A cricketer whom the fraternity forgot

By A. Joseph Antony

HYDERABAD, JULY 4. Like shrunken branches of a once-strapping tree, his arms are shrivelled with age. They still throb with life, though. Pushing aside the plates, he patiently peels off the wrappers as one picks peas from the pod. After breakfast every morning, it's tablet time as he pops pills by the handful.

Edulji Burjorji Aibara has weathered 86 years of life, 30 as a widower, most of which have verged on desolation. His was a tightrope ride between life and death recently in a Hyderabad hospital.

``I'll walk back home,'' he'd thundered, when doctors were hesitant to let him go. The superstitious were wary of his being discharged on a Saturday, but Aibara was anything but weak- kneed.

``He can be pretty strong-willed,'' notes Hoshi Baria, who means more to the octogenarian than the son he never had. ``The goodwill he enjoys ensured support from all quarters. The hospital bill was Rs. 2 lakhs, which he managed to cough up. Continuing medication includes two hospital visits a week for injections, which set him back by about Rs. 4000,'' Baria adds, not quite sure how long funds for the treatment will last.

Although Aibara never got to play for the country, his tenure in Ranji Trophy competition is the longest. From 1934 to 1958, a year short of a quarter century, he graced the stage of Indian cricket's premier tournament. Yet no benefit match has been staged for him. A hundred centuries in the Hyderabad league, six of them on the trot hardly mattered.

Some of the game's big names - Sunil Gavaskar, Abbas Ali Baig, Abid Ali, Asif Iqbal being a few - have been coached by him at one level or the other. A four year stint at the National Institute of Sports, Patiala as chief cricket coach underscored his acumen. But his application for the Dronacharya Award seems to be gathering dust in Delhi.

Most of the correspondence carried out on his behalf by Baria are poignant pleas, duly received, at times acknowledged but rarely responded to. Ironically, those who have gained the most from the game, are the least generous, Baria says.

Eyes dart to and fro as Aibara plugs the hearing aid into place. It's only sound that's lost on him and not the sense of humour. A scrawny neighbour, nicknamed Mr. India by the colony's residents, he calls `Arnold.' The `Schwarzenneger' is left unsaid to suggest the subject is no less than Mr. Universe!

Maybe it's the ability to find joy in little things that has carried the famed coach through the vast stretches of time. What for others comes close to solitary confinement, seems a source of strength to him. His wife Nargis died way back in 1970. Loyalty to that partner of nearly 30 years perhaps prevented him from marrying again.

Two sunken ribs tell the tale of the thunderbolt from Mohammed Nissar, the tearaway dreaded more than Bodyline bowler Harold Larwood by some. Aibara's coach Bill Hitch, who was umpiring that Moin ud Dowla match, urged him not to return to the pavilion, despite the body blow. Fear of fast bowling would persist, the Englishman had reasoned. Aibara held his ground to notch up a valiant 49.

It would have been curtains, had the dent been half an inch deeper, the Chief Surgeon of King Edward's Hospital in Secunderabad had declared. ``Get your foot work right and you'll never get hurt,'' Aibara says sagely, referring to some present day batsmen, leaden-footed and seemingly rooted to the crease.

If onlookers are rueful about his fate, he never lets his sadness show. Even in excruciating pain, his stock reply is, ``I'm very fine.'' Of his encounters with the `Grim Reaper', he says ``God saved me. Maybe The Almighty has something more for me to do,'' he feels. A book on his table, Life and Hereafter, leaves you wondering whether the end is nigh.

The silence of the Parsi Agiari's (Fire Temple) precincts, where he lives, can be deafening. About the only signs of activity are ancient looking women knitting or equally old men poring over newspapers.

In the entire enclave, the ambience is of another age. Antiquated buildings set in a sprawling compound cut off city clutter, insulating inmates from the outside world, perhaps isolating them from other communities.

As evening sets in, Aibara makes his way ever so slowly to the verandah of his ground floor accommodation, with a walker in place of crutches. Dedicated domestic Pochamma and youngster Murad Mehta are there for back-up. As children in the colony revel with bat and ball, they come under those watchful eyes.

Twilight descends, the players part and Aibara retreats to the inner room. Cricket careening from a gentleman's game to its current depths of slime, this silent sentinel has seen it all. A walk without support may signal progress but life has been a lonely wilderness.

For most, he's a helpless old man, revered in lip service but left largely to fend for himself, forsaken and forgotten by the fraternity.

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Section  : Sport
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