This is probably the last interview Jaisimha ever gave anybody. I met him perhaps six weeks before he died, at the height of the World Cup tamasha. "What if your Indian team -- the Indian team of the '60s -- were to have played one-day cricket? How do you think you would have done?" I asked him. His eyes suddenly lit up. The idea didn't seem to have struck him before. "Just imagine!" he said, "We'd have had about 5 or 6 all-rounders. And we'd have had batting right down to No 8 or No 9. We'd have had players like Polly Umrigar, who could hit really hard and then come in with his medium-pacers. Then there'd be Nadkarni, who could really close down one end of the batting with his nagging spin. He could bowl 32 overs and give away only 5 runs; and then after that he'd be a really useful batsman. Then there'd be Salim Durrani, who could slog sixers all over the place, and then bowl his wonderful left arm spin. Then there'd be Rusi Surti, who was actually three players in one: batsman, medium pace bowler and spin bowler. And what about all the other all-rounders, like Chandu Borde and Abid Ali." Jaisimha, obviously, was too much of a gentleman to include himself in this list. "Then, of course, we'd have somebody like Farrokh Engineer, who was not just a great wicket-keeper, but could also do a 'Jayasuriya act' as an opening bat. And then there'd be Tiger Pataudi, whose game was brilliantly suited to one-day cricket. What an incredible team we would have been!" "What is the single greatest difference between today's team and yours?" I asked. "Probably the fielding," he replied. "And the level of fitness. The two are related, of course. But you must remember that we weren't professional, full-time cricketers like today's boys are. We were just talented amateurs, who took a few days off from our jobs, played a few test matches every couple of years, and then went back to our everyday lives." "But we had a lot of fun, both on and off the field," he continued. "The Indian team was legendary for throwing the best parties. It was Ghulam Ahmed's doing. He used to insist that we serve the guests ourselves. The typically Hyderabadi way of doing things." "Do you feel slightly bitter to see how well today's cricketers are doing financially?" I asked. "After all, it was just a matter of timing; if you'd played just a few years later, a flamboyant player like you could have made millions with modelling contracts and sponsorships." "No, no, no, no" said Jaisimha, seeming genuinely shocked at the thought. "I think today's players deserve everything they get. Good for them! The only thing is, I think, maybe a small part of their earnings should go to the cricketers of the past, not just Test cricketers, but first-class cricketers as well. Some of them really need it. Like Durrani, for instance. It's so sad that he's so badly off, after all the pleasure he gave to so many people with his game." Bye-bye, Happiness. If one has to die, one should go the way Jaisimha went. It was one long round of parties. Or like a scene out of Bob Fosse's musical, All That Jazz. The last time I saw him was in the corridors of the Apollo Hospital, just a couple of weeks before the end. I had heard that he had cancer, and that it was terminal, but you'd never have believed it looking at him. He looked just the way he always did: young and slim and debonair, and walking as though to calypso music from an invisible Walkman. Only the hair had turned silver. Knowing he had cancer, I went up to him. "How are you? " I asked (foolish question, in retrospect.) "Fine," he replied, smiling broadly, "I'm fine. And how are you?" Those last few weeks, common friends tell me, were one big, long round of parties. Every time he went out to the Apollo Hospital for treatment, some friend or the other who lived nearby would host a lunch and invite a whole gang of friends over. And it would be just like the good old times, as if nothing had changed. When he was finally admitted to the hospital, the partying continued in his hospital room. As I said, just like the movie, All That Jazz, where the Roy Schneider character dies to that brilliantly choreographed dance number, singing Bye-bye, Happiness. What a great way to go.... Wherever Jaisimha is right now, he's up there, smiling, with a glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Hope for the Future? In today's day and age, when we Indians have developed such utter and complete contempt for our country's politicians, it is such a refreshing change to see the kind of admiration, almost cult following, that Chandrababu Naidu gets -- at least from the professional middle classes. Coming back to Hyderabad after many, many years away, I was truly heartened to discover that there's at least one politician out there that people actually stand up and root for. My own belief is that he is one big hope for the country -- in the sense that if he succeeds in the medium term, he will provide a role model for other parts of the country. Seeing him, other states may start, one by one, throwing up a whole new breed of leader like him; leaders who have a vision, and the ability to get things done, instead of the pathetic, self-serving bunch of cretins that we're saddled with. (Call me cynical, but, right now, I really can't think of it happening any other way, can you?) I am reminded of something I read in the Economist a few weeks ago: when somebody complained to Laloo Prasad Yadav about the state of the roads in Bihar, he apparently turned around and said, "You elected me to build roads? I thought you elected me to give you dignity!" Like they say, people get the politicians they deserve. Surely, the people of India deserve better than they've got... Creative Director Anvarali Khan has just fractured his foot.
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