Hanging out in Berbice

The region of Berbice in Guyana is historical for the number of West Indies cricketers it has produced of East Indian origin - Rohan Kanhai and Shivnarine Chanderpaul to name a few. Rahul Bhattacharya, the acclaimed author of Pundits from Pakistan spent a week there in the beautiful flat mud villages, sampling the three essential passions of Berbician life: Hindi film and music, alcohol, and cricket.

Rahul also chronicles in brief, the history of the struggles of the East Indian inhabitants in the region, how cricket was the ultimate healer as well as the means of gaining the recognition they deserved.

For the East Indians – “coolies, illiterate labourers; many of us went to school barefooted – Kanhai as well”, Kanhai's every stroke was a stroke of liberation. Against India his success was “a triumph over the pretentious, cruel rigidities of the homeland and its dubious obsessions with purity and cant”.

Read the full piece in The Hindustan Times