Other fish to fry
With cricket thin on the ground, our correspondent goes looking for seafood and strange fruit
Karthik Krishnaswamy25-Aug-2016August 6
My first evening in St Lucia is neatly divided between two neighbouring but very different parts of the island. First, dinner at Rodney Bay, a strip of restaurants, bars and hotels catering almost exclusively to tourists. The mahi-mahi is as fresh as it can be and perfectly grilled with a herbaceous marinade, and by the side are strips of grilled plantain that are possibly even better. I could be in any tourist spot in the world. Except perhaps India, since it’s possible to spot Indian cricketers strolling around happily with no one seeming to recognise them.The next stop, Gros Islet, isn’t exactly off the map, and the “jump-ups” every Friday night turn the streets into a pulsing party zone. But this is Saturday night, and there is an ageless, lamplit stillness to the streets. There is a bar on nearly every corner, and most are one- or two-storey wood-frame structures that look like the post office that Walker Evans photographed in Sprott, Alabama, in 1936, except for the hand-painted signs, which advertise Piton or Chairman’s Reserve rather than Coca-Cola. The karaoke bar we are at occupies the ground floor of an ageing art-deco-ish structure with a curved façade.The boundaries between the various bars, and the bars and the street, are amorphous, and everyone seems to know everyone else. Apart from the two Indian cricket journalists standing around, shuffling their feet, reluctant to reveal their singing prowess, or lack thereof.August 7
The apartment I’m staying in is part of a complex that includes a walled-off swimming pool. I rise early, walk to the pool, and realise its gate is shut. I return to the apartment, fetch a keyring with about 37,219 keys in it, and walk back to the pool. I try each of the keys, and none works. I try again, and fail again. The wall is topped with spikes, and I debate inwardly before deciding not to risk clearing it.August 8
There is a Darren Sammy statue in front of the main gate of the Darren Sammy Stadium, and as far as statues of cricketers go, it is not winning any contests. It isn’t really a statue in the first place; it’s more accurately described as a cutout, and if you happen to view it from the wrong side, as I do the first time I see it, you will wonder why its maker chose to portray Sammy batting left-handed.Inside, one of the stands is named after Johnson Charles, who has played 42 ODIs, 29 T20Is, and zero Test matches. Easier to have a stand named after you if you’re from St Lucia rather than Mumbai or Bangalore or Chennai, I suppose.On the way back from the stadium, I’m reminded of two other West Indies batsmen when I see a store named Sherwin-Williams. I google it and realise it’s an American Fortune 500 company (whatever that means) in the building-materials industry, but I’d like to think whoever founded it named it after the ’90s opening pair of Sherwin Campbell and Stuart Williams.August 9
Day one of the third Test, and the TVs at the press box haven’t quite caught up. They only start to show the cricket from around lunchtime. Until then, a force-of-habit glance in their direction brings you, in lieu of replays, scenes from .When in Gros Islet, sing along•Karthik Krishnaswamy/ESPNcricinfo LtdSometimes asking a taxi driver to suggest a nice place to eat isn’t a good way to find down-home local food. Tonight a fellow journalist and I end up at a Rodney Bay steakhouse with sensational food at even more sensational prices. We realise the latter only after sitting down and perusing the menu, and decide to go ahead and eat rather than stage a slightly embarrassing walkout. We are reassured by a picture on the wall, a 19th century advertisement for Colman’s Mustard featuring WG Grace walking out to bat.Soon a trio of 21st century top-order batsmen walks into the same restaurant. M Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, KL Rahul. One of them has forced one of the others out of the team for this Test match, and the third has also missed out on a place in the XI, but we detect no tensions bubbling underneath the surface bonhomie.August 10
Below the stand that houses the press box, I spot a group of kids playing cricket and ask if I can bat for a few balls. Someone reluctantly hands me what looks like a cross between a cricket bat and a baseball bat. It is a cricket bat that has had its shoulders shaved off. I shape to play a textbook forward-defensive into the covers and the ball trickles towards midwicket. Someone, probably sarcastically, says, “Well played.” After I hand the bat back, I watch one of the kids batting, and his method is better suited to the hybrid baseball-cricket bat. He leans back, clears his front leg and swats the ball beyond the stadium gate.August 11
It rains all morning and afternoon, and play is called off early. The skies look like clearing up, and I look up various St Lucian spots I could check out with the free time I now have, but before I can settle on one, it starts pouring again. Back to the apartment, therefore, for an evening spent watching the final of the women’s individual all-around gymnastics at the Olympics and adding to Simone Biles’ burgeoning fan base.August 12
Friday night and it’s street-party time in Gros Islet. We get there around 11.30, after finishing our writing for the day. I am tired, I am sleepy, and I have never really enjoyed large crowds and loud music and dancing. But there is food to be eaten, and I join the longer of the two queues at a seafood spot by the beach. The two others I’m with line up at the shorter queue, and are almost done with their food by the time I join them at their table. My grilled conch is slightly disappointing because it’s rubbery, and pales in comparison with the conch water I ate in Antigua. The others are eating tuna, and they have saved a piece for me. It’s the greatest piece of tuna I’ve ever eaten, and it makes me question every choice I have ever made in my life. Darren Sammy shows up too, and joins the tuna queue.Also on tonight’s menu is sea moss, a drink that is sometimes made with rum, and sometimes with milk and various flavourings, and always contains Irish sea moss. Mine tastes like a peanut-butter milkshake, with the sea moss lending texture but no real flavour. It’s a vague echo of the seaweed-containing desserts and drinks available back home, such as the pan-Indian , and Madurai’s magnificently named .August 13
Last evening in St Lucia, and the Test match ends early, allowing a visit to Reduit Beach. I feel like I’m at the edge of the planet as I wade in neck-deep water and watch the sun merge into its reflection. I never want to leave, ever. That’s until the seawater begins to sting my eyes and cheeks, sending me rushing for land.Reduit Beach grabs a hold of you, until it doesn’t•Karthik Krishnaswamy/ESPNcricinfo LtdAugust 14
Jane Doe has a middle name. Kim. That’s what I discover on a sample immigration form pasted near the security checkpoint at the George FL Charles Airport in St Lucia.The cab ride from Trinidad’s Piarco airport to my guest house in Port-of-Spain is long and scenic, with the sunset stretching across the field of vision. The radio plays Hindi film songs from the 1970s, but these are cover versions by artistes from Trinidad and Tobago. As fourth- or fifth-generation Trinbagonians, their Hindi sounds a little South Indian, a little challenged by the hard-edged consonants like “chha” and “gha” and “dha”. I sing along happily with but a couple of other songs, reaching into the maudlin-saccharine end of the Bollywood spectrum, dampen the mood a little. Just as we pass a corrugated tin wall with “LOVE” spray-painted over it, the radio wails, ” [Life is little else but the story of you and me].August 15
It’s Independence Day back in India. A crude engraving on a paving stone stops me as I hunt for a brunch spot. “Kalonji is here,” it says. I look all around and fail to spot any Nigella seeds aka Kalonji, an essential component of , the Bengali spice mixture.I find a sno-cone stall, and buy a coconut-flavoured shaved-ice concoction. It is extremely sugary, and when I walk into a roti shop with three-fourths of the cone still remaining, the TV is playing a talk show involving a health specialist talking about the symptoms of Type 2 diabetes.I’m not in the greatest frame of mind as I sit down with my sno-cone and my order of and beef with vegetables (there’s a mashed-potato and dal and pumpkin and beans and spinach), but 11am programming gives way to 11.30am programming, and the host of this cooking show says she is going to make roast asparagus with prosciutto and hollandaise sauce. The universe is immediately a better place.August 16
I’m staying within walking distance of Queen’s Park Savannah, which is on my shortlist for greatest places on earth and beyond. This green, 260-acre open space contains sports fields of all descriptions, trees all around its perimeter, and plenty of food stalls in the evenings. On my first evening here I sampled pig-foot souse, a tangy, pickled concoction that is delicious but extremely fiddly to eat with plastic forks. Tonight I try the corn and cow-heel soup. It comes with chickpeas and pieces of dasheen as well, and it tastes like a styrofoam cup of soup should: utterly comforting, with just the right amount of stickiness from the gelatin-rich bones.The juice stall contains a bewildering list of names: there’s Mauby, a bitter, refreshing flavouring obtained from some sort of tree bark; and all manner of unfamiliar fruit: portugal, barbadine, mammy apple. I try the barbadine punch, and it turns out to be a milkshakey thing with ground almonds and a vaguely passion-fruit taste.August 17
Apologies in advance, because today the tour diary will journey into my guest-house bathroom. Among its fixtures is a bidet, and above it is a handwritten sign that says “This is not a urinal.” It is a piece of postmodern art that effortlessly references both Marcel Duchamp’s and Rene Magritte’s pipe, which, of course, is not a pipe.Belmont by moonlight•Karthik Krishnaswamy/ESPNcricinfo LtdAugust 18
Day one of the fourth Test, and I watch the last bits of cricket that I will watch on this tour. Only 22 overs are possible as rain arrives shortly before lunch and rules out any further play. As the rain abates, I walk down to a bookstore on Tragarete Road. By the time I’m done shopping, it grows overcast again. I run out of prepaid credit on my phone and a member of the bookstore staff calls a cab for me. She tells the cab driver what to expect. “The gentleman has a full head of hair,” she says, “and is wearing a dark blue T-shirt.” I am colour-blind but I can safely vouch that I’m wearing a grey T-shirt. Really.August 19
It’s a full-moon night, and I walk around Belmont, the neighbourhood I’m staying in. I pass a spot where I had taken a photograph of some graffiti the previous afternoon – a toothy man with a thin moustache, tongue sticking out of open mouth, wearing a cap that says “Sandra” – and the wall is now a pile of rubble, with a bulldozer rumbling away next to it. In case you’re reading this, whoever painted it, I have a picture that I’m happy to email you.August 20
I walk to the Savannah again, and pick up a cup of Guinness ice cream. I keep walking, westwards I think, into downtown Port-of-Spain, and everything is desolate until I reach City Hall, which is all lit up, with a stage in front of it, chairs for an audience of 80-odd, and bellydancers and stilt-walkers everywhere. It’s National Patriotism Month, organised by the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts.August 21
The outfield at Queen’s Park Oval simply refuses to dry up. No can do. It is a situation that calls for a miracle, and I am given a bit of hope on my way back to the guest house. According to the radio in the taxi, a statue of the Virgin Mary in a Bolivian church has wept red tears, and a local hospital is performing tests on samples of the liquid to ascertain if it is blood.August 22
I’m at a sports bar in Belmont, alone, reading Zadie Smith on my phone, when an elderly man, clearly drunk, shows up and challenges me to a game of pool. He is in terrible form and pots the cue ball every second turn. He beats me narrowly, twice. Then he warns me against dark rum, or, as it seems to be known in these parts, red rum. “My mother always told me,” he tells me, “red rum is mad rum. Mad rum.”August 23
My tour is nearly over, and there is time for just one more lunch, one more styrofoam box of Creole food. Today there is fried salmon – a fish that is treated like a rare delicacy in most parts of the world, but just another fish here, battered, fried, and beautiful – red beans, my millionth and last serving of them on this tour, and “provisions”, or a mix of steamed tubers – plantain, dasheen, sweet potato. Simple, everyday things, full of the soul of the Caribbean, and a dash of hot sauce on the side.