Varun: The Mysterious Beginning

A similarly perplexing mystery surrounds how he became a mystery spinner. Varun Chakravarthy has said that one of his dreams, after his cricketing days are over, is to get into filmmaking.

As and when he gets to that, we suggest that he make a movie on his life. For, it has more twists and turns than any of your regular mainstream masala offerings.

The man, who will turn 34 in August of this year, had not even played cricket at the league level in Chennai until he was 26 or 27 years old. From then on to be a potential trump card to India's fortunes in the ICC Champions Trophy is a journey that is filled with one implausible turn to another. You would feel compelled to affix something to his life that is the cliched favorite child of destiny. His cricket career, which began in 2018 when he made his way into the TN, IPL, and TN cricket teams, is now somewhat well-documented. However, his story before that is also worth telling because, like his now-famous deliveries, it involves enigmatic twists. It involves significant film roles, Dinesh Karthik, and the 2017 floods in Chennai. Born to Tamil parents in the early 90s — his father C V Vindod Chakravarthy though had some Kerala connection, and his mother Malini had Karnataka links — the only thing typical about Varun was his childhood. He first went to the KV inside the CLRI campus — his family lived in the nearby Kotturpuram area. And like any Chennai kid of his background, he dabbled in cricket.

As it happened, his first fascination was wicket-keeping, and his first hero was Dinesh Karthik — a character who will come back and make much more abiding impact later in his implausible career. At the school level as Varun showed some flair behind the stumps, his parents thought he may have a future in cricket, and he was shifted to another school 9St Patrick's) where the sport was taken more seriously.

But in a city where literally hundreds and hundreds of talented school cricketers vie for a few spots in district and age-level teams, Varun found the going tough as both his wicket-keeping and batting never made any major splash. In his own words, he attended at least 200 net sessions and selection trials, but never got picked in any.

An architect uneasily emerges

So by the time he reached his 12th standard, the choice before him was two. One, a sport in which he hardly showed any great spark. Two, academics. As a boy from a typical middle-class south Indian family (his dad worked for the public sector BSNL), Varun's choice had no real surprise. But even in school studies, Varun was just about middling, securing 68% in the Boards. This meant that his other dream of making it as a doctor or an avionics specialist was also nullified.

But luckily he had a flair with his hands and fingers. Bowling, not really. That would have to wait. He had skills for drawing, and armed with that he enrolled himself in a 5-year architecture course with a popular private college in the outskirts of Chennai, but one with no great pedigree in cricket. Ergo, the cricketer in Varun was in exile for all those years.

Okay, he sporadically turned up in local tennis ball cricket events. But for a man who had great ambitions of international cricket, this was nothing. It was like gearing up for the Grammys by singing inside your bathroom. Varun, who brands himself an introvert, had a mind that was capable of introspection. He was naturally stoic, so he didn't dwell too much on the difficulties of his life. And after his architecture course, he again chose the beaten path. In the city, he joined a private company called D + Y. His architecture days (both in college and then as a profession) were uneventful cricketing-wise, but in that period he met Neha Khedekar, who was to later become his wife in 2020, and remain that one unwavering source of backing and inspiration to him.

Varun, on the other hand, found himself in the same predicament as many of the other batsmen he was facing at the time: completely lost. Architecture, which he actually loved, was not satisfying his inner craving. There was an unease inside him, but the tough part was: Varun did not know what he wanted to do with his life then.

Varun, the cricketer — in a film though

In a foolhardy or brave move — only future would show what it was really — Varun decided to quit architecture. One fine day, almost like in films, he went to the office, and at the lunch hour told his senior that he was calling it quits. It was that dramatic. Later, he also told Neha, whom he had started dating, that their relationship may not work as he was giving up his job. Fortunately, however, the Maharashtrian, who had previously been a classmate of his, assured him that she would always be with him. Giving up architecture was one thing, but deciding what to do next was altogether another. And it was then Varun believed that his fortune lay with — cricket? No. He made the decision to enter the film industry. As an assistant director to start off, as he thought he can think up stories and write scripts.

As a result, he tried to connect with people in the film industry for a few months to find work as an assistant director (AD). As it turned out, a cricket movie in Tamil was about to start, and Varun thought he was the right person to join the crew because he had experience playing cricket. But his efforts were nullified as the team did not pick him as an AD. But they offered him an alternative: Would he like to play a small acting part in the film?

Varun, despite his fear for the cameras, said yes. And thus he played a nondescript role (one of the players in the club that the hero character plays for) in the Tamil film Jeeva (2014). But that somehow gave him hope to pursue his chances in the even more unpredictable world of films. Like many Tamils, Varun is a film aficionado, and is big fan of the actor (now politico) Vijay — Varun has a tattoo of Vijay’s character image from the film Thalaiva. Anyway, for the next two years, Varun endeavoured manfully in Kollywood, but the elusive break remained just that.

Returning to where he began So by 2017 or thereabouts, Varun life was in familiar territory - crossroads. With his film career not even taking off, Varun now understood the futility of it. So, where are we now? Varun chose architecture once more. And this time, with his own money and business as a freelancer. And he lined up a few interesting projects as well, and life, for once, looked set for him as his sky was looking bright.

Well, soon the clouds gathered. Only too literally, as the torrential downpour in Chennai resulted in devastating floods. Under the water went three of Varun's projects. He lost all his invested money. And again, Varun was grappling with another existentialist crisis.

He had nowhere to go. 'This was the darkest period of my life,' Varun would say later. As the going got difficult, Varun chose to look elsewhere. He turned his attention to cricket as a distraction. However, nothing significant; I only played as a military medium-pacer for the obscure fourth division league team CromBest Cricket Club. But at least he was back to leather ball cricket after a long time.

Well, right in the second match he suffered an injury to his leg and it cut short his plans. As he recuperated from his injury over the next few months, Varun went back to tennis-ball cricket, and had his first fortuitous twist in his life. As he was still hampered for movement, Varun, then around 26 years of age, decided to give spin bowling a shot. This was not at all serious cricket considering that it was amateur 18-yard cricket. But importantly for Varun, this gave him the leeway to experiment with his deliveries.

The birth of mystery bowler

And there he figured out that there were many mysterious ways to bowl a cricket ball. Varun had a fascinating time of discovery during this period. Both as an individual as well as a cricketer. But now with a few weapons in his arsenal, Varun decided to go back to league cricket. He went to another team in the same fourth division league.

And in the first match, Varun arrived with his new bag of tricks. No prizes for guessing what happened. He was hit for many and did not pick any wicket. But luckily, Varun chose to persevere, and by the second match, he had found some grip on the ball and his game. He was difficult to pick up by batsmen as the wickets started to pile up. Suddenly, Varun found himself in bowling riches. In seven limited-overs matches, he took 31 wickets at an economy rate of 3.06 and an average of 8.26. But it was still a lowly league in Chennai.

However, his bowling, which had alluring mystique around, had become a talking point in Chennai's cricketing circles where words spread fast. And one thing led to another, his name was in the radar of the TNPL league teams. In 2017, Karaikudi Kaalais roped him, but they didn't use him much. TNPL unearths a star

After a few months, Varun found himself with the unpredictable wicket-keeper batsman and Siechem Madurai Panthers skipper KB Arun Karthik. There had been two editions of the Tamil Nadu T20 league TNPL up until that point in 2018, both of which were significant successes. But for Siechem Madurai Panthers, it was an absolute disaster. It was the only team in the fray that had not managed to win even a single match over the two years. It was that bad.

The team had no more depths plumb. Arun Karthick, the captain, was aware that his team needed fresh ideas and new players in that situation. One of its first picks in the draft was Varun as the cricketing community in Chennai was awash with the talk of the arrival of a bearded mystery spinner with a stoner's look.

The 2018 TNPL league is the pivot in Varun's life so far. He didn't pick wickets by the bucketful. However, he demonstrated that he was capable of being considered a serious cricketer. He kept the batsmen guessing and, more importantly, demonstrated his ability to control the run flow in the format. He became a hot property in 2018 TNPL draft where he was the first pick for Siechem Madurai Pa