Dying of a voice

A commentator who enlivened sport and was integral to a world we’ve lost

Time was when aspiring cricketers and footballers, when they had the foreboding that they could never measure up to the standards of the sportspersons who haunted their dreams, would often end up imitating radio commentators who gilded half-centuries or goals with florid language. Some (sports aspirants) became highly adept at that and often disported their friends and teachers, even principals, with their mimicking skills on the last day before the school let out for winter vacation. And though it may be difficult to take in in this day and age, it wasn’t then not difficult to come across people who were equally proficient commentating on both football and cricket. Ashis Ray, who is a contributor to this newspaper, is one. So was Kishore Bhimani, 80, who died on Thursday. In their early days, they were often part of the same two-member team.

Bhimani grew up in a Calcutta that was very provincial in outlook, but also vibrant and prosperous with embedded poverty, to which Partition generously contributed. All this did not touch him, however. He came of a fairly affluent family, proved by the fact that he went to a respected English-medium school and then to the London School of Economics, where his education was, by all accounts, financed or at least subsidised by his family. Had it been today, he would have moved out of Calcutta. But it was worth living in the city in those days, and he opted to do so and joined the Statesman, adding bells and whistles to his career by becoming a sports commentator, probably football first and then cricket.

All this would not have been worth recounting but for one thing. The television age, which started in the early 1980s if at all a time could be given to a process, has taken a vital pleasure out of our lives — listening to commentaries. The pleasure was certainly greater in cricket than football. The slowness of the game gave a lot of space to the commentator to — to use a relatively modern expression — connect the dots. We would hear things that we would never have had we been in the gallery. A lot of names come to mind. My first pick is Anant Setalvad, whose mellifluous voice was on a level with that of Melville D’mello (a pity D’mello did not do much cricket commentary. If I remember, he gave the commentary the day India won the World Cup hockey in 1975). Dicky Rutnagar was another voice one fondly remembers, though he had the misfortune to be part of the commentary team during India’s inglorious English summer of 1974. Pearson Surita comes next, but his flamboyant English had been the stuff of many a sarcastic jibe. Suresh Saraiya, with his unsophisticated English accent, could be no less endearing. “Back again, Chandra to Kalli, right-arm over the wicket …” provoked excitement and amusement like no other.

Of course all this derived from the British tradition, whose foremost representative had been John Arlott. Did our guys emulate him? Did they plagiarise him? If they did, I wouldn't hold it against them. After all, it was Arlott who said this about Garfield Sobers: “No aspect of his cricket has been more amazing than his capacity to combine the quality and quantity of efforts.” Is there any better way knowing Sobers?

Kishore Bhimani did not belong to this class. Perhaps he did not even aspire to do so. But he was certainly part of the same culture, and also integral to the same world we have lost. Hence this is an occasion to remember him.

The slowness of the game gave a lot of space to the commentator to — to use a relatively modern expression — connect the dots