This is a wonderful new book by Naresh Fernandes about the jazz scene in Bombay between roughly 1935-1967. In the words of the author himself:
"Taj Mahal Foxtrot unfolds between 1935 and 1967. It listens to a tumultuous period in the history of India – and the city of Bombay – through the ears of jazz musicians and jazz fans. It is about a quest for freedom, both political and artistic. It follows the circular movement of jazz from the ghettoes of New Orleans to elite Bombay ballrooms and back again to the street as a pulsating element in Hindi film music. It describes how India became a battleground on which hot jazz was deployed during the Cold War. It reaches back into the pre-history of jazz, recalling the tours of nineteenth-century minstrelsy troupes of white people who put on blackface to perform “negroisms” to audiences of brown people."
(This is something that I wrote in July-August 2011 but only had the opportunity to type up now)
“Babylon
is a state of mind”
Every team needs a few bowlers who can, not
only catapult the ball from one end of the pitch to the other at bone-shattering
speeds, but can also vary their lines and lengths as the occasion demands while
doing so. The West Indies cricket team, the subject of this film, has never had
a total absence of such bowlers but after their whitewash at the hands of
Australia, they were in a precarious position in which some of their best fast
bowlers had retired and their young pacers were still raw and undisciplined. It
was the endeavour of Clive Lloyd to groom a motley group of such young pacers
from across the Caribbean into great fast-bowlers and world beaters that is
captured in the 2010 film ‘Fire in Babylon’
The reason why I call it a film rather than
a documentary is because the director has chosen to create an arc of
dispiriting defeats and inspiring fight-backs with the narrative being led by fearsome
fast bowlers instead of an empirical documentation of the rise of the West
Indies from ‘calypso cricketers’ or how such a factory line of world-class
bowlers almost magically appeared. This has meant that certain liberties were
taken in the making of the film, for instance there was no mention of the fact
that the West Indies had won the first Cricket World Cup a full year before
they were trounced in Australia 5-0. Instead, of the first few minutes of the
film showing disconsolate images of West Indies cricketers moping in Australia,
as if West Indies cricket had reached an all-time low, it may have been more
effective to begin at an earlier decade where the team had a few stars and only
occasional wins – the eras of Learie Constantine and George Headley.
However, fast bowlers who can draw blood
and bruise opposition batsmen provide a far more potent image of resurgence,
pride and to put it bluntly, black power.
It is the image and persona of the fast
bowlers nurtured by Clive Lloyd that is the driving force of the film. During a
time of civil rights and independence movements around the world and
particularly within the Commonwealth, these bowlers who could physically and
symbolically put the white opposition batsmen on the back foot began to be seen
as more than sportspersons. They were presentations of the people on the
closest thing to a level playing field (pun fully intended) and their struggles
were seen as the people’s own struggles to gain respect. This was only
reinforced by the disastrous statement by English captain Tony Greig in ___,
when he said that he would make the West Indies team “grovel”. The players were incensed and the fire and
brimstone that they unleashed on the helmet-less English batsmen continues to
be seen as one the most blood curdling episodes in cricket since Bodyline. Anyone
who has seen old footage of Michael Holding tenderising Brian Close would
testify to this. England was ‘blackwashed’ comprehensively and their captain
who was born in Apartheid South Africa fell to his knees in front of the
gallery of Caribbean supporters.
For the average Caribbean spectator in
Britain it was a watershed moment. Amidst the racial tensions, income disparity
and police brutality rife in 1970s Britain, it engendered a sense of pride
among the immigrant community. This feeling of pride is evident in the
interviews of the aging spectators of ‘West Indies’ glory days – among whom a
member of Bob Marley’s ‘Wailers’ can be counted. What these players meant to
their adoring fans is immortalised in song, some of which are nostalgically
sung in the film by old men in aquamarine suits with cataracts in their eyes.
Despite what they say in the interviews in
the film, it is questionable from the outset whether these players, some of
them still very young at the time, fully appreciated how their on-field actions
resonated off-field. This was even candidly admitted by Michael Holding during the red carpet
ceremony before the launch of the film in London.
Even in such an all-conquering West Indies
line-up it is this sense of purpose and identity that really separated the men
from the boys, the Sir Vivian Richards from the Colin Crofts. ‘Viv’, as he is
affectionately known, was fully aware of what he meant to the Caribbean and
despite being offered a blank cheque, he refused to be wooed by Kerry Packer’s
World Series Cricket in apartheid South Africa. Croft gave in and in one of the
more honest moments of the film he even admitted that he was lured by the
unprecedented amount of money. Unsurprisingly his career and reputation died on
the rocks. He was still fortunate as some of his teammates during the World
Series are now drug addicts.
Viv, on the other hand, continued to play
for the West Indies, brutalising attacks around the world and ultimately taking
over the mantle of leadership from Clive Lloyd- all the while wearing the arm
band of Zion. With his gum-chewing swagger and domineering presence, he
bestrode the cricketing world stage as its equivalent of Malcolm X. The movie
ends with a mention of their successful tour of Pakistan and a scrolling list
of their awesome Test series record. In the words of Holding again, “No team,
in any sport, was so dominant in their sport for 15 years.”
The title ‘Fire in Babylon’ suggests a
depth that is not really present in the film. It plots a narrative of oppression and retribution which is sweeping
in ambition but glosses over the context in which they rose to prominence and
the roots of their sporting dominance. It has the requisite protest images,
some general comments about being oppressed and a nod towards the West Indies’
first black captain Frank Worrell but it is insufficient in creating a backdrop
upon which the meteoric rise to the peak with the help of fast bowlers can be
seen. The fact that no one under 30 was interviewed in the making of the film
speaks volumes too. It raises questions about the dis-connect that exists
between generations of players and spectators.
While the interviews of old Caribbean
spectators is both heart-warming and entertaining, rather than seeing this film
as a commentary on the societal impact of cricket or its use as a tool in the
anti-colonial struggle, it should be viewed for what it is: a glimpse of the
ingredients that make an unparalleled sports team and an immensely satisfying
montage of videos of bowlers sending batsmen off the field in stretchers! And
even if it is too satisfy such a blood lust, I would recommend watching this
film as you are not likely to see in a Bangladeshi cricket match any time soon.
"If I could bottle up the sea breeze I would take it over to your house And pour it loose through your garden So the hinges on your windows would rust and colour Like the boats pulled up on the sand for the summer And your sweet clean clothes would go stiff on the line And there'd be sand in your pockets and nothing on your mind
But every year it gets a little bit harder To get back to the feeling of when we were fifteen And we could jump in the river upstream And let the current carry us to the beginning where The river met the sea again And all our days were a sun-drenched haze While the salt spray crusted on the window panes
We should be living like we lived that summer I wanna live like we live in the summer
And I'll remember that summer as the right one The storms made the pavement steam like a kettle And our first goodbye always seemed like hours In the car park in between my house and yours And if the summer holds a song we might sing forever Then the winter holds a bite we'd never felt before
But time is like the ocean You can only hold a little in your hands So swim before we're broken Before our bones become Black coral on the sand"
"One of the chief joys of the internet is the way it has liberated millions of anonymous hecklers, strikingly few of whom had hitherto risked sharing their coruscating views in public because people tended to yawn, or ask them to shut up, or physically attack them. Suddenly they had an outlet, and before long, a vastly inflated sense of self-worth. They could pop up, courageously tell a blogger that she was fat, and disappear into the night like Raffles the gentleman thief"
