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 1st 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
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