The uncommon green

Even as the city shrugs off the last vestiges of sleep, the Maidan is up and awake. From within the depths of the vast open greens, still a murky grey against the fast-lightening eastern sky, life makes its presence felt through grunts and sneezes. There is a shuffling of feet and a loosening of limbs in acknowledgment of the day ahead.

The streams of limp sunlight filtering through the wintry morning etch out the figures of Shahrukh, Saheb, Ustad and Bade Mian, four of the many horses released by their owners to graze and sleep within the folds of the cool Maidan night. With the appearance of the first batch of morning walkers, their minders tug the animals away to their headless carriages, shining in their kitschy, faux-regal aluminum foil trimmings. "Rs 100 for a ride, Rs 100 for a ride," the young cart-owners call.

The Maidan, its sprawling expanse occupying approximately 1000 acres and running over 3km in length, is where the city breathes and where it catches its breath. It is close to the city's heart. And as an undisturbed stretch of green within the concrete of India's third-most populous city, the Maidan is also unanimously eulogised as its lungs. The Maidan addresses a need. It belongs to everyone.

It belongs to the man supine on a mat, whose daily yoga routine in an isolated corner of the Maidan allows his middle-aged frame to bend easily. It is as much for the frisbee-carrying family that steps out of their car as it is for the bearded, forehead-creased guru who delivers an early-morning lecture in Hindi to a group of businessmen and their wives. The guru sits on a portable platform and asks the assembled to offer their salutations to the sun, which has now crossed the modest heights of the Kolkata skyline on the eastern flank of the Maidan.

An hour after daybreak an army of trampling feet takes over the Maidan with their cricket gear and enthusiasm. The collusion of running feet effectively dislodges the soft winter mist that lolled over the burnt yellow grass, replacing it with a dust-storm that dulls the marble vision of the Victoria Memorial.

These are level playing grounds - literally, for every player is assured of a free, cross-batted hit. It is a Sunday and by 7am more than two dozen matches are being played side by side, with fielders of one game frequently running through the neighbouring pitch. The Maidan is large enough to accommodate every cricketing eccentricity - matches played with no middle stump, habitual chuckers, a helmeted batsman facing a soft ball, wooden sticks for those not equipped with proper bats, shifting boundary lines and flexi rules.

Though the freewheeling sportsmanship may indicate otherwise, the Maidan, in many ways, is hallowed ground for the game. The venerated Eden Gardens is at the western end of the park, while dozens of cricket coaching camps dot the length and breadth of the Maidan. These are serious affairs involving nets, proper gear, crisp white flannels, sweaty hours of well-pitched bowling and straight-bat drives. "Sir, please give me a break. My shoulder is aching," pleads the teenaged medium-pacer next to the Aryan Club grounds. "Not until you manage perfectly swing one outside the off stump," replies the coach.

Indian cricket, writes English author and journalist Geoffrey Moorhouse in his book Calcutta, was born on the Maidan, with a two-day match in January 1804 between Old Etonians employed by the Company and "Calcutta". One of the players, he says, was the son of Sir Elijah Impey, the chief justice of Bengal. The Etonians went on to win by 152 runs.

From the time the British East India Company created the Maidan in the late-18th century by clearing tiger-infested jungles to allow a clean shot to their soldiers at Fort William (now the headquarters of the Eastern Command of the Indian Army), to this day, cricket is one of the few surviving links the city maintains with the Raj.

In the years since 1947, the Maidan has been the focal point of public expressions of national pride. The large number of statues of British public figures, installed around the Maidan by the colonial masters, have now been replaced by statues of Indian nationalist leaders. The only pre-Independence athlete to have a prominent statue here is footballer Goshto Pal, who played for the local Mohun Bagan club. In 1935, when Mohun Bagan played against Calcutta Club - perceived to represent the British - Pal protested against the bias of the white referee, which angered the British-dominated Indian Football Association (IFA), the governing body. It was an act that made Pal a hero - and won him a Padmashree award in 1962 and a robust statue facing Eden Gardens.

From the Maidan rang out rabble-rousing political speeches, both before Independence and from circa the mid-70s, when Kolkata and the state of West Bengal stood on the threshold of communist rule. In 1955, two million people are reported to have gathered at the Maidan to offer a rousing welcome to Soviet leaders Bulganin and Khrushchev. Even greater numbers converged on the grounds when Indian communists, led by Jyoti Basu (who went on to rule Bengal for a record 23 years), called a rally in 1977 to announce the state's first communist government.

Even as the rigid rules of the Army (the legal owners of the land), the High Court and environmental activists - not to mention the people's growing disenchantment with rabble-rousing politics - have cut down drastically on meetings at the Brigade Parade Ground (as the Maidan is also known), it has continued to belong to anybody in need of open breathing space.

Laltu, though, is short of breath from all the running around. His position at long-on is an active one; most hits - and mishits - by the batsman end up in his zone. The 13-year-old accompanies other friends from his neighbourhood in Cental Kolkata's Taltala to the Maidan every weekend. In their crowded locality, the only option would be carrom or cards. Cricket is better, he admits.

As we speak, the batsman heaves mightily and connects well. The ball sails above the head of the players, past the neighbouring match and past Laltu. It lands bang in the middle of a herd of goats, each marked in the forehead with distinguishing orange tikkas. The cork and leather ball falling into their midst causes a great commotion and the herd is scattered. The sudden appearance of the fielder creates further alarm. As Laltu runs in, the ball is lost for a moment in the melee. When he finally retrieves the ball from beyond the perceived boundary line, a noisy debate ensues between the batting and the fielding sides. Is the batsman responsible for sending the ball beyond the boundary or were the goats?

And so the game goes on at the Maidan.