Photo: S Subramanium, The Hindu

[Anil Kumble, one of India's greatest Test cricketers and inarguably its most prolific match-winner, announced his retirement here at the Ferozeshah Kotla on Sunday.] Source

Anil Kumble remained true to the tradition of ‘beautiful’ bowling. The tradition speaks that the bowler must aim to put the ball in the right spot. The batsman must adjust himself to play the ball. It was also expected that the batsman would play a proper cricketing shot. Cricket was graceful and batsmen would mind if they got runs the ‘wrong way’.

Cricket changed. Batsmen decided to do away with grace and play to score runs quickly.

Anil didn’t change. He put the ball in the right spot and expected to trouble the batsman. The batsman lifted his bat and hit the ball anywhere in the field to score runs. The audience clapped and the batsman scored many more runs against Anil.

Anil made some changes in his bowling technique. He bowled some googlies and varied his bowling pace, but didn’t distance himself from his earlier style.

He retired from One Day International (ODI) cricket. He found it difficult to bowl in test matches. The Australians don’t move to the back foot to play a cover drive. They simply sweep him or defend the ball.

Today, Anil has retired from Test cricket. In a better cricketing environment, he could have persisted.

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* Some days back, a television news reporter said that Anil Kumble is a rude person. He talks down to the junior players. M S Dhoni emulates him and just smiles and leaves when greeted by any junior cricketer. The same channel and the same reporter were singing praises of Anil’s determination and gentle demeanour immediately after he announced his retirement from all defined formats of cricket.

* A popular tabloid challenges Anil’s comments on disrespect to senior cricketers. It says that Anil should be grateful that he has been loved and admired for so long and not complain about certain ‘truths’. The truth, as decided by the tabloid, points to Anil’s poor form and low quality cricket. He should immediately leave the team or be sacked. Indian cricket has no place for losers and non-performers. Now that he has retired, be prepared to read praises about the player tomorrow.

* A former cricketer, considered a great, smiled, paused, smiled, and gently stated the truth. Indian cricketers don’t retire; there is lot’s of money in the game. Now that Anil has retired, he will praise his ability to persist under pressure. Anil will now become a gentleman cricketer who always played for the country. Nobody would remind the ‘great’ that he had once vilified this cricketer.

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Watch out for people praising Anil’s ‘spirit’. They don’t know much about cricket and must say something. Anything.

“What do you think of Anil Kumble’s achievements?”

“Oh, he had a wonderful spirit.”

I have not quite learnt what it means to forgive and forget. Or what ‘letting go’ means. But post a ‘break-up’, I know I lead a fuller and more contented life.

There is nobody to accuse me of not paying attention to his mum’s words or asking him to choose between his family and me.

He is not there to compare me to his darling sis-in-law, and I am free to dress howsoever I choose.

I do feel lonely at night and I miss the ‘sweet nothings’. However, I do not have to justify how I spend my time or the decisions my mother took while raising me.

I fell in love with ______ for two reasons: One, he was willing to stick his neck out for me and continue loving me until my parents accepted him in my life. Two, he accepted me for what I was without too much nagging or questioning.

Neither hold true today since all the while we were together, he had a hidden agenda. He was hoping he would succeed in changing me, my clothes, my attitude and my aspirations.

I have never been typically ambitious by nature but I knew I wanted a career. I didn’t know in which field, but I knew I wanted financial independence.

There was a nascent dream of doing journalism from Columbia or law from Bangalore. But he squashed them. It reached a point where he almost called me selfish for wanting to achieve something. What he hoped for was a docile homemaker – who he could proudly take home to his mother.

I proposed a live-in relationship. He was scandalized. I brought up drugs. He got livid. Drinking became a major ego issue. And suddenly every other guy had begun desiring me, or so he thought. He wanted to keep me like a porcelain doll tucked up in some corner of his house.

It’s easy to spoil a person materially but pampering one emotionally is not everybody’s cup of tea. He never realized that I didn’t want material goods; but a constant assurance of unconditional love and a security that he would always be around to comfort me, whatever be the actual distance between us.

Today I realize that he was not being himself while we were together and that I fell in love with a man who was looking for something that I would never give him.

There was a time period when I became a sorry picture of what he wanted me to be. And I got miserable. I had almost begun to believe that I was being selfish by having any ambitions.

And ironically, he dumped me a few years later saying that I had lost all focus in life. In a way, I should be glad he took the step, because I loved him too much to be able to say goodbye.

He is not a person who will understand my need to pour my heart out on dark lonely nights. He will never understand why I find men like Brett Lee, Imran Khan and Rahul Bose sexy. He will never understand the thrill of watching a Rahul da Cunha performance.

Or listening to the radio early in the morning.

Or introspecting at the steps of the Asiatic Society.

He would have never taken a walk with me on Marine Drive or made a sudden stop for bhel in the rain.

Perhaps no guy would fit my requirements but he was far from it. He could have given me everything money could buy; a fancy car, a lavish apartment, lots of jewelry, meals in uptown place. But that is not what keeps a relationship in motion.

It’s a pity it took us so long to find out what we wanted. He is currently employed in ______, with a fiancée in ____, and has everything he wants, personally and professionally.

And I feel that you can never take leave your past. You never know when it may come and haunt you.

Crimson

The youngest aunt descended upon me as soon as I entered the room. “Oh my God, your hair is so short,” she said. “And you’ve lost weight.” She looked to my grandmother for confirmation while I forced a smile and prepared myself for the barrage to come. “Is it asking too much to see a young girl eat well?”

“They pick up all the wrong habits,” interjected another aunt. “Look. The shoes she is wearing are so inappropriate for her age.”

There were no greetings, no words of welcome, just a cold assessment of my appearance. I was eight years old. Even now, at 22, it’s impossible to imagine how I was supposed to defend the choice of one shoe over another, much less withstand the onslaught of judgement that took place every time I was in the company of my large extended family. It was always the same, even though the focus might shift. It could be the growth of my fingernails, and whether or not I’d chosen to apply polish. If I had, the shade would be debated. Or my grandmother would step forward to feel the fabric of my T-shirt or comment on my use of accessories or, more pointedly, the lack thereof. No matter what needed looking into–dinner half-prepared, grandfather’s requests for more tea, my youngest cousin screams for attention–the spotlight seemed to zero in on me as I stood like a mannequin in front of the women in my family. Finally, having had their fill, they would turn away, leaving me to my tears and the feeling that I would never measure up.

Even now, I am not sure why I was the focus of so much negative attention. I was not unloved, and surely I was not the only cousin with grievances. Family dynamics played a part in why I was singled out, but I was also; then and now, someone who did not fit the mould of the ideal daughter, especially in my traditional, patriarchal family. I chose jeans over feminine pastel dresses. I said what I thought. And there was more: in many Indian homes, beauty is a virtue possessed by the fair-complexioned. I was dark. And so the most stinging comments were reserved for my dark skin, over which I had no control. I was never told directly, but I got the message: it would be difficult to arrange a match for me when I became of age.

My parents, for their part, chose not to make of spectacle of the situation. My father, in particular, believed the scenes to be womanly indulgences from which I should step aside. He hoped I would learn to defend myself, rather than he doing it for me. My mother made a conscious effort to shield me from the scrutiny whenever she could. When that was impossible, she advised me to be low-key, to avoid attracting attention– which was one thing in theory and another in practice. My mother, to her credit, believed (and taught me) that true beauty lay not in the curve of an eyebrow or the bridge of a nose, but within, and that an individual was worth far more than her physical appearance. But her reassurances were not enough to turn the negative tide. I began to perceive myself through third-person eyes. It pricked me that I didn’t ‘belong’ in my family. And if belonging meant negating your personal choices, then I was almost prepared to do that.

When I was ten, my parents decided to enroll me in a residential school several hours from my home in Mumbai. I reacted with mixed feelings, but the looks on my parents’ faces when they told me were enough to let me that I wasn’t just being sent away because they did not love me. To the contrary, I knew it was the right thing. However, the prospect of boarding school did not go down well with the extended family. My grandparents questioned my mother’s maternal instincts, conveniently ignoring the fact that my father was backing her. My parents stood firm, and I went off to school.

There, away from critical eyes, I slowly started to accept myself. I began to understand how to actively defend my choices, which was a good thing because when I went home for breaks, things still were not easy. As time went on, the gist of the comments shifted from my physical appearance to less tangible matters. There was concern as to what my next step would be. Amid the warm smells and otherwise hospitable conditions of family gatherings, I would be peppered with questions: If I insisted on a career, then why not a traditional one? Why not an engineer, a doctor, a lawyer? As for my personal life, nothing would have pleased them more than to see me turn into a meek, dutiful homemaker. In marriage; to a man of their own choosing, I still had the chance to become an ideal daughter and granddaughter.

To them, it was near blasphemy when I decide to pursue a Master’s degree abroad. But by the time I received my acceptance letter, I cared less about what they thought and more about what the future might hold for me. The move might strain my already difficult relations with them even further, but I wasn’t about not to go.

At this point in life more than ever, I have become conscious of what I want and how I want it. And now that I am half way across the world, I feel more removed from the negativity than ever. It no longer stings the way it did. To my extended family, no matter what I do, it won’t be right; not because they have impossibly high standards but because I happen to possess a mind of my own and choose to exercise my will.

The process hasn’t been easy. I’ve paid a price in the physical distance from the people I love, particularly in being far from my mother and father. Yet, as the tears dry and the sting of the barbs fade, I find myself a stronger person. To keep myself this way, I am cautious about sharing details of my personal life with family. The notion of detachment has been reinforced in graduate school less because I’m not sure how they will react and than because I am no longer all that hungry for their acceptance. I am no longer the small eight-year-old girl who stood frozen in front of them.

So when my grandmother calls me one icy winter morning to see how I am doing, I have no idea what to tell her. A piece of my heart warms upon seeing her number on my caller ID, but all that come out are superfluous utterances: I am fine, thankyou, I hope everyone at home is good.

“Have you eaten breakfast?” she asks. “With some hot milk, I hope.”

I reply yes, but she persists, “What will you be eating for lunch? What progress have you made with your culinary skills?”

I can fix edible food for myself. Not tasty, but edible. I mumble a response: “I’ll probably make some rice and soup.”

“Have you spoken to your parents lately?”

“I spoke to Mummy and Papa yesterday.”

An uncomfortable silence ensues at both ends. My grandmother is too removed from my present life to be able to ask questions, and I am too guarded to fill her in. In a hasty attempt to cut short the difficult conversation, I croak out an apology. “Ma, I am a little busy now,” I say.

She understands, she says. Her last words before she hangs up are, “Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything.”

I put the phone down, sad, but really not so sad. Is this what letting go means?

Note: The author has requested for her name to be withheld.