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My Friend Sancho
My first book, My Friend Sancho, was published in May 2009, and went on to become the biggest selling debut novel released that year in India. It is a contemporary love story set in Mumbai, and had earlier been longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008. To learn more about the book, click here.
If you're interested, do join the Facebook group for My Friend Sancho
Click here for more about my publisher, Hachette India.
My posts on India Uncut about My Friend Sancho can be found here.
Recent entries
So it’s about 10.45pm, and we’re headed in a tourist taxi to Siena Village, a resort a few kilometres…
I don’t know why, but I find this kind of funny. And what’s with the quote marks in that…
Jonah Lehrer writes in Wired: Here’s a brain teaser: Your task is to move a single line so that…
So while everyone’s celebrating the arrival of Akhilesh Yadav and how he’s revitalised the Samajwadi Party and UP Politics,…
... is done. The next time India walk out to play a Test match, my favourite sportsman of all…
23 May, 2009
A Special Kind Of Man-Beast
At an IPL-and-beer party a few weeks ago at my friend Prem Panicker‘s house, the wise Anand Ramachandran described Yusuf Pathan as “a man-beast”. The reference, obviously, was to his batting—for Anand is not intimately acquainted with Pathan’s personal life—and it fit like a glove. We then got to talking about other man-beasts in the game, and came up with the usual suspects like Matthew Hayden, Chris Gayle, Herschelle Gibbs and Shahid Afridi. Oh, and one Adam Gilchrist.
But Gilchrist is subtly different from the others in one way—he is not just brutal, but also beautiful. I like watching Pathan and Hayden and Gayle smash the ball around for visceral reasons—but with Gilchrist, it’s also a matter of aesthetics. He can do hammer and scalpel at the same time, and I can’t think of too many other players in world cricket who can combine the two so perfectly. Oh, and did you watch his innings yesterday?
That said, immense nostalgia is already coming that his next innings might be his last on this stage. (He is 37; who knows if he will return next year?) I hope it doesn’t end in an anti-climax.
Posted by Amit Varma in
Sport
