Madhav Apte, a guardian of the cricketer’s code

His deep knowledge of the game and first-hand memories of Indian cricket in the 1940s and 50s were critical

News of Madhav Apte’s passing away reached me while I was travelling. Unable to attend the last rites or the subsequent condolence meeting has been a painful reminder about how we often allow crucial matters to be swept aside in the hurly-burly of everyday life, only to suffer regret later.

Madhav Apte passed away on September 23 at the age of 86. (HT Photo)

I’d learnt of his illness from his son Vaman a few weeks back, but deferred a visit to the hospital for a later date.

Life is unsparingly uncertain for the most robust, and Madhav was a week or so away from completing 87 years when even a common cold carries mortal threat.

Regret at this lapse will be eternal, compounded by the fact that Madhav’s death also robs me of an invaluable sounding board for an anthology on Indian cricket that I’ve been working on. In the past couple of years, I’d turned to him often for advice and insight.

His deep knowledge of the game and first-hand memories of Indian cricket in the 1940s and 50s were critical, particularly those of the Quadrangular and Pentangular tournaments that were played in Bombay pre-Independence, and which gave Indian cricket so much succour.

This period in Indian cricket history excited Madhav most. I suppose it was because it made him relive his days as an emerging cricketer, as also the most dramatic times in modern Indian history.

That chapter, alas, will remain unfilled even when completed.

Madhav was not someone who I knew intimately or even met regularly. In the past 40-odd years, while we’ve been at the same event probably a few hundred times and group interactions have been aplenty, personal conversations of substance have been perhaps less than 50.

But each of these ‘special’ meetings, as I would like to remember them now, left behind indelible memories. Madhav was an engaging conversationalist, low on rhetoric, high on substance. He was not bombastic, but neither was he namby-pamby when it came to expressing a point of view.

He was endearingly mild-mannered, yet one couldn’t pooh-pooh what he said because his opinions found sustenance in logic and facts. He also had a remarkable memory, recalling events and happenings of long past so vividly, so as to leave one spellbound.

I got a sumptuous feast of these anecdotes on the few occasions he invited me over to his penthouse at Woodlands Apartments on Kemps Corner. His style was neither rumbustious – in the self-indulgent manner of ‘only I know about this’ – nor boringly, lifelessly deadpan.

Like a seasoned raconteur, Madhav knew the importance of pauses, tonal inflections and had the wit to make the anecdotes delectable. More importantly, spending time with him was not like travelling up a one-way street for the listener.

He would draw you into the conversation, and in fact, welcomed views divergent from his own. He was open-minded and accepting of change, which is what perhaps kept him young in spirit and mentally alert even in advanced age.

Madhav Apte was a ‘gentleman cricketer’. Though I have serious compunctions about using this clichéd description, which is rooted in the hypocrisy of the Victoria Age, I think his demeanour and personality, on and off the field, showcased what the phrase should epitomise.

A gentleman cricketer is thought to be one who does not sledge or abuse opponents; walks without waiting for an umpire’s decision if he knows he’s out; speak politely, etc, etc.

This is a banal, restrictive and shallow representation of what the ideal should be.

In my opinion, the gentleman cricketer is one who plays fairly, of course, but also faces up to setbacks, on and off the field, without complaint, but with stoic resolve: that loss of a match or personal failure is not real defeat, it is defeatism.

However, life does not start and end on the field of play. Through cricket, he must also expand and explore his intellectual and emotional horizons to understand existence in its vicissitudes, leading to the realisation that while winning is crucially important, it is not the only thing.

A life without rancour and ill will, of having done your best and not unduly burdened at the outcome, is the gentleman cricketer’s code for the ultimate triumph. Madhav Apte showed how. RIP.