Skip to main content

Center Court by Sriram Subramanian



                               Image courtesy : Amazon

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.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

After the funeral by Agatha Christie

                         Image Courtesy : Amazon Richard Abernethie, a wealthy man, dies at home. All the relatives of Richard gather together to discuss the will during which, Richard’s sister, Cora says Richard is actually murdered. Cora is found dead the next day. Mr Entwhistle, the family solicitor, calls up Poirot and requests him to investigate both the murders. Poirot, as usual, using his little grey cells resolves the murderer. A typical Christie - Poirot murder mystery would be like, a murder is committed and there are 4 to 5 primary suspects. Each suspect has a motive to commit the murder and each of them has something to hide from the investigators. At the end, Poirot dramatically   reveals the murderer (who generally is the least suspect) by gathering all the participants in a room. After the funeral follows the exact typical, tried and tested formula of Agatha. Christie’s love for dysfu...
Post a Comment
Read more

4.50 from Paddington (Miss Marple) - Agatha Christie.

                                     Image Courtesy : Amazon Mrs. Elspeth McGillicuddy is on a visit to St. Mary Mead to meet her friend Miss Marple in a Train where she sees a man strangling a woman in the adjacent train. She informs the ticket collector who does not believe her. She reached St. Mary Mead and informed  Miss Maple about the murder. Miss Marple decides to find where the body of the dead person is. With the help of train time table and local maps, Miss Marple concludes that Rutherford hall as the possible location of where the body could be hidden. She hires Lucy Eyelesbarrow, an intelligent house keeper, to assist her in finding the body in the Rutherford hall. Mr Crackenthorpe and his family lives in Rutherford Hall. Lucy enters Rutherford Hall as a house keeper and successfully finds the dead body. Who is the dead pe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier

Image Courtesy : Amazon “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again”. The opening lines of Rebecca set the tone and mood for the rest of the book. Our unnamed protagonist, who works as a companion to Mrs Van Dee Hooper happens to chance Mr Maxim De Winter (a widower and who is almost twice the age of the protagonist) in a hotel. The acquaintance leads to couple of dates and eventually both of them fall in love with each other. Once, they marry, Maxim takes Mrs. De Winter to Manderley. Mrs. De Winter finds it difficult to adjust to the new house. Mrs. Denver, the devoted housekeeper of Rebecca (Maxim's first wife), still runs the house. She couldn’t resist anyone taking up raking up Rebecca’s place. Mrs. De Winter continues to think herself as inferior to Rebecca and strongly believes that Maxim is still in love with Rebecca. Mrs. Denvers uses this opportunity to persuade Mrs. De Winter to commit suicide. Slowly, it is revealed that   Rebecca did not die of accident. ...
Post a Comment
Read more