A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE - "FIRE IN BABYLON"

Let me make an honest admission.  I am (and have always been a great cricket fan). I have played cricket during my School & College days and on many other occasions during my student life as well. And ever since I can remember I have been an unapologetic cricket fan. And my favourite cricket team has always been the West Indies. I remember with fondness names like Conrad Hunte, Basil Butcher, Seymour Nurse, Rohan Kanhai, Charlie Griffith (responsible for cracking open Nari Contractor’s skull) Wes Hall (the gentle giant) Garfield Sobers, Lance Gibbs and others who made the nucleus of the West Indies team of late sixties and early seventies. As a child, I even had the privilege of watching one day of a test match in Madras (as it was known then) when India played the West Indies. And my excitement knew no bounds when I entered the stadium and took my place to see my heroes in action. A rare thrilling moment that. Watching the greats in action. I did not mind getting up at 5.00 am and travelling 30 km early in the morning to stand in queue waiting in the scorching sun for the stadium gates to open and allow us into its hallowed folds.

And I have been a follower of West Indies cricket ever since. The mid to late seventies saw them become a world power in cricket – a power to reckon with. I followed with fascination the emergence of menacing West Indian fast bowlers – like Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Wayne Daniel, Colin Croft and Big Bird Joel Garner (at 6ft. 8in) tall. And the batting dominated by one of their best opening pairs  Greenidge & Haynes followed by Vivian Richards, Alvin Kallicharan,  Clive Lloyd, and others.

So, when I had an opportunity to see “Fire in Babylon” which released in Mumbai recently – I grasped the opportunity to see it with both hands. And what a great film it turned out to be. How can cricket be used as a metaphor? How can it be used to restore pride? How can it be used to bind players from diverse backgrounds and ethnicities into a well oiled fighting unit? And how do you cope with continuous assault – both physical and emotional? How do you build character that can withstand the most brutal attack? And yet retain your dignity and respect? These and many other questions are asked (and answered) in this documentary. How the West Indies took a hammering at the hands of Australians Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thompson. And how that loss became a rallying cry for West Indies cricket is the stuff legend is made of. 
Interwoven into this rich tapestry of narrative is the culture of the day – dominance of the colonial powers, suppression of the black man, apartheid. So many of the burning topics of that time and how the West Indies team dealt with each of them. And you get to see world greats like Holding, Richards, Roberts, Lloyd, Croft, and Greenidge speaking into the camera and letting their hearts out.  You get to see and discover why Michael Holding was called “whispering death” or “greased lightning”, what Vivian Richards responses to hostile bowling was, how batsmen around the world were terrified of Joel Garner. And most of all you rediscover that for fifteen long years the West Indies did not lose a single series that they played in.  A world record indeed!

For people of my generation a great nostalgia trip that gives you a fantastic high. And for the newer generations a chance to see these greats in action and to experience firsthand concepts like black power, apartheid, colonialism,  and white dominance and their hypocrisy.   

From an unabashed cricket fan. A cricket lover. A cricket fanatic, even a cricket lunatic !!!