The first perch of Sanju Samson on the piece of real estate that he knows like his backyard was a heavy roller adjacent to the nets. He sat with the laid-back authority of a local don, with his legs crossed and flashing a mild grin, soaking in the ambience, perhaps feeling the familiar air again. Support staff members would pass by, casually enquiring him about something or the other. Perhaps about his homecoming, or gleaning local expertise about the pitch or the outfield.
In the groundsman’s dungeon beside the sight-screen, pitch predictions were dismissed in one metaphor some hours ago. “It’s shining like a mirror,” a groundsman was overheard telling the other. The face they would love to see in the mirror, understandably, is that of Sanju. He is a familiar face for all, yet it’s the first time that they would see him in India’s stripes, a symbolic moment for the city, its most illustrious sportsman and the feverish fans, who would flock from the whole state. His lone appearance at Greenfield has come as a substitute fielder in a T20I against the West Indies in 2019. It’s a tale of wait within waits.
The first was to spot him. A battalion of policemen kept their duties aside to assemble in a neat column in the stands. The superior officers wouldn’t bother to shout orders or expletives at them. For they themselves are star-struck. The crowd outside the stadium was scattered and restrained in their show of enthusiasm, perhaps preserving their energy for the match day.
The next episode of the wait was to watch him bat. The globe of orange fire was slipping into the horizon when he walked in, with measured strides. The eyes converged on him, abuzz with excitement. A few decisive defensive strokes later, he coaxed a full ball from a net bowler over the sight-screen, or over the long-on from where he was batting. The groundstaff smiled, like the floodlights that flickered to life. With a disarming smile, he vanished into the dressing room. He returned for fielding drills before he kissed the Greenfield evening goodnight.
Where one wait ends, another goes on. The wait for runs, the wait to watch the familiar blaster again. It has been a strange patch, where the man on the screen is not the man his devout has watched growing up. Sanju of the past moved minimally; his movements were precise and peaceful. Now, he shuffles inorganically in the crease. Maybe it originates from a muddled mind. Games fly thick and fast, and a lean patch could push the mind into a gorge of confusion. Familiar settings could be a balm; it could be a burden too. Nowhere else will the spectators be as nervously hopeful of him scoring that one uplifting knock at the Greenfield Stadium. Nowhere else would there be more crushing pressure than at home.
He will dispel the clouds and shine brightly over the stadium, his faithfuls aver. His childhood coach and guiding force, Biju George, sought a Biblical refrain on his Facebook wall: “There will always be crucifixion before resurrection.” Optimism flows through the narrow alleys that tumble into the stadium, too.
But he has made some fans seek spiritual invocations. Like breaking coconuts at the famous Pazhavangadi Temple, or light candles at the Vettucaud Church, or offering silk clothes and flowers at the Beemapally. To his fervent fans, he is the closest they have seen to Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli. “We wait for him to bat like we once flocked in front of the TV for Tendulkar,” says Fabid Shaanu, a member of the “official” Sanju Samson Fan Club. Then, there are a few hundred associations that claim the “official” label. “We are all his fans, all of us want to see him play well. So we don’t argue,” he says. The arguing bit is left to Thread and Facebook, where they fiercely defend their idol.
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Sanju’s emergence is an outlier story in the capital city. Thiruvananthapuram is not a city that lends itself to the passionate pursuit of sports. Rather, it is wedded to academics, the weight of textbooks hunches young shoulders more than sporting kits; the race for a government job throbs in the city. The sprawling century-old secretariat building, with its unflinching clock tower and multi-pane windows, stands as the symbol of the city’s middle-class aspirations. It’s a city where kingdoms and dynasties rise and fall, but people move on unsympathetically. But he has made them shed tears and made them laugh.
There is little time to stop and brood on sports, but for the ageing romantics who recount the ODI between India and West Indies at the old Chandrasekharan Nair Stadium, or West Indies’ legend Conrad Hunte’s visit for an exhibition game in the 1960s. But Sanju, incredibly, has made the city pause for the sport as it never done before. He has made the city, where harsh pragmatism and vaulting ambition are considered virtues, soft and tolerant. And now, the city waits for its deity to blaze in all his furious glory. To be the boss on Saturday, to show he owns this piece of real estate.
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