today like I cannot imagine sort of life without it now what's
#
what you'd earlier sort of said which I found really interesting is that you were sort of
#
not someone who was very outgoing kind of you know kept to yourself and all of that
#
until you started drinking and in your book you have you know you talk about the sort
#
of the cocktail parties that would happen with the press conferences and all of that
#
and there's this one hilarious story in fact which I really enjoyed about how you know
#
in one of those parties there is a guy who doesn't drink a colleague who doesn't drink
#
who you find is on his sixth Bloody Mary and then you go to him and he says yeah Pradeep
#
this is fantastic tomato juice and I was also struck by this passage there which I'll read
#
out where you say quote with most of the journalists having several drinks one would think that
#
the next day's reports would have had factual inaccuracies but this was rarely the case
#
or at least we believed so most of us had become experts at decoding match details from
#
the scorecard with live television coverage not reaching every home and in any case absent
#
from the games we covered the facts were what we wrote on in the paper even if on occasion
#
they may have been at variance with reality stop code and this also tells me like you
#
know there was this wisdom of course published almanacs but they also published something
#
called the Wizarding Book of Test Cricket and I think 77 78 and my dad got us a copy
#
of that and it had all the test match scorecards until then of course in that time so they
#
could fit in one book and I remember that one of my favorite activities was to sit there
#
and go scorecard by scorecard and make stories in my head from whatever I could decipher
#
from the this thing so that sense of you know you doing that from the scorecard also I mean
#
that's how we consume cricket at one point in time right TV night how YouTube night
#
our reports we need there for most of those matches that's what we did but the question
#
therefore is that how like one of the things that you used to be very disquieting for me
#
when I was a journalist the first thing I noticed as a young journalist in the press
#
box is that most of the people are not watching the cricket you know kabhi kuch aawaz aayegi
#
to they might look at the replay but most of the people are not watching the cricket
#
and I remember discussing this with a colleague that are we are cricket journalists we're
#
not even like kind of watching the game right and is this something that you saw and that
#
you noticed because a lot of the journalism in a sense then becomes kind of lazy where
#
you you know ki shortcut le liya ki you know scorecard se you kind of figure out what happened
#
and then you make up stuff around it like even that earlier example R Sriman walking
#
into the Ramnathan Krishnan versus Ramesh Krishnan match and you point out that he missed
#
most of the match but he put together a report with a lot of flurry prose and with a lot
#
of whatever from the bare facts without actually immersing himself is this a danger that journalists
#
face that you become jaded so you stop watching because initially I guess excitement bahut
#
hai you're watching every ball you're trying to maybe you're too excited trying too hard
#
to find narratives and stories in there but is there a danger that later you get jaded
#
and you're just going through the motions and like these are the two sort of extremes
#
you can go to yeah there is a danger I I thought about writing about all these things about
#
drinking about I mean I wanted to convey a picture of of journalism which was more truthful
#
than than this fancy dream world you create the look we worked hard and we we knew the
#
game and we were passionate about it at least my ex I'm narrating my experience I'm not
#
saying they weren't there in my experience also they were journalists who even then they
#
were young but probably they didn't they were there to they got a job and maybe they got
#
a job like I did and then they were now not not understanding the game or not working
#
to understand the game they would write cliches see when you write a match report from scorecard
#
you will write in cliches no caught behind I thought edged slip my catch had to edge
#
ho gaya cover me ho gaya to miss time ho gaya malap you create a story out of cliches and
#
since nobody is there to today's reader if you make mistakes in a printer report of a
#
match will kill you they'll write to your editor and you because they've seen the man
#
they're saying what rubbish this man is in our time that was a luxury which not everyone
#
took advantage of that luxury in the sense that okay kya farak padta hai nahi dekha dekha
#
and then if you are in press boxes where drinks are being served where that reporter like
#
the moment he realized that his his tomato juice was laced with vodka he suddenly felt
#
giddy and said yo I'm going home I'll sleep because he realized that he he may not be
#
able to write the report and he'll sleep properly and then make a report from the scorecard
#
so this this is a kind of dishonesty which was prevalent of of that of the specific periods
#
I was involved with in Chandigarh which I may also been guilty of my advantage was that
#
I unlike a lot of the others I at least had played the game even if it was at a college
#
level I could instinctively at least basic errors I wouldn't make I mean there are things
#
which instinctively if you if you understand and know know again you won't make that mistake
#
of you know you'll it will register even if you're not watching it very carefully but
#
it was wrong and yes the danger of jadedness is is I have always wondered and especially
#
wondered at people who have I used to remained as cricket writers for 30 40 years and I would
#
marvel at their capacity to have that concentration that passion to watch a game carefully because
#
there are people who do that I I mean I am writing of it's not like as if everyone is
#
doing that I'm just writing of a specific period but they're they're wonderful writers
#
who who even at later ages you watch them you just admire they just sit at the in the
#
press box and keep on watching and till the end they don't move but there are people who
#
get jaded and they get so jaded that it's like like they're bored with it's a problem
#
with doing something every day is that you get bored with that work and once you get
#
bored with that work you might take shortcuts so it's okay we'll watch the replay we'll
#
ask someone I'll trust someone the most you can do is if you're clever and this thing
#
you will ask a person whom you know has watched and understands the game you won't make the
#
mistake of asking someone who like you hasn't watched also and doesn't even understand the
#
game at least you will do that to trust a person you know that while you're writing
#
you won't make a mistake but there is this a lot of people get jaded a lot of you I got
#
jaded far early in my writing because somehow maybe I was interested in so many other things
#
I mean cricket wasn't for me since I had just strayed into journalism maybe cricket writing
#
wasn't for me that be end of everything so I was interested in some doing so many other
#
things or that I got bored with match reports very early in my life but one thing that you
#
seem never to have got bored with and that I think you did very well from what I remember
#
of your journalism and what I see in the book are other human stories of actually talking
#
to cricketers the profiles that you know there you were there's a much sort of greater engagement
#
so did that always did that side of it always interest you and then I think I was probably
#
more interested in understanding human nature in understanding and if you see in the book
#
my interactions with some of the top cricketers of that period which were common to people
#
who were covering at that time because the accessibility was far greater it was nothing
#
special to me but I think I since I was more interested in a in human nature be in not
#
not idolizing cricketers like like the danger of being in journalism is that you you basically
#
you are a fan you can't deny the fact that no matter how much you say that no I am here
#
as a professional we are fans you know we admire those skills we so beating a tendulkar
#
itself becomes an event whatever whoever you may be you may think you are a journalist
#
I keep my distance I somehow very early in my life lost that idolizing capacity somehow
#
because I saw I saw them as as human beings and I was more forthright and more more like
#
treating them like as equals which probably might have helped me in in in reconstructing
#
those era because I I I write about say ganguly dravid interactions or or chapel era I see
#
see it from every perspective I see it from dravid's I see from ganguly I even become
#
a mediator kind of a thing I like like maybe maybe my own distance from them I would never
#
despite having known them in the sense that if you read the book it appear as if I was
#
in friendly terms with them it wasn't like that I I would keep my distance I would hardly
#
like no try to see a lot of journalists try to follow a cricketer follow a captain seek
#
his court see his exclusive keep on troubling him give me an interview give me I would never
#
do that so maybe that helped me that whenever I approached them they would take me for a
#
bit more seriously that look maybe my gray hair helped because it's it's it's been gray
#
since the last 30 years so so I think maybe maybe my my training in a bit of English literature
#
my own I was a great follower of cinema I think one of the biggest influences on me
#
when I was in the university was watching Kurosawa's Roshamon gate I suddenly I couldn't
#
sleep for days because I just I suddenly realized that that to believe that there is one truth
#
and here is this film showing you multiple truths and even then you don't know what the
#
truth is I mean the same incident seen from say four or five perspectives and all the
#
five perspectives are different the people the person who's narrating that story becomes
#
the hero in that the savior in that or a good person the rest are villains so so everyone
#
is a villain from multiple perspectives and everyone is a hero and so it disturbed me
#
so much and I actually caught a glimpse of this in you know when you write about what
#
is happening between Dravid and Ganguly for example that Roshamon effect really comes
#
in is it because we are getting it from both sides right you're speaking to Ganguly and
#
you're speaking to Dravid and you're getting all the different points of view in there
#
which I found was sort of beautifully done and you know we'll of course talk about those
#
sort of as well but a follow-up question on this which is that in your case you're talking
#
to both Ganguly and Dravid and you're getting all those points of views and you know everybody
#
and you're making that effort but in many cases I feel that access and what it can get
#
you is a double-edged sword because on the one hand you're getting inside a dope which
#
you have no other way of knowing so you're getting a deeper insight into what's actually
#
happening but on the other hand the incentives of access are that you don't want to piss
#
off the person who's given you access because if you lose that access you know you are one
#
step behind your competitors who might be able to talk to the person so therefore you
#
know that can become a factor for some journalists where you can't then piss them off too much
#
your coverage has to be dictated by that like at one point you write in the 90s that you
#
were a little disheartened when Azhar was captain that Azhar only spoke to the small
#
coterie of people around him similarly I remember in 2006 when we had gone to Pakistan I was
#
sort of blogging also at the same time while I was writing for the Guardian and so on and
#
one of the things I blogged about was a Politburo and the Politburo was of course a group of
#
Bengali journalists who had access to Ganguly and every story they would write would be
#
from you know keeping Ganguly's interests in mind and you know I remember a couple of
#
them glaring at me and giving me angry looks at one point in time but that aside I think
#
what do you feel about these trade-offs and if there are young journalists listening to
#
this how should they navigate these trade-offs because on the one hand it's good to get close
#
to the subject so you get insider info but the point is one that access is always conditional
#
and two that access can bias you you know even if it is not the access isn't conditional
#
because you're close to one person you will subconsciously get bias towards that point
#
of view so what would your advice be to a young journalist and as a journalist yourself
#
and as an editor supervising so many other journalists writing for you how do you think
#
this is best navigated I think the first lesson to be learned is to stop being a fan try stop
#
being a fan I'm saying that it's difficult because you are a fan that's why you come
#
into the profession you know stop being a fan tell yourself that you're dealing with
#
the skills of these players otherwise they as human beings they may be as good or bad
#
they have a discipline in one this thing their skills are great in that discipline they become
#
great players second thing this access it's a very tricky thing because your newspaper
#
especially today's newspapers or television they demand access because you want they want
#
you want to break stories now access comes with this baggage of then you have to become
#
bias you have to please that person because otherwise he won't give you access now what
#
do you do in in my period space especially till till the large chunk till say even when
#
I retired maybe because I had been part of the when print was the king I mean print word
#
meant everything there was a time when there was no TV so players used to rely on the print
#
or selectors and everything to to find out or to use the print writing to even further
#
their agenda even like this fellow if they didn't like a player say or report me like
#
how to make a chani kela yeah so in my case I learned my lesson early which I describe
#
in the book also and Kapil gives me a big interview and then denies it later I was a
#
young rookie reporter it hurts my professional credibility but I also realized that don't
#
be close to players I went to the other extreme at that time and I could do that I stopped
#
being interacting with any player I mean this this kind of a thing went on till till till
#
I mean interact with a captain or a player only if it is strictly required at a professional
#
level otherwise no this thing that you like try to ingratiate yourself to him so that
#
you can get good stories or I stopped doing that it had its pitfalls but somehow I survived
#
I think the another lesson which is very important to learn is you have to be good at your work
#
I mean the subject you are writing on you have to be so good that even the people whom
#
you are writing about look forward to reading you I mean if you can do that I mean that's
#
why you are in the profession no you are you are not just writing for a lay reader you
#
are also writing for people who are playing that game they also like they would also want
#
to know what they have written and if you are judgment of of a game or of a player skills
#
or of that day's innings or of a spell is very close to what has happened from technical
#
point of view from the situation the match is placed in even the player even if you have
#
been critical of him realizes that this person is not coming from a from a perspective of
#
bias he may even want to read it every day I want to read this man what has he written
#
about me or what has he written about he may be learning from your writing if you can reach
#
that stage I mean you get a different respect from those people because they also I mean
#
like their craft you are also dealing with one craft no so if you can become in that
#
craft as good as as the players are in their craft you will have a lot of respect you will
#
have people will talk to you even if you have been critical to I don't think there have
#
been many journalists as critical of the establishment or even of players as I am not like trying
#
to praise myself like it's not I am not coming from that perspective but I have been a very
#
very my opinions may have been wrong people may have said ki yeh kya bakwas likh raha
#
but they have been strong opinions yet I have never been denied access by as this book bears
#
testimony to I remember one of the best compliments I think I was ever given was the one of the
#
members of the Politburo wonderful word you have coined for for for the clique so in West
#
Indies when World Cup 2007 when I write in the book that I I call up Dravid to wish him
#
best of luck against the Sri Lanka match because I had almost envisaged that we are going to
#
lose because the team was in a disarray this member of the Politburo meets me and he says
#
that the only journalist in India today whom both Dravid and Ganguly talked to I thought
#
it was it's a great compliment yeah because there were camps and and there were some journalists
#
in one camp some journalists in other camp and if I could manage to create this even
#
this impression among among the reporters especially among a Politburo member that's
#
not only Sourav who interacts with him even Dravid interacts with him so that is a fabulous
#
compliment and in fact that whole Nagpur incident you know you've narrated it so well from both
#
points of view which which are because you're speaking to both the players so you're getting
#
the inside view from both you know what Ganguly thinks about it and what Dravid is saying
#
is happening I thought it was great to sort of I mean I was an active journalist at the
#
time I was you know covering but you know I was in journalism so I kind of knew a lot
#
of what had happened but you've given this inside view from both the Ganguly and the
#
Dravid point of view from both the horse's mouth as it were which I liked and and and
#
there's another bit where you talk about how despite criticism they still remain friends
#
where you write and I'll I'll quote this para you write about Mr. Bedi where you say quote
#
I remember doing a critical story on him in which I wrote that Bedi needed to be present
#
in Punjab to see its cricket structure first hand if he was to understand what was needed
#
for improvements this is when he was Punjab cricket coach by the way I also hinted that
#
some wrong selections were being made because Bedi was misled by Punjab officials the morning
#
my story appeared Bedi barged into my room turned his backside towards me bent over and
#
in a tone more sarcastic than bitter said in the crudest of Punjabi Marlo jinne manne
#
hai Marlo and then you translate that stop quote which I found so charming and obviously
#
he's still your friend to to this day and all that you have that sort of affection and
#
and that's really you and that only you're right just comes with doing your work so well
#
that they sort of respect you for that alone my next question is about how just what a
#
cricket writer is doing or what they are supposed to do the brief of that itself has changed
#
and it changed in a very big way with the television era because before the television
#
era happens you're writing a match report where you have to describe events what happened
#
today you know that is what the reader wants to know because the reader has no idea and
#
that's your job so it's a that is a narrative it's it's sequential and it's like these
#
other things that happened in the day's play once television comes on and a significant
#
chunk at least for international matches a significant chunk of your audience knows what
#
happened they have the narrative and especially more acute today when they know what happened
#
in real time on the internet the brief of the writer obviously changes so now you no
#
longer have to do a linear description of what happened instead you pick some other
#
narrative within the day so maybe there is some engrossing battle with a spinner bowling
#
five maidens to a particularly patient batsman and that can become your dramatic arc for
#
the day or you find other dramatic arcs you know within within the day like you know to
#
take a dramatic arc from a match in an earlier generation in your book you write about how
#
in 1974 when the Indian cricket team played there you know an entire day would go by when
#
Vardhikar is not even talking to his spinners right because of how relations are and that's
#
a dramatic narrative arc and what I and I of course sort of joined cricket journalism
#
at a point where it's very much shifted already where you know we would do what we would call
#
a bulletin which is the linear report but we'd have other things around it and even
#
within the linear report it's just you don't just have to do event event event you can
#
look at larger things and I would think that this not only changes the reports themselves
#
which is trivial of course it does but it also changes the way that cricket writers
#
now watch cricket where they are not watching because they have to cover the events which
#
happen and write them down but they are watching at a different meta level where they are looking
#
for these stories where they are looking for these other angles now given that you really
#
straddle these eras you know you straddled a pre-television era and then you post-television
#
era and you were an editor yourself guiding so many writers do you think that that changes
#
the way you watch cricket to begin with that your imperative change and you know so give
#
me a sense of what this evolution has been because I actually you know left cricket journalism
#
in 2008-2009 and I'm sure it's evolved a lot even since then because now there is just
#
so much material on the internet everything is real time and so on and so forth so give
#
me a sense of the evolution of cricket writing well I also left active reporting in 2007
#
that was my last event I covered was that World Cup apart from I cover went to see Ganguly's
#
retirement match because I thought he had promised also an interview and also I thought
#
I'd watched his debut so let me yeah it has changed and it's changed dramatically when
#
I started match report was the only authentic document of what had happened of the day because
#
there was no recording of the event either the match report or people who would have
#
watched themselves live with television coming in when people watching so suddenly everyone
#
would say that look why you write writing a match report why you and especially those
#
statistically oriented boring match reports where why what ball a four was hit when was
#
a maiden bold and so what do you do you you are not used to the new new era has dawned
#
in people are watching you you have become almost redundant in a way now do you change
#
your style you have to change your style then you capture as you say these moments and build
#
a narrative make and every report has to be readable in the first place see what no matter
#
what you write the reader has to get engaged in it I mean the why is the reader coming
#
to your report is because he's interested in that game he's coming to that my my thing
#
to my reporters at that time was that look don't forget the fact that a match has there
#
has been an event and the day there are a lot of writers who forget the fact that they're
#
writing about that day's play and they pick up one thing and write from beautifully written
#
I'm not saying that's not beautifully written but when you read from first line to end you
#
wonder what is it about okay I enjoyed reading it so I would tell them that look develop
#
the skill of weaving this moment with introduce the match also I mean this narrative shouldn't
#
forget the fact that so and so has happened a match is placed in the in the context whether
#
the who needs runs to win or the wicket is bad so you bet it badly so there is a past
#
and a future likelihood which don't forget that in a but there are such wonderful writers
#
these days and I know you look one looks forward to even reading their that but at the same
#
time I see a lot of young readers complaining that they read about it but but what is it
#
about so a difficult it's it's a difficult situation for a for a journalist I think still
#
British journalists still I think stick to the whole formula do they I think they do
#
I haven't been reading recent cricket journalism to be honest I read a lot of football but
#
I haven't you know so I'm I go to the Guardian so what does the football reporter do internationally
#
and it sticks to no I think the football reporter won't do a blow-by-blow analysis they'll do
#
a lot of stuff around it and generally for every match and this was a formula we used
#
to follow there'll be one report which is kind of a report but not exactly linear which
#
can flow around but which is kind of a report and then there'll be other pieces on the match
#
which you know we look at other angles color pieces comment pieces and cricket has an advantage
#
that there is a scorecard and if it is a detailed scorecard you can get the sense of what has
#
happened on there then you can around it weave different stories and so so that's why I think
#
the present-day journalist has a much more difficult job to do and and his writing skills
#
have to be really really good to engage his readers his or her readers and that's why
#
he needs to be at the top of his subject as well as his craft see unless you are at top
#
of your subject you understand your subject you can't weave other stories also because
#
it's through the understanding of your subject you pick up those moments which you think
#
are important and need to be described at length yeah absolutely and just thinking aloud
#
again what we earlier discussed about cricketers that the ecosystem is so much better pedagogy
#
and learning cricket is so much easier and therefore you have much more depth in cricketers
#
would you say the same is true of cricket writers well their bright writing skills are
#
definitely better I mean I can see that everyone can see that yes there see it's easier they
#
better trained far better trained than I ever was by editors like yourself no no I mean
#
maybe through experience but they are better trained even in their colleges you have colleges
#
which train you in journalism there are colleges which train you now in sports journalism there
#
are colleges which train you in your writing skills you yourself do this you train people
#
in in writing better not just sports but any subject basic concept of what good writing
#
is so there are people who are trained in that and they are better but at the same time
#
I would say that the earlier generation good writers would have been equally good today
#
if they were there and and and there have been still wonderful writers of that the earlier
#
era it's not as if as if they were bad writers they were good writers yeah I mean I mean
#
the most memorable cricket writing that I read is really written by people in that generation
#
but there's a selection bias I'm just kind of I don't read as much of a volume of cricket
#
writing today as I perhaps should my next question refers to something we discussed
#
but from a different angle like we spoke about how there is a danger that in journalism writers
#
can become jaded and they can go through the motions and their ticking boxes and all of
#
that and that is just at the level of you know the everyday sort of routines of the
#
job and how you handle it but there is something broader there that you know I want to ask
#
you about which is that when we talk of journalism at one level it is a profession that is all
#
it is people want to read what happened a journalist is someone who will collect the
#
facts write a readable report put it out there there's a functional element to it the journalistic
#
outfit is therefore a business there is supply and demand you're fulfilling the demand with
#
your supply and the profit and loss statement matters and beyond that values don't really
#
matter it just matters that you fulfill the demand and there is another view of journalism
#
which is a romantic view which will be that no there are certain values which are core
#
to good journalism you know that of like the whole notion of say afflicting the comfortable
#
and comforting the afflicted you know which is such a cliche also but that whole notion
#
of doing the first draft of history as well as you can with all the integrity you can
#
and so on and so forth you know there are certain values that you bring to the game
#
and I agree with you that objectivity is impossible per se because everybody is who they are they're
#
coming from a particular place but within that you make the best good faith effort you
#
know to do justice to the facts as you see them and there is today a conflict I think
#
I mean there's always been a conflict but today it seems stark a conflict between these
#
two visions of journalism where on the one hand somebody who owns a journalistic outfit
#
will say that I'm running a business profit and loss you know if for example the government
#
of the day doesn't like what I'm doing and they do you know carry out an income tax raid
#
on the other business that I run I won't be able to do that so I'm going to toe the line
#
and I don't care about your finer values you go to hell and on the other hand people believe
#
and in a way I believe that there is something there are higher values that you have to kind
#
of fight for and and and that matters and and this again relates to the whole jadedness
#
thing that you know you can get jaded in terms of the sort of routines you follow and all
#
of that but you know some people can get jaded and some people can always just try to look
#
at what they are writing about in a fresh way and equally some people can treat it just
#
as a business key functional has go canna hai but some people can always keep those
#
higher principles in mind so what what's your view on all of this see ideally obviously
#
who would not want to say that the higher principles are more important I mean those
#
higher principles are not that you you are like doing something which you're not meant
#
to do you are meant to say for instance you take a match you are meant to report the match
#
as faithfully possible to your readers what has happened your role is is is very secondary
#
actually you you are a medium you're you're not you're not the actual you're not doing
#
the actual job you are not the main player in that you are just conveying now how do
#
you convey that you can only convey that a as I was saying earlier also you understand
#
that see one of the principles of of reporting a match at that level is that you you are
#
so good in understanding technically the skills of the game that you can report it faithfully
#
now that itself is an ethical principle I mean I know this ethical principle is is doesn't
#
require any great sacrifice it requires sacrifice in the sense that you have to train yourself
#
for that you know how good are you for that you have to be I mean as a journalist your
#
job is what is journalist job to report faithfully whatever he sees that itself requires to see
#
the truth or to see something as close to truth as it is possible within your capacity
#
so these are higher principles I don't think these are higher principles which require
#
you to go on a fast or take become an activist no now you're talking about ideologically
#
inclined journalism where I think what I do is go outside the context of cricket you know
#
and and just talk about what is happening in the space of political journalism or just
#
in a matter of reporting what is happening in the country because too much of our journalism
#
quote-unquote journalism today seems to be about narrative battles and not really about
#
what happened and I think just to reframe my question I think I was imprecise when I
#
sort of expressed myself but to reframe it my question would be that in that broader
#
context of writing the first draft of history is it possible or sustainable for those higher
#
value journalism to be done because when the environment is the way it is you know then
#
it almost seems practical that if I am running a journalistic outfit I'll be like ki mujhe
#
I want to keep running my outfit not get into trouble with the government because they can
#
shut me down I want to keep making profits and give people what they want if they want
#
annab Goswami I will give them annab Goswami and 40 shouting people on a screen right and
#
there is a certain cold monetary logic to that as well so is it and you see smaller
#
people who have less to lose and because they have less to lose they can fight so you see
#
smaller people like the news minute or a scroll or alt news and so on and all fighting this
#
you know and even those guys if the government really cares about you know starts caring
#
about English media they can stomp them down as well so my question really is that you
#
know is there a space is it sustainable for values based journalism of the kind that we're
#
talking about to survive in cricket of course is not much at stake I mean everybody wants
#
to describe the facts no even even in sports journalism cricket journalism it's becoming
#
difficult because there are sponsors who who advertise in the newspapers and they pay them
#
huge money for advertising and you can't like if you want to be critical of something wrong
#
has happened you are prevented from doing that because the papers profitability suffers
#
so it's it's a difficult situation it's it's extremely difficult to be a honest
#
journalist even if you are ideologically inclined towards the same government which is controlling
#
power because if you are an honest journalist even there you may be logically inclined towards
#
them but at the same time if there are wrong things happening there are corruption happening
#
if you are treating people badly if the policy has gone wrong you will be critical even if you
#
are if you are left liberally inclined like what happened during Congress's regime maybe they were
#
not as controlling of media there even their own people who are inclined towards their larger
#
policies were critical of them or harshly critical of them but today's time I I mean it's it's a
#
very I don't want to become I don't want to pontificate because it's a difficult situation
#
people have to make a living out of it's a it's after all the career it's not that they are
#
activists and they're making living from something else so what do you do and the question is that
#
with such kind of a draconian control what does a journalist do I mean it'll be very difficult
#
for me to be in their shoes and say that no no no I will like I will still be critical I'll write
#
what the truth is even if I lose my job it's easier said than done or somehow some balance
#
has to be needed and we are we are at a very critical point of in our society in our state
#
and where do we go from here these are questions which I think I am incapable of actually I I call
#
heartedly agree with you that these principles are I mean more important and I'm sure there
#
are still people who are adhering to those principle at at at a great cost to themselves
#
and that's why you need to admire respect and marvel at their their strength to fight
#
here's a sort of another question and and this you know comes from a number of points in your
#
book and and there is this incident you narrate in your book which you recall as a chilling
#
incident that you haven't been able to forget and I'll sort of read these paras out because
#
it chilled me as well when I read it and at the same time seemed not you know like why should it
#
be unfamiliar to any of us given the way the system works and you talk about you know you're
#
talking about a particular point in time and you write about the Patiala district cricket
#
association and you say quote the Patiala district cricket association was were taking
#
good care of us one of the dinners thrown by them ran late some of us got a bit too drunk so
#
one of the public relations officers PRO of the Punjab government was giving given the
#
responsibility of seeing us to a hotel safely he was a burly man with a big turban I was asked
#
to sit in a Jeep in a parking lot I probably dozed off in the front seat and when I woke up
#
I realized there were two people at the back I gathered that one was a public relations man
#
and the other was a professional photographer who was assigned to cover these kind of events
#
for a fee what startled me was a desperate tone in which he was pleading with the PRO not to stop
#
giving him work as it would affect his earnings the PRO was stern and rude saying how can you
#
refuse our demand fulfilled at first and your assignments won't stop the photographer continued
#
pleading please understand she is my daughter how can you ask me to do this ask for anyone else I
#
will do it but not this stop good he was begging his voice choked the burly seek wouldn't budge
#
like the debauched Maharaja of old he said no one can refuse us fulfill the wish and it will be
#
business as usual otherwise dot dot dot by then I was wide awake and these are your words by then
#
I was wide awake was this for real was this conversation really taking place a wave of
#
emotions fear disbelief disgust and even a feeling of humiliation overwhelmed me the conversation
#
haunts me even today that PRO went on to become a very influential man in Punjab's political setup
#
you know later in a different part of the book you speak about you know the corruption within
#
the cricketing ecosystem itself which we know about in one example you give us of the great
#
bowler Rajinder Goel when he was a junior selector you know he insisted on picking one boy in the
#
you know the junior team and people kept asking him why him he's done nothing and then he said
#
that no no he revealed that this kid is the son of the postman and the last time I didn't select
#
him all my letters kept getting misplaced so I just don't want my letters to get misplaced I
#
can't think of any other way you know which tells you about the different ways in which people have
#
power over your lives and in this case it's a humble postman but obviously you know the rich
#
and the powerful pull their strings and just you know corrupt the system in this way and in another
#
part you have this sort of passage where you write about you know the Mandal years where you
#
know you write I worked for the Indian Express in Chandigarh for 15 years a later years of this
#
period would be spent drinking in the press club in sector 27 and having loud boisterous arguments
#
with friends while indulging in inane gossip or debates on cricket around us was emerging the
#
specter of Punjab terrorism and strained Sikh Hindu relationships the Mandal Commission had
#
exposed a hierarchical fault lines in Hindu society and the Hindu right wing symbolized
#
by the Ram temple movement and the demolition of the Babri Masjid what amazes me today when
#
I recall that period is how we managed to focus on the game despite the killings the fear and
#
the sectarian and caste divides that were devastating lives top court and so the larger
#
question I'm coming at through all of this is that in all these years that you were a
#
cricket journalist you were obviously deeply affected by all of these things the rot within
#
our society the rot within the cricket ecosystem itself and then all these fissures and divisions
#
which are sort of exploding so you know the almost rhetorical question that you pose in at
#
the end you know the end of the Para I read out is is what I'd ask you that did you then feel
#
tempted ki nahi yaar abhi cricket bahut ho gaya hai you know I want to write about these other
#
things I want to be part of you know covering all of this other stuff so how was it psychologically
#
like were you able to compartmentalize and say ki theek hai this one part of me which is the
#
concerned citizen and then I'm doing a job which is a cricket journalist I'll continue doing that
#
or were you ever tempted ki theek hai you know let me let me write about other things that you
#
know so on and so forth well yes I was tempted I had a lot of friends of mine who used to tell
#
me that look you since you're interested and involved with so many things why don't you write
#
about them maybe I felt I was tempted but at the same time this comfort of doing a job and a fixed
#
salary and now to disturb that whole ecosystem would be difficult maybe that prevented me from
#
taking this leap I think that's one of the important reasons why if you see in my career
#
it's not as if I lacked understanding of the game it's not as if I didn't have access to
#
cricketers I got more and more involved with writing on the corruption of the game I think
#
that was my way of getting out of this everyday match report when so much around was happening
#
and that's why I think it took me to the match fixing story it took me to take a lot of strong
#
articles or exposes on on cricket corruption I think that that's one reason why I'm known more
#
people know me as somebody who he was someone who was written on the match fixing there are many
#
times I want to tell people that look I understand the game as well as a lot of journalists would a
#
lot of good journalists do because it's not as if my lack of my understanding of the game made me
#
become more and more a more like a political journalist journalists who sees cricket in that
#
prism and writes about its officials but I think that's the the short point I want to make is
#
that's one main the reason that why I shifted from purely as a match reporter to to writing
#
about cricket related issues of corruption and did that like did that ever get you into trouble
#
was that a more risky path for you to take because obviously when you start writing about all of
#
these issues well you know the board can get pissed off local authorities can get pissed off
#
it's it's kind of a it's a riskier route to take well I think I was again you see I was without a
#
job for a year in pioneer when I went to 96 97 I did that fixing report from West Indies but but
#
I didn't lose my job because of that we walked out because of certain issues with the paper and
#
its ownership and which is which are in the book I was in with Indian Express before that I had
#
come from Chandigarh with the promise that I'll become its sports editor or there is in charge
#
it never happened I could hardly get to write but I don't think they were connected with I
#
would believe that they were not connected with what I was writing my later part of my writings
#
in a way made me a pariah with the cricket administration I had a lot of issues with them
#
and they would but I was lucky enough to say become the sports editor of a big newspaper so
#
because of that I could overcome those shortcomings in the sense the shortcomings
#
that your access you no longer have that access so I was lucky I would say that it happened in
#
the later part of my career maybe I was already in already I had established myself in the
#
profession and people who would if it had been done by a younger reporter maybe he would have
#
suffered more in my case maybe they found it more difficult to deal with me because I was
#
already established and that could be the reason why I didn't suffer as much as a lot of people
#
do when they write like that when I was you know a cricket journalist at wisdom I remember calling
#
one of our cricketing legends from the 60s and 70s for a quote on something or the other and
#
when he learnt I was from wisdom he said what about vitamin M and I was like what is vitamin
#
M and then I realized that you know he wants to get paid for a quote and I was a very poignant
#
moment I honestly I felt like crying because this is you know one of the heroes you idolize
#
and you totally understand where they are coming from because in their generation they really took
#
up the game for the love of it and of course jobs and other things happen but basically there's
#
not much money they're not getting rich there there aren't endorsements all of this stuff isn't
#
happening and they've lost out on all that and in a sense during your career you saw the transition
#
of the game from a point where you're going from a sort of an amateur ethic kind of thing where
#
people aren't really making that much money where if you play at the Ranji level you do it because
#
you know State Bank of India will give you a job or services will give you a job or whatever to a
#
stage where cricketers became phenomenally rich as they are today and the IPL in fact God bless
#
it spread that wealth around among cricketers even more so you had a broader pool of people who are
#
making a lot of money but in that transition came those years of match fixing which are also
#
poignant for different reasons and which you covered so closely and what I am always struck
#
by is a human aspect of that that why do players who are superstars who are so already idolized
#
by their countries to the extent that people would even make temples for them why are they
#
so tempted that they risk it all for something like this and that human story is really been
#
sort of fascinating to me and and match fixing was part of it for a long time like you narrate an
#
incident from I think 1979 where Gundappa Vishwanath was the captain of a game against Pakistan and he
#
said that Asif Iqbal came to him and said that listen we'll toss and all that but no matter how
#
the coin lands I will both say that India won the toss right and Vishwanath doesn't know how to
#
react to that like what is this what is even happening so from back then this was in the air
#
so tell me a little bit about how you realized that this stuff was going on when did you begin
#
to realize that this was serious what were your feelings as a fan of cricket and a cricket writer
#
and someone who knew so many of these cricketers personally about what was happening and how
#
did you then you know do all that you did all the journalism that you did leading up to writing the
#
book and you know all of that how did it all pan out see I think because of my varied interest in
#
what is what was happening in the society my I kind of a branched out in a way and I started
#
looking at things differently looking at the administration of cricket differently so so in
#
in that once I realized that that the that the fraternity the cricketing fraternity itself was
#
talking about fixing be it the players you knew or be it the officials you knew I from today when
#
I look back I find it very deeply I mean it's a failure of our of the journalist journalism at
#
that point of time that there were not many people we all journalists had heard about it
#
knew about it I know it's difficult how do you write about it I mean it's such a unless you have
#
proof you can't make such a allegation that look this cricket whole ecosystem is is is plagued with
#
this malice but at least people were being made aware that this possibility is there and there
#
a time had reached by 96 97 that that if you were part of that fraternity it was it was talked as
#
if you watch a match and they'll say oh yeah I mean these are people who are involved with
#
the game these are not spectators talking so once I was aware of it I was looking for an
#
opportunity to how do you write about it and that was provided in 97 in West Indies where this
#
bookie was there and and it's a relationship is formed and and I realized that then I talked to
#
Tendulkar before doing the story and so I do a story it's it's not it's not a it's a story which
#
is suggesting telling the readers that this possibility is very much there it's not a story
#
which is saying that so-and-so has taken money and because at that time there were a lot of other
#
stories floating around like Shane Wan had said that Salim Malik had offered him money so I added
#
my own story only thing the different was difference was it was in an Indian context and be
#
telling readers that it's a possibility which is very much there I wouldn't have done that story
#
if I was not privy to what was happening or what was being talked about otherwise to a lay leader
#
it might have looked like many people said that this is what a sensationalizing something very
#
trivial that there's a book so what there's so many people but I had taken a conscious decision
#
to do that story because I knew that there is truth behind and the story just to summarize for
#
the listeners is that a bookie had approached you and offered you money offered me money to
#
introduce him to top Indian cricketers to manipulate matches and the bookie also had said that he has
#
been stopped from visiting South Africa because he has gone there so often because South African
#
cricketers are the maximum involved in match fixing I mean this is a this thing written in
#
the book which was published in 99 and the Hansi Krone episode broke about a year later yeah so
#
that fellow may have been fibbing but but circumstantial silly if he's saying that and it turns out to be
#
true so what I'm trying to say is that I did that story and that story because I was I not me every
#
journalist knew that it is happening so at least at least your obligation to your readers is to
#
tell them that look this is there it's not let's not talk among ourselves alone let the readers
#
also know that this thing is there then Outlook and Andhruv Bihal and they did a fantastic job
#
they went deeper into it they provided proof of it and but my relationship with the Indian
#
board strained so much that they would not talk to me in fact the Justice Chandrachud who was
#
retired Supreme Court Chief Justice when that one-man committee was formed by the board his
#
point of reference was my story also among the reference points was that people say this this
#
pioneer story but done by this says this and he calls journalists to appear before him he doesn't
#
call me which is strange I mean he he refers to my story but doesn't call me so it the rot is
#
till that level so I kept on writing I I mean I forced my way into Chandrachud committee because
#
I told the Bombay I was a pioneer sports editor to ask Chandrachud that when you are when your
#
reference is that my pioneer story that why aren't you calling that man you're calling other journalists
#
you're not calling the man to ask him that why did you do that story give me facts give me truth
#
so so that's how I got into it and it created a lot of I mean I was without a job for a year or
#
more Shekhar comes to my rescue again in the book I've written that and it's I think because of
#
those writings also I would have found it difficult to get back into journalism yeah and and you were
#
absolutely vindicated obviously as we know today you know if you you know if you don't have the
#
timeline of the book that is published in 99 you think hi yeah to put a high it to sub hogya but
#
actually the revelations really broke after that yeah and the story I did was in 97 West Indies tour
#
and the journalists started making fun of me the journalists started yeah they make start making fun
#
of me that you can have a bazimey story yeah I mean I was literally I mean a probably many
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journalists may have felt threatened that a lot of editors were asking them that if the story is
#
appeared why don't you follow up is there some truth in it so maybe one they came from this
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embarrassment that saying that oh we didn't do it so they would their reaction was that it's all
#
rubbish it's all though they everyone was aware of there was one important journalist who would
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in the press box be all the time with the bookies telling them what odds are there and what the
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weather is like what I mean this all of us were aware of it it's our failure that we didn't get
#
it more about that those days into the print yeah and again sort of the the nature of how
#
circumstances can completely change something you know comes about when you write about how you know
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when Tendulkar got the captaincy for the second time in 99 one of his sort of conditions for
#
taking the captaincy was that Azar should not be part of the team and apparently the players were
#
ready to revolt if Azar was brought back and when it seemed like Azar was going to be brought back
#
then Tendulkar gave up the captaincy and at that time there was a shadow over Kapil so Kapil was
#
moved as coach and then right after that happened Kronje came out and he confessed and he said that
#
yeah Azar is a man who introduced me to the bookies so Azar was out anyway but as you point out in
#
the book the counterfactual is that if Kronje had said what he said six months earlier Tendulkar
#
would probably have remained captain Kapil may not have had to go and the Ganguly era may never
#
have happened well that's that's an assumption I made me make on circumstantial evidence I mean
#
Tendulkar has to himself corroborate that corroborate that yes it is because of that my
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assumption and I feel I may not be wrong in it this is what I had seen I had done the story
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from Australia in the 2000 1999 tour of India's to South Africa when Tendulkar was captain and
#
confirmed the story from a player that yes the entire Indian team was willing to write to the
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board not to select Tendulkar I knew for a fact that Tendulkar was suspicious of Azar so and earlier
#
also his regaining captaincy also had to do with Tendulkar as Azar was dropped from the team so my
#
assumption is that had Hansi Kronje I think broken earlier Tendulkar would have stayed as our captain
#
and yes Ganguly era would have never been there yeah I mean again a fascinating sort of counterfactual
#
then what was the sense you got from the players about all of this like you know a lot of people
#
subsequently for example have criticized Tendulkar that if he knew about it he should have spoken
#
out and the counterpoint to that is that you know that he must have thought that you know why take
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a risk why get into a mess you know the underworld is also involved for example just close your mouth
#
and don't talk about it and all of that so one what is your view on that particular question that
#
should the players who knew about it have spoken out or were they just being practical and the
#
other question is that what did the players of the time themselves feel about it like was it really
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just a question of a handful of bad apples or was there a deeper rot within the system look my my
#
sense again I can't prove it like it's it's like a lot of things can be defamatory also but whatever
#
little bit interaction with the players of earlier era I'm not talking about the Ganguly era players
#
but the players of just preceding them the Azar era yeah the Azar era players and was even then
#
that it this practices was as far more widespread than we would like to believe not just with Indian
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cricketers but with cricketers internationally since if that is true since it was so widespread
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spread so all of them if most of them are complicit in it they would they're part of it they would just
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not want to take a stand or talk about it once we go into the Ganguly Tendulkar era Tendulkar is
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probably the link I mean he's the senior most among them whether how much he was aware of it
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because when I interviewed him in West Indies in 97 before doing the story which I have recorded
#
in both the books in that also in this also in the earlier book not quite cricket is that he
#
tells me that he's heard these stories of players being involved but but don't do the story but give
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it give this number to the cops to record the conversation so that we will at least come to
#
know the truth which was a very valid suggestion maybe I was too much in a hurry to finish off the
#
story there and not go into that maybe I should have so it's obvious that Tendulkar was aware
#
of the fact that there is this possibility there may be he had heard stories how much of those
#
stories he had he had proof of I have no idea did he speak to authorities did he speak to the
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establishment he may have I mean the problem with our documentation is that we don't have like
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whistleblower establishment we don't have players who have the courage to speak even today Tendulkar
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on record has given many interviews in which he has said that he has never ever heard that match
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fixing was taking place why was he so vehemently against other being in the team then like it
#
almost feels from the narrative of the book that there was almost a condition for him taking up
#
the captaincy yeah because all these players were that's what I am saying you know they were they
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were aware of the fact that that Azhar could be one of the kingpins of what was happening
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and it was their way of conveying to the board that look don't select him I mean when they got
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together to say that like we will if he is selected we will withdraw from the team in Australia that
#
obviously meant that they were conveying their feelings to the board but what board did was
#
not listen to them get back Azhar his Azhar's misfortune that he got injured he missed his
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playing hundred test match and and then subsequently the whole thing exploded and
#
we came to know what the truth is and my sense would be that this happened to happen in those
#
years just before big money became really commonplace in the game so when I look at
#
the game today for example the way the incentives are aligned I would just assume that there is
#
absolutely no top player who would even contemplate something like this because
#
they're already earning so much money through legitimate means that they would never risk
#
their career or anything so if anybody is tempted by match fixing or spot fixing rather
#
then there'll be people on the absolute fringes who are you know who are sort of you know IPL
#
squad but maybe not a regular member or whatever people on the fringes who are not making that
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kind of insane money but I cannot possibly imagine any international player even contemplating it
#
because now there is too much to lose is that something you'd agree with I think in Indian
#
context or in context of cricket boards which are richer which are paying great deal of money to
#
their players I would agree but the danger lies in not the top cricketers being involved the
#
danger lies is that the bookies have infiltrated to such an extent that they target young budding
#
players from the league level only it is like a manager signing a player that okay I'll give you
#
so much and he spots the talent and he he says at the age of 17 18 he thinks this fellow can
#
become a Tindulkar and let me be the first to sign him I am investing in future so a lot of
#
these bookies as I write in this book also what Ajay Sharma talks about MK and how as a small time
#
as a young budding cricketer he targeted him and paid him gave him money for hitting a good 100
#
basically he was making an investment so many of these players if they come from junior league
#
levels and are already on the payroll of a bookie and they say one of them becomes a top cricketer
#
what happens I mean I'm just giving you a possibility yeah so it makes sense that you
#
invest in 50 junior cricketers and invest in the sense that you go up to them after a match and you
#
give like in Ajay Sharma's case you pointed out somebody went up after he played a good innings
#
and gave him a 100 rupee note and he was so happy because he's being appreciated which he doesn't
#
know but then the relationship is formed that fellow must be giving him money for more and more
#
for inside information even at the league level small ddca league level there are betting taking
#
place and and you kind of manipulate and initially it will be harmful harmless seemingly harmless
#
stuff like tell me about the selection beforehand or tell me you know what's the plan is if you win
#
the toss or lose the toss but later on it then goes into the serious and clearly illegal territory
#
and by that time you're too much that's why that is why it's very important to to have a kind of a
#
fair transparent crackdown instead of saying no no no no no it's it's it is not as if india's image
#
gets tarnished or some other country's image gets tarnished it's it's it's the right thing to do
#
i mean people get tempted there is corruption very rich people do more and more corruption to
#
earn more money another point i want to make it there there are countries who hardly pay their
#
cricketers these are retired cricketers these are cricketers who become big names in t20 leagues
#
oh i mean i'm not saying they take money but what stakes do they have in
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yeah their career is over they hardly get any money from their board and
#
so that what i'm saying is that let's not just think that it
#
it's that there is no possibility of this happening
#
so let's now you know move on from this unpleasant subject and to the happier subject of how indian
#
cricket evolved and obviously one way in which the ganguly era was a step from the past is that
#
everybody's making decent money now and you know the some of the bad incentives of the past may
#
not necessarily exist but the other way in which it changed is that i think the ganguly generation
#
was perhaps almost the first generation of indian cricket which represented that post
#
liberalization reality that the middle class has exploded and one way of seeing the explosion of
#
the middle class is that number one in your big traditional cities like bombay and delhi
#
the opportunity cost of playing cricket has gone up because there's so much else you can do with
#
your time so many more opportunities so many ways of leisure so many things you can aspire to
#
that people in the big cities will not necessarily travel in those numbers for three hours on a
#
local train to get to shivaji park and you know play every morning at six o'clock while at the same
#
time people in the small towns across india are now coming into the means where they can buy
#
cricket bats and cricket equipment and there are nets springing up and academies springing up and
#
therefore in that generation in the auties ganguly dravid onwards and really exploding
#
thoni onwards where you have the traditional cricket centers of bombay delhi not producing
#
so many cricketers but cricketers coming from small towns all over the place from
#
humbler backgrounds from different backgrounds so you know tell me a little bit about like first
#
would you sort of agree with this thesis that this is that larger change in society is kind of being
#
reflected in this way and you know what are the ways in which you found indian cricket evolving
#
what are the ways in which you found indian cricket evolving you know during that interesting period
#
yes this is obviously true because more and more cricketers from smaller towns started
#
getting selected in the indian team it obviously had to do with the greater infrastructure more
#
money being spread around secondly i think when you talk about that era something what i found
#
very interesting and very i mean trend setting or or or very something very very significant was
#
that these dravid tendulkar laxman kumle they these were cricketers who
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i mean they they may have had their differences with each other they may
#
may have felt that okay maybe i should have been captain ganguly shouldn't have been captain
#
but they were team players they were incredibly like glued or wedded to the idea of team doing
#
well and where ganguly played a significant role was i'm not sure if ganguly had not been the
#
captain if he had not been the captain i'm not sure what role he would have played
#
but since he was the captain and he was aware of the fact that he had to become a bigger captain
#
the team should win had to win he also invested a lot of his energy and effort
#
in trying to improve the team and not trying to disrupt not trying to feel that okay tendulkar
#
might be playing games with me or laxman so he let them be he realized that they were better
#
cricketers or he gave them their respect and then because ganguly had such access to dalmia the
#
board president and as i write in the book that dalmia couldn't afford to annoy ganguly because
#
of the peculiar ganguly from bengal and dalmia doing business in bengal so so he had to protect
#
him so ganguly could take a lot of liberties with dalmia and get away with it so in a way it
#
helped indian cricket because these four cricketers would tell ganguly that we need this this this
#
john right would say we need and ganguly would go to dalmia and say we and dalmia would do it
#
despite maybe he may not want to do a lot of these things so that that revolutionized indian cricket
#
and rest is the more and more money it's spread wider more and more players are now coming from
#
small town and it's it's great for indian cricket that we have such with the game has spread so much
#
yeah it's mind-blowing and and the ipl just took it a step forward i think by just making it possible
#
for so many by incentivizing so many more players to get into the game because earlier if you have
#
to get into the india team to make serious money and suddenly with the ipl no you know you can
#
play for one of the franchises and make serious money and also what it does is it takes politics
#
out of the or rather the local regional politics out of the equation in the sense that
#
you know you've spoken about the politics of selection at the junior level at the local level
#
everybody knows the politics around getting selected for delhi and you know which is like
#
one famous sort of basket case and suddenly that's out because now instead of a monopsony
#
where you have just one buyer for your services and therefore that buyer is all powerful
#
you have these different teams competing for the best talent and that only you know that works much
#
better so what is you know your sense of cricket having come to where it is today like you know
#
like you earlier said i think it was off the before the conversation was being recorded
#
that we can have seven eight teams today which are world class we can actually pick up that
#
many teams like a historic win in australia for example was really done by a third string
#
bunch of players who have all gotten confidence from playing against the best in the world in
#
the ipl and there's no self-doubt anymore you know they've honed their skills in that arena
#
so what is your sense and also but i'll leave the next question for later but what is sort of your
#
sense with where indian cricket is today from see indian cricket has never been as strong as it's
#
today financially talent-wise without doubt ipl has helped not just cricketers make money but i
#
think it has also helped a lot of these indian cricketers to interact with the best with the
#
world and since ipl is played in an environment where it seems like it's a world cup match full
#
stadiums so it has helped them to soak in a lot of pressure i mean otherwise a second or third string
#
team playing in australia would have cracked under pressure but these players have seen that pressure
#
in ipl so they are pressure i mean it's making them pressure proof it is helping a lot definitely
#
is helping indian cricket a lot my only reservation is not see i may not be a great ipl fan because
#
maybe i enjoy watching a five-day game of i enjoy it far more i find but that's that's a personal
#
preference it doesn't mean that ipl is bad or my problem with ipl is that since there is so much
#
of money coming from it and more and more money is coming it's spreading there will there be enough
#
time in future left for indian board or even other boards to invest in test cricket after all
#
as i as i say there are only 365 days in a year you already have now extended it to three months
#
that leaves just nine months for traditional cricket in which there will be world cups also
#
one day t20 so it hardly leaves time and if india becomes more and more greedy they will
#
keep on extending it more and more and i hope the time doesn't come i hope the administrators have
#
enough vision and acumen not to destroy the traditional format because it's still enjoyable
#
to watch there are skills involved there which with the new entrants in the field may not
#
may not enjoy that but there are still people who enjoy that and it's those skills which help
#
even those who are playing ipl because of their foundations are good enough that they can do all
#
the inventive stuff in ipl yeah and i think i think you know there are two sort of different
#
ways that i think about this and one of them is that t20 cricket is a different sport from test
#
cricket it's like as different as badminton and tennis you just require completely different sets
#
of skills and there are different sets of values involved and i love both but i can i i'm not going
#
to pass judgment we were talking about being judgmental earlier i'm not going to i'm not going
#
to pass judgment against someone who likes one form and doesn't like the other whichever one it
#
is and may both thrive and at the same time i think t20 cricket has been excellent for test
#
cricket because it's in a sense kept the game alive because i think otherwise there was a danger
#
that there just wasn't enough money in the game and to some extent i think t20 cricket can play
#
the part moving ahead of subsidizing test cricket now one really cold-blooded way of looking at it
#
now one really cold-blooded way of looking at it would be saying that everything is supply and
#
demand if people don't want to watch test cricket let it die what i would rather the the way i would
#
rather look at it is just to say that there is now so much money in coming from t20 cricket that it
#
doesn't cost that much to keep test cricket alive and thriving even though it's a separate sport
#
you know that's that's that's also got a tradition of his own and i think over time people will
#
hopefully learn to and i think even younger people can get turned on by it like we've had outstanding
#
test cricket happen in recent times just outstanding so i'm kind of hopeful that my my next question
#
before i before we wrap it up and you know i'll ask you a couple of final questions after this
#
but my next question comes from something that you know there's another lovely para where you've
#
written where you talk about the early days late 60s 70s and you've written apart from the polio
#
stricken chandrasekhar's mesmerizing achievements and the emergence of sunil gavaskar on the 1971
#
tour of the west indies it was a pint-sized gundappa vishwanath century at kanpur on his debut
#
that stands out in my memory it was against the australians in the 1969 series when anand
#
sattelvaad the most eloquent and objective of all indian radio commentators would describe his
#
counter-attacking we would swell with pride as if we had something to do with his skill-filled
#
strokes stop quote and on the subject of this pride later you talk about how during a particular
#
match i think must have been 76 when we played west indies you talk about the commentator ravi
#
chaturvedi actually weeping during a telecast because india has won and then saying ye gandhi
#
ka desh shinheru ka desh right and there is a positive aspect to this that there is a sense
#
of shared pride and community especially important in a country in those days where they may not have
#
been so many occasions for shared pride and community but in modern times this can take on
#
really ugly undertones you know what orwell called war minus a shooting i mean mike marquez he wrote
#
a book with the title and you know the nationalism the the jingoism that can result the the sort of
#
you know the ugliness that comes from that the adversarial feeling between fans and between
#
supporters i mean the teams of course are adversaries in a sporting context but even
#
outside of that and there is the danger then that that feeds into a lot of the things that divide
#
us like the tribalism and like the sense of you know our people and the other and so on and so
#
forth and to some extent i think the ipl mitigates it because it's impossible to get a tribal loyalty
#
towards any of these franchises because they're all pretty characterless in a sense so you know
#
at least when i watch the ipl i just watch it for the good cricket and to see individuals play well
#
but there's no loyalty per se being formed there but you know how does this aspect of
#
how the game is viewed uh sort of make you feel
#
well as i uh yeah gandhika desh in nairav ka desh i mean a young kid feeling thrilled and
#
uh almost uh crying with ravi chaturvedi on the radio and feeling so proud to uh i see
#
let's take the other moment of ganguly taking off his shirt and swinging in the air and and and
#
at lords and and we bit in the englishman today all these things in today's context of what is
#
happening in this nation acquire a more menacing kind of meaning that's the it's not we we all
#
have loyalties we all feel happy that our team has done well but it's not at the cost of showing the
#
other person down it's it's how the sport is okay fine we we won some we lose some if we won win
#
more great but to reach a stage where winning means that we are a superior race that's that's
#
dangerous that's very equally dangerous i suddenly remembered my australia trip of 99
#
when australia was smashing everyone and and there was this literal feeling of
#
in australia among australian itself they wanted their own team to lose because they thought these
#
are arrogant some of them that they are like this nationalism and and this macho broad strong team
#
beating every team to pulp is like is like taking nationalism to a level
#
which is dangerous for them i could see that and i could see as india 99 losing every test match
#
badly and and literally feeling that i we as indians are being treated badly to cricket
#
ground I could see my other extreme reaction because of that so there has
#
to be a balance i think gandhi ka desh nairu ka desh in 71 or 76 may sound very different from
#
if it is done today so that's how everything is in a context if the context changes the meaning
#
also changes well i mean today if someone says nairu ka desh will be treated as anti-national
#
okay you know you've been very generous with your time and i'll just urge all my listeners
#
to go out and read your book because it's really impossible to sort of convey what is in that book
#
and the the the enjoyment i got from reading it in in a mere podcast so i'll i'll end by asking
#
a traditional question i often ask my guests that you know would you recommend for me and my
#
listeners you know books music films that mean a lot to you that you hold close to your heart that
#
are sort of desert island offerings for you well i i would say kursova for one must watch
#
and maybe i lately watched a lot of ray again and i would say mahanagar or
#
seema badu i would say pick up any one of ray's masterpieces i think they they show indian society
#
in a in a in a in a different light and and with a lot of perspective and a lot of feeling a lot
#
of meaning and music 50s i would say 50s golden era hindi film music wonderful music i mean it
#
was a fusion music a lot of it i realized is copied from various places in the world whether
#
from west or east but regardless of that it's a wonderful music to listen books i mean i i'm not
#
a voracious reader but i do read i would suggest that lately i've i'm reading ambedkar's annihilation
#
of caste i think i'll and in the present political context i would suggest that if
#
if go and buy that book because ambedkar is being today seen as this great figure even
#
by the right they they they say that he's the greatest and even greater than gandhi so his
#
seminal work of what he thought of india what he thought of caste what he thought of exploitation
#
they should read that book great pradeep thank you so much thank you omit thank you so much for
#
liking the book and and and doing this podcast i really i really enjoyed it and thanks a lot again
#
thank you now before we end this episode i'll share with you a little quick part prepared for
#
pradeep but i didn't actually get the chance to use it during the episode so here is it i wanted
#
to tell him that pradeep sir you write daily so why is your name pradeep magazine your name should be
#
pradeep newspaper sorry now that's out of the way and pradeep is not in front of me as i record this
#
so i can't get whacked for it if you enjoyed listening to this episode and i really enjoyed
#
recording it do go over to your nearest bookstore online or offline and buy both of pradeep's books
#
not quite cricket and especially his wonderful memoir which has recently been released not just
#
cricket a reporter's journey through modern india you can follow pradeep on twitter at pradeep
#
magazine you can follow me at omit varma a m i t b a r m a you can browse past episodes of the
#
scene and the unseen at scene unseen dot i n thank you for listening did you enjoy this episode of
#
the scene and the unseen if so would you like to support the production of the show you can go over
#
to scene unseen dot i n slash support and contribute any amount you like to keep this
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podcast alive and kicking thank you
