PLAYING CRICKET
As the saying goes, the poor have huge likings for sports especially in India and we were in sync with this. A bat shaped wooden plank and a tennis ball were all that required to meet our wants. Forgetting food and facing wrath of parents, we used to run for kilometres in barefoot to fetch these. We have not forgotten the fact of standing in groups for hours near a sports and cultural association in Malleswaram for getting their used and discarded tennis balls. Many parents including mine could be heard advising their kids that sports was not their area of activity, considering it was a rich man's game and also would come in the way of studies, as in their opinion, poor cannot survive without proper education (AND which turned to be true in majority of cases like mine).
School outside walls and compounds got converted into wickets through brick markings. Playing cricket before and after school hours became our regular routine, which activity was untiring even without proper food and rest, and reaching home only it turns dark. Matches were played among ourselves betting pencils. We always ran barefoot in bowling action from home to school and back, and enroute drank water directly from public taps of water supply board, which was so pure.
All India Radio and Newspapers were the 2 sources of getting news about current affairs, sports and everything else happening in the country and abroad. We believed blindly whatever the print media was publishing as true. The Radio was actually the government's mouth. Of the two radio stations, MW 1 would broadcast news, and central and state government programmes, while Vividh Bharathi was meant for broadcasting music, soundtrack of cinemas etc. People with SW facility could be seen listening to Radio Ceylon especially programme hosted by renowned Radio Jockey of that time Mr.Amin Sayani. However, listening to SW was not easy due to bandwidth problems. As cricket buffs, we had to patiently wait till the last minute of the news to hear anything about sports especially cricket. This was the period between 1971-72 and 1974-75 starting with India's tour of England in 1971.
During those days AIR was broadcasting running commentaries of test matches where India was involved and domestic ranji trophy matches where Mysore (became Karnataka in 1973) was involved. Most of our households did not have the luxury of owning any Radios at that time. However, hundreds of cricket enthusiasts were seen on the streets with transistors hooked to their ears and we boys would follow them to listen to the score. Unlike today, those transistor borne were so happy to mingle with boys of even half of their age in giving their expert comments on the game being played, as though we were in the playing field. We were also gathering near hotels with radios for listening to running commentary. Some of the times, we were so angry when AIR stopped broadcasting the commentary to air any pre-announced programmes (which most of the time were so boring to listen). Many times, we spent lot of time before these hotels for the commentary to resume. Sometimes hotels were also resorting to switching off radio due to huge gathering before them. We celebrated the golden moment of India winning in England when BS Chandrasekhar ran through England in Oval. Our celebration was so much as if each of us has won the game (and fireworks were not required to do the same). Nothing stopped us, not even having seen any matches, in discussing in our age group how great players like Boycott, Dennis Amiss, Tony Greig, Mike Denness, Alan Knott, Chris Old, Vishwanath, Sardesai, Gavaskar, Pataudi, Chdndra, Prasanna, Venkat, Wadekar, Bedi and other greats play and how should should be playing. These discussions were purely based on our understanding of running commentary. Commentary by Suresh Saraiya (and Tony Cozier during West Indies tour) was a treat to our ears as he was taking us almost to the cricket pitch as if we were playing there. However others like Anant Setalvad and Baalu Alaganann were known for their common cold and cough and delayed commentary.
SWIMMING
The other regular activity during let off and bunking periods (as we were not giving any importance to Hindi and PT periods) was swimming in the then Gandhadakoti Kere (later christened Sankey Tank) and in a deep pond where the famous Chowdaiah Memorial Hall was constructed in the late seventies). As we could not play cricket during these let off and bunking periods, we were diverting our activity to swimming. There was no restriction on entry to Sankey tank (as the word security was never heard then and at the most, it was watchman) where hundreds of households staying near sankey tank were also seen washing their clothes and side by side. Most of us learnt swimming without any coaches and any spendings, except for some restrictions from parents.
KITE FLYING
Kite flying was also an other important sports activity we were engaged in those days. We could watch affluent class children flying colorful kites using manja threads to cut other kites flying nearby them. Big fights used to take place between various affluent class gangs and have seen many times police interfering in settling the issues between them. For us, leave manja thread, buying simple kite was not a possibility then. Necessity to possess them and show our talent/creativity to the affluent class, we started making our kites using cooked rice as paste, news papers, coconut broom sticks, joining discarded threads etc. and were hugely successful in showcasing our creativity.
We also played other games like Kabaddi, Lagori and chinni dand, but not significant though.
I do not remember any instance of falling sick in those days due to water borne deceases. Most of us have so many injury markings on our bodies even today reminding of the falls suffered during cricket playing/running/swimming/kite flying days.
We never had the privilege of any family doctors nor clinics we could go for treatment. But we had KC General Hospital and a Public Local Fund Dispensary in 8th cross, Malleswaram, where doctors and compounders were so humane, gentle and very good in treating us free of cost. Duly sterilized syringes were being used to inject the patients, as disposable syringes were unheard then.
COMING UP NEXT - INDIA-WINDIES TEST MATCH IN BANGALORE -1974-75
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