Rocking at the 45th Mile Marker

Vijay Bharadwaj turns 45 today. Bharadwaj Who? C’mon, jog my memory please.

Oh The Cricketer? Ya, now that rings a distant bell. Didn’t he get the Man of the Series in Kenya in 1999 on debut and almost haul India past the line in the finals, against South Africa? That corker of a delivery to Herschelle Gibbs, that fearless stride down the pitch to blast Pollock and Klusener at key moments in the game, the live wire fielding, that tantalizing promise of youth, exciting one’s senses or desires of more to come? And, in what would turn out to be his hallmark feature, chose to play it down unassumingly during the awards ceremony, where he expressed an uninhibited keenness to bat well on minefields, take wickets on sleeping beauties and get more laurels for the country? Bittersweet seemed to have been his take on the award, country glory first, personal glory be damned. We will not go into Ranji achievements here, because that would take a whole book and a lot of decorative tape to adorn.

And yet, in subsequent turn outs in the tri-colors, despite his best efforts and give-it-all attitude, owing to a combination of medical misfortune and fuzzy crossroads to pick from, he would mysteriously sputter, gradually falter and finally fade out like invisible ink, faster than a leaf would wither out on a hot summer day! Here was an unmanned aerial vehicle, soaring high one moment, only to disintegrate into an intensive, unsteady spiral descent and end up in a heap on a lonely hillock. OK, Ya, so what? Haven’t we seen and heard enough of these stories, of the also-rans, the yesterday heroes in all walks of life, who go up in smoke, or as they are fond of saying in Kannada “Hoge Haakondru”? Shrug, let’s move on, they are lost, let them be. We can’t invest in failures of any kind, good heavens no, or god forbid, work on their rehab. Besides there are enough new “perfect” products to pull out from the always running conveyor systems in the warehouses, try them out and if not worthy, consign them to the car crushers in the salvage yards.

Fortunately for Bharadwaj, his story seems to have not ended there. He had never been handed a marks card citing failure before. And when he had encountered it, he had looked it in the eye and poked it right back. He must have sat amidst the rubble on the barren hillock, pondering, not even of next steps, but of the cruelty, the ephemeral of it all, that coracle ride on a sucker of a river that turned his guts inside out and rocked his life. No one tossed him a life jacket, perhaps no one could care less. We have heard this before, from the many fallen. No one called, no one told me. But of course that was the dogmatic mantra then, maybe to a lesser extent even now. Something must have ignited inside him, owing to the holistic environment he grew up in and the endowment of Samskaara from the previous generations, something he firmly believes in. Prabhava and Swabhava is what they call it in Indian philosophy and they make an odd couple and can present astonishingly contrasting pictures as people seek to find their true nature, their inner calling. It must have been no different for Vijay as he tried to pick himself up from the rubble and shout out feebly “Yaaro Nanna Thaliddu”?!

The tides started to turn, slowly but surely, post retirement. And the crystal clear goal was to give back to the game, and the community, that nurtured him and enabled him to have his moment in the sun. He must have listened to John Paul Young’s “Yesterday’s Hero” ironically from 1975, his year of birth. The mid-song lyrics goes like this:

Take a look at me, I’m yesterday’s hero
Yesterday’s hero, that’s all I’ll be
Take a look at me, I’m yesterday’s hero
And yesterday’s hero is all that I’m gonna be if I don’t get together
Make a new start and be somebody better
All that I’ll be if I don’t get together now

And so it was to be. A look at his not updated wiki will give some roles he delved into with gusto, but that would only mask all the groundwork and grind all over he again put into it, as he sought to rediscover himself. Many would have given up, taken the easier path out. Not for him the shortcuts.

He became a qualified level three coach at the National Level, a rare achievement by itself. He threw his hat into the ring for the role of a coach after retirement and did a forthright job of it for the Karnataka Ranji team, as his wont. Viji’s wards would still remember his chidings and his mentorship, for he gave no quarter and asked for none. A three year stint followed as an assistant coach of Royal Challengers Bangalore in the initial editions and he would be seen hurting and mortified at the losses. Fitness permitting, he would have shone in the IPL himself, like a bright floodlight. As a chairman of the selection committee for the under-19 Karnataka team, he sought to tap talent at the grassroots in Karnataka and prepare them for the country’s needs.

The Sultanate of Oman, in the Middle East, benefited from having him as a national fielding coach and having the basics drilled into them during his many jaunts to the Gulf. Yet, he would move on, perhaps something still beckoning in the distant horizon, perhaps an Aakashavani calling. Which track to take? Where is my coach headed? Who is the engine driver? It must have reminded him of the many train journeys he undertook while playing for Karnataka at all levels, sometimes piling into unreserved coaches and hoping for a safe trip!

Come 2010, and what can now be seen as a true feather in his cap, Bharadwaj teamed up with cricketing stalwarts Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad as they took over the KSCA Administration, in a bid to upgrade the foundations of a thriving Test Cricket center and ensure that there would be this complete packaging, marketing and branding of the game over 5 days, like a trusted sandwich that can be banked on, and not something that would just fizz out like soda pop. Undoubtedly, he felt for the game’s biggest stakeholder, the fan.

There was a need for change then, for winds of change to sweep in and blow away the staleness that had set in, for fresh legs to take guard, for a captain to talk the walk and walk the talk, and have at his behest a team that he could rely upon and bounce his ideas of, individuals aligned to a collective cause. With all this anchored in place, they embarked upon setting right a lot of wrongs, investing in new infrastructure, revamping the existent, quickly stamping out pain points and nurturing talent pools all over the state, for the pride of the State was very high when half a dozen or so of its fine men turned up for national duty at the turn of the century, and to see more such remains a fond wish for many of its followers.

Bharadwaj was afloat on a new river current and learning the ropes at 35 and did a magnificent job of all this! He vouched for all the above, having seen the pain points in his playing days and played a deft, and at times, difficult hand in all this. He worked his backside off most of the time, had 2 phones always glued to both his ears and was Mr India to many of his friends and families, nowhere to be seen, out of bounds for hours and days. At times, he would show up like the rare panther in Kabini, and be gone, before you could get your lens ready.

The land allotted to KSCA at Shimoga was transformed into a neat ground. MOU’s were written up with the University of Mysore, and pavilions paved at Mysore and Hubli stadiums, which made these venues deemed fit to host India A matches. Not many outside the cricketing fraternity would know that in the early 2000s, a sizable portion of land at Alur, on the outskirts of Bangalore, was acquired by KM Ramprasad, the then president of the KSCA. No further use was found for the land till Kumble’s team took a second look at it, in a bid to enhance infrastructure. Bharadwaj rose to the challenge, and how. He did an initial feasibility study along with M R Krishna, a trusted servant of the game, and convinced the administration that there was huge potential to tap at Alur. In daily, grueling trips to Alur, he would single handedly set upon developing 3 new grounds from scratch and produce three magnificent jewels, with top notch facilities that would serve as base camp for RCB and many first class matches. Not satisfied, he worked with the Forest Department to plant hundreds of trees that have fully bloomed now and provide shade and shelter! His cricketing colleague Johnny aptly called him Saalu Marada Pinganna of Alur grounds for this ground-breaking work, no mean feat and unheralded till date. The current crop of RCB and Karnataka players should be indebted to Bharadwaj for this arduous landscaping effort.

Bharadwaj’s cricketing brain was always ticking though and it perhaps needed a sounding board to voice out his opinions of the same. An early role as an expert for TV9 in 2007, seemed to have laid the ground stone for a stint in the media. He would continue in that role for many years and become a popular on cricket talk shows and be a warm and welcoming voice for the cricketing fans in Karnataka, starved of expert commentary in Kannada. A first stint as Kannada commentator for the 2015 ICC World Cup with Star Sports with a huge success and more fan base developed as all the IPL games were soon covered in the regional languages, with the Kannada commentary team boasting of an enviable list of former cricketers lending their voice to the cause. The younger generation loved the casual banter and the jokes in Kannada, while the older folks were pleased as punch that there was coverage in their local language and no stone left unturned to educate the viewers on all aspects of the game, using technology aptly.

In 2018, Bharadwaj became the lead commentator in Star Sports 1 Kannada and according to Venkatesh Prasad, has come to be recognized as the voice of reason, much like Richie Benaud in Channel 9, and not far from being compared with Tony Cozier. These are lofty comparisons indeed and gentlemen worthy of emulation. Kannada commentary is here to stay, is addictive, hilarious and infectious, and Bharadwaj’s role has been no less than that of a pioneer of this seminal work in broadcasting, as media houses are increasingly looking to provide coverage of sporting events in local dialects to attract more viewers.

Finally, Bharadwaj has always been there as Man Friday for anyone who would reach out to him for help and support. He has helped pay fees, donated cricketing gear generously, helped friends and their parents in medical emergencies and at hospitals in innumerable instances. Many have been the beneficiaries of the much sought after cricket passes for games at KSCA. He has taken part in food packaging and distribution during the COVID epidemic and has earned and gained respect from many.

People who know him well would vouch for his all-round versatile skills starting as a student, a player, continuing as coach, a cricket administrator, a businessman, banker, an avid follower and knowledge base of Haridasa Sahitya and Dasara Padagalu and a keen student of Kaggaanubhava, widely regarded as a masterpiece of Kannada literature by Dr. D. V. Gundappa.

What’s the take-away from all the above? Where many others would have “failed” as a cricketer, he has succeeded. At various stages, and multiple pitfalls, he has emerged the better off and succeeded as a true cricketer in multiple roles across a vast spectrum in the glorious game. In doing so, he has firmly entrenched himself in the hearts of millions as a worthy role model, enriched the game unquantifiably and turned out to be a pearl that has emerged from the depths of the ocean, one that he has dived to and re-surfaced.

Addendum on the DRS

Setting aside other appropriate and sane observations, The Dressing Room Show, or quite fondly and commonly known as the DRS, has become the Kannada Cricket’s Fan version of the cricketing Tom and Jerry show, with a no-holds barred and an on-cue comic approach to entertaining the state’s erudite cricket lovers, hopeless romantics and aficionados of all ages, who cannot seem to have enough of Viji and Jani and the rest of the folks discussing cricket in a disarming and grounded manner. It always appears to be a casual, informal debate in a noisy cafeteria, or in a sporting pavilion, with a steady stream of onlookers and “whistle-poders” unable to pull themselves away from the scene, their work, kids, WAGS and day be damned.

Word to the wise though that there is nothing amateurish about this show, and behind each episode there is such an abundance of cricketing acumen and actual hands on experience at their behest, that they make it look like child’s play, craftily mixing light hearted entertainment with wholesome enlightenment, as they aim to educate the game’s abundant followers as well on what happens in front of and behind the scenes and how the game should be observed.

Much before teaming up with Jani, Viji started the DRS as a podcast with RJ Smitha, during his days of dallying in social media and developing a scornful distaste for the dragnet that social media tossed on him. He found it toxic and wanted to exhale. He let go and emerged the better off.

After a few podcasts, it also dawned on Viji that these were just interviews with scripted boundaries. Nevertheless it was a good start, but just like stated earlier, he caught onto a frequency of a different calling which urged him to discuss and debate cricket as friends would do at an “adda” after dealing with the highs and lows that their national cricket team would dish out to them in many tests, blind bi-laterals and merciless ICC Tournament Knock-outs, where India seem to have wood glue stuck on their whole bodies, while attempting to come unstuck from almost a decade of no trophies, plates and platitudes to boast. Plus, you only had to look around at much of the tripe being dished out by other former cricketers in their articles and channel episodes, where they would hesitate to call the Emperor’s New Clothes and refuse to call a spade a spade.

Want to hear a comforting and convenient lie? Go elsewhere, for that is not in Viji’s DNA. Do you want to hear the inconvenient truth, however harsh and unpleasant it might be? Tune in to Viji, for it’s right up his alley and he is happy to dish it out as a bitter pill to swallow, for only that shall set you free. He has always been known to speak his mind unconventionally and truthfully.

With this in mind, he teamed up with Jani and took the DRS to a different platform altogether. They would record the shows on their mobile and upload without any editing, newbies to the world and not aware of the nuances. They would talk about cricketing legends with a humility that beggared belief and Viji would make it a self deprecating one too. Match analysis soon followed and came to stay, as there was a need for a sounding board that many fans could bounce their thoughts off and give vent to their joys and melancholies, for cricket is a religion in India and as integral to each as their native dishes are. The DRS ship now sails steady, and fans are drawn to it from all over the world. With the same raconteurs appearing on Star Sports Kannada for their commentary jobs during IPL and Indian stints, many Kannada fans having completely ditched listening to commentary in other languages while following the game live, and then tuning in to the DRS post game shows for a detailed dissection, while munching over snacks or catching the metros home. They have admitted no less that it seems mundane to go back and listen to the monotony from other sources, when there is an irresistible laughter challenge being offered up while discussing the game astutely.

Many moons ago, when he was at his peak of cricketing prowess, Viji was like our SLV daily coffee or tea, for which we would happily pull our bikes over and partake, with assurance and without qualms, like a much-needed daily potion, thankful for having been served up, what we were incapable of churning out. Namma Huduga was representing the nation and we were happy to play our roles in it, like gaping kids watching a skilled craftsman walking a tightrope up in the sky, mindful of the package deal he signed up and rooting for his successful crosswalk. Around this beacon, when he shone bright, many found warmth and light, others experienced visceral happiness and thousands were holistically happy, much beyond the mundane aspects of the statistics, that so serve up to be your credit or debit on your balance sheet in life.

Ditto now with the DRS, as it serves up great dishes pretty much on the same lines and is making forays into vlogs, cricket gurukula for the uninitiated, yet thirsty, Danthakathes with Viji, coaching diaries and repurposing its YouTube revenues towards charities for those who cannot afford to play the sport.

Call it serendipity or destiny, first life introduced them to cricket and cricket gave them a life to live and cherish. In return, and ever grateful, they are giving back, by paying it forward in the only way known to them and they have a million well wishers cheering them on, as they have miles to go. It’s apt to sign off then like Viji says “Jai Hind, Jai Karnataka Maathe, Krishna Arpana” and fasten your seatbelts for there is plenty more to come.