I was not much more than a lad when Sunil Gavaskar’s exploits in the cricket world became the talk of drawing room conversations. Every time he took guard against the most fearsome of fast bowlers, he seemed destined to stay there for long, weathering all the storms on the way to a painstaking hundred. He accomplished personal landmarks; he instilled pride in an emerging sporting nation. Many of us bought tickets to watch him bat at the Kotla, others stayed glued to the transistor at the workplace. When he got out, the batteries were removed, for fear of the switched off transistor consuming them before Gavaskar’s second innings in the Test.
Yet, there was great curiosity about the Little Master, how he became the player he did, his coaches, his family. Then one day, Gavaskar decided to say it all. His own worded book, “Sunny Days: Sunil Gavaskar’s Own Story” not only went on to become a bestseller, it also redefined the way a quick read book could be bought and sold. Priced at Rs.20 in 1976, it disappeared from the vendors’ stalls with as much ease as Gavaskar driving the ball through the cover.
I too wanted my copy. The resources were limited; opportunities to buy a book first thing in the morning from a pavement newspaper vendor were few and fleeting. By evening, when I was back from the gruelling rounds of classes and tuitions, the vendors would just throw their hands up, “ Sahab, aayi thhi. Bik gayi .” And my quest would resume after a couple of days, until I finally landed a copy from near Rupa’s office in Daryaganj. Then it replaced a book by Rusi Surti as my cricketing Bible. I would read it every day, hide it under my pillow at night for the fear of my brother picking it up at night and carelessly leaving it elsewhere. Every morning I would look at the book with my first breath. I would stuff it into my schoolbag, hide it between my exercise books lest classmates stealthily look into the bag and perchance see it! How I had to guard it from family and friends!
And what a book it proved! Sunil Gavaskar may have held his punches on the cricket field; he held none when it came to writing. He talked of his early days, how he was almost lost at birth, exchanged with another newborn until an alert uncle recognised the baby and restored Sunil to his parents. He talked of 1971, his breakthrough year, also the beginning of sunny days for Indian cricket. He talked of his hundreds though he regarded his half century on a green top at Old Trafford in 1971 as his best knock. Then there were snatches about Rohan Kanhai, Gundappa Viswanath, Ashok Mankad, all adding up to make an engrossing half story — the book came out in 1976 and the story would only be completed more than a decade later when he bid adieu to cricket.
There was hardly any bragging, just a graceful narration of things as he saw. You could disagree with him but you could not accuse him of studied silence. He left thousands of balls alone on the cricket pitch but in “Sunny Days”, he gave each ball, each occasion, the merit it deserved.
The book is counted among the best-sellers of Rupa. Almost 40 years on, it still creates a ripple or two.
