by Vani Viswanathan
Anandhi, a young girl from Chennai at the turn of the millennium, wants to be a sports writer. But that isn’t easy, for more reasons than one. Vani’s story is about a phase in the journey of a young girl who has begun to question gender norms.
‘You don’t need to iron the seat of the pants, appa!’ said a frustrated Anandhi as she paced up and down the room in her white kameez. ‘Nobody is going to see it! Let’s go!’ Her father grumbled something about it being a Sunday as he ironed the salwar. Anandhi heard that and angrily retorted, ‘What’s your problem? Why do you and amma whine if I ask for something on a Sunday?! You don’t have a problem with dropping off Aravindh early in the morning for his cricket matches!’
Anandhi didn’t think her parents discriminated between her and her older brother per se, they did take pride in both of them equally and all that – but somehow her interest in watching and writing about sports didn’t go down well with them. They complained about the late evenings; the tanning; the uniforms that got dirty and had to be washed more frequently than they wanted to; and the general hassle of worry from her being out. Anandhi wondered why, when she did study well, her parents were worried about the sports; she didn’t even play, she just followed tennis and football and cricket and badminton avidly, and wanted to be a sports writer. Just like Nirmal Shekar. That wasn’t a bad thing to aspire for, was it?
***
Her parents remembered the time the sports madness hit her. When she was in class five or six and religiously watched cricket with Aravindh or ran off to watch students play badminton in school, they let it go as a childish fascination that she would outgrow. With adolescence, though, it only grew worse. As cable channels grew in number and showed sports from other parts of the world and internet seeped into Indian homes with the dialup connection, Anandhi’s obsession with sports took on levels they couldn’t understand. They weren’t new to the idea of following sports intensely. Her mother was a Borg fan and a poster he’d autographed was her prized possession. Her father would, at the drop of a hat, talk about how he’d watched live Gundappa Viswanath’s splendid 97-not-out against West Indies in 1975. But Anandhi? She was reading webpage after webpage of cricket stats. She followed something called EPL and whined that they couldn’t watch these matches on TV. She was also on something called a chat room for sports fans that Aravindh found out about and told her to stop immediately so as to not get lured into ‘bad things’.
And now… now it was this obsession with learning to ‘write sports’. She had, over the last year, gathered a collection of clippings from The Hindu with Nirmal Shekar’s writing, diligently highlighting words she didn’t know and phrases and descriptions that she liked. She talked about sports writers from other countries. Most recently, she had discovered, thanks to a suggestion from a Journalism college student, that she could just attend any sports event in the city and practice learning to observe and write about it.
Every Sunday, their family had a ritual: to go to the Adyar Anantha Padmanabha Swamy temple and then have lunch in Sangeetha. The days that Aravindh, who played for their school cricket team, had to play matches, the other three would drop him off and continue. This Sunday, though, Anandhi wanted to watch the match between her school and another, write about it, and send it to English newspapers in the city. Anandhi’s parents were irritated with the Sunday ritual going for a toss, since Aravindh was playing more and more matches these days, and now Anandhi seemed to be demanding this and that, asking to be dropped in some far-flung areas of the city for covering sports events. Why couldn’t she do regular things other girls did – learn to sing or dance, paint or do craft work?
***
Anandhi was confident she could do it. Her command over English was strong, and she had been making notes from sports reportage and sports editorials for the last year. She did get the jitters as she got off the scooter and said bye to her father, but armed with a notepad, a ball pen, a bottle of water and a cap on her head – thanks to her mother – she was reminded of what her school principal had said at the assembly the week before: ‘Saying is easy and doing is difficult, but there is no harm in trying.’ A sudden rush of inspiration hit her, and she sat down on a plastic chair at the edge of the ground, watching the dozen boys in white kick up red dust. The morning sun sent a trickle of sweat down her back, but she didn’t mind; she imagined an article with her name in The Hindu.
In the minutes before the game began, the seats got filled with boys from her school and the opponent team’s. A few other people, mostly men managing the logistics, joined in. The boys, especially those from her school, regarded her curiously. A few knew that she was Aravindh’s sister and thought she’d come to support him, but most were still bemused that a girl had shown up. A high school PT teacher who had accompanied them asked her, ‘Which class are you from?’ Anandhi immediately stood up, struggling to hold on to the multiple things on her lap. ‘Anandhi, sir, 8-B.’ ‘Why are you here?’ ‘To watch and report about the match.’ A few boys sniggered loudly. ‘Report ah? To whom?’ ‘To newspapers, sir.’ A grin spread across the teacher’s face. ‘Apdiya? Ok, please write good things about our school boys.’ The group of boys laughed noisily. The other school’s boys looked at the whole scene with amusement.
Anandhi sat, her face flushed at being called out in front of a group of boys, seniors that too. What was so funny about wanting to do something with dedication? She thought angrily about how even teachers didn’t stand by all that they doled out to students about passion and hard work and so on. Were these to only be followed for school subjects? Or only for things people thought girls should do? She rolled her eyes thinking of the school director’s speech at the turn of the millennium that girls and boys were equal and the world had better recognise that. She slunk lower into the seat, pulled the cap lower down her face and stared at her lap. The notepad, which she had decorated with a ‘Report from 29-7-01’ jolted her into action. Stupid boys! ‘I’ll show them!’ she said to herself. She watched her brother take position midwicket – they were fielding. She kept her pen ready to make notes. Would her brother support her? The boy with whom she’d grown up watching cricket?
***
When she was working on the piece on the 29-7-01 match – which her school team lost, by the way – Aravindh had been annoyed that she still wanted to write about it. The sight of Anandhi hunched over the table in their room that evening, diligently writing and striking out sentences, chewing her pen, irritated him as he lay in bed in a deenergised and dispirited daze. The next evening after school, he saw her at the xerox shop, making copies of the article, and walked up to her. ‘Have you written it?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Are you happy with it?’ Anandhi was surprised he even wanted to know. ‘Yes, actually. I think I did some good work.’ ‘Ok, then. Let’s see what happens.’ Anandhi posted four envelopes the next day. One to The Hindu, another to The New Indian Express, and two to neighbourhood English newspapers.
***
Eight days later, Anandhi’s father opened an envelope addressed to her from the neighbourhood paper and found two hundred rupee notes in it. ‘Thank you for your contribution. This will be published in our 10th August issue. Here is a token amount for your article.’ Anandhi’s father didn’t know how to react when he saw that his daughter’s odd activities weren’t so odd, after all. The parents decided to give the money to Anandhi; it was, after all, the first money she had ever earned.
Anandhi herself was surprised with the news of the article being accepted in the neighbourhood paper – and even more surprised about the money – but secretly, she was upset that it didn’t make it to The Hindu. She would have gladly foregone payment if The Hindu wanted her article for free. It would have been special to be published in the newspaper that, for years, she had been going to every morning, flipping the paper to the last page to start reading it from the sports section. But she swallowed the disappointment, and went on her usual school-homework-sports-writing cycle.
One late evening in September, Aravindh walked into their room and sat on her bed, a wide smile on his face. ‘What?’ she asked, with mild irritation. He gave her an envelope. Anandhi snatched it and read the label; it was from The Hindu. Hands shaking with excitement – or was it nervousness? – she pulled out the letter.
‘Dear Anandhi,
I read your article on an inter-school cricket competition in Chennai. Your clarity in thought and expression as a 14-year-old delights me. Your love for the sport shines through your writing. The world may do much to discourage you from writing about sports because you’re a girl, but never let anyone stop you. I wait to read more from you in ten years. – Nirmal Shekar
Anandhi shrieked and leapt around the room, then held the letter and cried a few quiet tears. Aravindh decided he would take her to more matches, even those he didn’t play. Anandhi’s parents were confused about this reception to their daughter’s writing, but they knew one thing for sure: their Sunday ritual of temple and lunch would most definitely never be the same.
Vani Viswanathan writes fiction and non-fiction, and works on gender, sexuality and development communications in New Delhi. Her first dedicated foray into writing for the world was when she started a blog in 2005. Her writing typically focuses on the marvellous intricacies and laughable ironies in lives around her. She draws inspiration from cities she’s lived in or visited. Her writing can be accessed on www.vaniviswanathan.com.
