Cricketing Nation

The physicist C V Raman once remarked that his greatest discovery was the weather of Bangalore. Although I had known the city from childhood, visiting it every summer to see my grandparents, it was only after I moved here for good in the 1990s that the truth behind Raman's witticism struck me. I had previously lived in Delhi, where in March and April it was too dusty; in May- June too hot; July-September too sultry. December-January were fog-laden or freezing.

In Delhi, I did my writing in the late autumn and early spring. In Bangalore, however, I found I could work all year round. Thus, during June-September 1999, while the rest of India was steaming or sweating, in a great rush of energy, I wrote the first draft of A Corner of a Foreign Field....

The project blended my passion with my profession, and because of the compelling story of its central character, the Untouchable slow bowler Palwankar Baloo.... I sensed that a social history of football on the Kolkata Maidan - which might likewise view sport through race, caste, religion and nation - was waiting to be written.... A full biography of Baloo would be a terrific idea.


From "A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport"