A LETTERED SOUL: REFLECTIONS ON LITERATURE, CINEMA AND CULTURE .

CRICKET IS JUST NOT MY CUP OF TEA: on WONDROUS OBLIVION (2003)

Just last week  while reading about another one of the many accolades for DELROY LINDO circa his turn in DA 5 BLOODS(2020), my mind almost immediately went back to the time almost a decade back when I had seen him in a little gem titled WONDROUS OBLIVION. I know, the title itself is an unusually beautiful one and I have somehow always identified Lindo with his starring role in this British production.

To be honest, thanks to the diversity of cinema on display in several Indian channels broadcasting unconventional works as this, i.e. a cut above the usual blockbuster or front-running dramatic/comedic fare, I received the opportunity to broaden my horizon when I was barely in the thick of my own teenage years. WONDROUS OBLIVION was also discovered by me by chance as I happened to settle for the channel on which it was playing. Sadly, that pattern has undergone a change over the years and mostly mainstream works only make the cut, if they are not cut to length by the transparency of the highly annointed streaming networks. Eras have a way of reconfiguring trends but the first cinematic experience on the big or small screen, in the two most traditional forms, tend to stay with us as mementos. The same applies in this case. That is the foreground for this cinephile.

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Actually WONDROUS OBLIVION stays with me even now  because of the profound source of social anxiety that I, myself, have faced, growing up in a nation as obsessed with the game of cricket as mine.

My father, Mr. ABHIJEET SINHA, is many things and that includes a gifted writer, storehouse of knowledge and lover of wildlife but first and foremost he is a champion cricketer of fine mettle who conquered the complexities of the sport in the prime of his youth, made an everlasting name for himself within his state and eventually the nation by transferring his expertise to generations of other like-minded cricketers. He instituted an eponymous cricket academy in our hometown Lucknow way back in 1996 that holds the distinction of being the first ever privately run, professional teaching unit in our home state of Uttar Pradesh. In 2021, it has reached a landmark by entering its silver jubilee year.

So naturally one would assume that I am a born talent in the field and you wouldn't be wrong to state the obvious. But every individual is born with his/her own share of future reckoning. My father made cricket his lifeforce, my grandfather made the very best of engineering duties in the prestigious GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA(G.S.I.) while my great grandfather was a reputed professor of English whose influence managed to vow the colonial administration and his contemporary compatriots equally. Now, I add this bit of information or family history not to present a picture of achievements or plain generational lineage. My only objective here is to show how diverse that journey of accomplishments, ambitions and interests is within one family which happens to be my own.

So it was generally a prerequisite that we were always allowed to march to our own beat and my parents, both of them equally, knew that my vocation in writing was my ultimate calling in life. However, wagging tongues and conventional strictures didn't allow the world to see it in that same flexible mould. For them, a child had to naturally inherit certain traits. While it didn't toe the line of doctors and engineers in this case( thank God for it!), everybody was pretty amazed that I never had even an inkling or passing interest for CRICKET, that divine entity whose charms seemingly Indians and few other countries just cannot resist. That is a fact.

But that is who I am. Cricket just wasn't my cup of tea and I blame the genes. Nobody except my father has ever excelled in it or in sports in general and most of us only share an enthusiasm for it endemic to our culture. On a deeper level, it was and remains a matter of individuality. You are either inclined towards a particular line of work, sports or vocation or you aren't. Writing is my life force and now that I have inroads as a published writer, the future has looked up for me by dint of my own efforts. If you ask me personally then I don't even have basic knowledge of cricket's intricacies and really don't enthuse myself by participating in water cooler conversations around it. Truthfully, I feel I will be insincere if I dabbled in a conversation without having adequate knowledge about the subject and will cheat other genuine enthusiasts of their own individual streaks. So basically, it boils down to what one is born with or gets to hone and master.