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Lord Relator: When Sunny was on song
PORT OF SPAIN: The Trini Posse stand sits empty at the Queen’s Park Oval. There are no girls jiving to steel bands, no calypso or chutney music. Test cricket’s dying
PORT OF SPAIN: The Trini Posse stand sits empty at the Queen’s Park Oval. There are no girls jiving to steel bands, no calypso or chutney music. Test cricket’s dying a slow death, and with it the Caribbean soul. At the open bar overlooking the Oval, Lord Relator likes to sip on vodka and coconut water and ruminate on old times. A traditionalist, T20 cricket doesn’t excite him. And as long as he doesn’t find a character inspiring enough, he won’t write another calypso like ‘Gavaskar’.
“Well, not many people are doing it so it’s safe to say it is on the decline. Not many people are interested in Test cricket as you know. Look at the crowd here. There’s nobody at the Oval. And that is very sad,” he said. There have been a few calypsos made in the recent past though. “Lord Kitchener did a song on cricket, so did Lord Beginner. I did a song on Curtly Ambrose some years ago but it wasn’t as popular as the one on Gavaskar. But now people are going more to T20,” he said.
INSPIRED RUN
“Dwayne Bravo is the first to sing a song on T20. I hope the trend will continue. Back in 1971, we used to gather here and see the action,” said Lord Relator, pointing to the stand next to the press box. “We saw Sunil play from right there. We were able to write and create a song from there. I actually wrote that song in my head while watching him play.” On his debut series in West Indies in 1971, Gavaskar amassed 774 runs, including three centuries and a double.
The names of cricketers fascinated him. “(Rusi) Jeejeebhoy, (Ajit) Wadekar, (Dilip) Sardesai, Chandu Borde — these names inspired me to write a song. And when Gavasakar came, he was playing the best,” he said.
That also earned Gavaskar a peculiar name among calypso artists. “In Trinidad, there’s a thing called Badge on. Badge on is like a hooligan who isn’t afraid of anybody. And when Sunil played here, he showed he wasn’t afraid of anybody. Fans loved him so much because he wasn’t afraid of anybody. That is why I wrote about him.
“He won lot of hearts because of his approach. And in Trinidad because of the steel band and the calypso, because of the history of hooligans, Gavaskar reminded a lot of people of that environment,” said Lord Relator, who has sung his famous calypso in front of Gavaskar quite a few times. “But my greatest disappointment is that I never got to come to India to sing the song in front of an Indian audience,” he said.
Lord Relator still sings calypsos, but not on cricket. “I have to still pay for my drinks and bills,” he chuckled.
