I faintly remember the day from 1999. Pakistan were playing India, and I was two months shy of turning seven. The colour television was a luxury during those days, and being a proud owner of one made me feel superior to my cousins next door who still had to do with a monochromatic one.
It was when Sourav Ganguly opened the innings with someone else- who was not Sachin Tendulkar- that I came to know that Sachin wasn’t playing. I had little knowledge about Sachin’s feats then, but he was just the hero that everyone else around me idolized. I was a seven-year-old who fell in line.
That disappointment turned into rage when Shoaib Akhtar slammed a fast bouncer into Ganguly’s chest, and I was almost into my childish tears as I saw my fellow Indian fall down to the ground, writhing in pain. A commotion followed as the Pakistanis surrounded my fallen hero and I immediately accused them of conspiring against India.
I was lost in my thoughts, thinking and fearing about what would happen if Ganguly doesn’t recover when the broadcaster rolled into a commercial break. As the disastrous scenes, ghastly enough to shake a child, made way to a Britania advertisement, I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that at least for some time I would be away from the adversity that our neighbours had brought down upon us.
1999, Dravid- the dummy
It was then, in those moments of momentary relief, that I first saw ‘Jammy.’ That was the name I first knew him as when he posed with a packet of Britania biscuits in his hand. I didn’t really pay rapt attention, and let it pass, treating it as the gush of air that brings relief, and yet goes unnoticed on a hot sultry day.
To my surprise, the same person appeared on the screen next when the broadcast resumed. I was confused in the beginning thinking that the advertisement was still on, but the India jersey hugging his slim body brought me to reality, as I read the name Rahul Dravid flash on my television screen.
I recalled then that I had known this guy, but I also recalled that I had known him for scoring runs in the slowest possible manner- and nothing else. The Ganguly debacle was hardly over, and I had to deal with his tortoise of a cricketer- a fact that made me sadder.
His stats had hardly been comprehended by my mind when I heard a loud appeal. It was the third ball that Dravid had faced, and he was out. My heart sank even further as if my team was aboard a ship stuck in a vicious storm, and their survival defined ours.
At 7, in 1999, the Rahul Dravid walking back to the pavilion was the most morose cricketer I had ever seen, who definitely didn’t deserve to be playing for India. On that morning of 1999, Dravid was a dummy I despised so desperately.
2001, Dravid- the second-fiddle
Cricket and that memory soon faded away as I spent the latter part of my childhood in the pretext of learning grammar, mathematics and science. I was 9 years old in 2001, and my cricket expertise had taken giant strides as I knew now that a Test match has two innings per side.
Hence, when VVS Laxman hit 281, I was wonderstruck. I had known that double-hundreds were scored in Test cricket, but the mere mention of a score close to an average ODI score lifted the right-handed Hyderabadi batsman in the eyes of a yet-to-be teenager.
Another man had accompanied Laxman during his innings. The name flashed before my eyes but was soon forgotten under the sheer magnanimity of the event. Dravid’s innings in Kolkata was like a parent watching his child grow- quiet, pensive, supporting, and holding one end firmly- who is soon forgotten after the child attains stardom.
Laxman was the star at the Eden, a star India stood up and noticed, a poster boy for every series against Australia thenceforth. But the other 180 runs of the 376-run partnership were absolute stardust.
Except that the 9-year-old didn’t notice it, except for this photograph underneath, one that I could comprehend completely only a decade later.
2004-08, Dravid- the hero
If 2001 was India’s bugle in the face of the conquerors of the world, 2003-04 was a well-orchestrated symphony. If 2001 had slithered a fear into their veins, 2003 made them come to terms with it.
We moved from the Eden to the Oval, the Adelaide Oval, we moved from Warne to McGill, from McGrath to Lee, but the pair remained the same. It was then, perhaps, that it wasn’t just me who had grown tired of Dravid playing the second fiddle; perhaps Dravid was tired of it too.
Hence, when he drove a wide McGill delivery through the covers for four, and immediately removed his India cap and kissed it, I was moved. That was a Shah Rukh Khan dominated era in cinema, a man who pulverized Indian hearts with every facet of emotion.
Perhaps that, mixed with the adrenaline rush that an eleven-year-old Indian child gets with just the mention of the word ‘cricket’ in India, made Dravid’s gesture even more special.
Ironically, the photograph- that would go on to be one for the ages- was noticed first. Those figures of 233 and 72* came later.
At 11, in 2003, the Rahul Dravid walking back, with a stump in one hand, his ‘Britania’ bat in the other, was my newly-born hero.
I saw him do things thereafter. There are things you expect from your hero, and there are things that he gifts you with unexpectedly. I saw him plunder runs on barren stretches of Pakistan along with a merciless marauder cum Indian opening batsman, Virender Sehwag.
The Test series win of 2004 was the redemption of the wounds inflicted on my captain 5 years back. Dravid made 270 against Akhtar. There were others as well, but for me, it was Shoaib Akhtar. Ganguly made 77 as well. India made 600 in the deciding 3rd Test. Pakistan lost by an innings.
I saw him keep wickets for 50 overs, and then bat for nearly 50 more. I saw him take one-handed blinders in the slips. I saw him running, I saw him pant for breath, and I saw him running again.
All this while, I also saw him driving, pulling, hooking, flicking off his pads, and Dravidizing the square-cut. I saw him winning in England and I saw him crashing out of the World Cup.
I saw him being given out when all he had done is let an Andrew Symonds delivery go through to Adam Gilchrist's gloves without touching it at Sydney in 2007. He shook his head, walked off, came back in the next Test and almost scored a hundred on the fastest pitch in the world at the time.
Perth was special in many ways, Harbhajan dancing around the ground with the tricolour in his hand after India had won was levitating, but what Dravid and Tendulkar did on the first day of a Test that had drops of venom that were spilled in Sydney just told the Australians exactly how hard it could be if they tried to get the Indians out the right way.
I was 16 in 2008, reasonably aware now, of how the game I had blindly followed as a kid, was more than just a game; and although my heart belonged to the Mumbaikar, it also had a clandestine affair with someone else, through a hidden corner that sprung to life everytime India lost their first wicket.
As I grew older and older, the bond grew stronger and stronger. It was like that thrill of having someone else outside of a stable relationship. The one to fall back on should the other fail. It was murky, putting your faith in two people, but it was rewarding as hell.
Fidelity is hard, though, and over the years, I sided with the immortal one, despite knowing very well that Gods and mortals weren’t meant for each other. Hence, Dravid was left behind. Every time I vouched for Tendulkar when someone counted him out, and didn’t do it with as much intensity for Dravid, I knew that I was being haphazardly partial.
Perhaps, it wasn’t just me. Perhaps, all of India felt the same while cheering for one and leaving out the other. So, Dravid walked alone and walked along even stronger. Gotham never idolized him, but all its citizens knew his worth.
They got anxious thinking about the day their Knight would finally fall, but couldn’t care less, knowing that he’d leave a Robin. I was one of them.
2011, Gotham’s Dravid
It was 2011, and I was an adult now. At least, I could call myself one. My life had just started to unfold while someone else’s had come full circle. Dravid was in England for the fourth time since he donned the national colours.
His side was being humiliated by an outrageous, and perhaps, an unbeatable England, then. I wasn’t watching cricket for I was busy relishing the newly discovered adulthood.
I just heard that he made a hundred at Lord’s. He’d missed out by 4 runs when he first played there, in fact, when he first ever played for India. 15 years later, he’d more than made up for it.
My life was going through phases, phases that needed liberation, phases when you look out for anyone who could provide you warmth, and I got it from someone, who was scoring hundreds after hundreds, hundreds of miles away.
I knew, and so did he, that the time had come. It was almost inevitable, and perhaps the both of us knew that it was time to let go. But there had to be a flourish before the end, the final dazzle of the lamp before it extinguishes.
The English summer of 2011 was Dravid’s vantage point. He batted like a superhuman, to try and push his side past a broken bridge with alligators underneath. I heard him fighting battles similar in nature, but uncomparable in magnanimity to mine, and had I seen him walking back for the last time on the 31st of August 2011 after slogging a delivery, something that he had remained ignorant of for all of those 16 years, I would have cried.
He played for a year more, but metaphorically, that was the end.
On August 31, 2011, the Rahul Dravid walking back to the pavilion was a Valentine I could never have.
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