Of two Indian cricketers who found love on tour, romance by post, and left to make a home in countries far away
Rahul Bhattacharya10-Aug-2013One day at work I received a handwritten letter from a dashing Test cricketer. I cannot be sure now of the spill or strictness of its hand, whether rendered in ink or ball-point and in what colour, nor the sound of its words or the choice of its phrases. I cannot be sure because like a fool I lost the letter. I remember only that Budhi Kunderan had written to say he would be coming to Bombay and be happy to meet, and that was enough for me.This was nine years ago. We met at his friend’s home in Versova on Mumbai’s north coast, not far from the office of the magazine I worked at, , through Bharat. As for me, he was a reader of our magazine. He thought it was smarter, he chuckled, to write to the assistant editor than the editor, who might have too much on his plate. I found that moving then and I find it more so now.We ran the interview under the “Gleanings” feature of our magazine, a concept stolen faithfully from ‘s “What I’ve Learnt”, meant to present the distilled wisdom and experience of a life. This is how Budhi Kunderan’s gleanings began:And elsewhere:She was Linda Pullar. He was a cricketer with the Indian team; she was a receptionist at the team hotel in Leeds. When I look at the unedited file of the interview I am appalled to find how I had privileged the life of the cricketer over the life of the person. The price of bats and the pay of cricketers had felt to me the essential thing. I had omitted the most beautiful detail of his recollection.
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A clear, kind northern voice. It feels like she has family over and afterwards she says she is a grandmother of two. We speak for 15 minutes. The Great Northern, that was the name of the hotel. What were her first impressions? I ask about the letters and she frames it exactly as he had. She had every letter he wrote her. Did he ask you to marry him in a letter? And you said yes right then?
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In February 1969 Linda married Budhi Kunderan in Bombay. They lived in Bandra, in the housing colony of his employer, State Bank of India. But his career was fading. He had a serious falling-out with the captain, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, for reasons that remain rumour. “I thought Pat was out of order and told him off,” he would tell Murzello. “Then I knew I would never play for India again.” He was dropped from the squad to Australia. Linda was not keeping well. And the bank refused him leave to play the leagues in Britain. Budhi Kunderan was, as he put it that afternoon, “disgusted with the cricket politics here, so I quit at 30.” In an angry interview at the time he said, “Players are made to feel they exist at the mercy of the officials. Sirring is a must for players” – words which would be held against him.
What does a cricketer think of before he dies? The roar of fans, the thrill of a hook or a break, where do they go? The king of the gully, the hero of the maidan, the toast of the country. The sadness of cricketers, their gloriousness
They spent a winter at Linda’s family’s home in Wetherby, Yorkshire. Budhi Kunderan helped out at the pub they ran, The Angel. From there they moved to Coatbridge in Lanarkshire, Scotland where they remained. Kunderan played in the Scottish League for Drumpellier, and worked for the technical department of British Roadmakers. In 1980, when he wasn’t invited, pettily, to attend the Jubilee Test in Bombay, he felt so “disillusioned and disappointed” not to be able to stand proud with the community of Indian Test players that he wrote the board a letter of apology. At 41 he debuted for the Scotland national team. The would note in his obituary: “Kunderan was still turning out for Drumpellier in 1995, at the age of 56, which probably makes him the longest-serving cricket professional in Scottish history.”In October 2005, 18 months after his final trip to India, Budhi Kunderan was diagnosed with lung cancer. “When he gave up smoking,” Linda tells me on the phone, “he coughed so much he lost his voice. He couldn’t speak.” At the hospital they found a tumour in his chest. It was a germ-cell tumour. They couldn’t treat it surgically. He took chemotherapy and radiation. But the cancer spread to his brain.In his final months, Nari Contractor, his senior at the Bharda High School, Railways and India, would try and speak to him every few weeks. What were the conversations like? “It was something like what he said about his trip, ‘a last phone conversation kind of thing’.” As the medication grew stronger, he was sometimes confused and could not always recognise people. He found it difficult to speak and impossible to write. Bharat says the brothers used to exchange letters of up to ten or 15 pages, always by hand, and he never forgot a birthday, but now Budhi couldn’t write.”I think he really did know,” Linda said. “Before he was diagnosed we sold the house and he moved us into a smaller house which I would be able to manage by myself. He worked very hard to make that happen. He was a very thoughtful, very caring man. Yes, I really think he did know.”Did he miss India in any particular way? “He felt proud to be Indian. He missed his family, the movies, the food. We subscribed to the Indian TV channels. He got every month. He told me that if I died before him he would probably move back to India.”
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Budhi Kunderan was a wicket-keeper who nevertheless once opened the bowling and batting in the same Test match. He played a Test match before he played a Ranji match, and when he played a Ranji match he smacked a double-century. In his second Test he carted 16 runs from the first over. Seventy-one in no time, Davidson and Meckiff and Benaud and Kline taken to the cleaners. In 1964-65 he hit 192 against England in Madras and 525 in the series, a record for a keeper. Between 1959 and 1967 Budhi Kunderan played 18 Tests for India, and then he left. He died on June 23, 2006.Some careers burst like the glitter of magic tricks, not frequently but unforgettably. Every now and then there is proof. N Manu Chakravarthy in the :
The news that Budhisagar Krishnappa Kunderan passed away in a distant land is much more than a piece of information for many of my generation. It is, in fact, a reminder of a great tragedy that struck an exceptional individual nearly four decades ago, and it, also, transports many of us back to the 1960s evoking extraordinarily strong memories of a daring, blazingly brilliant spirit that was a great inspiration to a generation that celebrated virtues of courage, innovation and native talent.
Recently, in the inaugural [shout and fight] every blooming night.” So many recollections, such superb detail. He remembers the name of the girl Rohan Kanhai, his great friend and nemesis, had fallen for in Bombay (Chhaya, from Khar), observes that unlike Vasant Ranjane, “Vinoo Mankad would have tossed it wide” to allow him all ten against West Indies at Kanpur, notes that he is pulled up for wearing shorts by an official but Pataudi the Nawab gets away with it even at a toss, and casts his doubts on Vijay Manjrekar’s singing skills. He is as happy to turn the joke on himself. When the radio announces that Ajay Ratra is out for duck on debut, he adds, quick as a flash: “Like me. Against Statham in 1951.”It is a beautiful morning, the warmth of his wife Carol and their daughter Carolyn – Indian name Anita – the peach bungalow in San Fernando, the hiss and shout of the radio. Subhash Gupte’s life and memories and mischief, his double hat-trick in league cricket, the 3pm practice with Madhav Mantri on the Elphinstone pitch in Oval Maidan and the nine o’clock train back to Dadar. What a proud smile when Carol brings out a morphed team photograph of an all-time Indian Test XI put together by a panel of journalists. Gavaskar, Merchant, Hazare, Tendulkar, Nayudu, Mankad, Kapil, Kirmani, Prasanna, Nissar, Gupte. Afterwards I write in the article:
Gupte moved to Trinidad 40 years ago on his wife’s persuasion and because a gentleman named Frank Blackburn who was “mad after cricket” offered him a job with the sugar manufacturer, Caroni. Gupte had met Carol on the 1952-53 tour of the West Indies, a time that he had spun his way to 50 first-class wickets, and according to one fan, “was all the talk in town.” Carol’s father had arranged for a match to be played at San Fernando. Subhash saw Carol at an official function, and was smitten. A long flirtation via post followed. When Subhash proposed in a letter, he was asked to redirect it to Carol’s father. It all worked out.
Love on tour, romance by post, marriage, and the departure too, years before Kunderan. During a rainy Test in Delhi, 1961-62, Kripal Singh, a team-mate, calls the hotel receptionist on the house phone and makes a pass at her. Along with Kripal, Gupte is suspended for the crime of sharing his room. In fact, says Contractor, then captain, “he was playing cards in my room at the time with six or seven others.” Subhash Gupte, the wrist-spinner of impeccable discipline, is “disciplined”. The great bowler emigrates in bitterness. At 32, he has played his last Test match.Five weeks after we met, Subhash Gupte passed away. The Indians were in Trinidad for the one-dayers, and Carol said to the captain: “Maybe Subhash’s spirit wanted to return to his home country along with the Indian team.”What does a cricketer think of before he dies? The roar of fans, the thrill of a hook or a break, where do they go? The king of the gully, the hero of the maidan, the toast of the country. The sadness of cricketers, their gloriousness. Missing home. Wife, children, letters and friends. The arced deliveries and drives, the years of mental replay. Did the stars above Azad Maidan blaze bright in Budhi Kunderan’s last dreams?