One one things

The other day I was in the tube reading the Metro over somebody else’s shoulder as i am wont to do when I’ve forgotten to bring my book du jour in my customary absent mindedness. I was pleasantly surprised to read that the manic street preacher in Oxford Circus had been given an ASBO (Anti-social behaviour order, I think). I find him particularly annoying, specially bc he uses a loudspeaker, and his voice has this mind-numbing quality. There are several MSPs in London, but the old man who usually sets up camp near the Camden town tube station is my favourite. He engages in discussion with ppl and rips them apart (verbally) when they try to take the piss. I’ve always wanted to have a word with him, and the other day I had my chance.

I was leaning against the wall waiting for a friend at Marble Arch tube station exit when I saw the familiar face with his white kurthaesque shirt, beard, cap and “Jesus is alive” board. Ppl stare, a few Americans take pictures and this tiny Asian guy sees him and screams “Jeeeesus is aliiiiive!” pumping his fists in the air as if Jesus was his favourite sports team as opposed to a major religious figure. I think he was stoned. But he goes on to chat with our MSP proclaiming his faith and looking like an obediant puppy, nodding his head eagerly. MSP had stopped just next to me and my friend with his back turned to us, and several ppl stopped to talk to him. First two more Asian dudes, a young European kid and a couple of black guys took turns to see what he had to say. MSP asked each of them why they are alive, and there were some interesting answers drawing from biology and Cartesian philosophy among others. In between this MSP had a yell at an Eastern European shop keeper who had asked him to leave, MSP was furious and claimed to have fought in WWII for their liberation and that he has no right to tell him to leave. Several minutes passed and the little stoner was still with MSP and was now repeating the key words that MSP said to others;

MSP: “You are alive bc Jesus is in you”
Stoner: “Yes, Jesus, Jesus”
MSP: “I don’t believe in religion, Satan is religion”
Stoner: “Satan, Satan”

Finally a Muslim chap (probably from Edgware road) came along and started arguing that Islam is the only true faith resulting in a shouting match which was largely incoherent and in a multitude of languages and dialects. The stoner had to go and he hugged MSP in pure devotion, and MSP turned around, saw the two of us and said something in Hindi. I shrugged my shoulders and said “No Hindi”. He then tries Punjabi, and draws the same response. He must have thought i’m a BBCD (British Born Confused Desi) so I said that I’m from Sri Lanka. MSP then said “Ahh Eppadi sugama? nallam?” I was grinning now, thoroughly impressed with his linguistic talents, but had to say that Tamil is beyond me as well. How incompetent I must have appeared. He scratched his head as if conjuring memories from the nether regions of his cerebellum. Finally he said “Ah mahaththaya! Bath kaawada? Aayubowan! Kohamada?” It was a brilliant performance, I delightedly put my palms together and said “Aayubowan, ow mama bath kaawa, hondin innawa.” I asked him how he knows Sinhalese and he said that he was in Carey College in 1948. Why someone would go to school after fighting the War was beyond me, but then maybe they had child soldiers even then. Finally he gave me a tired smile of satisfaction and said that he has stayed on this road enough and that he should go, I smiled as he walked passed a KFC where more ppl stopped to talk to him, and a drunk white man began to immitate a chicken.

Last wednesday I was watching channel 5 listening to Geoff Boycott and Simon Hughes nonchanantly dismiss any threat posed by Sri Lanka to England on the eve of the first test. I grimaced but knew deep inside they were right. My brother sent me a text just then saying how sweet it would be to prove them wrong. I had tickets for the next morning’s play and felt an eagerness and anticipation I hadn’t felt for a long time. I woke up extra early and getting out of bed was for once a simple affair. I had never been to watch any test match in England let alone a Lord’s test involving Sri Lanka, so I guess my excitement was justified.

I stepped out into a crisp but bright morning and smiled at the sun, hoping for it to continue to shower its rays over the next five days. Little did I expect to be praying for rain come Monday morning. My mind went back to Sri Lanka’s last Lords encounter in 2002. The situation was similar, we played a weakened team minus Murali and few gave us any chance of success. But at the end of the first innings Marvan had 185 to his name and Mahela made a lovely 100 and we made England follow on. Oh for a deja vu. It got hotter and hotter and as I left St. John’s Wood tube station I joined a stream of England supporters making the 400 yard trudge to the ground.

The first thing you see after the security checks is the back of the rather extra-terrestial looking media centre and just behind it the practice nets and the “nursery ground” which gives its name to one of the two bowling ends in Lords. I probably looked like a star-struck teenager, wide-eyed looking around and trying to take in all the atmosphere that was slowly building up. I made my way to the Dennis Compton stand and found my seat at the top open air tier, it felt much like an amphitheater. The stadium was relatively empty but the players were out practicing, and I could see Murali and Malinga Bandara spinning a few to Sanga, sharing the practice pitch with 4 English quicks. The ground is absolutely beautiful, the grass is perfectly trimmed to look like a billiards table from far, the Member’s pavillion looks regal, as do the players’ balconies onto which I superimposed so many memories that I’ve seen through pictures and television. At the opposite end is the media centre whose architecture is completely alien to the ground and all it stands for, but somehow it seems to fit. The famous slope isn’t immediately apparent but if you look for it, it becomes quite obvious. The sun was baking down by now and it felt genuinely hot despite just wearing my SL ODI T shirt, cap and jeans. The ppl at at the ground were unreservedly friendly, I got chatting to the fellows next to me about the length of Sri Lankan surnames and the oddity of Vaas, Warnakulasuriya Patabendige Ushantha Chaminda Joseph Vaas. One old man asked me what I think my team’s chances are, I smiled and said “Not good on paper, but Lords is usually a nice batting deck, and the sun’s out. Hopefully we can retain our unbeaten record there.”

We lost the toss and had to bowl, our chances slipped a few more notches. Nonetheless Vaas bowled beautifully, getting the ball to move in the air and off the wicket from a consistent line and length, and beat the bat several times in the first hour or so. The other end was less consistent with Maharoof sending down too many no-balls and Kulasekara struggling to hit the right spots. Murali bowled his first ever ball at Lords, shocking given his 14 year international career, and later got the breakthrough at the stroke of lunch, Andrew Strauss nicking to Mahela at slip.

During the interval I strolled around the ground, watching ppl enjoy their picnics sprawled out in the sun, the jazz quartet playing underneath some precious shade watched by smiling old men in tweed jackets and ties. All the bars are named with cricketing terminology, The Full Toss bar, The Outfield Bar to name but two. I made my way passed the pavillion to the cricket museum housing loads of memorabilia including the Ashes. The highlights for me included some lovely cricket photography, the cricket ball that killed the bird (and the bird), the signed bat of the ‘96 World cup winning side, old bats, caps, balls of famous players from back in the day, a replica of the Honours boards, and an amusing photograph showing the contrast between a toss from the 1970’s with just the two captains in the middle, and from 2004 with the two captains and about 40 others with cameras, mikes and what not. The major disappointment was the Ashes itself, I expected a nice replica of the original urn (now in Australia after millions of years, terrible timing), but what I did see was a big crystal cup.

The ensuing sessions went decidedly England’s way. Trescothick escaped an excellent LBW shout by Murali to get yet another Lords ton and the game clearly drifted away from the visitors. The ground was packed by now and the crowd was anxious for some action. When little was forthcoming a man in my stand produced a cleverly hidden trumpet and burst the silence with a classic England supporter’s tune. A huge cheer erupted before the ground stewards reprimanded him much to the displeasure and boos of the crowd. A few minutes later two guys had smuggled a flag into the ground and waved it furiously when Pieterson clubbed a six, they too were told to put the flag away. The crowd isn’t all tweed jackets, hats and tie, that is reserved for the Member’s pavillion. Everyone else is casually dressed, guzzling beer, wine and champagne. The effects of which are noticed towards the third session as more ppl burst into song and random yelling. The atmosphere at Lords is unique. It isn’t the party atmosphere that you find (and love) in most other grounds in the world, it’s far more reserved and serious. It’s incomparable to any other cricket watching experience that i’ve had. I guess it only makes sense in the context of the history of the ground and the fact that it stands for what cricket once was, a gentleman’s game. I wouldn’t like it if every ground in the world had the same regulations at Lords, but it’s good I think to have it in this one place.

The day whizzed by despite Sri Lanka’s inability to breakthrough. The sun continued to bake down and I felt for the suddas who became progressively lobster like. Soon it was time to head home before the crowd packed St. John’s Wood station and I left with bitter-sweet feelings. I was thrilled to have spent the day at Lords, soaking up the history and tradition, but sad that in a cricketing sense the day wasn’t great. I got home to hear that Maharoof had dismissed Pieterson off a no-ball and I sulked off into the shower to let my migraine settle in.

After the second day’s play the result seemed a foregone conclusion, and I told a friend of mine, who had day 5 tickets, to sell them. But the second innings batting performance was nothing short of remarkable. I followed day 4 and 5 glued to cricinfo, closing my eyes each time there was a delay in the feedback (usually a telltale sign of a wicket). But the boys stuck out 199 overs in overcast conditions, they played and missed, they edged and got dropped, but each time they knuckled down and took it in their stride. The team showed something that it so often fails to produce, the never say die attitude and self belief. Lords has an uncanny knack of bringing out the best or worst in players, for Sri Lanka this was played out in the contrast between first and second innings. Kudos to all the batsman, from Mahela to Murali who stuck it out for the last 16 balls, avoiding the temptation to back away and swat. Let’s hope they can sort out the bowling for Edgbaston, the wicket there is likely to be less batsman friendly, and England are likely to be seething after Sri Lanka’s houdini act.

I was wondering today when I stopped listening to music. I started liking music when I was about eight or nine and even then I used to listen to it properly, but somewhere down the line I stopped, I think it was during the last 5 years. Today was a bit of a puk day, one of those days when nothing seemed to go right, everything was getting on my nerves and I kept feeling that I need to punch something. I couldn’t study after making dinner bc my powers of concentration had clearly abandoned me and that didn’t help my mood so I decided to do what I used to do when I was small. I Grabbed my Ipod and went into my room, cut the lights, put volume as high as I could, closed my eyes, and listened. It felt like I had come home after a long trip, that feeling of familiarity and comfort. I didn’t open my eyes for about an hour, I stopped thinking and I let myself drift.

I realised what I had been missing for so long. When I was younger, every evening I used to put my walkman on, get into a pair of shorts and go to the to the top of the road, sit down and listen to whatever cassette I had picked that day. I’d listen and let nothing else get in the way, no day-dreaming, just listening to the words, the way the instruments come together and blend in with the vocals, the story being told, I’d close my eyes and see the bass guitarist strumming his chords, the pianists’ fingers dancing to and fro and the drummer’s arms wave about creating a haze. Every now and then I’d hear something particularly powerful and I’d physically feel the music as a chill runs through my body leaving behind a trail of goosebumps. Later on when I was studying for my AL’s I used to kickback at the end of the day after dinner with a glass of iced tonic with lime, a nice armchair on my balcony and listen to the Late Late Request Show which I had recorded from the night before. I loved that chill in the air, the light breeze that somehow doesn’t disturb the stillness, and that solitude that is so precious.

Tonight I felt it all over again, the peace, the solitude, the goosebumps, everything. I made a promise to do that more often, just me and my music. It feels slightly criminal that music has just become background noise of late. I only seem to have some music on while working, while on the tube in an attempt to make the journey shorter and basically only while doing something else. As a result it feels like I’ve missed out on a lot, it’s sort of like reading an abridged version of a great piece of literature, you get the basic idea but miss the whole point, like 20-20 cricket. Here’s to the real thing and to the men and women that make it happen.