Center court describes the journey of Shankar Mahadevan , a Indian Tennis player over the course of 2 weeks during wimbledon. It is not just the story of Shankar but it also brings the perspective of his father on how he feels during each of his matches.
The story is simple and straightforward. Of late, I have stopped reading books written by Indian Authors as I have developed a perception about the plot of their stories. (Credit Chetan Bhagat, Ravi Subramanian, Ashwin Sanghi and Amish Tripathi). Most of the Indian Authors try to be an Indian version of their western counterparts. Some want to be Indian DanBrown and some want to be John Grisham of Banking.
The most refreshing aspect of Sriram Subramanian is that he does not try to be any one. He does not try to mimic some western story to Indian context. He does not go with the most tried and tested approach of any author I have read or known. His writing and his writing style is unique in its own way.
This book is about tennis and you need not know anything about tennis if you want to enjoy the book. Let me make it clear. I have never held a tennis racket in my hand. However, I follow the tennis tournaments and results for more than a decade. Every tennis player and fan’s dream is to play/watch a match at Wimbledon , roam around the Wimbledon town, sit in the players box and visit the locker room and see what the players do. Can all these dreams come true in a book format?
Sriram subramanian tries to bring most of these situation infront our eyes as we read the book. I felt like I was winning every match as Shankar Mahadevan wins every match. This book is a gem not in its story line but in writing style. There are no fancy words and complex grammars to prove the authors superior vocabulary or so. But the writing is absolutely wonderful in its way. It transports the reader to the Wimbledon grounds, locker room and the town.
Sriram also brings in various issues that are prevalent in tennis like prize money distribution between men and women tennis players, increased prize money for lower ranked players in grand slams, burn out of the tennis players, abuse faced by players from their parents and the politics played by tennis federation.
One of the main reasons i enjoyed reading the book was I agree with the author on the following points.
1) Tennis is a not team sport but an individual sport to which I completely agree.
2) Tennis does not evoke patriotism as any other sport.
If the story was made as a Bollywood movie, the ending would been different. Having said that I like the way Sri ram ended it. If you have not read this, I would suggest you to pick it up right away.
In the end, I wish I was Shankar Mahadevan.
My Rating : 5/5.
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