I was making a documentary for BBC TV – Dream Before Wicket, as part of a 1994 series on nationalism and sport – and my sound recordist was going quietly crazy. ‘Kuchh sunai nahi dey raha hai, boss!’ He said, when the boy was called away for a few minutes. ‘You’ll have to lip-read to provide subtitles!’
We moved the interview inside, away from the noise of people practising. But even here, we could barely make out what he was saying. The minders were adamant that they couldn’t give us any more time that day. But we could come back and film him performing.
A few days later we were back, fairly early in the morning. We looked for our guy and spotted him across the field. Rather, we heard him before we saw him. He was crouched, padless, holding a bat and snicking throw-downs to a circle of slip fielders. Edge, and a sharp call, ‘Jaagtey Raho!’ Another edge, and a full shout, ‘CATCH KARAA!’
Suresh the soundman is one of the world’s champion mimics. He muttered under his breath, ‘Jaagtey Raho ke bachhey! Interview mey, mike mey aisey zor sey bol na!’ After a while we moved away from the fielding practice to the nets, where the most elegant India batsman since Salim Durrani and Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi was taking guard. We filmed Sanjay Manjrekar bat over about 45 minutes. It was wonderful.
A crew of Bombay pacers including Paras Mhambrey were bowling pretty nippy stuff. Every now and then, Manjrekar would complain that he couldn’t see the ball because the sight-screen was badly placed. He was playing and missing the odd one. But when he connected – which was often – the words ‘caressed the ball’ made exact sense.
Manjrekar ended his session devouring some spin, dancing down the pitch to put them away to all parts of the ground, almost always along the ground, the ball mowing the grass as it went. Our man came next in the Bombay pecking order, and his was a complete different presence at the crease. We, camera and crew, were placed roughly at silly mid-off, but on the other side of the net. He waved to us while settling his middles with the other hand. ‘Hi.’ Soft, polite, barely audible.
‘Hi Sachin!’ ‘Hi Sachin!’ Despite the kvetching about voice-levels, Suresh loved him so much that he couldn’t help smiling as he said hi. Within a few minutes, we weren’t smiling but laughing. My cameraman, normally brave to the point of foolhardiness, just didn’t understand the cricket ball. Now, the red thing was repeatedly missiling towards his head at a velocity he had never imagined.
Tendulkar would crouch into his guard, making himself even more compact than at full height. As the bowler began the run-up, Tendu’s feet would go into rhythmic sideways twitching, preparing to uncoil body and bat. The eyes would rake up and down, up and down, in anticipation of the ball’s trajectory from release to pitching point.
The scrape of the bowler’s delivery stride, the whirl of the arm against the shirt, the soft thump of the ball landing and then. And then, with almost each and every delivery that he didn’t deliberately leave, Tendulkar middled the ball with the most economic violence. He spoke only to call out some instructions to the bowlers. But the report from the ball hitting the bat was a loud crack. You could almost hear it reverberate around the empty Wankhede stadium.
And anything played on the off-side was too close for our cameraman’s liking, sometimes the ball almost tearing through the net even after bouncing. We filmed for about an hour. It was glorious. On the way back in the van, our camera-pal began to say something about how terrified he’d been, when Suresh turned on him. ‘Jaagtey raho! Soney ka nahi! Catch karaa!’
Now, with Sachin Tendulkar having turned 50 last Monday, the raspy voice is much more audible. But really, every time I see those twinkling eyes, I remember the sound they produced from the bat.
