Field of dreams

Mukul Kesavan is the author of Men in White: A Book of Cricket, Looking Through Glass, and Secular Common Sense. While Looking Through Glass is a novel that takes place at the heart of the Hindu-Muslim riots during the independence era as narrated through an anonymous photographer, in Secular Common Sense (a political tract) Mukul argues that secularism is, and always has been, the political common sense of the Indian republic. The third book Men In White: A Book of Cricket, however, is, as the name suggests, all about cricket; with a history of how the game has fared and progressed through the years, the advent, and implementation, of technology, as well as profiles of various Indian heroes to have donned the whites.

Fervent cricket fan and writer, Mukul says he ‘wanted to become a particular kind of author, a novelist, because reading fiction was the thing that gave me the most pleasure as a child. So, I wrote a novel on the partition of the subcontinent called Looking Through Glass and then a short book on politics and religion in India called Secular Common Sense.’

As for the inspiration for and objective behind Men In White, he says: ‘Men in White is a good example of how an ambitious magazine can encourage particular sorts of non-fiction writing. I had written the odd piece on cricket when, in the year 2000, Wisden Asia Cricket (WAC), a monthly magazine, began publishing out of Bombay. It carried vivid, informed and adventurous writing about cricket which was literate without being self-consciously literary. I knew I was never going to set aside time to write a book on cricket, so writing regularly for WAC (that later mutated into the Cricinfo magazine) seemed a way of making that book painlessly. Once I got going, I wrote about cricket for other newspapers and magazines, but in the main it was contingent upon WAC just happening.’

Luckily he has not had to face any problems publishing his books: ‘Not publishing, just writing them and that is the hard part! I sent my novel off to an agent in London who agreed to represent me and sold it there and elsewhere. The next two books, both non-fictions, were published by Penguin India. Permanent Black, an Indian imprint that mainly publishes academic work, will publish a collection of essays I have written over several years that is called The Ugliness of the Indian Male and Other Findings. I am lucky to be writing at a time when a generation of Indian writing in English has helped create an audience and a professional book publishing industry in the country.’

As for the act of writing itself he admits, ‘My difficulty has been falling into a productive routine. I should have a structured writing day, but so far I have not had one. I’ve written in fits and starts, in little bursts, which is not a good way to set about ambitious writing. I am trying to reform so I can get to the end of my second novel.’

His readers, however, have had no complaints: ‘The reviews have been enthusiastic and readers enjoyed reading the book. I have had a couple of mistakes unearthed by alert readers (in one instance, I got the name of a cricket stadium wrong!) which should make the paperback version of the book better. But all in all, the response has been pleasing so far. I was shortlisted for a couple of best first novel prizes when Looking Through Glass was published. The Yorkshire Post award for Best First Novel and the Los Angeles Times prize for the same category. Unfortunately, I didn’t win either.’

Listing the books and authors that have inspired him, he says ‘Sticking to cricket, I think the three best cricket books I have read are Beyond a Boundary by CLR James, Anyone but England by Mike Marqusee, and A Corner of a Foreign Field by Ramachandra Guha.

‘However, the book that prompted me to write Men In White was a book about baseball, Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville, a book by the great paleontologist and evolutionary theorist, Stephen Jay Gould. For every deluded fan who thinks he can make up for his hopelessness with the bat and ball with his blinding insights into the game, this is the book to read for encouragement! It’s a great example of how a first-rate mind trained to consider matters scientific, can light up a game using the same attitude of disciplined curiosity.’

Like the majority of cricket followers around the world, the author has also formed an opinion of Australia; the worthy world champions but not everyone’s favourites due to their on-field behaviour, their pompous attitude (they do have a right to that, mind you) and the respect (or lack of) shown towards their competitors. However, as before, like most people who have been following the real cricket, from its glory days, before the Packer invasion, before the advent of technology, and before the 13-degree bend became a topic of conversation, he rates the mighty West Indies as the true soul-bearers of test cricket.

‘About the Australians there’s no question that they are bona fide world champions. You would have to be daft to be in denial about that. However, I do think that they are unattractive compared to their predecessors, the West Indies, but that’s separate from the fact that they’re indisputably number one. They have, after all, won the World Cup three times in a row.’

And as for his greatest cricket moment, ‘That, I can safely say, has to be V.V.S. Laxman’s 281 against Australia in Calcutta during the 2001 test series. That innings helped India beat Australia after following-on in that match and eventually helped them take the series 2-1 against a team which had won 16 (or was it 17?) tests in a row up until that point.’

Apart from writing, Mukul also teaches social history at Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi, as well as blogging on Cricinfo. According to him, his ‘credentials for writing about the game are founded on a spectatorial axiom: distance brings perspective’ as he is fond of the game, but only from a distance. He has a large readership on Cricinfo and attracts a horde of comments on every post he makes, be it on India’s coach selection, or the worthy successor to the throne of the ICC (a post that came about as a reply to an article by one of Cricinfo’s editors, and got the world involved). It helps when you have been to the media gallery at Lord’s.

© Faras Ghani 2007

Published in Books & Authors (Dawn) 26th Aug 2007