ramblerspark: July 2020

Friday, July 31, 2020

BABUJI

Life with Grandma
By V Ramnarayan

My late friend Mohan Ramalingam, then secretary of the Mylapore Club, brought me my fifteen minutes of fame as moderator of a Chess-Bridge conversation on stage between Viswanathan Anand and KR Venkataraman about a decade ago. Both the speakers were extremely articulate and passionate about their sport, with Anand frequently bringing the house down with his scintillating wit. Among other things, he gave us an elaborate description of the enormous amount of team work that goes on behind his major campaigns including the computer analysis of hundreds of games involving Anand as well as his opponents, and the intricate post mortem that follows his most recent contest. Anand could not suppress a smile when I reminded him of his earlier statement that chess was a lonely game. Women's chess was one of the topics of the evening, and while the question of why in a mindsport, no woman had so far been crowned world champion against all comers, men or women, came up, Anand expressed the hope that such a prospect, though distant, was not to be ruled out with more and more girls taking to chess the world over.

Anand regaled us with some hilarious stories. One of them involved a train journey during his childhood. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” asked an older co-passenger.””A chess player, “ was the instant reply from the boy. “I understand. You love chess, but it is a hobby, a sport. What do you want to do after you graduate? What do you even want to study, engineering, medicine?” “Play chess,”Anand, the junior national champion persisted. Finally the man gave up. “Do you think you are Viswanathan Anand?” he blurted out.

My mind went back to a train journey in the mid to late 1970s. My daughter Akhila, all of four or five, was travelling with her mother Gowri from Hyderabad to Bombay. It was August 15 and one of the ‘uncles’ in the compartment asked Akhila, “Do you know why today is a special day?” “I know. It is Independence Day. My grandfather got us independence from the British,” my daughter informed her by now growing audience. The uncles were pleased no end. “Yes, Gandhiji was your grandfather, my grandfather, everybody’s grandfather,” one of them piped in.

Little did that group of patriotic Indians realize that Akhila was actually referring to her great grandfather Kalki Krishnamurthi, the famous author and freedom fighter. Mrs Kalki, Rukmini Ammal, widowed in 1954, came to live with us in Hyderabad when Akhila was a baby, and took firm control of her education even before she started school. That is how little Akhila came to speak Tamil fluently and like a proper mami typical of Tamil households. “Appa, Amma, come out and watch iyarkai arpudam (nature’s miracle),” was par for the course every time Akhila wanted us to share in her excitement in watching a flower or a bird or a sunset.

And Babuji—as we called Gowri’s late grandma, and thereby hangs a tale, to be told later—completely brainwashed the child into believing that Kalki was the greatest hero of India’s freedom struggle, India’s finest writer, besides being the perfect family man with unsurpassed virtues. With such a hard act to follow, Gowri and I were constantly up against it as young parents.

Babuji was an extraordinary woman, idiosyncratic, dependable, compassionate, stubborn, prejudiced, loyal, generous to people she loved, rude to those she disliked, thrifty, extravagant.. an endless bundle of contradictions, lovable and annoying by turns. She enriched our lives, she infuriated us sometimes. Fiercely loyal to Gowri,who had been Kalki’s pet and hardly three when he died, she embarrassed her no end growing up by spoiling her silly with other kids around. In Hyderabad, whenever we had guests and she thought one of them was trying to take advantage of Gowri’s hospitality, the guest got an earful, language barrier or no.

We once had two American girls staying with us in our tiny three room apartment. Mornings were hectic with Gowri busy in the kitchen and multitasking, and me getting ready to go to work. The guests were sipping their tea daintily while the pop-up toaster failed to pop and the toast was burning and sending smoke and flames heavenwards. All the ladies needed to do to put out the fire was reach out and switch the toaster off. Instead, they sat there and gently called out “Go-owri! Go-o-owri!” while Gowri was battling with her kerosene stove in the kitchen. Babuji chose that moment to make a dramatic entry. She gave the girls the angriest glare she could muster, stood there with her arms akimbo and declared in her deepest, grimmest voice:”Rotti pinishdu!”

(More about our beloved Babuji to follow).

Thursday, July 30, 2020

LIFE BEGINS AFTER TEST CRICKET

A "Novella" By Carolyn Gupte

The Story of Subhash and Carol Gupte

The romance of cricket has always held an irresistible attraction for me. The on-field exploits of its greats and not-so-greats that ensure the glorious uncertainties of the game have never needed the collateral support of love stories beyond the game to cast a spell over me. True, one has been aware that some great romances through the ages have served to enlarge the aura around some of our most enduring icons, but I have rarely been curious to know the details of the love lives of my cricketing heroes—until the daughter of one of the all time greats of Indian cricket and his West Indian wife of Indian origin decided to ‘semi-fictionalise’ the classic love story of her parents. It is a story of the overwhelming odds they had to fight to marry each other, of their steadfast devotion to each other, of the depth of their feelings for each other.

The premature end of Subhash Gupte’s Test career was not only one of the great tragedies of Indian cricket but also an example of gross disrespect and rank injustice, by an uncaring, insensitive administration. After watching his series-winning exploits in the 1955-56 season against New Zealand—overshadowed only by the Mankad-Roy world record opening partnership—on my debut as a spectator, I had come to expect nothing short of greatness from this diminutive wrist spinner Sir Garfield Sobers rates higher than Shane Warne. Gupte did not disappoint. His 9 for 102 in the Kanpur Test against the all-conquering West Indies was the best of his heroic bowling performances in that series, but the visiting batsmen led by Garry Sobers and Rohan Kanhai stole the rubber away from India with some magnificent batting that rode a wave of hostile bowling by the likes of Wes Hall and Roy Gilchrist. The Madras Test of that series was the last time I saw Gupte in action, and with a four-wicket haul in the second innings, he did not disappoint me, his young hero-worshipper.

It was during the 1961-62 tour of India by Ted Dexter’s MCC that the cricket board destroyed Gupte’s Test career in one fell swoop on disciplinary grounds. He and roommate AG Kripal Singh were suspended following an alleged act of indiscipline in which Gupte had no part. While Kripal came back into the Test team a couple of years later, Gupte emigrated to the Caribbean with his wife Carol, whom he had married on 1^st April 1957. She had been Carol Goberdhan when he first met her on the 1952-53 Indian tour of the islands, a tour during which he had been quite the star attraction. At age 33, he had played his last Test match, and barring local games in Trinidad, the only cricket he would continue to play consisted of his professional Lancashire league stint with Rishton, where he spent a happy time with his wife.

Upsetting as it was to find Gupte’s name missing among the dramatis personae of India’s Test performances, I soon learnt to discover new Indian heroes even during the disastrous tours of the 1960s. Gradually, one became accustomed to his absence in the Indian team. To learn that ‘Fergie’ Gupte and his wife played host to Ajit Wadekar’s men in Trinidad in 1971, or that every visiting Indian cricket team made its pilgrimage to the Gupte home gave one no hint of the romance and longevity of their relationship, nor of the opposition the couple had had to face from their families during their courtship.

A large gap in one’s insights into the Gupte adventure has now been filled by reading Love Without Boundaries, the affectionate retelling of ‘the 49-year partnership of Subhash and Carol Gupte’ by their daughter Carolyn Gupte. The novella, as the author calls it, is not the story of Subhash’s stellar cricket career, but a moving account of the family values, strength of character and singleness of purpose that went into their journey together, Gupte’s pride in his wife’s many accomplishments crowned by her successful running of the school she established in September 1972, AC Goberdhan Memorial School, and his wholehearted support of all she did. It is also the story of the tremendous fight Carol made to rebuild her life after suffering the worst injuries in a horrendous car accident involving her, Subhash and daughter Carolyn in 1977.

‘Outfitted with a skull cast”, Carol was hospitalised for three months, but once discharged, made a strong comeback. “With skull cast firmly in place, and jaws wired shut, she returned to work and conducted the daily business of running her home and school from an upstairs bedroom at Five Gables, the original family home where the school was located. In 1987, after the Guptes moved into their own house, Subhash sustained a crippling hip injury that made Carolyn—who had graduated in London—decide to give up her burgeoning public relations career to become her father’s primary caregiver, playing that role to perfection till his death in May 2002.

Make no mistake; this is a love story, an unusual one in that it is told by the daughter of the protagonists. The hero and heroine are very special people, achievers in their chosen fields. There is no attempt in it at establishing the greatness of Subhash Gupte, the world class leg spinner. It is as if the author believes the reader knows that and does not bother describing his art. The book is about the Guptes as flesh and blood people, vulnerable, “flawed” even, about their total love for each other and their families. For Carol, life with Subhash had been “a constant barrel of unexpected surprises and a bellyful of spontaneous laughter—(he was) an imperfect man, a flawed man, but… blessed with such a good heart…”

Carolyn Gupte writes effortlessly. Her admiration for her subjects is obvious, and she writes glowingly of her parents, miraculously avoiding sentimentality. The book has the makings of an engaging film script. An altogether lovely read.

V RAMNARAYAN

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

MUSIC KEEPS HIM ALIVE

TANJAVUR SANKARA IYER

By V Ramnarayan

I reproduce here a tribute I wrote many years ago to one of Carnatic music's living greats.

“Look up the meaning of the Tyagaraja kriti Sangita gnanamu in the book there ,” the frail old man bundled up and blanketed in the chair in front of me said, a minute after I entered his bedroom in his nephew’s house inside Sankarnagar, Tirunelveli, when my friend Sampathkumar and I visited him earlier this month.

Near-nonagenarian and confirmed bachelor Tanjavur Sankara Iyer may be a very sick man today, needing the constant care of a loving nephew, his wife and his daughter, but his musical creativity and devotion to past masters including the Trinity remain undimmed. True to the words of Tyagaraja, he still pursues sangita gnanamu with fervent devotion, still composes his own bhava-rich compositions and still sings and teaches everyday. The object of his love and affection and guru kripa is his 12-year-old granddaughter Aparna, on whom he pins his hopes for the future.

For those unfamiliar with Sankara Iyer’s contribution to Carnatic music, I reproduce below a brief extract from a Sruti (issue 195) profile of the vidwan by Lakshmi Devnath:

"Sankara Iyer is a highly respected vaggeyakara. His compositions have been a source of delight both to the vidwans and to the general public, but he himself speaks with great modesty about his works. “I should not be bracketed with the Trinity or other famous composers of the past. But I can say my compositions are rooted in sampradaya, as theirs are, while they cater at the same time to evolving needs without being light. Shall I say, my compositions are a bridge between the old and the new!”

Anyone who has listened to Sankara Iyer’s vocal concerts, lec-dems and his own compositions, will readily agree that he is indeed a bridge between the old and the new.

My planned interview with Sankara Iyer never took place, because, thrilled to meet visitors from Chennai, he was keen to demonstrate his granddaughter’s singing, and more important her ability to absorb his lessons on sruti suddham, raga lakshana, and clear enunciation of sahitya. He stressed the vital importance of the last of these aspects of music, but was quick to point out that on his list of priorities, the raga overrode the bhakti emanating from understanding of the lyrics. “The lyrics could be about Rama, Krishna or Karuppannasami; it’s the musicality that matters.”

We were fortunate to catch glimpses of his highly evolved sense of aesthetics through his profound enjoyment of the beauty of both verse and tune, whether by the Trinity, Sankara Iyer himself or Kalki Krishnamurti, whose Poonkuil koovum pooncholaiyil orunal, he taught Aparna with obvious relish. “What a wonderful poet!” he exclaimed.

When I reminded him about a T Viswanathan concert he had attended more than a decade ago at my Chennai home after which I dropped him home, he instantly recalled, “Muktha was in the audience, wasn’t she? And I remember she joined Viswa in a song whose words he momentarily forgot. In the car, you asked me if I would perform at your residence. What happened to that offer?”

That was indeed a doosra from the veteran. I had no answer to that.

Saturday, July 25, 2020

Lecture Demonstration on Violin by Dr.Sriram Parasuram

Thursday, July 16, 2020

Udein Jab Jab Zulfen Teri | Naya Daur (1957) | Dilip Kumar | Vyjayantima...

Wednesday, July 15, 2020

If Tomorrow Starts Without Me (read by Tom O'Bedlam)

MARTHANDA VARMA

A Gracious Ruler

By V Ramnarayan

I am no fan of royalty, though I used to believe in the superstition that that was the way authors were rewarded by publishers. I have certainly not been in awe of princes, nawabs and rajas, with the notable exceptions of Ranji, Duleep, Pataudi and Hanumant Singh. It was but natural for me then, when invited to be part of a weeklong celebration of the GNB Centenary in January 2010, each day inaugurated by an erstwhile raja or maharaja of one of India’s princely states of yore, not to be overly excited. I had around the time embarked on the enjoyable adventure of translating into English a slim biography of the iconic GN Balasubramaniam, the matinee idol among the great 20^th century Carnatic music vocalists, and that was enough reason for me attend the lectures on him every evening.

The princely chief guest on one of those evenings was Marthanda Varma of the former Travancore court. As I was leaving home for Narada Gana Sabha that evening, my mother said to me, “If you get a chance to meet the maharaja, please talk to him about your grandfather. Like everyone in the family, she referred to her father as Anna, and continued, “After retiring as Inspector of Schools in Trivandrum, Anna was appointed as the maharaja’s private tutor for sometime, and Marthanda Varma even mentioned him to a Malayalam magazine once.”

The programme that evening was pleasant enough and the maharaja made an excellent speech, keeping it short and sweet. I had no chance of meeting him, and was sorry I was going to disappoint my mother. After the programme, I stopped at the open air cafeteria for a cup of coffee, and lo and behold, someone seated the chief guest next to me while he waited for his car. My esteemed companion seemed friendly enough, so I made bold to bring up the topic of grandfather Sivaramakrishna Iyer. The maharaja not only remembered him with some pleasure, but asked me if I had with me any photograph of him belonging to that particular vintage. Even as I was preparing to reply, he said he would send me a photograph of them both. Just then, one of the organisers came over to inform Marthanda Varma that the car was ready to take him home. “You spoke so well today, Sir,” he added. “I owe it all to this man’s grandfather Sivaramakrishna Iyer. He transformed me from an indifferent student into a scholar.”

The promised photograph never came, but I can never forget Marthanda Varma’s warmth and grace.

‘

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Poocho Na Kaise Maine Mr Ramnarayan

Dekhto Part I

Dekhto Part II

Dekhto Part I

17 May 2017

Dard minnat

Sunday, July 12, 2020

LET'S PRAY FOR THE WORLD || COVID 19 || RANBIR THOUNA || NAVEEN KUMAR ||...

Friday, July 3, 2020

A CLASS ACT

MS, apropos nothing

By V Ramnarayan

It was said of Madurai Mani Iyer's music that it pleased not just the connoisseur, but even the man on the street. There's this charming story of a rickshaw puller outside Rasika Ranjani Sabha, Mylapore, who asked a customer to wait while he listened to his Eppo varuvaro (or was it his English note?) Perhaps, the only other Carnatic musicians with such a mass following have been those who first made their name as film singers.

MS Subbulakshmi had a similar impact on lay listeners when her songs in the film Meera took the country by storm. Audiences in the north equated her with the Rajasthani mystic herself, with hundreds of devotees falling at her feet during the shooting of the film on the streets of Rajasthan. Songs like Katrinile varum geetam (in Tamil Meera) and, decades later, Kurai onrum illai have also captured the imagination of millions of fans, affirming the power of emotion and language in making music accessible to common folk. (In the extraordinary reach of these songs lay a huge opportunity to take Carnatic music beyond the confines of elitist audiences, but we have made no effort to convert these fans into hard core Carnatic music rasikas). On the contrary, her immense popularity only gave critics the licence to dub her music as populist, allegedly lacking in the technical sophistication of so-called musicians' musicians, though genuine, unbiased followers of Carnatic music know otherwise.

The large number of mourners who thronged the MS home at Kotturpuram when she passed away in December 2004 came from all social classes. The visitors must have included every musician and every one connected with music, especially Carnatic music. As evening fell, and the cortege was about to begin its slow procession to the cremation ground at Besant Nagar, there was a surge of mourners anxious not to miss a last glimpse of the songstress who had added meaning to their lives. Many apparently poor men and women were part of this group of late visitors, possibly rushing from their labours at the end of the day. Their tears were quiet and dignified, not the kind of breast-beating we are so accustomed to at funerals. When will we see another like her, was the common lament.

These were obviously not her regular concert audiences. What was their connection with her, then? The answer perhaps lay in the devotional music they heard from her cassettes every day of their lives. I remembered the Vishnu Sahasranamam or Venkateswara Suprabhatam in a continuous stream of radio broadcast I heard as I daily crossed a long row of homes in a poor quarter of Tiruvanmiyur on my way to the bus stop. Though MS's charitable work reached vast numbers of people, the poor who came to pay her their last respects were probably not even aware of the extent of her munificence. Many of them were there that evening as a token of gratitude for the solace her devotional music brought them. No matter what their caste or creed, she had touched their lives with the sublime prayer of her songs in several languages.

''It took me a year of practice to get it right.'' This is what a veteran vocalist said at a recent programme that showcased the most striking examples of MS's classicism. Vijay Siva had just been complimented for the majesty of the opening notes of the concert. His statement spoke volumes not only of the humility of this confident, accomplished musician, but also of the needle-sharp precision and resonant sruti suddham of his first phrases Namo namo raghukula nayaka that equalled MS's.

There, however, prevails a quite contrary view among some of the cognoscenti that MS's music was all about her majestic voice. The fact that some of her music appealed to common people not versed in the arts is what must have caused the less than fair high brow critiquing MS received.

Many of the articles the monthly Sruti published during her centenary year tried to right that wrong. They stressed that MS was a consummate musician in the classical tradition, not just a possessor of a golden voice and purveyor of relatively light fare. They spoke of the assiduous practice and systematic preparation that ensured the maintenance of that golden voice in tip top condition all her life, the trouble she took over correct diction and perfection of emphasis on phrases long and short, her understanding of raga both cerebral and intuitive, her refusal to overdo or misuse sangatis, her melodic and rhythmic precision and her complete surrender to the music

Violinist RK Shriramkumar who accompanied MS in many concerts remembers her special qualities as a teacher. "A stickler for perfection and meticulousness, she would grasp every nuance," he said in his Sruti article, and "she would impart with utmost detail and watchfulness, whether it was a special sangati in the kriti Sree Ganapatini she had learnt from T. Brinda, or the need to avoid an excessive gamaka in Todi, or a vallinam-mellinam in a bhajan, or even a silent pause between two phrases in a song."

Young vocalist Navaneet Krishnan, who described MS as an eternal student, marvelled at her breath control. According to him, '' it was almost impossible to hear her taking a breath while singing.'' He described her music as a rare amalgam of voice, veena and nagaswaram.

Author Indira Parthasarathi saw the highest form of spiritual bliss in her ''total identification with the Muse of Melody.''

Seetha Ravi marvelled at her total commitment to her art that made her insist on recording the Vishnu Sahasranamam in one go, the way it ought to be chanted, not over numerous sessions.

Kanniks Kannikeswaran speculated if MS's Vishnu Sahasranamam was heard at any given time in some part of the world, much like the British empire where the sun never set! He spoke of Subbulakshmi's ability to sculpt a soundscape that subconsciously became part of our collective memory.

Gowri Ramnarayan learnt from her that music should eschew excess regardless of the musician's particular gifts, which must be underplayed. She gave a detailed account of MS's role in the Tamil Isai movement.

Sangita Kalanidhi R Vedavalli who called her the polestar of Carnatic music, described her preferred kalapramanam as well-toned madhya laya. Revelling in the major ragas led by her favourite Sankarabharanam, MS did not favour vivadi ragas with the possible exception of Varali, Vedavalli said, while praising the viruttams MS sang before songs like O Rangasayee, or the Kamalamba navavaranam Dakshinamurte.

The late Thangam Ananthanarayanan, a relative, had once recalled how MS's mastery of briga and alukkal sangatis impressed Hindustani vocalist Siddheswari Devi with whom she repeated each phrase 108 times every morning during akara sadhakam in a variety of ragas.

Manohar Parnerkar reminded us that it was also the centenary year of another female icon, Shanta Apte, who appeared with Subbulakshmi in the film Savitri, and did not know a word of Tamil, but in true MS style, learnt the language "assiduously and enthusiastically" to be able to render both dialogue and songs in the film. Apte was a liberated woman in the Germaine Greer mould, he said, almost antithetical to MS, but both had several things in common, both smashed the gender barrier, and both sang in several languages, handling Rabindra Sangeet with elan, for instance, "as if to the manner born."

Musician and innovator Ramesh Vinayakam applauded her perfect kalapramanam among other things. "She maintained the same pace, right from the start of the pallavi through the niraval, through the kalpanaswaras until the very end." He was citing her rendering of Pakkala nilabadi in Kharaharapriya in a Music Academy concert.

Vocalist Vijay Siva recalled a rare instance of outrage on MS's part, when she let loose a shower of invective against Osama Bin Laden while speaking to a foreign visitor. While listing her numerous musical attributes, he stressed how she demonstrated the importance of full throated vocalisation from the diaphragm.

"Can we emulate her in generosity?" asked Sruti's US correspondent Shankar Ramachandran, who proposed that rasikas at MS centenary concerts be asked to donate to some of her favourite charities.

Music lover S.M. Sivakumar related the story of a concert in Ernakulam he had helped organise as a sabha secretary in 1976. MS was of course reputed for the many charities she supported in a big way through her concerts, but the proceeds of this concert went to discharge the debts of the family of a young musician who had played the tambura for MS.

To add a personal touch to this tribute, I had the good fortune of listening to her up close, at home--both hers and ours-- many times. The occasions when she and her guru Semmangudi Srinivasier sang together impromptu or more formally during a wedding for a small family audience were unforgettable. We all know that the tape of one such "jamming" session at KR Sundaram Iyer's residence was remastered years later with violin (RK Shriramkumar) and mridangam (KV Prasad) added and made available commercially. "Divine Unison", the result of that collaboration is a collector's favourite today.

MS also sang in the company of family members--daughters Radha Viswanathan and Vijaya Rajendran, Anandhi Ramachandran, Gowri Ramnarayan and others, and these were very special experiences for whoever happened to be around. Of course, there was nothing casual about any of these song sessions. They were always in perfect sruti and rhythm, with the tambura drone virtually mesmerising the listeners. Whether it was a brief song at a cradle ceremony or the swing ritual at a wedding, the MS stamp was never missing. It had class writ large over it. One of the most memorable oonjal songs by MS has been a composition of Pillai Perumal Iyengar, which was first rendered at the wedding of Vijaya and Kalki Rajendran's daughter. Tuned by Kadaiyanallur Venkatraman, the song was unfurled after rehearsals by the many women from the family who participated. The song was recorded by MS and Radha for All India Radio as well, and is available on youtube and the portal msstribute.org as well.

A personal favourite among all these informal singing sessions was when MS walked up over a rough flight of stairs yet unguarded by a banister, stood by a temporary alcove with pictures of gods and goddesses in a still unplastered house, and sang a few songs in an act of blessing for the griha pravesam ceremony in late 1992. I had lost my father a couple of months earlier, and the sheer beauty and power of her singing brought me memories of him in a flood of emotion. It was a moment of sublimation.

THEY ALSO PLAYED

Cricketers of distinction—though not first class
By V Ramnarayan

I played collegiate cricket at Madras in the 1960s, and first class cricket after my move to Hyderabad in 1971. I was 28 years old when I made my Ranji Trophy debut four years later. I had almost given up hope. I had been  sure, even perversely proud, that I would never be a first class cricketer; surely the loss was that of first class cricket, not mine, I was convinced! There were Test cricketers and Ranji Trophy players I admired, but I was more drawn to players who didn’t make it and carried on regardless, putting up their best show in their encounters with players and teams way above their level. I was proud to owe allegiance to this unusual breed of overachievers whom the selectors overlooked year after year. My Presidency College (Madras) spin twin CS Dayakar was one of them. A left handed all rounder, he reserved his best performances for our matches against the College of Engineering, Guindy, which had far and away the best team in the city, perhaps one of the strongest college teams in all of India. Its captain was S Venkataraghavan, already India’s new Test off spinner who debuted against New Zealand in the 1964-65 season, and he led a side brimming with talent. Dayakar and John Alexander, our stocky, resolute  batsman in the Vijay Manjrekar mould, approached these matches with steely determination and fierce pride, invariably scoring big. Dayakar was selected in the Madras University squad that travelled to Dharwar in Karnataka in December 1969, to compete in the Rohinton Baria Trophy, but declined, certain that the other left arm spinner of the team, Bhargav Mehta, would be preferred in the playing eleven. Dayakar was never picked again in representative cricket, but wheeled away gamely for years for the doughty Indian Overseas Bank team in the highly competitive TNCA league. Mehta was to turn out to be a very unlucky cricketer, too, despite a magnificent Rohinton Baria final in the very next season, in which he bowled Madras to victory over Bombay with 14 wickets in his bag.  Amazingly, Mehta never played Ranji Trophy cricket, a mystery perhaps only slightly less challenging than the story of fast bowler Vikram Thambuswami who took 8 for 37 in the first innings of his only Ranji Trophy appearance for Tamil Nadu versus Andhra.
Two other Madras University players played stellar roles in that season of triumph for their team under the captaincy of R Ravichandran. PR Ramakrishnan was an upright, stylish batsman from Coimbatore, one of the most prolific scorers in university and other junior cricket in the 1970s. His partner in a huge  lower-order association in yet another contest at that level at the Osmania University ground in  Hyderabad was N Bharathan, an orthodox off spinner with a lovely action, flight and deception. In that particular game, both Ramakrishnan and Bharathan scored big hundreds, with the spinner also bagging a rich haul of wickets. Both were successful in the TNCA league for many seasons without ever gaining the selectors’ nod. Bharathan was one of the finest off spinners I have seen or played with. With Venkataraghavan and Kumar leading the Tamil Nadu attack for a couple of decades, Bharathan stood little chance of playing Ranji cricket. Ravichandran was a consistently successful captain in junior and umiversity cricket, but had to be content with scoring plenty of runs at that level, never progressing beyond it.
I am focussing here not only on those I consider unfairly treated by selectors, but also others who knew they belonged at the purely local level, with no hope or aspiration for higher honours, but regularly  turned out for their clubs season after season. 'Don' Rangan, so named for his Bradmanesque deportment on the cricket field, his arroganr self belief quite disproportionate to his cricketing accomplishments, was master of all he surveyed on the Pithapuram cricket ground in the south Madras of the 1960s, when he maintained a superb ground and nets out of his own (some say his family's) hard-earned money. Besides offering net practice facilities through the year, Rangan relished inviting strong visiting teams to 'friendly' matches  (though they fit the description only nominally as Rangan was arguably the inventor of sledging, and often cheated at the toss, breezily declaring, "We bat," no matter which way the coin fell) and trying to beat them by hook or by crook. 'Opening batsman and wicket keeper' was his official description but he sometimes called on some unsuspecting junior player to deputise for him behind the stumps in mid-innings so that Rangan could take an absurdly long run-up to bowl military medium. His crowing at bowling success, often after he bullied the umpire, would have earned him suspension for at least a couple of matches under today's behaviour norms. 
Three brothers bowled medium pace for Mylapore Recreation Club in the same period. PR Sundaram, the eldest and tallest of them, bowled at a sharp pace and extracted steep bounce on the matting wickets of the time. Those who faced him in the league could never figure out why he played only one Ranji Trophy game, and that too with less than impressive returns. An entertaining wielder of the long handle, Sundaram was also a good tennis player.  Like Rangan, he too was no respecter of big names, and loved to embarrass them, for example, by clean bowling them with a googly off the first ball of a match or laughing loudly after gaining an umpire's verdict he considered wrong. 
There were many club cricketers of the time who entertained with their skill or idiosyncrasies: Gopalapuram CC's leg spinner Kannan with his 'donkey drops' of legendary altitude, KC Krishnamurthi whose constant chatter gained him more notoriety than any fame his fastish leg breaks might have earned him, Alley Sridhar, possibly the ugliest left handed batsman in history, medium pacer Rajaraghavan who religiously called a certain TNCA official once every year to inquire of him why he had been left out of the state team, CB Selvakumar whose six hitting prowess won him a large fan base, and PN 'Clubby' Clubwala, who once scored 37 not out in a whole day's batting and held the original title of strokeless wonder before the early Navjot Sidhu , were among the hardy perennials of Madras cricket that lent it its unique personality.
Hyderabad, where I moved in 1971, was no different; its cricket  abounded in personalities too. My State Bank of India captain was a tiny man with a big heart. Abid Zainulabudin was a gutsy middle order batsman and thinking captain who never played first class cricket but defied superior teams with his strategic leadership and brave batting. It was said  of Kaleem-ul-Haq, a leg spinner with a nonchalant spring in his step and jaunty, upswept  hairstyle that he kept a careful record of the number of wickets he grabbed in net practice, rarely missing the hundred mark for the season.  He reminded me of two spinners of Madras who for years together haunted the BS Nets open to all league players, even though they did not get to play a single match during the period. Left armer SK Patel eventually did find success on the field of play. He crossed the fifty mark in the 1975-76 season to pass Mumtaz Hussain's record in Rohinton Baria, while wrist spinner V Kannan just faded away from the scene after numerous seasons of net bowling.  Many spinners through the decades-from C R Mukundan, K Ganapathy, MK Rajamanickam and M K Mohan in the 1950s - 60s to M Subramaniam  and N Raghavendran of recent decades, have soldiered on unsung.
Overseas tours with the Hyderabad or Deccan Blues I was part of were a wonderful departure from organised domestic cricket, especially for former internationals and local cricketers who might never make it big. Arranged by PR Man Singh, the manager of the 1983 World Cup winning Indian team and a cricket tragic with the briefest of brief first class careers, these tours sometimes threw up unexpectedly high quality performances from both the Blues and our opponents like the Australian Old Collegians or I Zingari, amateur clubs that both hosted visiting teams and toured the subcontinent, with the players being billeted by local hosts and forging life-long friendships. While I was witness to many sterling performances by my teammates on these tours, there were occasions when an unknown opponent gave us the fright of a lifetime. Hyderabad Blues nearly lost a match to Singapore Cricket Club in January 1978, when  Chris Kilbee, an erstwhile teammate of David Gower at school and college level, took the wickets of Ajit Wadekar, ML Jaisimha and Murtuza Ali Baig in quick succession, and then scored a brilliant 91. At 160 for two, SCC was poised to overtake our modest 190, when Jaisimha desperately turned to opening batsman Kenia Jayantilal's occasional swing and seam. Jayanti obliged with 7 wickets, and the Blues narrowly escaped a humiliating defeat. The tongue lashing some of us received that night from skipper Jaisimha was of epic proportions.   
Once, tired of listening to an interminable lecture by a former Test cricketer about his international exploits, I declared I was proud of the intense cricket some of us played, albeit at a less exalted level than his. I am likewise convinced that the cricket many non-first class cricketers play is no less intense.