From being in a national-level age-group camp without knowing Hindi to his constant fight for acceptance despite growing up in the ranks as an international cricketer, Ashwin has not held anything back. “Firstly, I think we need to understand if you are coming from this part of the country you need to fight for acceptance. You can’t quit. So that is one thing I wanted to really establish,”
Ashwin says on the sidelines of his book launch event at the Taj Coromandel, Chennai. “I don’t want to label it now but we very often want it too easy and don’t expect it to be tough. Believe it or not, the capital is New Delhi. The financial capital is Bombay. Whether you accept it or not is your choice. But if you want to be in the big boys league and if you aspire for it you must adapt yourself to be that.”
Even as Ashwin tried to adapt and fight for acceptance for the first half of his career, he found peace and solace in coming back home to Tamil Nadu for domestic cricket. In fact, it is something he circles back to throughout his early years in international cricket. “It is just the bare truth,” he says. “My debut was in 2010, I had been travelling with the Indian team since 2009, and professional cricket from 2006 for TN.
The Tamil Nadu Ranji Trophy dressing room felt a lot more like a safe haven. As a professional cricketer, I am hitting my 17-18th year. I would be lying if I said I have felt comfortable for a large part of it. I always wanted to run back home to my friends and my family till 2015-16. And only after that, I can’t really say what opened up but things do change. And you need to find it. You need to first accept that this is how it is. And you need to learn how to combat the dealing mechanisms.”
And Ashwin eventually did figure out his way to deal with things and find acceptance, but one will have to wait for the sequel to know in detail about it. I Have The Streets, meanwhile, is about him running back to his streets where he felt like home. It is about a family – his parents, and grandfather – making immense sacrifices to give him the best chance to do what he loves the most: play cricket.
For Ashwin, writing this book is about sharing his story and leaving it to the reader to decide their take on it. “I care very deeply about what I have written. But I didn’t think about what sort of an impact it would leave. I can’t force it to be a powerful storyline for someone. You while reading it might resonate with it.
Somebody else might not. But my only goal for this was as long as it leaves an impact on five percent of the people that read the book, I would have done my job. I believe we all grace this planet for a very short period of time. If we can touch the lives of people through any form that we can. Even if you can make them laugh or if you can make them learn through your story it’s great,” he says.