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interview Spinning
the tale
Zia Mohyeddin column
interview The News on Sunday:
You were a bass player and a copywriter in advertising, what made you think
of writing? Shehan Karunatilaka: I used
to write diaries throughout high school but I always wanted to play bass in a
band. I knew I couldn’t sing or play the guitar so I started out initially
by writing punk rock songs. I was just so sure that
I’d be a bass player; actually, correct that, I thought I’d be a left-arm
spin bowler for Sri-Lanka at first. In fact that was my adolescent fantasy.
When you’re 10 and you play cricket, you want to play for Sri Lanka or
Pakistan. I had the ambition and talent but I guess I was just very lazy. So my cricketing career
never went through but I’d write down what tactics I’d use and what kind
of bowls I’d deliver if I were the greatest player in the world or bowling
to Imran Khan in a World Cup final. Men tend to think of crazy stuff like
that. These things were in my journal and many years later I was just looking
through it and a couple of ideas hit and so I think in a way this book has
come out of my ambitions to play for Sri Lanka. TNS: Have you always wanted
to be a writer? SK: I didn’t grow up
wanting to be one but I knew I’d eventually do it. I’ve been trying to
get so many things to work but I couldn’t so I went travelling, read a bit
more and then this idea for Chinaman came. I still work in advertising
as that is the only thing that has really enabled me to earn a living, but I
quit my job three years ago to step out of the rat race to put solid hours to
write. I used to get up at 4 in the morning to start writing and watch
cricket matches and hang out with drunks in the afternoon. But I still haven’t given
up on bass playing. I still play with a few bands around Singapore, so I’m
still trying. TNS:
Did you expect such success from your first novel? SK: It would be crass of me
to say “Yes, I did so” instead I’m going to say “No”. I was pleased
with the book, because it was an ambitious project and was just happy with
that. We don’t really have big publishers in Sri Lanka and hardly anyone
gets published by the big houses in India so generally you’re just self
publishing and I just really didn’t see any reason why it would go beyond
that. And then after a year of
self-publication in Lanka, my wildest dream came true. It came out in India
during the World Cup after several polite rejections and suddenly I had to
pretend to be a cricket expert even after the book was two years old. I
thought it might just go to India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh if I’m lucky
but had no idea I’d be touring UK and going to New York, San Francisco, and
Seattle for its publicity. Last year, it came out in
hardback and got into Waterstones 11, the best debut novels of 2012 and that
landed me a few events in Jaipur, Bali, South Africa and England. And then
this year it won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, which kind of
injected a new enthusiasm. TNS: Wouldn’t it be a
little difficult to sell a cricketing novel in the States? SK: Yes! I’ve been
thinking about that which is why it’ll be called ‘Legend of Pradeep
Matthew’ there because we’ll be going for the drunken detective, unsung
genius take. And Chinamen is supposed to be a borderline racial slur. You call it a cricket book
because it has plenty of cricket, but at the same time in essence it is a
drunken detective story. So you have WG as the main character and his
sidekick Watson who are on this path meeting different characters. And this
idea of an unsung genius is very much part of the American baseball and
folklore, so that’s what I’m going to be talking about bypassing the
cricket. My wife is my first reader
and that always has been the test because she has no interest in cricket. If
I can keep her interest then it’s fine, the idea is that even if you know
nothing about the game or Sri Lanka you can still follow the book through. TNS:
What made you want to get into the mind of a drunken hack that wanted
to discover the life of a cricketer lost in oblivion? SK: A book exists because
of its distinctive voice and as an author I tried to expose myself to enough
influences in the hope that something will eventually click. To begin with, I
tried to write this as a straight biography but as soon as I wrote it from a
drunk sportswriters’ point of view, the story really leapt off the page. So
I just followed that voice and didn’t really think too much about it. I
believe the book is about the voice rather than the plot and WG’s voice was
just so clear in fact I’m still trying to find that voice for my next book.
It’s just not something you can construct. TNS: Was there any
particular reason you made WG’s character so unsentimental? I understand he
was drunk most of the time but so little display of emotion? SK: It wasn’t intentional
but I think it’s true for most people who watch sports; they tend to, like
him, reserve emotion for what is happening on the field rather than what’s
happening in every other part of his life. But it also came from hanging in
bars in late afternoon when pensioners would be playing horses and having
evening shots. I’d talk to them about cricket in the 1950s and 1960s and at
the same time I was mimicking their mannerisms. TNS:
Did you meet any cricketers for the research of the book? SK: There wasn’t much
point in trying to meet them because they would only give you the official
lines but Kumar Sangakkara read the book and I met Ganguly and Imran Khan
briefly too. It is the ones who weren’t as successful or who have an axe to
grind who end up giving you the juicy gossip. TNS:
Did you intend the narrative to subtly discuss the history of problems
that Lanka has been going through in the past twenty years or was this
completely unintentional? SK: I actually set out to
avoid that stuff because there has been a lot of Sri-Lankan writing
especially since Michael Ondaatje won the Booker prize. A lot of people
started self publishing what they had written up in a couple of months
because it was so cheap about recurring themes including the war, Tamil boy
meets girl love story, or a Sri Lankan living in London or Boston but feeling
like a fish out of water or the Tsunami. So there has been a lot of
dabbling in these kinds of issues, but only few authors really know what
they’re talking about and I just didn’t want to fall into that trap. Therefore I picked cricket.
Not a safe territory either because there are cricket fanatics from our part
of the world who would shred you to bits if I didn’t get it right but
seemed a topic that I could keep light hearted. But the thing is that those
issues crept in when I was drafting the piece. I grew up in that period, so I
couldn’t really pretend that nothing heinous happened during the war but I
didn’t want to focus on it too much either, that’s how the match fixing
character and Tamil Tiger network came into the story but that wasn’t the
intention. TNS: Is it true that Random
House, who published your book in India, edited a lot of references to Lankan
society as they thought their readership would find it irrelevant? SK: Not really. But the one
thing that they did try to do and I pushed back on was to correct WG’s
grammar and syntax because I felt it was very much a part of his expressive
character. If the reference contributed to the plot, told you something about
Sri Lanka then we kept it but if it was just some in-joke about Colombian
people, it was omitted. One thing my publishers did
do a lot was to change the names so we don’t get sued. TNS: Can you tell us about
the new novel you’re working on? Is it a big project? SK: Yes it is. It is also
based in Lanka but I’m still in the early stages. I want to spend some more
time on the ground and really get a good feel because it takes the same time
to write a crap novel too so might as well try and write a good one. But
hopefully, I’ll have a draft by the end of the year. I don’t really have
much of an idea where this book is heading right now but it has absolutely
nothing to do with cricket and will probably take a few years to complete. I want to keep writing
about Sri Lanka because there are just so many stories that have happened
that aren’t being documented and I think it is a rich area to write about,
so I can’t see myself writing about anything else. The writer is an Editorial
Assistant at The News in London and can be contacted at anaam.raza@gmail.com
Spinning
the tale A country where
people believe sports means little else other than cricket and where
favourite sportsman are always unsurprisingly cricketers, Shehan
Karunatilaka’s novel Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew about a
cricketing mystery will be sheer indulgence for Pakistanis. Despite being a
couch-potato enthusiast whose interest in the game has progressively waned
over the years, Chinaman is a witty and engaging read. Not because it
reminded me nostalgically about a game I grew up watching but because it’s
about the ramblings of a cynical sportswriter ho is dedicating the last years
of his worthless life to a cause and having one last shot at what he could
have been, in spite of most of his organs failing to keep up with him. The sportswriter is a
64-year-old, arrack-addicted hack, WG Karunasena who is chasing this
archetype of a genius who never made it. Pradeep Mathew is the greatest and
most elusive bowler who could twist his wrist by 360 degrees, bowl 4
variations of spin in just seven Tests in the 1980s vanishing spuriously
without a trace thereafter. Actually no, the quest is
just as much about WG (pronounced Wije) as it is about Mathew. It’s about
his unfulfilled ambition and it’s acceptance with old age, broken
relationships with his beloved wife and careless son, friendship between old
men and the money that gets in the way of sportsmanship. The compulsive writer who
cannot write without alcohol passing his lips is meticulously trying to find
the lost star with the help of his best friend Ari Byrd, a professor of Maths
known for his ability to retain cricket statistics in an attempt to regain
and reclaim his status after being fired from three successive magazines. The beginning of Chinaman
is a little convoluted but after getting through the first fifty pages of
WG’s ramblings, the mystery kicks in and you just can’t wait to find out
how far the protagonist and his sidekick are getting along in finding the
lusive bowler and the sole reason why he’s still breathing despite being
warned by doctors that he soon would not if he doesn’t part ways with the
bottle. Karunatilka’s writing
especially when it comes to cricket as being an analogy of life is superb.
“I have been told by members of my own family that there is no use or value
in sports... Left-arm spinners cannot teach your children or cure your
disease. But once in a while, the very best of them will bowl a ball that
will bring an entire nation to its feet. And while there may be no practical
use in that, there is most certainly value”. Another one: “Real life
is lived at two runs an over, with a dodgy LBW every decade. The real lives
of millions end forgotten precisely because they are dull. Yet one
magnificent bowling spell will stay in people’s memories for generations.
For unlike life, sport matters” So far straightforward but
the enigma starts when not a single record of is found under Mathew’s name
under any record of Sri Lankan cricket. His father was a Tamil and mother
Sinhala, was that the reason? After all, Sri Lanka has been riddled with
ethnic violence, terrorism, human rights problems for as long as most of us
can remember. And like Wije says Sri Lankans inherit power lust of their
conquerors, but none of their vision. Even though I come from a
nation of people who love conspiracy theories in all shape of forms, I found
it difficult to separate fact from fiction. It’s difficult to decipher if
Pradeep exists for real? Or is this just a mumbled jumbled extension of
Wije’s creative imagination. In spite of the cricket
focus, ample references to Sri Lankan history and culture have been used as a
backdrop in the narrative. Maybe because Sri Lanka is just like Pradeep
Mathew, despite being one of the fastest growing economies of the world and
having managed to reduce poverty by fifty percent in the last five years, it
prefers being low-key. The ending, however is
over-stretched and a bit of a letdown. It felt as if Karunatilka didn’t
really have one in his mind when he begun which is why he ended up with
several and suddenly the book becomes about a father and son relationship
where the son completes the journey his father set out on. But what makes Chinaman
different from other dull fictional sporting books is Karunatilka’s
fluorescent one-liners, epigrams and truthful digs at cricket without ever
getting overly preachy.
—Anaam Raza Chinaman The Legend of Pradeep
Mathew By Shehan Karunatilka Publisher: Random House Pages: 395 Price: Rs 595
Zia Mohyeddin
column I like oranges.
They have a wonderful smell. If I were to be ruthlessly dispassionate, I
would say that the orange is my favourite fruit. I have never been concerned
with the medicinal value of what I eat or drink, but ever since I learned
that oranges are a source of vitamin (C, I believe) I feel righteous about my
fondness for oranges. A glass of freshly squeezed
oranges, mixed with a pinch of salt and a dash of pepper from the pepper mill
is one of the most invigorating drinks. If the oranges are from Jaffa, it is
heavenly. Peeling an orange is an art
I have never acquired. It is fiddly and it is messy. I find it a lot simpler
to cut an orange in quarters and suck it. I am aware that it is a plebeian
way and I envy those who can take the skin off without wounding the orange.
Years ago I had a cook-cum-chauffeur in London who had a remarkable knack of
peeling an orange. He would first make triangular incisions into the skin
with the point of a knife; make a tiny round, and then using his finger-tips
strip off the skin. That was not all: with the sharp end of a safety pin he
would scrape off every single vein revealing the orange in its perfect
roundness, like a jewel. When the oranges disappear
from the market smaller varieties like satsumas and tangerines appear in the
fruit shops in England. Anyone with a discerning taste knows the difference
between an orange and a Satsuma or a Tangerine or a Clementine, for that
matter, all of which are pip less imitators. I am told that they taste better
when tinned. Tinned fruit I can do without. Not so long ago, oranges
used to be preserved and candied in England, that is to say, sweetened by
boiling in crystallised sugar. (The etymologist, Khaled Ahmed would tell you
that the word ‘candied’ comes from the Arabic word “qand” meaning
sugar). The best way to savour the
taste of preserved oranges is in marmalade produced in England. I do not mean
the gooey substance with thin slivers of orange peel, hardly visible, that
you find in supermarkets, but the thick, tangy, dark brown, slightly bitter
marmalade with coarsely cut chunks of Seville oranges. Cut a slice of freshly
baked white bread (never use sliced bread that comes in a plastic wrapper)
spread a layer of unsalted Danish butter, top it with a few blobs of
marmalade marketed by Fortnum and Mason and you will have the touch of, what
I call divine taste. I am very partial to marmalade and nothing will put me
off it, not even the knowledge that a shipload of rotting oranges from
Seville dumped in the port of Dundee led to the invention of marmalade.
*********** The opening ceremony of the
Olympic Games has another name: phantasmagoria and the world sees it every
four years. The spectacle gets better each time and it is no exaggeration to
say that the opening event in London 2012 outdid every other ceremony. It was
an extraordinary explosion of history, humour, contemporary art and daring
quirkiness. In this stunning spectacle London emphasised its past but also
its new faces: multi-national, multi-faith and multi-ethnic. Danny Boyle, responsible
for what the times called a “retina-searing opening pageant” ought to be
saluted several times, but I take my hat off to Patrick Woodroffe, whom Boyle
chose to be his lighting designer, the man who introduced us to the world of
stadium lighting. Woodroffe spent weeks up a
gantry at the Olympic stadium programming and creating a show in an empty
athletic stadium. There was no stage and set, just some tape marks on the
ground. “Yes six weeks, every night until dawn and I didn’t do much
sleeping in between” he says in an interview. “But it was a nice feeling
making up next morning. There was this slow quiet recognition that not only
had we not completely messed it up but that, actually, we might have done
something rather good.” This is classic British understatement. I watched the gripping last
night of London 2012 on my television screen. A hush fell over 80,000
spectators just before the start of the 5000 m race. Mohammad Farah of Great
Britain began the twelve and a half lap race at the back of the field and
remained in that position lap after lap — part of his game plan, I suppose.
Half way through he moved to the centre of the bunch and stalked his main
rivals. Two laps before the finish he moved through them all. In the final
500 meters he hit the front and left everyone behind. Fears that Farah who
became the first Britain to win the 10,000 m a week before would be too
exhausted to repeat the feat were proved to be groundless and the entire
stadium roared him to victory. He raised his hands to his eyes in an Islamic
prayer just before crossing the finishing line to thunderous applause. Farah is referred to as Mo
Farah. On my Urdu/Hindi local Radio channel I heard a Mr. Wahab say that
there had been a deliberate plot to anglicise his name. “You know why they
don’t call him Mohammad” he asked, “Because then the gorah would not
like to take any pride in his achievement.” Mr. Wahab went on and on about
the conspiracy to defame Muslim names. I thought he went overboard. Many people imagined that
London would never be able to build the Olympic Park on time, let alone stage
such a spectacular triumph. It all happened because the planning was
meticulous; there were no party wrangling over the sites and venues and an
all party task force worked day and night for over six years to make sure
that everything is ready on time. An incredible feat was that the organisers
were able to recruit an army of 70,000 volunteers who carried out all their
duties in pelting rain without fuss or chaos. They were rewarded by Mo Farah
who gave them the greatest moment in the history of British athletics.
Britain has bagged a haul of medals unequalled for a century and quite a few
of them heave been won by black settlers. This has led to a rare mood of
national unity. The Olympics have made the British feel better about their
country and its multi-ethnicity. The euphoria has led to an air of optimism.
People are politer to each other. Will it last?
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