This is the fate that awaited one of India’s stars of the 2011 World Cup, Yuvraj Singh, the bubbly, curly-haired boy from Chandigarh. There he was in March 2011, a phenomenon. Electric blue, in body and soul, he went on to annihilate anything that came in front of him. Three hundred and sixty-two (362) hard-earned runs, 15 precious wickets, four consecutive ‘man of the match’ awards. He didn’t seem human. He was beyond mortal. The nation is spread over thousands of miles, but his fans and admirers were at every nook and corner. As he strode onto the pitch like a storm, a million lips chanted his name, wishing him luck, wishing him strength, wishing him victory. In those moments, he made us proud of being who we were, of being Indian, of being India.
We wished him all the luck in the world. But the luck didn’t last long. He ran out of it.
How can prayers go so wrong? How could it happen to him? Did we fall short in our prayers? Did the million lips stop chanting or was their chant useless now that their lips were so puffed with pride?
When the 2011 World Cup came around, Yuvi was a crucial member of the Indian team. I have often wondered what the headlines in newspapers and on news channels would have screamed, had Yuvi pulled out because of a cough. Could he have told his captain that he couldn’t play the next match because he had been coughing too much?
What would the Indian fan who had come to the stadium to see him bat say when he heard this? What would your reaction have been as you sat in front of the TV in your living room?
Years ago, when Dilip Vengsarkar dropped out of the Indian team in the semi-final against England in the 1987 World Cup because of a painful throat, they branded him a coward. Could Yuvi have risked that kind of criticism?
Schoolboys can complain of a cough when they want to bunk school. A man who had hit six sixes in an over could not do that. Not when he was in the middle of a World Cup. Yuvi could not, would not, say it out loud. Going back was not an option. Forget what people might say. Would he have been able to face himself if India had not won the Cup because of his absence? No. The aim was clear, the goal was set. For Yuvi, it was a matter of life and death. The World Cup had to be won.
As he went from match to match, the cough became more severe, disturbing his sleep and fitness schedule. He relied more on medication and the advice of his physio, whom he trusted implicitly. He started feeling breathless. He vomited every time he ate anything. Nothing they did helped his cough but he kept going, almost as if the cough pushed him to perform.
Ironically, the cough was getting louder and louder, but no one seemed to hear it. Nobody saw him in any sort of discomfort on the field. He batted sensibly, bowled with a plan and purpose and fielded with exceptional alertness. But the louder the cough became, the deeper it was getting into his system.
It was affecting his peace of mind, making him weak. But such is human psychology that when we are doing well, problems appear smaller. We remember all that we have done to reach this position and having got there, want to cherish the moment. Even the physical discomfort becomes bearable. Undoubtedly, success is the best medicine.
Yuvi did not take his cough seriously. He thought his body could bear the pain, as it had done on so many occasions. He overlooked the wear and tear that it had undergone over the years, the tremendous strain it had been subjected to. ‘He was coughing and vomiting all through the tournament. But we thought it was just the stress, and his desire to excel on the biggest stage, so we ignored it,’ says his mother, Shabnam Singh.
And Yuvi kept burning, like the candle who gives light to the world by burning itself out.
The World Cup was just one more occasion when fate had challenged him. This time, too, he accepted the challenge. And by doing so, he chose the path of near self-destruction. With every match he played, his condition deteriorated further.
Eventually India won the World Cup. Yuvi was crowned the man of the tournament. And now he too forgot the sound of the cough amidst the applause and the adulation.
Then came the Indian Premier League (IPL), and with it began Yuvi’s duties as the captain of the most expensive team in the tournament, the Pune Warriors of India. The extreme heat of summer and the non-stop travelling meant that Yuvi had no time for rest or recovery. The cough was back, and it occurred to him that something had to be done. But if the responsibility of representing the nation is great, isn’t there a huge responsibility attached to being bought for such a whopping sum? How could he let down those who had placed so much trust in his abilities?
Yuvi had managed to ignore the cough during the World Cup because it hadn’t affected his performance, but a week into the IPL, his body revolted. His World Cup form deserted him. Within a month, he was looking like a shadow of himself. The cough had settled in his body; he was struggling. But he was the captain of the team. He couldn’t afford to sit out. He wanted his team to win and they weren’t winning.
The season ended with a dismal performance by Yuvi’s team, which must have left him a very unhappy man.
At every critical juncture of his career, Yuvi has been thwarted by fate. This time, however, in the last week of May, providence intervened in a positive way. He was invited to inaugurate a clinic in Delhi after IPL 2011 and he allowed himself to be examined. The doctor who examined him claimed that he noticed a patch in the lungs that looked dangerous.
‘After all the excitement and the celebrations, we went for medical advice when the problem (of his cough) persisted,’ says Yuvi’s mother.
‘To our horror, we found a golf-ball-sized lump over his left lung.’ Yuvi had what in medical terms is called a lymphoma, an abnormal tumour.
The family was incredulous. ‘We were devastated. We just couldn’t accept it. He had had bouts of coughing for a long time, but we had been told it was common allergy to dust and pollution.’
Yuvi himself was indignant. ‘I didn’t believe the reports,’ he said. ‘I felt fine, and deep inside, I felt good too,’ he remembers, almost embarrassed to go into the painful details.
When the time came to pick the team for the West Indies tour of June–July 2011, Yuvi was thrilled to find himself in. It had been a long cherished dream to play in the Test team. At that point though, he decided to share a part of his agony. He dropped out of the tour, citing a lung infection. He was very weak and had been advised complete rest for a month, after which he was expected to be as good as new.
At that stage, Yuvi went into a shell. ‘He became quieter and endured everything in the privacy of his home; he made sure nobody got to know about it,’ his mother remembers. But he never gave up hope nor, indeed, did he give up on life. ‘Initially, we couldn’t take it; it was too painful even to look at Yuvi,’ says Shabnam. ‘It wasn’t just the fear that is associated with the dreaded word that gnawed at us; it was unbearable to see the way he suffered. He was in excruciating pain all the time.’
Yuvi underwent rigorous treatment and, at the same Time, gingerly resumed practising his game. Early medical treatment and therapy made him feel better, and eager to resume his India duties. He was bent on getting fit and didn’t want anything to come in the way of the England tour in July–August 2011. It was Test cricket calling again, the dream that he had been chasing ever since he started playing the game.
The dream made him drag himself forward. But once again, it was not to be. When he arrived in England, looking overweight and not in the best shape, he was almost an object of ridicule. Nobody knew the trauma he was going through or the fact that, for quite some time, he hadn’t been able to do even the basic drills. Only his closest friends in the Indian team were aware of his condition. In the second Test, he scored a gritty 62 and finally vindicated his inclusion. Tragically, injury came between Yuvi and his Test dream once again. But this time, it did more good than harm. He broke his finger and had to return home. The phrase ‘a blessing in disguise’ was surely coined for this occasion. ‘I needed rest. My body needed a break. That’s when I realized the big truth: I can’t fight time. I can’t fight my own bo
dy,’ Yuvi admitted, almost heartbroken.
The early return home gave Yuvi time to get a proper medical check-up. For three months or so, he went for one scan after another, one test after another, practically looking death in the eye every day. The reports indicated that the tumour was non-malignant and non-threatening and could be treated through medication and therapy. Through all this, Yuvi kept a smile on his face, and held onto the faith instilled in him by his Guruji. ‘We were all worried. But he would only keep telling us one thing. I am a brave boy, I will come out of this, he would say,’ his mother recalls.
Everyone was relieved beyond measure that the tumour was not malignant. Family and friends couldn’t thank god enough.
‘For the first time in a long while, I had a big smile on my face. My mom was jumping all around in joy. I was ready to take on life again,’ said Yuvi. Only such experiences make you realize the value of life. In the words of Yuvi, ‘Appreciate life. Enjoy all its small successes and sweet moments. I realized then that health is the most important thing. Money, fame, cars, adulation, these count for nothing.’
He was back on course towards rehabilitation. ‘I do yoga in the morning and light training in the evening. In a week’s time, I should be practising like normal. I will be ready for the one-dayers in Australia,’ he declared in February that year. ‘I just can’t wait to have that India logo on my shirt again. I want to wear that India cap again. I can’t wait to play cricket. That’s what my life is all about.’ His voice quivered with emotion.
‘He couldn’t return to full gym-work yet. He would get breathless in no time. But he would just not give up,’ Shabnam says.
Then, just before the West Indies tour of India, Yuvi realized that there might be an opportunity to play the visitors. To prove his fitness, he insisted on playing a Twenty20 match for Punjab. The previous night, he had undergone some tests and his arm was swollen. He couldn’t even move it properly. But he refused to listen. He didn’t want to lose another opportunity.
Though he did get to be part of the Indian team, Yuvi’s poor form continued and he scored only 23, 18 and 25 in the two Tests. And he wasn’t called upon to bowl at all.
The selectors dropped him from the third Test of the series, choosing to give younger players a chance.
The message was clear: Yuvi was not going to Australia for the Test series. It must have been one of the saddest days of his life.
In the midst of all this, on 12 December 2011, Yuvi celebrated his thirtieth birthday. It was a quiet day spent with his family and close friends. ‘It feels different, it’s like a new life for me,’ Yuvi said, a day after the muted celebrations. ‘It’s almost like I am starting over again.’ He was unable to subdue the joy and excitement in his voice.
A new beginning seemed to await Yuvi. He wasn’t the kind to mope or live in the past. ‘The New Year is round the corner. I am hoping it will bring fresh tidings. People around me are happy. I am happy,’ he said. He expected to be in the team for the ODIs against Australia.
Soon, the tough phase would be past for Yuvi. Or so it seemed.
What happened next took everyone by surprise. The tumour that had been dismissed as non-malignant was found to be malignant. What had seemed to be a harmless, short-lived ailment was given a deadly name: cancer.
The same fate that had placed obstacles in his career path this time played a benevolent role. Yuvi’s cancer was detected in the first stage itself. And as he underwent chemotherapy in the United States, his physio reassured us that the cancer was fully curable and that Yuvi would be fit to play by May.
‘I know I am a good person. I have only done good things in life. So I knew something so bad could not happen to me,’ Yuvi had said earlier, at a time when the cancer hadn’t been diagnosed. But cancer or not, this statement holds good. As Yuvi played the innings of his life against the most deadly opponent ever, one realized that a sportsman can’t stop being a sportsman in other areas of his life. Sport is not a profession, it isn’t a skill to be learnt and imitated. Sport is a way of life, a way to be. And once it’s in your system, you can’t take it out. It becomes part of you, it defines your approach to life and everything you do.
Yuvi decided not to fight his battle in isolation. He found inspiration in another sportsman who had escaped death – Lance Armstrong, who fought testicular cancer to make the Tour de France his own for seven years in a row. Posted Yuvi on Twitter, ‘I look forward to meet Lance Armstrong soon and take inspiration! Till then good bye, will keep you updated about my health.’
Actively posting photographs and posts on social networking sites strengthened him further. ‘Thank you again to all my friends back home! I’m recovering well … yes, it’s tough but tough times don’t last, tough men do! I will fight and come back as a stronger man cause I have the prayers of my nation…’ he wrote.
Yuvi played this game too in the true spirit of sportsmanship.
Chapter Two
A PROPHECY NAMED YUVRAJ
Life has a habit of throwing challenges at us. Some of us succumb to them, others stand up and fight them so we don’t fall. But fighting isn’t learnt in boxing rings. A fighter is made out of circumstances. Yuvraj Singh is one such fighter. He was turned into one by his father. A father who had decided that his son had to be a world-class cricketer.
Yograj Singh, a contemporary of Kapil Dev, was a right-arm medium-pace bowler who had played first-class cricket. In 1979 he had been selected to play for the Board President’s XI against Pakistan in Baroda. But before this match, Yog had played only two Ranji matches in two seasons. After the Baroda match, I got him into the Mafatlal team. The team comprised stalwarts like Ashok Mankad, who was the captain, Eknath Solkar, Brijesh Patel and Parthasarthy Sharma. Yograj swears by the impact Mumbai had on him as a cricketer. Within a year, he found himself on a plane with the Indian team, ready for the tour of Australia, New Zealand and Fiji in the 1980–81 season.
But the dream did not last. Yograj played just one Test and six ODIs and had very little success. He is the first to admit that he didn’t do justice to his talent.
I remember that from 1979 till 1982, when he was with Mafatlal, he worked very hard at his game and the cricketing fraternity of Mumbai felt he deserved a second chance with the Indian team. But that was not to be. And as it turned out, Yograj’s second chance would come to him, not directly but indirectly, through his son.
When Shabnam, Yog’s petite and charming twenty-year-old wife, gave birth to a 3.8 kg baby boy, the entire family rejoiced but Yog was already making plans for the boy’s future, unknown to the rest of them. By the time they returned home from PGI Hospital in Sector 12, Chandigarh, with the newborn, the father had it all worked out.
Yograj’s first reaction to Yuvi’s birth was, ‘I will make him achieve what I could not.’ From that moment, his son was fated to live out his father’s unfulfilled dreams and thwarted ambitions.
As the little boy grew up, he became very fond of skating. One day, he ran home excited after winning the sub-junior championship in school. His achievement was not appreciated. Yog threw away the skates and warned him never to take part in a skating competition again. Yuvi could only become a cricketer; his competitiveness had to be preserved for cricket.
With the Shivalik hills in the background of their Sector 11B house, Shabnam tended their beautiful garden where many colourful flowers bloomed. But what did the beauty of frail flowers mean to a man who wanted to make his son as strong as a rock! Yog first built a gymnasium on the first floor of their house, then he converted the lovely garden into a small pitch. He bought a dozen bats and tennis balls and he and Yuvi would practise from morning till night. Academics became secondary. As did everything else.
In the freezing Chandigarh winter, Yograj would drag Yuvi out of bed early in the morning so they could go to the ground. Once, when I was at their home, I heard Yuvi cry out around 10 p.m. I rushed out and saw the boy rubbing his chest. He had been hit by a wet tennis ball. The pin
k chest of the twelve-year-old had become black and blue. But all he could do was wait for the pain to lessen and then get back to facing the wet tennis balls from seventeen yards away. I tried to convince Yog that twelve hours of practice would kill the child’s enjoyment, but Yog had other ideas. His son must learn the game the hard way.
Bishan Singh Bedi has often said, ‘Nobody should take any credit for chiselling Yuvi except his father, who really stuck into him during the early days in an absolutely ruthless manner, both physically and mentally.’
Even as a twelve-year-old, Yuvi was bigger and stronger than most boys his age. He once broke a sink simply by leaning on it. Says Angad Bedi, Bishan Singh Bedi’s actor–son and a teammate of Yuvi’s from the age of eleven, ‘It was one of the first Bishan Bedi cricket camps held in Delhi. Yuvi was staying at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium. The facilities were basic. There were no showers, hence only bucket baths were possible, and the loos had to be shared. One morning Yuvi got up to brush his teeth and as he leaned on the sink, it suddenly crashed to the ground. All hell broke loose then, and Yuvi’s mum was called down from Chandigarh to sort the matter out with my dad. Clearly, Yuvi did not realize his own strength.’ He adds, with a smile, ‘My dad always had a big soft corner for Yuvi.
‘He used to be a fab dancer and a mimicry artist. He loved dancing to the song “Muqabla subhanallah laila”. He could pop, lock and do all the moves and everyone loved to watch him dance. No gathering was ever complete in the camp without his dance performance. He was loved by all, he was so charming and innocent as he still is.’
The senior Bedi says, ‘During his formative years, Yuvi was a bundle of energy and up to loads of mischief, often bordering on indiscipline. There were times when I’d drive him six or seven kilometres down the hill at Chail and then tell him to get off and jog behind my vehicle all the way up.
‘Yuvi was unusually big for his age. He was hugely talented and hit the ball really hard. In our summer camps in Chail in Himachal Pradesh, while lads his age struggled to reach the ropes, Yuvi would clear them easily. We’d lose many balls thanks to his big shots. In fact, he enjoyed hitting the ball out of sight so it could not be retrieved from down the hill. We had to stop him by declaring him out if the ball went over the hill.
Yuvi Page 2
