INDIA AND THE AMRITRAJ LIVING ROOM

I wasn’t to realize it when, in 1990, I first arrived in India, but it was to be the start of a long love affair with the country and its people. 

Years earlier as a junior player competing on the New Zealand Junior Tennis Circuit I stayed at a house in Wellington that had just installed colour TV.  

Now that doesn’t mean much to younger people today but back in 1975 some lucky homes in New Zealand were just starting to replace their black and white models with new colour TV’s!   It was just fascinating to watch all your favourite programs in colour.  Oddly enough one of the best programs to view in colour at the time was Sesame Street.  “Big Bird” was yellow!

During my stay in Wellington, New Zealand was also playing Davis Cup against India and the Amritraj brothers, Vijay and Anand were doing their best to beat the New Zealand team of Onny Parun and Brian Fairlie on the grass courts at Stanley Street, Auckland.  

It was really special for me to watch the dark ebony Amritraj brothers move about on a perfectly manicured grass court.  On top of that, players back then were just beginning to wear some colour in their tennis outfits, especially shirt collars and short pockets. 

This was very glamorous stuff at the time and when I arrived in India to start work at the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Scheme some 16 years later, actually meeting the Amritraj family personally was very significant to me. 

My first contact was meeting the family patriarch, Robert Amritraj at Madras airport.  Once I cleared immigration I made my way out to the family car and sat with Robert waiting on Vijay to arrive on a later flight from LA.  It was evident that the Amritraj family was no normal Indian family as we seemed to be sitting in the only Mercedes Benz at the airport, if not the state of Tamil Nadu. 

I actually traveled back to the “BAT” apartment alone. As I was to learn very quickly, not all men are created equal in India and protocol demanded that I travel in the BAT van. Although I sometimes got to ride in the family Mercedes, it didn't happen that often!

After washing up and checking our new home out my colleague Rob Smith and I were summoned to the Amritraj house located next to a cemetery and on busy Sterling Road.  

The house is a curious arrangement as it has been divided in to two parts, the top half, where the Amritraj family lives and the bottom half, where Mrs. Amritraj’s sister lives.  Both are elderly women but seemingly haven’t spoken to each other for so many years no one is sure just how long it’s been.  There must have been a lot of bad blood between them as Maggie Amritraj never mentioned her sister nor acknowledged that she existed, even though she was living directly above her!

The highlight on that first day for me was being welcomed inside the Amritraj living room and sitting amongst all the trophy cabinets and tennis memorabilia.  
The room is circular and spacious but it was being in the company of Vijay that was special to me.  Here was that guy on the TV who had captured my attention all those years ago.  I was now actually in his childhood home chatting with him while stealing glances at the tennis history around the walls.  

Maybe my decision to leave New Zealand and try coaching tennis overseas wasn’t such a goofy idea.  If I didn’t last very long at this new adventure at least I had met Vijay Amritraj and had been a guest in his living room. 

Working overseas was already looking like a good idea.

MARCO R.I.P.

Coaching tennis can have its rewards.  Over the years I have been able to really affect people’s lives through tennis. 

When I first arrived in Bangkok in 1986 I worked at the Hilton Bangkok, one of the best hotels in the city at that time. The Hilton Bangkok had a top flight French Restaurant called Ma Maison and I think it still goes by that name today.  The manager of Ma Maison was Marco, actually an Italian guy in his mid-twenties who stood stiff and proud at the entrance to the restaurant every evening. Marco and I would exchange greetings as I returned from the tennis courts in the evenings and he waited at the doorway for his evening clientele. Sometimes I would stop and talk, usually small talk, but it was always fun as Marco had a good sense of humor.  One day Marco said that he had always wanted to learn to play tennis but had never had the opportunity. I offered to teach him and Marco accepted!

In the beginning Marco couldn’t even make contact with the ball but his joy at just swinging a racquet was plain to see.  I was able to try different approaches to teaching him and soon Marco began to improve until he was able to rally with me after only a few days. During this time Marco’s whole personality began to change.  He began to exercise more away from our scheduled lessons.  He stopped smoking and eating red meat.  With these changes even Marco’s appearance began to alter, he was a new man and Marco began to look at me as a messiah who had changed his life.

I left the Hilton not long after and lost contact with Marco.  I heard stories that he eventually left the Hilton Bangkok and had gone to Phuket Island to work, taking a job as a general manager at a resort hotel there.  This was great news as he had an excellent service mentality and this was just the type of work he would excel at.

Years later Thailand was shocked when the Dragon Air flight from Phuket to Bangkok crashed into the sea shortly after take off.  All the passengers were killed, including my dear friend Marco who was on-board that day.  Unfortunately there was an element of horrible bad luck to this story.  Hours before the flight the Governor of Phuket was running late for the scheduled flight.  His wife kept pleading with him to hurry or he would miss the flight to Bangkok.  He insisted that he had arrived quite late in the past and had always been allowed to board the flight, and this would be the case today.  Fortunately for the Governor and unfortunately for Marco the Governors seat was given to the first person on stand-by, Marco!  Marco flew that day and died in the crash that occurred just after take off.    

THE STRANGER AT COURT-SIDE: TOKYO 1988

In 1988 I had landed the role as Chinese Junior National Team Coach.  4 boys and 4 girls were selected from throughout the country and were trained for two months inside mainland China. This was the beginning of China’s emergence back into the international tennis mainstream after years of isolation.  We later played junior ITF tournaments in Jakarta, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Also on the trip was a Thai team under the management of a local ex-pat Gordon U.E Martin.  Gordon was a true tennis fanatic. Gordon helped put Thai tennis on the map in the early days by bringing  professional tennis to Thailand and starting ITF junior events for the first time. Those early ITF Junior events started by Gordon are still held annually each year. 

Gordon was particularly interested in the history of Asian tennis and after years of research he eventually published the Asian Tennis Encyclopedia.  The book is still the definitive history of tennis in the Asian region.

Gordon and I spent a lot of time together on the trip and he was fascinated by my Chinese players as he seemed to have a real interest in things Chinese.

It was in Tokyo that my story takes place.  One evening as the matches were finishing for the day I was making my way back to the clubhouse and to catch the bus back to the tournament hotel.  It was bitterly cold but I noticed Gordon on the back courts watching a late match being played under lights.  


I approached him and he was quick to introduce me to the only other spectator watching the match.  Gordon explained that he and the stranger had struck up a conversation while the man was watching his son play. They discovered that they knew each other from years earlier in New York.  Gordon used to buy his breakfast at the diner this man worked at and now they had met at courtside in Tokyo!

The three of us stood talking as the man’s son played his first round match.  The boy wasn’t bad either, a bit too laid back to ever make it at the top level but a solid player. The stranger was Mr. Sampras and his son Pete went on to have a fairly decent career winning 15 Grand Slam singles titles.

A few years later I met Pete’s older brother Gus in L.A.  My colleague David Nelson and I were meeting to try and establish a link with their new company Pure Sports Management which we hoped would help manage outstanding players under Bigger Better Tennis (BBT) here in Asia.   

I related the story to Gus that day and he believed that it would have been one of Pete’s first overseas trips as a 17 year old.  His father probably didn't attend another tournament Pete played in for nearly a decade.

Two years later Pete Sampras won the US Open Singles title.

THE KITE BOY

Whenever someone asks me to describe India I usually say “You either love it or hate it, there’s no in-between”.  India is a place where joy and sadness walk hand in hand.  This story illustrates both the sadness of the place and also the resilience of the people who live under the poorest conditions there.

Sunday was a day off at the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Scheme (BAT).  After a long week of training both the boys and the coaches were glad of a day away from the courts.  I really enjoyed Sundays because it meant a sleep in, buffet lunch at the Connemara Hotel and a walk home through the tree lined streets.

There was one Sunday when I remember spending the morning down at Marina Beach with some of the boys flying kites.  Kite flying is a favorite pastime for boys in India, but particularly the kite fights between boys.  The tradition is that boys coat their lines with a mixture of finely ground glass and a type of wax-like glue.  The strategy is to cross your line over your opponent’s line, cutting it before he cuts yours, and win the dog fight.

This Sunday there was a large group of young boys from the nearby slum playing with us.  Every time one of the lines was cut the kite would float down the beach some considerable distance with the wind, and would be followed by boys of all sizes racing to collect it.  This was ok by us because the alternative was us retrieving the kite ourselves!  On this particular day one boy was always first to the kite and we would reward him with a few rupees.  As the day wore on most of the other boys gave up and went home but the “Kite Boy” continued to stay, and collect his reward!

When it came time to go home we were all getting ready to enter the van, changing sweaty shirts and brushing sand off ourselves.  I changed my T-shirt and handed it to the “Kite Boy” as a gift.  His eyes lit up when he realized he was being given my shirt, a white one with a large tennis logo on the front.  Finally we were in the van and on our way home. Eventually we forgot all about the “Kite Boy”.

On normal training mornings we used the beach for fitness runs before the boys went to school.  Starting at 6:10am we would run the length of the beach and back again, quite a tough run in the soft sand.  I was to be leaving India in a short time after 2 years coaching there.  There wouldn’t be too many more of these runs left for me.  

 On this day we had completed our run and were preparing to journey back by van to the BAT house.  As usual, there were several beggars around the van with us asking for money.  None of us took money to the beach for runs so we were ignoring them and while some of the boys were completing their stretch, others had already boarded the van.  I was just entering the van when something that was said made me stop.  One of the beggars had grabbed my attention.  I turned to the boy and asked “what did you say”?  He repeated “my friend sir, he asked me to tell you”.  “Who is your friend” I asked, still confused.   “You gave him a T-shirt sir”.  Then I remembered our day on the beach almost 10 months before.  The Kite Boy who had been our companion that day and had worked so hard to retrieve the kites.  “My friend sir, he told me to come and tell you” the beggar boy repeated.  “Tell me what” I asked.  “He wanted me to tell you he was dead” the boy said proudly, knowing he had my attention now and that I was interested in what he was saying.  I froze on the spot, “what do you mean, tell me he’s dead”? I asked.  “When my friend was lying in bed dying he asked me to find the foreign man who gave him the t-shirt and tell him he was dead”

When I did finally enter the van the boys could see something was wrong.  My face must have been white.  Several of the boys asked me what was wrong.  After I explained what I had been told, and they had remembered the kite boy all that time ago, they too fell into silence, stunned by the sadness of the story.

Even today, when I think of the small boy who had so much life on the beach that day I feel deep sadness.  But perhaps the saddest part of the story is that my one act of kindness concerning an old, sweaty t-shirt was remembered as a highlight in that boy’s life. So much so that he had asked his friend to find me one day and recount his last days alive so that I would know that he was dead.