4 things an Australian video on a Bombay-born journalist tells us about life, cricket, TV---and India
The solid second innings knock of Bharat Sundaresan
‘Cricket equals life’ for technicolour commentator Bharat Sundaresan: This is the title caption of a 31-minute, 33-second YouTube video aired by the Australian Brodcasting Corporation (ABC) this week.
It is the incredible, almost unbelievable, story of how a Bombay-born, Mumbai-bred boy, who had lost his way to booze and drugs, made a comeback by becoming a cricket writer and broadcaster, first in India and now in Australia.
It is 1,893 seconds of compelling viewing. But, as it so often happens these days, “ABC News In-depth” has 1.95 million followers on YouTube---and as of this telling, a mere 5,200-plus people have taken the trouble.
Even so, the ABC film on @beastieboy07 is remarkable for three key reasons, and is well worth your time just for that.
It shows:
1) Life is Test cricket: The shorter versions of the sport---50-over ODIs; slambang Twenty20s; The Hundred--may get all the love from advertisers, consumers, cricketers and broadcasters, but nothing epitomises real life more than the real thing: red-ball cricket.
You may screw up in the first innings, you may bowl or bat like a drunk, you may grass sitters, you may come up short of your parents’ expectations, but you get a second chance to make amends and correct your course.
Bharat’s solid second innings knock, in which the former Indian Express journalist makes a career Down Under, offers a valuable life lesson to the distraught and the deluded, that success is getting up one time more than you fall.
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2) The power of public service broadcasting: When you watch a long, calm and ponderous film on an Indian journalist coming good in Australia, you are left wondering: when last did you see a “success story” like this, or something close to this, without stupid ads and intrusions, on Indian TV?
More to the point, ABC is an Australian public service broadcaster. It is funded by the Australian taxpayer. Its “about us” page affirms its mission: “As the leading commissioner of Australian content, we celebrate the richness of Australia's multicultural society and contribute to a sense of shared identity.”
The question Bharat’s former countrymen (he is now an Australian citizen) should be asking is: why cannot All India Radio and Doordarshan--which have been reduced to pathetic puppets and playthings of the party in power--do programming of this quality and imagination?
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3) The generosity of Australian cricketers: In the documentary on the second life of a journalist, two Australian cricket stars make an appearance: Pat Cummins, the Australian captain, and Marnus Labuschagne, the South African-born sometime boy wonder.
They talk of Bharat the person.
They talk of the value of his journalism.
They talk of his insights.
They talk on camera.
The same question can be asked again: when last did you see an Indian cricket captain or a player talk glowingly on an Indian cricket journalist, on camera?
India’s illiterate superstars gloat about not reading newspapers (except when they have to plant a story on a team rival), but the lack of generosity is palpable.
(To be fair, Ravi Shastri makes an honourable appearance in the ABC film.)
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And finally, Bharat Sundaresan’s story offers a grim view of the increasingly myopic Indian state. Five years ago, it violated the Constitution of India and amended citizenship laws, making religion the benchmark to offer refuge to citizens of neighbouring countries.
The fast-tracking of the Australian citizenship of a India-born Hindu--a Tamil Brahmin from Mumbai--holds the mirror to a nation which, after a fine first innings, has irretrievably lost its way in its second innings.
When Bharat revealed the pitch doctoring in Nagpur before a Test match against Australia, in 2023, he got hell:
“Traitor”
“Whoz side ru on?”
“Ape-like creature”
“Export idiots outta the country”
These were some of the racist slurs thrown at the dark, long-haired, colourful ACJ grad in the country (and state) of his birth by his own countrymen.
“I said, what do you mean? People have said that to me in Australia. If you in India are asking me to go back to where I came from, I am stateless. I have nowhere to go.”
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Watch the film: Cricket equals life for technicolour commentator Bharat Sundaresan
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Read how Bharat Sundaresan found the West Indies paceman Patrick Patterson after a six-year search: The story of an unquiet mind