Vin­ode Mam­chan

"Sir Viv Richards once asked me how I feel when In­dia play the West In­dies and I told him that when that hap­pens I am con­fused as to who to sup­port be­cause here is a sit­u­a­tion where my broth­ers are play­ing my cousins." The words of revered In­di­an crick­et com­men­ta­tor Ravi Chaturve­di, as he ex­pressed his love for the West In­dies and the peo­ple of this part of the world.Chaturve­di re­cent­ly vis­it­ed Trinidad for the fifth time dur­ing the Celkon Mo­bile Cup and was on hand to see In­dia lift the tro­phy. He was in Trinidad do­ing re­search on a book that he is cur­rent­ly putting to­geth­er.The man who is a house­hold name in In­dia gain recog­ni­tion in his home­land by be­ing the first man to com­men­tate crick­et in Hin­di. Ac­cord­ing to him: "I want­ed to reach all the rur­al ar­eas in In­dia. I want­ed to young ones in those area of hear of the game and to fol­low In­dia and de­vel­op an ap­petite for the sport of crick­et. You see in the rur­al ar­eas there is not much that at­tracts in terms of en­ter­tain­ment so when In­dia plays this is a big thing for the peo­ple there and we want­ed them to get the com­men­tary and to fol­low the team." His ef­forts to com­men­tate in Hin­di caught on with every­one and it prompt­ed for­eign TV Chan­nels to start to tele­cast in Hin­du. much to the de­light of those who could not un­der­stand the crick­et in Eng­lish.

Prof Chatur­de­vi is an aca­d­e­mi­cian and ob­tained his M.Sc. de­gree in Zo­ol­o­gy from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Del­hi in 1960, spe­cial­is­ing in Fish­eries Bi­ol­o­gy. Fol­low­ing his re­search work in in­duced breed­ing of carps and train­ing fish farm­ers in Pis­ci-cul­ture, he was se­lect­ed by UP­SC but he opt­ed for teach­ing, where he left a last­ing im­pres­sion by start­ing a unique Zo­ol­o­gy Mu­se­um in the Gold­en Ju­bilee year of the coun­try's In­de­pen­dence.Prof Chaturve­di had a pas­sion for crick­et since ear­ly in his life and played school, col­lege and club lev­el with a fair de­gree of suc­cess. He was amongst the 40 trainees se­lect­ed to be coached by In­dia's first crick­et cap­tain Col CK Nayudu in 1955.In 1961 the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia de­cid­ed to cov­er all na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al sports events in Hin­di and Prof. Chaturve­di was the first per­son to take up that role of Hin­di crick­et com­men­ta­tor.

Ac­cord­ing to Chaturve­di: "It was a big chal­lenge to ar­rive at the right lan­guage, ter­mi­nol­o­gy and nu­ances to de­scribe crick­et in Hin­di, which was met suc­cess­ful­ly. With an ex­per­i­men­tal be­gin­ning in 1962, Hin­di com­men­tary soon gained in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion."When Do­or­dar­shan de­cid­ed to tele­cast crick­et in 1972, Chaturve­di ser­vices were re­quired and his ex­per­tise was lat­er uti­lized by World Tel to cov­er the 1996 World Cup. He al­so had stints with TWI, New Zealand TV and Caribbean Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion and BBC.It was dur­ing his first trip to the Caribbean that Chaturve­di fell in love with the re­gion as a whole but T&T in par­tic­u­lar. He made a dear friend in Ram­char­i­tar Rick­hi and al­so he has passed on, Chaturve­di re­mains close to the fam­i­ly and ac­tu­al­ly stayed at their home in Arou­ca dur­ing his re­cent vis­it.Chaturve­di said he felt at home when he vis­it­ed Trinidad and dur­ing his many vis­its here he has built many bridges with peo­ple that he cher­ish­es up un­til to­day. "I find my­self at home in this coun­try. I have al­ways found the Caribbean to be a fas­ci­nat­ing place and af­ter fol­low­ing for­tunes of the West In­dies crick­et team, I fell in love with Caribbean crick­et and the peo­ple as a whole."

While speak­ing to Chaturve­di you are amazed by the fact that the man calls out the names of vil­lages as if it is in In­dia. He said: "I evening many years ago I went down to McBean Vil­lage in Cou­va and I wit­nessed a Hin­du wed­ding. It re­mind­ed me so much of home as the wed­ding was sim­i­lar to one that was held for my el­der broth­er back in In­dia."I am so hap­py to see the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go car­ry­ing on the cul­ture that was brought by our fore­fa­thers. I am re­al­ly im­pressed with that and I find that the Popele of the Caribbean are very spe­cial in the way they treat with vis­i­tors. I like this re­gion so much that I have al­ready told my fam­i­ly that when I am no longer around, they must sprin­kle my ash­es in the Caribbean Sea."

WHAT THE CRICK­ETERS THINK OF PROF RAVI CHATURVE­DI

"Dur­ing my days play­ing and man­ag­ing in In­dia, I have had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to make many friends in In­dia but the one who im­pressed me the most was Ravi Chaturve­di, a com­men­ta­tor-chron­i­cler of class and cal­iber." –Wes Hall

"I grew up lis­ten­ing to Prof. Ravi Chaturve­di's crick­et com­men­tary in Hin­di. I ad­mired the ease and nat­ur­al flair with which he com­men­tat­ed on crick­et." –Sachin Ten­dulkar

"Pan­ditji as Chaturve­di is known is a mul­ti­fac­eted per­son­al­i­ty and has var­ied in­ter­ests. The Caribbean Is­lands are of spe­cial in­ter­est to him." –Sunil Gavaskar

"What has im­pressed us is the fe­lic­i­ty with which he man­ages to de­scribe a game which is very alien to the Hin­di lan­guage and through his com­men­tary has tak­en the game to the vil­lages." –Nawab Patau­di

On his fifth vis­it to the twin is­lands of Trinidad & To­ba­go, Prof. Ravi Chaturve­di, Pro­fes­sor of Zo­ol­o­gy at Del­hi Uni­ver­si­ty and pi­o­neer Hin­di crick­et com­men­ta­tor added an emo­tion­al touch to his trip. The fol­low­ing is his Ethos of Trinidad

ETHOS OF TRINIDAD

It is not a vis­it. It is a pil­grim­age to the land of Er­ic Williams, Bas­deo Pandey, George Cham­bers, Noor Has­san Ali, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar; Sir Learie Con­stan­tine, CLR James, Vaidya Naipaul, Mike Gibbes; Jef­frey Stollmey­er, Harold Bur­nett (my two close friends who helped me in pro­vid­ing ma­te­r­i­al on West In­dies crick­et), Lawrence Mur­ray, Ram­chare­tar Rick­hi (called him Bhai­ji), sis­ter-in-law Si­ta (both be­stowed love and af­fec­tion abun­dant­ly on my fam­i­ly); El­lis 'Pus' Achong (in­ven­tor of chi­na­man), Son­ny Ra­mad­hin (the mys­tery spin­ner), Bri­an Lara (the hold­er of bat­ting records) and Hasley Craw­ford (Olympic sprint­er gold medal­ist); the land of crick­et, ca­lyp­so, rum and the Tri­ni Pos­si; hum­ming bird and scar­let ibis. The mem­o­ry of the Com­men­tary Box at the Queen's Park, Oval in 1976 with my re­cent­ly de­ceased col­league Suresh Saraiya and a dear friend David Lamy (now mem­ber, TATT Board) Clive Pan­tin and Alvin Corneil shar­ing mike with me is re­vived on this vis­it.

The land named by the Span­ish ex­plor­er Christo­pher Colum­bus in Ju­ly 1498 as Trinidad when he saw three peaks emerg­ing from the ocean and ded­i­cat­ed it to the Holy Trin­i­ty.

It is to this land peo­ple from my re­gion in In­dia the first batch of In­di­ans came to Trinidad on May 30, 1845 on the boat Fa­tah-al-Razak (vic­to­ry to Al­lah, the sus­tain­er).The mem­o­ries of those cher­ished mo­ments and the names of those who made them, sweep­ing across over the years form a kalei­do­scope and left an in­deli­ble mark on my mind.These men and mo­men­tous mo­ments of their lives are per­ma­nent­ly etched in my mem­o­ry. To this land known as Trinidad I have come for the fifth time with bowed head to pay my hum­ble re­spects to the friend­ly peo­ple of Trinidad & To­ba­go. Please ac­cept my greet­ings as I say Na­maskar to all of you and best wish­es to the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty of the coun­try dur­ing holy Ram­daan.