The colosseum in the middle of Calcutta: My ode to Eden Gardens
15 to win off 22 balls. The match was as good as finished by the time Shahid Afridi started his run up. On strike — three months into what…
15 to win off 22 balls. The match was as good as finished by the time Shahid Afridi started his run up. On strike — three months into what could well be the greatest year of his life — Virat Kohli. The next ball was driven for a single to deep extra-cover and he moved on to 50; a routine top quality innings that we’ve come to expect from him, especially in a chase. And then came the moment. Virat Kohli raised both his hands, pointed towards the B.C. Roy Club House terrace, and bowed down. At the other end, the Krishna to his Arjun, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar; Indian-tricolour in hand, and proud as a father watching his son play a perfect rendition of Chopin’s Nocturne in C sharp minor at the annual spring recital. 65000 moiety-eyed people rose to salute two of the brightest jewels their country will ever produce, in response what was the most heart-warming gesture of admiration and reverence, at the most grandiose arena of them all.
I like The Colosseum. On the surface, it is a huge circular monument, reminiscent of pre-historic Rome. But, history at surface-level is only as good as the first piece of rock inside a mine. It’ll tell you things, but unless you dig deep enough, you won’t touch the gold. The Colosseum was a cauldron where warriors fought for food, water, civil rights and life. With a 100,000 uncompromising pair of eyes gazing down as the men fought with blood and sweat, gladiators either became larger than life or perished in the effort. Monuments with history and legacy are spread all across the globe, yet the Colosseum stands alone in what it represents and what it must’ve felt like to be at the centre of it all, feeling the world cave in. On a hot March afternoon in 2001, as the sound of leather hitting wood echoed relentlessly, Steve Waugh must’ve been transported to the Gallic era, searching for answers to an unprecedented attack on his cavalry by two men he wouldn’t have considered as threats. It wasn’t the first time someone had felt that way at the Eden Gardens, and it wouldn’t be the last.
Sport, like art, sits on the shoulders of several catalysts to give it life, to give it meaning beyond what was intended at conception, to nurture and mould it into something greater than men chasing round objects. The lion’s share of the responsibility predictably falls on the feet of the artist, the athlete, the protagonist. When played by a virtuoso, a piece of music elevates itself from the stoic realms of entertainment. A straight drive off the bat of one Sunil Manohar Gavaskar hit more right notes and regaled more hearts than many fine pieces of music.
Which brings me to the question, would a Gavaskar straight drive still be the same symbol of beauty if played during a casual session at the back alleys of his Mumbai home? Live sport, in its true definition, is aimed at bringing the mass out of their mundane regular lives where they are one with those gifted few who are out in the middle responsible for bringing smiles, mending some hearts, breaking some others, sending out a message, standing up for a cause, or even waging a war. An arena and its occupants lend a context that makes an opera singer, a gladiator and a technically adept sportsperson what they aspire to be through all those years of hard work: larger than life. In the middle of a cauldron full of doting fans ready to scream their throats hoarse, an artist isn’t flesh and bones anymore. He acquires forms of expressions for every emotion known to man. A musician is an extension of the sentiments in the deepest corners in your heart, a gymnast of physical fluidity you wish you had and a poet of an intimacy with words which express everything you’ve ever wanted to. The fan gives a lot more than he takes. When he’s climbing up the steps of the stadium, he hasn’t just invested his money and time; he’s given the athlete his hope, his despair and all his life’s aspirations, with one expectation that when he walks back down, he’d be intoxicated by the brilliance he’s just witnessed. The fan gives sport, or art, an intangible virtue that takes it from recreation to a spiritual experience: emotion.
“Although the fan can contemplate the miracle more comfortably on TV, he prefers to make the pilgrimage to this spot where he can see his angels in the flesh doing battle with the demons of the day.” — Eduardo Galeano, Soccer in the Sun & Shadows
Cricket, unlike most other team sports, is played by a select few nations at a level suitable for any sort of competition. It’s also an arduously long sport to endure, with even the shortest format taking longer than a football match with extra-time, penalty shoot-outs and the post-match show thrown in. With these two often damaging factors in place, cricket demands more from its live audiences than most other sports. Take away the ilk of Gravy, Percy, Sudhir Gautam or Chacha, and this sport will start shaking hands with chess and golf. Like a riveting romance, when the audience responds to cricket, it is often a spectacle to behold, nowhere more so than at the Eden Gardens in Calcutta.
The unfolding of history is the greatest chariot of legacy, and if the last quarter of a century is anything to go by, the hallowed terraces of the Eden have seen some of the most memorable battles witnessed on these shores. Rarely would you come across a concrete structure with so much to offer in terms of the evolution of a sport, a country and its culture. The records of highest ever attended test match and eight of the ten highest ever attended ODIs testify a lot more than the number of chairs inside a stadium. They symbolise a romance between Calcutta and this sport that few other cities have the fortune of experiencing.
It’d be folly to think Eden came loaded with all the jewellery. So much in life comes down to a single fleeting moment, a capsule of time which moulds and bends everything that has gone and rinses it into a shiny, new version. That one moment which changes everything. The fall of the Berlin wall, Pink Floyd at Pompeii, Jordan’s buzzer-beater at Utah and Gordon Greenidge shouldering arms to a seemingly innocuous Balwinder Singh Sandhu in-swinger. Wiping dew off the ball, waiting to start the 50th over on 24th November 1993, little did Sachin Tendulkar know that he was six balls away from providing India and Eden Gardens a watershed moment in their romance. As one lakh people danced into the night in awe of a 20-year old genius and in anticipation of a final against Richie Richardson and Brian Lara’s West Indies, the Indian team must’ve felt invincible. Gladiators often do, when the shrill of those many voices elevate you to living heaven. Truth be told, West Indies had no chance at the same ground just three days later. They were running head-on into a hurricane-romance just as it was building up. Tendulkar sending Lara’s stumps flying was staggeringly symbolic.
Between three days of November 1993, the Eden was transformed from a stadium to a cauldron.
Like every love story, this too had its depths of despair. Crowd trouble had reared its ugly head previously at Eden too, but it really cracked some earth in the nineties. One evening in 1996, the Eden let itself, the Indian team and the entire country down. Its debatable whether India had any chance of winning that match after Tendulkar was stumped for 65, but a while later the crowd imploded in a way that left deep scars and confounded all and sundry. It was cricket’s Maracanazo, and a packed stadium that evening couldn’t fathom getting knocked out by our much better and more prepared neighbours from down south. Kambli’s tears signified a country full of broken hearts. 21 years since, that evening still rankles, much like a mention of 16th of July 1950 would bring tears to the eyes of most senior citizens in Rio de Janeiro. But the Maracana never saw another night like that, Eden did. 1999; Shoaib Akhtar; Sachin Tendulkar. It was heartbreak and anger in equal measure, both pulling at the rope almost in an effort to see what gives first. Jilted a lover as Indian cricket was after twice being let down, it wouldn’t give up on his mistress. And it was repaid handsomely.
From Viv’s debut series to Azharuddin’s brazen assault on Klusener; from Srinath wreaking havoc on a foggy first-day to Laxman’s feet against Warne; and from Sachin’s marvellous 176 on a Diwali-eve, to Virat’s bow of reverence, the Eden has given modern India some of its most romantic cricket moments. Barely ever getting any local representation in the Indian national team, Calcutta had long formed a habit of opening its arms and embracing anyone willing to defend their team’s honour. So when Shoaib Akhtar started his run-up from the High Court End in 2008, trying to defend 131 against Delhi Daredevils, he was no longer the Pakistan bowler who had caused a riot at this ground 9 years ago, he was now Calcutta’s jaamai, and with a packed-house behind him, there was no way Delhi, even with Sehwag, Gambhir and De-Villiers, had any chance of chasing that down. I’m willing to believe Shah Rukh’s dance that night was completely serendipitous, losing himself in an atmosphere he couldn’t believe being in the middle of.
When I started writing this article, I wanted to tell the story of a somewhat jaded relationship between Eden and cricket. With one-third of its capacity wiped out due to renovation, no stadium stays the same. But as I wrote on, I realised what a riveting history Eden has had with Indian cricket, and what an infinitely better story it makes. It may not be able to accommodate a hundred thousand pair of feet anymore, but let me promise you, when Virat next laces a cover drive across the lush green carpet towards the Club House, the roar might not be as loud, but it’ll be just as fulfilling as the hot summer afternoon in 2001, when Steve Waugh, among the toughest of men cricket has ever known, transformed into a gooey mess, slobbering all over the Calcutta grass in search for answers. The answers were right behind him. There were a hundred thousand of them.