"Cricket to us was more than play, It was a worship in the summer sun. "
-Edmund Blunden
Every Saturday and Sunday on the Oval, a huge grassy green in front of Bombay University and the High Coutry, hundreds of locals get together and play dozens of games of cricket, almost continuously from about 10 am until sundown. At the edges of the park, club cricketers put on their starched whites and play official matches (one of them, when I was watching the other day with my friend Dani, was wearing a Steelers cap, but had no idea what I was talking about when I grabbed him and asked him about it) with referees and stuff, but for the most part it's informal, really cramped (and somewhat dangerous because of the fast-moving errant balls), but a lot of fun to watch.
It's called "The Oval" and a lot of famous cricketers, I'm told, including Dilip Vengkarsar, a famous Indian batsman (hitter) grew up playing there. Cricket grounds are called "Maidans". Trivial Matters, another Bandra-based blogger (he's got much better pics than I do, but then, he's got a better camera than I do) posted a fantastic entry about the Oval and the Mahalaxmi Race Course with some cool photos. Check it here.
I won't go into the rules of cricket for all you despicable Americans who don't understand it, but suffice to say it's become dear to me. I can pinpoint the moment. I was watching the West Indies vs. India match in the ICC this year (that's a big int'l competition, though not as big as the World Cup or the Ashes, which is going on right now), and towards the end, when the Windies were down by about 50 with 3 wickets, I turned to Vana and said, "This is a close game!" to which he replied, "Oh, Robbie, no it isn't... You see, they have wickets." What he meant was, since Windies had enough guys remaining the hole, they could start batting less conservatively, hitting more boundries, without worrying too much about getting their fly-balls caught. It was at that point that I understood the deep strategy involved in cricket, and it reminded me of baseball's complicated number-game (counting pitches, batting order, slugging percentages, intentional walks, etc) and how much I love keeping box scores at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, even though I don't follow baseball nearly as much as a lot of my friends do. That, however, is partly an act of protest against George Steinbrenner and his fiendish empire, Jim Leyland's disloyal opportunism, and other such villainy, but alas, it's another story.
Here's a ferocious bowler:
A hapless batter...
A rising star...
And a team of champions...
Very relaxing place, the Oval Maidan, and one of Bombay's most charming sights.
The other amazing place I've been to is Janki's grandmother's house in Malabar Hill, which is a tree-filled, classy area near the governor's mansion, across the back bay from downtown. Janki's house is, undoubtedly, a bhooth bungalow, a ghost house. I've shot it in sepia as proof:
It's an enormous old mansion built from the ruins of Janki's family' ruined shipping fortune. Thirteen people live there, plus a dozen or so servants, and some of them are ghosts (I met a few). There are grand arches with vines, but no munkies, and chunks falling off now and again...
There is a catering company that fries up potato chips and chalabas in the hallway, on a landing, for about 14 hours a day, and the light shines down the hallway...
Rickety old balconies...
There's much more to this house, and lots of stories and feuds to go along with this, but I don't want to write too much about it because it's Janki's thunder, and not mine to steal. Let's just say that any of you Hopkins writers out there who have read her stories about Bombay and the house and its charm and mystery -- they're all true. We have to make her write a novel about it someday.
Up next, Tandoori Thanksgiving and the Theives' Market. Stay tuned.
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