MAHI: THE STORY OF INDIA'S MOST SUCCESSFUL CAPTAIN
Shantanu Guha Ray
Lotus Collection, Roli Books
193 pages; Rs 295
A biography of a sportsperson in mid-career? Well, if it's cricket, it works. If it's India, it works better. That is why Sunil Gavaskar wrote four books in his playing days, and none afterwards. Books on Sachin Tendulkar appeared at an age when most other lads his age would be thinking of what stream to consider for graduate studies. Now, here's a book on Mahendra Singh Dhoni. His career is far from over, but the book calls itself "The story of India's most successful captain", caring little for any negative possibilities in the future.
It isn't surprising, therefore, that Mr Guha Ray cashes in on the story of a wildly popular sports figure and even goes to the extent of creating yet another God for Indian cricket. One has just oiled his bats and put them away as souvenirs of an awesome career; another is being built up as the celestial successor. Otherwise, how do you explain the transcendental connect between an untested young footballer and a coach at a school where students wanted to play only football and hockey? Writes Mr Guha Ray about the effect on Keshav Ranjan Banerjee, cricket in charge at Ranchi's DAV Jawahar Vidya Mandir, after watching Dhoni for the first time on the football pitch: "But - strangely - when she [his wife] returned from the kitchen, she found Banerjee playing music. He was happy, very happy. Why, wondered Maya?" So the myth begins. Dhoni is a heavenly talent, whose unseen skills in cricket are clearly manifest to a small-time coach, who mentors him into becoming India's next cricket God.
If that reads like a script from a C-grade thriller, you can be sure you will have your fill of dialogue and drama worthy of a sitcom in the early stories about Dhoni's cricketing journey. Of his financially struggling parents, and a sports-goods seller friend who moves heaven to get a company from Jalandhar to sponsor eight bats and other gear for an unknown, callow player in the unlikely playing fields of Jharkhand. There are copious tears here to do a melodrama proud - everyone has lachrymal moments, from the mother, the sports-goods seller friend and, yes, Dhoni himself.
If not for this trite paperback approach to the narration of Dhoni's life, the book provides enough glimpses of what the grand story could have been. Two chapters are very interesting for what they reveal about Dhoni (mind you, even this has to be taken in faith because nowhere is there any proof that the author, a senior journalist, ever met Dhoni during the writing of the book). One details the conversation that Dhoni had over video conference from Australia with selectors in India that led to Sourav Ganguly being dropped from the Indian One-Day team he captains. Here we see a Dhoni who is clear about what he wants in the team, about a demand that he backs with empirical data (runs allowed by slow fielders that affect match results) and as someone who is unafraid to speak his mind, even if the subject is his former captain.
The second deals with his fledgling start as a brand ambassador and narrates how an advertising company persuasively pitched Dhoni as the perfect endorser for the Yamaha motorcycle and how executives of the Japanese bike company refused to sign him on for being too small for their brand, even for Rs 3 lakh a year. A couple of years later, it was Dhoni's turn to demur when the selfsame company approached him with offers of crores per annum.
These little insights into the life of the cricketer would have made for a warm read on a winter's day. But the book is marked by gaffes of all sorts, editorial and narrative. For instance, in his first match for India - India A versus Zimbabwe in 2004 - Dhoni is credited with a record of 11 wickets (even detailed as seven catches and four stumpings) in a one-dayer! Did Dhoni play for both teams, since even a hand in all dismissals would have given him just 10 wickets? Go to the record books and you will find it was a four-day match.
There is also the chapter on his wedding where it says there was utter secrecy all around and then, in the same breath, says the small road to the marriage venue had 500 policemen on duty. And no, the "wood-fired oven" the author refers to isn't about Italian pizzas but a chulha in Dhoni's house. Editing and proofreading are so loose that you don't want to quibble when at one point the eponymous hero of the book is called Dhoti.
Shantanu Guha Ray
Lotus Collection, Roli Books
193 pages; Rs 295
A biography of a sportsperson in mid-career? Well, if it's cricket, it works. If it's India, it works better. That is why Sunil Gavaskar wrote four books in his playing days, and none afterwards. Books on Sachin Tendulkar appeared at an age when most other lads his age would be thinking of what stream to consider for graduate studies. Now, here's a book on Mahendra Singh Dhoni. His career is far from over, but the book calls itself "The story of India's most successful captain", caring little for any negative possibilities in the future.
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But that is cricket in India. It allows you to deify men, create legends around their short sporting lives, make money out of their stories. Shantanu Guha Ray's Mahi is perhaps timely, for at this juncture in his tempestuous cricketing life, Dhoni has earned for himself the respect of peers as the best finisher in the game - and probably the best skipper in the business. His third virtue is his work behind the stumps, which, if not spectacular, is competent. That he is the country's biggest endorser of brands speaks of his standing among fans. Even those who don't follow cricket know of him through his constant appearances during commercial breaks in television serials and reality shows.
It isn't surprising, therefore, that Mr Guha Ray cashes in on the story of a wildly popular sports figure and even goes to the extent of creating yet another God for Indian cricket. One has just oiled his bats and put them away as souvenirs of an awesome career; another is being built up as the celestial successor. Otherwise, how do you explain the transcendental connect between an untested young footballer and a coach at a school where students wanted to play only football and hockey? Writes Mr Guha Ray about the effect on Keshav Ranjan Banerjee, cricket in charge at Ranchi's DAV Jawahar Vidya Mandir, after watching Dhoni for the first time on the football pitch: "But - strangely - when she [his wife] returned from the kitchen, she found Banerjee playing music. He was happy, very happy. Why, wondered Maya?" So the myth begins. Dhoni is a heavenly talent, whose unseen skills in cricket are clearly manifest to a small-time coach, who mentors him into becoming India's next cricket God.
If that reads like a script from a C-grade thriller, you can be sure you will have your fill of dialogue and drama worthy of a sitcom in the early stories about Dhoni's cricketing journey. Of his financially struggling parents, and a sports-goods seller friend who moves heaven to get a company from Jalandhar to sponsor eight bats and other gear for an unknown, callow player in the unlikely playing fields of Jharkhand. There are copious tears here to do a melodrama proud - everyone has lachrymal moments, from the mother, the sports-goods seller friend and, yes, Dhoni himself.
If not for this trite paperback approach to the narration of Dhoni's life, the book provides enough glimpses of what the grand story could have been. Two chapters are very interesting for what they reveal about Dhoni (mind you, even this has to be taken in faith because nowhere is there any proof that the author, a senior journalist, ever met Dhoni during the writing of the book). One details the conversation that Dhoni had over video conference from Australia with selectors in India that led to Sourav Ganguly being dropped from the Indian One-Day team he captains. Here we see a Dhoni who is clear about what he wants in the team, about a demand that he backs with empirical data (runs allowed by slow fielders that affect match results) and as someone who is unafraid to speak his mind, even if the subject is his former captain.
The second deals with his fledgling start as a brand ambassador and narrates how an advertising company persuasively pitched Dhoni as the perfect endorser for the Yamaha motorcycle and how executives of the Japanese bike company refused to sign him on for being too small for their brand, even for Rs 3 lakh a year. A couple of years later, it was Dhoni's turn to demur when the selfsame company approached him with offers of crores per annum.
These little insights into the life of the cricketer would have made for a warm read on a winter's day. But the book is marked by gaffes of all sorts, editorial and narrative. For instance, in his first match for India - India A versus Zimbabwe in 2004 - Dhoni is credited with a record of 11 wickets (even detailed as seven catches and four stumpings) in a one-dayer! Did Dhoni play for both teams, since even a hand in all dismissals would have given him just 10 wickets? Go to the record books and you will find it was a four-day match.
There is also the chapter on his wedding where it says there was utter secrecy all around and then, in the same breath, says the small road to the marriage venue had 500 policemen on duty. And no, the "wood-fired oven" the author refers to isn't about Italian pizzas but a chulha in Dhoni's house. Editing and proofreading are so loose that you don't want to quibble when at one point the eponymous hero of the book is called Dhoti.