06 September, 2000

A few days back, Faisal Shariff had in an edition of this email diary talked of the angst of being a cricket reporter.

It is a question I, too, get asked a lot of times. About all the "fun" I have, covering cricket. And when I, in response, say it ain't fun, I get these looks of stunned disbelief.

'Hey,' they go, 'you get paid to watch cricket, whereas we pay to watch cricket. What could be more fun?'

But you know what, I am not a paid cricket correspondent -- the job I draw my monthly pay cheque for is completely different. Cricket, thus, is something I find time for amidst other work, because I love the game.

But that is not my biggest crib. What removes the 'fun' element is that being a cricket reporter -- especially if you are doing online commentary, solo at that -- is the fact that by the nature of the job, you find yourself sharp-focussing on the minutae of each minute. For a fan watching a match, there is the option of switching off his mind during the boring bits, and these days, international cricket has a lot of boring bits. But if you are doing commentary, you have to be as focussed during the yawn-inducing periods, as when the game is going along nicely. And that kind of thing can be tiring.

But still, the game is full of unexpected pleasures -- a lot of them, tangential.

Like the pleasure of making friends. My mailbox brings, each day, a tonne of mail. Sometimes, pressure of work precludes an immediate response -- but for four years now, I've made it a point to read every single mail that comes in, and as far as humanly possible, to respond. Pretty soon, I find myself engaged in a dialogue, or even sometimes, an argument, with a reader. And somewhere along the line, I connect with the person, as opposed to the cricket fan.

It's like the guy said -- Strangers are friends you are yet to meet. And thanks to cricket, and to the mailbox, I've met a lot of strangers who have stayed on, to become very good friends.

And then there is the other pleasure -- one that is the exclusive prerogative of an editor. And that is to see brilliant copy flow across your computer screen.

This is one area where I have been singularly blessed. There are the guest columns, written with flair and with passion, that I get regularly. There are the likes of Sujata Prakash and Raju Bharatan and others, who bring their own perspective to the game. And above all, there are two names who, for an editor, are iconic. As luck would have it, I get to work with both of them.

Imagine an editor's life. He sits there, reviewing copy from correspondents, from news agencies. And when it comes to the Indian agencies, the copy can be so unimaginative, so very boring and trite, that pretty soon, it becomes a chore.

And then, once a week, on their respective days, two names light up my mailbox. The first is Harsha -- who regularly demostrates how easy it is (at least, it looks easy when you read him, it is when you try to emulate that you figure how hard it is) to marry prose and passion and, out of that union, produce cricketing poetry of the highest order. He is gentle in his writings, Harsha is. Calm, measured, not prone to angst -- a balanced voice of reason in a chaotic environment.

And then there is Rohit Brijnath. Again, the driving force is passion -- but his muse is incidendiary, his prose is punctuated with thunderclaps of anger and lightning flashes of sarcasm.

Both, though, are masters of the written word. And that is why I wait eagerly, each week, for their columns to arrive in my mailbox.

If you must envy me for something, then envy me for this -- that I get to read, before it goes up for the general audience, the latest thoughts from two scintillant stars of the sports-writing fraternity.

And before you ask, I'll tell you what brought on this rhapsody. Earlier this week, I got to read a Harsha classic. Today, just minutes before, I got Rohit's latest.

This is how he starts out:

"This story is about a doctor who is isn't accountable for the injections he gives; it's about a federation who doesn't give a damn; and it's about a girl who cannot run. But most of all, it is about the athlete, first embraced then abandoned like an unwanted child. It is about Indian sport, and a cruelty that makes you want to weep."

And from there on, it just gets better and better. To the point where you don't know which of two warring emotions is uppermost in your mind and heart -- admiration of the writer, or anger at the incident he paints for you.

Today, when our 'Sports' section officially changes, for the duration of the Games, to an 'Olympics' section, I can't think of a better piece to kick it off with.

Log in to the Sports channel later today. Rohit makes it well worth the visit.

Cheers

Prem

Mail Cricket Editor