The Dhoni Touch Read online

  Then, during one of these meetings, he went after my hair. ‘Tera baal toh usse bhi lamba ho gaya. (Your hair is longer than hers now.),’ he said, pointing at a female standing not too far from me. I retorted asking why he was after my mane. He turned around and said, ‘Baal kaatlo, yaar. (Cut your hair, mate.)’

  1

  The Hair-raising Tale of Mahi

  ‘Arrey, yeh ladki jaisa dikhne wala, dhabhe mein khane wala, cricket kya khelega? (How can this fellow who looks like a girl, and eats at a dhaba, play cricket?)’ That’s what the chief selector of the MECON (Metallurgical and Engineering Consultants) Colony team had to say when he first encountered Dhoni and rejected him.

  The ‘dhabhe mein khane wala’ comment had to do with the fact that Dhoni’s father was a pump operator at MECON, which meant he was from the ‘non-executive’ set. The boy’s unconventional looks only made it worse.

  The D Block that housed the Dhoni family was mainly made up of lower-grade employees, but the advantage was that the MECON stadium was across the road. And the only time the ‘executive vs non-executive’ divide didn’t exist was when Dhoni and his friends indulged in a game of football or cricket at the stadium.

  Incidentally, Dhoni’s decision to grow his hair had nothing to do with fashion or changing his look. The story goes that Dhoni had never had a mundan (getting the head tonsured) as a child. And when he finally did it in 2002, the hair started growing and looking good. He then decided to not cut it for a while and let it grow.

  ‘Achcha lag raha hai. Rehne do. Anyway, kya farak padta hai. (It’s looking good. Let it be. Anyway, what difference does it make.),’ he would tell his friends. To complement their Mahi (it’s Mahi and not Maahi when you’re in Ranchi) or perhaps because they felt motivated, the rest of the Dhoni gang too began growing their hair, reveals Seemant Lohani, better known as Chittu, his closest friend. However, one by one, they started falling prey to the scissor. The mirror wasn’t being kind to them, Chittu insists.

  ‘We all did it. Santosh Lal (who unfortunately passed away a few years ago), Gautam-da and even I tried my hand at it. But only Mahi could pull it off. My face was too small. Not only was his hair looking great, it suited him superbly,’ says Chittu.

  It wasn’t just his detractors in MECON Colony who were bothered by Dhoni’s growing mane. Even his school coach, ‘Mahi’s only coach’, according to those in Ranchi, Keshav Banerjee recalls being slightly worried about his favourite pupil. The longish hair, of course, came long after Dhoni had left school and Banerjee would see him in the colony on his motorbike or walking to and back from practice. One day, he couldn’t help himself but let his former student know just what he thought of his hair.

  ‘I asked him once about why he wasn’t cutting it. He said, “Dekhte hai na kaisa lagega. (Let’s see how it looks.),” with that same smile. I said, “Achcha nahi lagta. (It’s not looking good.)” I told him, “You are an adult now. I can’t just order you to go cut it.” He smiled again and said, “Baal hi hai, sir. Ek din yeh style bhi change ho jaayega. (It’s only hair, sir. One day this style too will change.),”’ says Banerjee. Dhoni was right. The style did keep changing. It, in fact, went through a metamorphosis pretty much every other season. The mane was gone completely soon after Dhoni lifted the first of many titles as captain, the first-ever World T20 crown in 2007. Then, of course, he went for the ‘full monty’ on the night India won the 50-over World Cup in April 2011, His once rustic, ‘wannabe hep’, mehndi-coloured long mane might have given way to a more sophisticated crop cut a dozen years later. But during those periods, he never failed to keep up with the times—an undercut spike one day, a quiff the next, not to forget the brash Mohawk he sported during the 2013 IPL; and amazingly, both his local barber in Ranchi and his stylist Sapna Bhavnani have seen their profiles get a boost thanks to their work with his hair.

  A year later, in 2008, I was a cricket journalist and covering an international match, an ODI between India and England at the Chinnaswamy stadium in November, and about to come face-to-face with the man himself. It wasn’t a meeting that I had thought about or longed for anxiously, to be honest. But as I waited for him to enter the press conference room at the Lalit Hotel on that rainy afternoon, I do remember thinking whether Dhoni would notice the hair. I wanted him to, anyway. I also wanted him to then think about how he’d given up on being one of us simply because he couldn’t handle it. But nothing happened. My chance at this strange attempt at juvenile one-upmanship had come and gone.

  Actually, Dhoni notices everything. He never misses a beat or a note. Those who’ve known him from the early days in Ranchi swear by this Dhoni characteristic. ‘He won’t say much. But he observes everything,’ you hear every one of them say, almost incessantly. It’s something I had always noticed about him at press conferences, and it’s a trait that is still there. Most cricketers have their own way of settling down before it starts while the camera crew and reporters sort out their equipment. Dhoni’s thing has always been to judiciously arrange all the phones and voice recorders together on the table in front of him so that they’re all kind of bunched together. Even now, if he finds a phone, or one with a distinct phone cover, that he has probably not seen before, you’ll see him pick it up and check it out.

  A few years ago, during a practice session on the eve of an ODI, Dhoni suddenly walked up from behind and said, ‘Bahut jyaada badd gaye hai. (It’s become too long.)’ That’s when I realized that they don’t exaggerate when they say Dhoni notices everything. He had noticed the hair, after all. I wouldn’t say Dhoni and I are very close. The more tours I did, especially overseas, we did become familiar with each other even if our conversations were mainly random chats on the sidelines of practice sessions.

  But this was the first time he’d ever remarked about my hair. However, from that point on, this was the first thing he would talk about every single time we crossed paths. And it was always he who brought it up. It was to become our little in-joke.

  Except that one time I asked him about how he’d mustered the courage to actually get rid of his long hair and never grow it to any significant length again almost a decade ago. We were in Harare for India’s tour of Zimbabwe in 2016. It was a strange tour for Dhoni where he was captaining a team mainly made up of fringe players, most of whom he’d never shared a dressing room with. He was stuck mostly within the confines of the hotel with this bunch of young guys he was just getting to know. It ended up being a great tour for him even if he didn’t score many runs. Dhoni ended up playing mentor and tutor to most of them on and off the field, and by the end of it, he was a refreshed man. It was like he had found a new purpose to continue doing what he was doing. In a career where he’d embraced enough gimmicks to put a World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) wrestler to shame, he’d just found a new niche.

  Then he had a little piece of advice for me. ‘Teri biwi kya bolti hai? (What does your wife say?),’ he asked me. ‘She doesn’t mind it, I guess. She didn’t ask me to cut it even for our wedding,’ I replied. He then simply smiled at me and in that typical Dhoni fashion, said, ‘So do one thing, cut it really short and go surprise her. She’ll be happy . . .’ and walked away.

  Within just six months, he was coaxing me to give it a trim. Incidentally, his insistence on this started the day I told him about the book. I would like to believe it was just a coincidence. It was also the day he was about to meet the press in Pune after he’d announced his resignation as India’s ODI and T20 captain. The warehouse-like press conference room next to the massive dog kennel at the MCA stadium resembled a Mumbai local train with barely any standing space. I was near the entrance, right at the back. Dhoni arrived five minutes late. He was welcomed with that unmistakable wispy buzz that accompanies a poignant moment in time. And this was a massive moment. A man, who had held what’s considered the most nerve-racking job in world cricket with not much more than some greys to show for it for nearly a decade, was now addressing the media as just another player. Like every one
of my colleagues present, I too was revising the question that I had in mind for the man.

  It was Dhoni as usual who broke the ice. He did so by targeting my hair again. ‘Peeche se samajh nahi raha ki tu hai ya koi ladki khadi hai. (From behind, I can’t make out whether it’s you or a girl.),’ he said, resulting in giggles around us. Though slightly taken aback, I mumbled back something like, ‘Yaar, aap toh yeh mat bolo! (You of all people shouldn’t say that!)’ But by then he was almost at the business end of the room. Guess what the first question was to Dhoni? ‘Many people go to Tirupati to offer their hair to the lord. Ever since you took up India’s captaincy you’ve offered your hair little by little to the country’s cause. Will we get to see the hair back now that you are no longer captain?’ That was just Sunandan Lele being his jocose self. Dhoni made it clear that while he would stick to the team’s needs as a batsman, the hair wasn’t coming back ever.

  Little did I know that a throwaway comment on my hair would become his customized greeting. A week after the IPL of 2017, we were in England for the Champions Trophy. Nothing had changed in terms of our routine though. India began their campaign in Birmingham against Pakistan. And before I could even say hello as we crossed paths for the first time on English soil, Dhoni went, ‘Baal kaat lo, yaar. (Cut your hair, mate.)’

  It was the same at the Oval a few days later as India went back to London for their remaining league matches. He would see me, smile as he got closer and then the same line again. Soon, some of my fellow journalists caught on to it, and would pre-empt his greeting with their own versions of ‘baal kaatlo, yaar’ when they saw Dhoni approaching. At times I would get a word or two in about how there were other things like the book we could talk about. But he always ended up with the final word. Soon, the Champions Trophy was over, with India losing that famous final at the Oval to Pakistan. Our hair saga was to continue for a few weeks more, that too with new characters joining the cast.

  Dhoni and India left for the Caribbean following the Champions Trophy for a three-island tour which involved five ODIs and a solitary T20. So did I. And Dhoni’s fixation with getting my hair cut continued. With fewer reporters—the density of media presence had gone from, say, that of Mumbai’s western suburbs to the western Australian outback—Dhoni and I did get slightly more time for our sweet nothings. And somehow, almost every conversation started with ‘baal kaatlo, yaar’. Dhoni was one of the few cricketers who had his family in tow for the tour. Soon enough, even his wife and daughter joined the anti-hair campaign.

  Two-year-old Ziva was first on the job. The Indian team was staying in Antigua at the very posh Sugar Ridge Resort, which has steps leading to the cottages located on a rather steep hill. With the stadium a good forty-minute ride away on Antigua’s narrow and unkempt roads, the team management decided to hold the daily press conferences at the hotel itself. I was staying by myself in a desolate part of the island in the north and would generally stay back at Sugar Ridge to finish my daily work. There I would end up witnessing the Indian players, the starry ones included, indulging in rather mundane activities. It ranged from captain Virat Kohli carrying a heavy load of water bottles up to his cottage located on the highest point of the resort to Dhoni ferrying food for his wife and daughter. The latter would walk down with a few empty plastic boxes to the team room, a dining place right outside the lobby, and then appearing a few minutes later with them filled with food.

  ‘Biwi aur bachche ki seva chalu hai. (I continue to serve my wife and kid.),’ he said, intuitively anticipating my question.

  The next time I was there, Dhoni was on babysitting duty and was busy being a doting father to Ziva. And as he carried her back up to their room, Dhoni spotted me. But rather than go for his catchphrase himself, he tried to make Ziva do it. ‘Tell him baal kaatlo. Ask him to cut his hair,’ he said. Fortunately for me, Ziva either didn’t care or perhaps didn’t agree with her dad. Sakshi, though, was totally on her husband’s side. A few minutes after Dhoni and Ziva had left, she walked into the lobby and was soon asking the media manager, Gaurav Saxena, about the boys. When Gaurav told her that they were fine and Mahi had given me the usual grief, she carefully scanned my hair and then almost immediately said, ‘Haan, yaar, I think I want to cut your hair myself.’

  ‘Why is your entire family after my hair? Leave me alone,’ I quipped, to which she said, ‘Let’s fix a date. We’ll do it in Jamaica. I’ll even get Mahi on the job. It’ll be great fun.’ ‘Yeah, at my expense,’ I said. There was a slightly awkward encounter the day after Dhoni had been criticized heavily by everyone, including me, following his bizarrely stodgy 58 off 108 balls with just a single boundary. It was a match where India had fallen 11 runs short of chasing the meagre total of 190 set by a second-string West Indies outfit. Dhoni was undone by a maverick seamer, Kesrick Williams, playing only his second ODI, and the sword over his head had only gotten sharper.

  By the time I reached the airport the next morning en route to Jamaica for the final leg of the tour, the Indian team was already making its way in. Desperate to get to the check-in counter before them to avoid the obvious delay, I was rushing through, only to be stopped in my tracks. There stood Mrs Dhoni holding the pram and flashing an ominous smile, while her husband was brandishing an imaginary scissor in my direction. It was also another example of what everyone around Dhoni considers to be his greatest attribute—of being able to ‘live in the moment’. It’s rare for any sportsperson to look so relaxed and at peace with the world and himself at a time when the axe seems so perilously close to his neck. But that’s Dhoni for you.

  The gesturing and the taunting continued through the week in Kingston, from all members of the Dhoni family, but somehow they couldn’t get to me. As the tour came to an end, I had my final encounter with Dhoni. It, of course, began with the customary ‘baal kaatlo, yaar’ jibe before I inquired about whether he would be travelling to the USA, which he had done post previous tours to the Caribbean. When asked why he’s been so hell-bent on the haircut, he put it down as a matter of practical advice. The way he put it across was very akin to what we hear from him often over the stump camera. I suddenly felt like I was a spinner at the top of my mark, with Dhoni shouting out some prudent order from behind the stumps. ‘Don’t need to cut it fully. Layering kara le. Same length, less weight.’

  2

  The MECON Boy

  ‘Paagalkhane ke liye maana jaata tha, sir, Ranchi . . . Kahan ek MECON Colony ke ladke ne hum sab ko aasmaan tak pahuncha diya. (Ranchi was known mainly for an institution for the mentally ill . . . And from nowhere a boy from the MECON Colony has taken us to the skies.)’ You don’t have to look or listen too hard to realize that Chittu (Seemant Lohani) is besotted with his Mahi. Chittu is Dhoni’s oldest friend—they met at the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic (DAV) Jawahar Vidya Mandir School while still in junior school.

  Chittu isn’t exaggerating or indulging in loose-tongued hyperbole when he talks about his schoolmate putting Ranchi on the map. It’s a fact. Many have likened what Dhoni has done for his home town to what Sir Don Bradman did for his home town, Bowral. But Ranchi is not a sleepy, nondescript town to the south-west of Sydney. It’s if anything steeped in Indian history. Once ruled by the Mauryan empire, the people of Ranchi were used to fighting off insurgents, and often with success. They had thwarted the Mughals on one occasion and even gained independence before being recaptured. After the British took over, Ranchi became one of the epicentres of the uprising against colonial rule towards the end of the nineteenth century and was one of the strongholds of the revolutionaries throughout the freedom struggle till 1947. During this time, the district witnessed a number of revolutionary campaigns and anti-British crusades led by Ganesh Chandra Ghosh, the Chittagong-based freedom fighter, who started his own Revolutionary Party. It was in Ranchi that Mahatma Gandhi met the then lieutenant governor of Bihar and Orissa in 1917 regarding the Champaran issue which led to the first-ever satyagraha of any kind in the country.

  The city kind
of slipped off the national radar in independent India despite being home to ample natural and mineral resources. In the 1990s and well into the new millennium, the region became known for producing a high number of civil service officers and for having a high literacy rate; but then it also had to grapple with innumerable power cuts, where families found it prudent to finish cooking their dinner before the sun set.

  But it was Dhoni who firmly put Ranchi on the map again. There is an article online titled ‘What Made Ranchi Famous before Dhoni Came Along’. It deals with some of Ranchi’s other claims to fame, mostly of yore, including Birsa Munda. Born on 15 November 1875, he was a tribal leader and one of the youngest freedom fighters of that era, whose activism against missionaries and the British left a major impact on India’s freedom struggle. The fact that he died when only twenty-five, in a Ranchi jail, puts things in further perspective. He was later honoured with the title of Birsa Bhagwan.

  The Ranchi airport is named after Munda, who had even started his own religion. It is said that he did things his own way, often to the bemusement of those around him, much like the man who’d challenge him to the title of Ranchi’s most famous son a century later.

  Dhoni has himself spoken about the anonymity that his city was engulfed in for years, even as recently as his early days in international cricket. He mentioned this when the JSCA stadium was inaugurated in 2013. It’s anybody’s guess whether Ranchi could even have dreamt of having its own state-of-the-art ground which would become a regular centre for cricket at the highest level if not for Dhoni.

  ‘When I started my international career, people during the overseas tours used to ask me where I came from. I would first say India, then Jharkhand and then Ranchi. The next question invariably was, “Where is Ranchi?” I had to explain in different ways by saying, “It’s near Calcutta, near Jamshedpur from where Tata originated. It’s India richest state in terms of minerals. Now the city has its own cricket identity. I can proudly say I’m from Ranchi because of this international stadium,’ the Times of India quoted Dhoni as saying.*