George Menezes

There is a good deal of sports running in my arteries mixed with blood and some Goan fluids which I am afraid to write about in case Ramadoss our very Honourable Minister for Health reads the Goa edition of the Times of India.

I am not only mad about sports I even played some at a fairly competitive level. Mostly hockey; mainly for the Armed Forces and between 1959 and 1960 for the British Club in Meudon in the suburbs of Paris, France. They normally came to the Indian Embassy to recruit Indian players.

I quit because the barman of the club a red-faced cockney accented Englishman refused to serve beer to a “bloooody Hindu”!

From hockey I inherited damaged ligaments that have been healed with old age and generous doses of “urrak”

Cricket also interested me. To vouch for it, I have a bent and twisted finger keeping wickets for the Bombay Air Force cricket team

It does not hurt but it prevents me from fondling the way folding should be done, copy book style.

I remember the day we bundled out the Bombay Police for 99 runs. They would have been restricted to 70 runs had I had not missed two stumping chances.

Even now I wake up in the middle of the night shouting “Howzaat?” The old girl, a gifted umpire, gives me a dirty look and goes to catch up with her sleep in the other room where we have a convenient divan.

But I must confess I hate the IPL and its 20-20 tournament. It is crass. It is commercial. It is contrived. It is confusing. It is not cricket. Even the cheer leaders have not been able to cheer a normally lecherous guy like me.

A game without loyalties is like a guy who has eight mistresses and no wife. So I gave up watching the tournament.
Until one evening, while reading Vir Sanghvi’s epic or rather epicurean essay on the ordinary Egg, I heard the old girl screaming, “Come quickly a Goan is hitting sixes”

That was my introduction to Swapnil Asnodkar, opening batsman of the Rajasthan Royals. Suddenly I had a T 20-20 wife and no mistresses.

In matters Goan I am more parochial than half a dozen Raj Thackerays.

It has been a long time since two Goans, P. Mambre and the late Dilip Sardesai wore our national colours

And I can understand why. Cricket is not Latin enough. You cannot enjoy it while taking your siesta as you can enjoy football and fishing. Your stadium neighbour might nudge you awake but the moment of a dropped catch or a full blooded six is gone forever.

There are other reasons why Goans do not take to cricket. It is too drawn out. No Goan is prepared to give so many hours of “doing nothing” in order to do nothing after standing in a queue and buying a ticket. Moreover, Latino that you are (however far down the family tree) you cannot, in cricket, tear your opponent’s shirt and kick him in the groin and make mince meat of the referee.

Although I must say that Harbajan is trying to Latinize the whole thing like some conservative Pope.

During Operation Blue Star when the Indian Army defiled the sanctity of the Golden Temple I wrote a centre page piece for the Times of India titled “In Praise of Sardars”.

To my joy and great surprise I received a letter from a Sardar from Ludhiana who said he had obtained my address from the Times of India and also discovered I was a Goan.

He went on to add that he greatly appreciated my courage. He had two unmarried daughters. Did I have two unmarried sons looking for tall, healthy, wheat-complexioned, convent bred brides?

Thinking about it I wonder if Harbajan has some secret Goan ancestry.

Mambre and Sardesai lived in Mumbai and soaked in the Mumbai cricket culture and its continuous calendar of tournaments. Asnodkar, I am told, lives in Porvorim and has his roots in Assnora Bardez, Goa.

How did Asnodkar take to cricket and reach such a level of proficiency that he wields a mean opening willow for Rajastan Royals and has been able to get a guy like me, who weeps at the slave auction of players, glued to the idiot box every time the Rajastan Royals are at crease?

Preity Zinta you might think. But you are as wrong, as is your belief that Asnodkar (Asnodkar who?) is going to have his off stump up rooted by a Ntini bruiser or a Muralitharan air-dance ball.

I watch him every time he plays and I forgive the publicity seeking money bags from the BCCI because they have restored my pride in Goan sports persons.

Asnodkars secret is that he has his roots in Assnora derived from “asson” a timber tree with medicinal bark, the river “Par” gurgling with joy that a kid who sipped from her waters is making his own waves.

May be his secret is the Ambexi spring whose waters can do wonders for the eyes. Any opener facing deliveries at 142km really needs spring-watered eyes to watch the bowler’s wrist and distinguish the in swinger from the one going out or coming like a Japanese train straight at your helmet.

May be there are other things that make Asnodkar who he really is. The zest and endurance of the great Shirgaumchi zatra next door at Sirigao, the worship of Shantadurga and above all freedom stories of how the Portuguese destroyed the Assnora bridge to keep the India liberation forces at bay.

I am proud of this newly discovered cricketer just as I have relived the glorious times when Goans, men and women donned the Indian colours at the Olympics and other International competitions.

Hockey players like Walter D’Souza, Maxie Vaz, Reggie Rodrigues, John Mascarenhas, Lawrie Fernandes and Joaquim Carvalho only to name a few. Really a few. The redoubtable Sacru Menezes who did not represent India but whose gymnastics as Bombay’s goalkeeper earned him a large fan club including this writer who frequented his sweaty and crowded restaurant “City Kitchen” so often, that my bosses suspected that I was part owner of the joint

And who can forget footballers like Neville D’Souza and Brahmanand
Sankwalkar who captained the Indian Football team just as Bruno Coutinho and Mauricio Afonso also did.

And my friend Furtunato Franco who represented India four times and was denied the Arjuna Award for years and finally got it after the All India Catholic Union honoured him at a public meeting.

And those who who burnt the lonely track, Eddie Sequeira, Lavy Pinto, Bunny Fernandes, Mary D’Souza and Stephie D’Souza.

I read somewhere that Abu Ben Adam woke up from a deep sleep and saw an angel writing in a Book of Gold. He was delighted to discover that his name led all the rest.

As I write this I somehow think that the Goa Edition of this news paper is like a book of gold and for me an opportunity to pay tribute to Goan sports persons many forgotten and many whom I don’t quickly recollect.

Do we recall Vece Paes who played hockey for India and his son Leander who brought home an Olympic gold for tennis? Or women swimmers like the Madgavkar girls. Four of them ! Aannika and Szewinska Gwen D’Mello were the first Goan girls to don National colours for swimming and diving.

And Hockey icons like, Elvira Britto, Lorraine Fernandes, Selma D’Silva, Sybil Miranda and Erminda Menezes. And especially Ottilia Mascarenhas a surgeon who captained India and is a recognized International umpire.

Some in my list are perhaps Manglorean. But who cares? Have we not Indians embraced Bobby Jindal, Sunita Williams, Jhumpa Lahiri and Mira Nair as our very own.

The inevitable question is. What is happening today? The advent of an Asnodkar making his debut in a difficult arena like cricket should make us wonder why there are hardly any Goans making the national sports scene.

On the other hand Goans are continuing as in the past to play hockey , football and cricket for the countries they have migrated to. Both old timers and the new generation.

Go to the net and the name of Jack Britto who played for Malawi pops up even today at the top of the charts. He married the Karnataka College athletic Champion, Ida Coutinho and very briefly my sweet heart. They are well settled in London, old age aches and pains notwithstanding.

In Mumbai even today both in Hockey and Football some of the best performances come from Goans. Why don’t they make it to the national teams? Have today’s Goans become proverbial chokers or permanent semi-finalists? Have they no longer the mental toughness for the final burst?

If they get selected it is on merit. If they don’t get selected it is all politics. Not as black and white as it is made out.

Time for serious reflection I would say. And a long session of sharing with Swapnil Asnodkar.