Remembering Indian tennis nice, Naresh Kumar, who handed away on September 14, off-court

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Remembering Indian tennis nice, Naresh Kumar, who handed away on September 14, off-court

“Nooo… not again!” We’d stare on the carrom board in despair. From throughout the board, our uncle (my mother’s youthful brother) having pocketed all his discs and the Queen, would grin at us mischievously, even wolfishly and lift his eyebrows, cock his head and problem us to a different sport. He’d wallop us but once more however there was this: it by no means made us stomp off in a sulky huff, however spurred us on to take up the problem.

I feel we knew one factor: he was not going to “allow” us to win as most patronizing adults might need. If we did (as soon as in a blue moon), it needed to be truthful and sq. and he can be as thrilled as we might be (and promptly problem us to a return match!). This was method again within the mid-Sixties and ’70s when my sisters and I have been in class and he would go to Bombay on one-or-two-day enterprise journeys and keep at dwelling with us.

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I used to be by no means into tennis – not being allowed to play – although I did play a little bit of cricket (fielding at lengthy on did not contain operating round an excessive amount of!). But I listened avidly to the various hilarious anecdotes he associated to me on the telephone through the years. He was a raconteur par excellence. Setting off to the courts to follow early within the morning in Calcutta, he would hitch an illlicit trip on a tonga that handed by his home, crouching down on the again together with his racket. This did not go down properly with the tongawallah who started to specific his irritation by flicking his whip at his non-paying passenger. Well, you possibly can use your racket to smash a tennis ball however you possibly can additionally use it to guard your head, so the illlicit rides went on. The tongawallah in the end accepted this state of affairs with good grace.

He’d inform me in regards to the quite a few matches he performed towards way more highly effective gamers. His tactic was easy: get inside their heads and needle the heck out of them, till they did one thing foolish out of sheer frustration; doggedly chase down and return each ball until your opponent hits it out. It was one factor to lose, however give up? Never! The appalling coaching and training services in India and the usually, slimy politics in sports activities administration distressed him no finish, and he went all the best way making an attempt to redress the stability when he started teaching the Indian Davis Cup workforce. I feel his mantra was easy: if there is a participant with a modicum of promise – give him or his one of the best services doable to set them off. Nothing was too little. Focus on the sport – and successful it – and nothing else. Talent was one factor, however it needed to be backed up by temperament, an equal a part of the bundle. Which is why, the tantrums and off-the-field antics of many fashionable sportspersons bothered him so deeply.

When again in 1975, I had my first article revealed in The Statesman, he referred to as up. “I believe all the postmen in Bombay are complaining about the weight of the bags they have to lug up the hill to your flat!”

– “What?” I muttered.

— “Yes! They’re stuffed with your fan mail, however congratulations, properly finished!”

Some years in the past, after I landed up in hospital for a pacemaker change, he had somebody from his workplace posted round the clock within the foyer to do any running-around which may have been obligatory – regardless that my sisters have been with me on the time. That type gentleman saved tabs on me even after I had returned dwelling.

On my final go to to Kolkata – in 2019 – I stayed at their place in Middleton Mansions. Every morning, he would stroll slowly into my room, go searching keenly and ask me if all the pieces was all proper. “Are you sure?” he would ask doubtfully, “if there’s anything you need…” He wished one of the best – out of all the pieces – and for everybody. Back within the ’60s and ’70s, we might glide round Calcutta in his attractive classic black and white Rolls-Bentley – a automobile I feel that has been retained until as we speak.

Always vastly involved about my state of well being, he would insist I see the perfect docs and get the perfect of remedy (I feel I’ve scored an ideal 10 right here!). I spoke with him often a couple of times every week until a fortnight earlier than his dying, conversations often laced with humor and heat and spiced up with depraved tales – actually the right antidote to the day’s often grim information bulletins.

I do not keep in mind ever watching him play on court docket. Knowing him off-court was privilege sufficient.

Ranjit Lal is an writer, environmentalist and birdwatcher


With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS

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