Kapil Dev unplugged

In his preface to this new autobiography, Kapil Dev says: "I think the real person emerges between the mid-thirties and forties, for that's when you realise who you are".

That's an appropriate statement in the context of this book, for Straight From the Heart gets its tone dead right; one can identify the writing with the personality of the man.

Consequently, it remedies one of the problems with an earlier Kapil 'autobiography' "" By God's Decree, published in 1985 when his popularity ratings were arguably the highest any cricketer has ever had in this country.

While there was never any pretence at the time that he had actually written the thing himself, Decree was so full of high sentence that it created an instant disconnect between the reader and the book's subject. (Imagine something purportedly written, or co-written, by the bucolic Kapil, and containing passages like "Strained shadows of gold and grey hung listlessly from minarets and naked flagpoles.")

As a result, it fell flat when compared to, say, Gavaskar's books of the time, which were penned in a style so distinct, one could imagine the man actually speaking the sentences in his characteristic sing-song manner.

Straight From the Heart, in contrast, captures much of the Kapil we know, or think we know. The device of writing the book in the present tense, though one isn't sure it's a deliberate move, adds authenticity. (A running joke in our cricket discussions is that one never knows how Kapil will choose to talk on any given day "" but to be fair to him, he usually employs a corruption of the present tense.)

But to the content. When a man with Kapil's cricketing experience talks to an interviewer for 30 hours "" as he did with consultant editor Jyoti Sabharwal for this book "" you're sure to get a treasure trove of hitherto unreported stories.

An anecdote about Gavaskar warning Kris Srikkanth not to wink and twitch his nose as the players prepare to meet Indira Gandhi is almost worth the price of admission in itself. And the section on the 1983 World Cup includes a hilarious bit on the players' wives being admonished by supercilious British stewards for jumping on the hotel bed while watching a match. (The sideshow of the spouses of cricketers is entertaining in its own way, as Kapil says.)

Most engrossing perhaps is the chapter on the early days of Kapil's relationship with his future wife Romi, cheekily titled 'Love makes you go round' (she was very large in those days). Passages like these make up for the blah portions of the book "" the obligatory tributes to favourite players, World Eleven picks and match descriptions that have by now become staples of every mediocre cricket tome.

From a cynical perspective, it's hard not to view this as a massive public relations exercise, coming as it does in the aftermath of Manoj Prabhakar's allegations of match-fixing against Kapil, and the latter famously crying himself out during a television interview.

But look closer, and you'll find that Kapil doesn't waste that many pages whining about the bad, bad days and how hard done by he was. When he does, yes, it's disturbing "" it's sad to see a great attacking cricketer having to be defensive in his writing. But the overall balance is right; there's enough lightness of tone.

For all of Kapil's supreme confidence as a playing cricketer, and his latter-day incarnation as a man about town, he's always come across as inherently shy, rarely expressing his thoughts in an organised way. The result is that the inconsistencies of views in this book actually work in its favour.

For instance, at one point he says something to the effect that runs scored against weak opposition mustn't be discounted, because "such critiques tend to be subjective". But two pages later, he goes: "Hadlee played almost all his cricket on wickets that were conducive to swing bowling...while I've had to struggle on the pitches in India". Any cricket aficionado would identify with this, for none of us is ever consistent in our views on the great game.

There are other, subtler contradictions too; even as Kapil professes not to be affected by what people think of him, the tone of his writing suggests that he is in fact deeply affected, and hurt, by recent happenings. But again, this has an endearing effect; it paints a portrait of a simple man who wears his heart on his sleeve.

The biggest problem with the book is the editing, which is downright poor, with several jarring mistakes; for example, the indiscriminate shortening of "I have" into "I've", which results in sentences like "What more stars do I've to reach out to..." and "You've to be much more focussed".

Perhaps the idea was to add to the authenticity ("why would anyone want to sub a Kapil autobiography" one can hear an editor saying), but it only interferes with the reader's rhythm.

In the aforementioned preface, Kapil remarks on his transition from drinking lassi to sipping champagne. Caught as we cricket lovers are in our hidebound notions of "the way things used to be", most of us still have a fondness for the lassi-drinking boy who knew little about Rolex watches, corporate deals and image management. Straight from the Heart provides several glimpses of that artless youngster who also just happened to be one of the great sportsmen of his time.

STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART:
An Autobiography

Kapil Dev
Macmillan India
Pages: 374
Price: Rs 395