Meet Bhandari the ‘bat doctor’

Manish (Pandey) came here with five bats a few days ago. He parked his Audi at the end of the road and sat where you’re sitting now,” says Ram Bhandari, glasses at the bridge of the nose and a face mask stretched across his neck.

Pandey had parked his swanky car at the dead-end of an inconspicuous alley just off Subramanyapura Main Road (Uttarahalli), an unusual spot for an Indian cricketer. But then, bigger names are on the list of Bhandari’s clientele. The Sunrisers Hyderabad lynchpin wanted his bats ready for the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League, and ‘uncle’ knows exactly how he likes it.

Bhandari offered to have the bats picked up and sent back to the cricketer’s home, but Pandey wanted to touch base. And so, there he was, talking bats, discussing life and reminiscing for three hours before preparing for his trip to the UAE.

“Manish likes the handle short, and he needs an exaggerated dome on top of the handle to ensure the bat doesn’t slip out,” Bhandari says when asked about the nature of Pandey’s visit. “A lot of cricketers, especially those who hold the bat close to the neck, like the handle shortened. (Virat) Kohli also likes it like that.”

It’s surreal to think that some of the finest batsmen to have ever played the sport get their bats prepared/ repaired by this unassuming man with a penchant for matchbox-sized garages in discreet spots around the city.

“I don’t like having too many clients,” he says. “I don’t put up boards and I don’t have visiting cards. Only those who have my number can find me. That also after three-four years I move without telling anybody. By the time those searching for me find my workshop, I would have vacated and gone to some other place.”

A nomadic existence has been Bhandari’s trademark from before the time he boarded a train to Bengaluru in the early 80s. Originally from Bihar, Bhandhari, then 15-years-old, decided to travel the country, working odd jobs for train fares, film tickets and food.

The only skill he had at the time was carpentry, and that too barely, as he had only spent so much time learning it from his grandfather. He did have the ambition to prove to his villagers that he would amount to something, someday. “I worked at a printing press in Madras, made some money and decided to go to Mumbai and then Pune. There I saw a train heading to Bangalore. I had never been to Karnataka or heard of Bangalore so decided to go there,” he says in fluent Kannada.

Arriving in the sleepy cantonment, he worked as a waiter at the Minerva Hotel, as a helper in a couple of factories, as a bouncer in a bar and then as a maintenance man of a large complex in Gandhinagar. His life as a bouncer gave him the time to play cricket by the day, but it was his time as a maintenance man that charted his future.

“Players Choice (a sports store) was in the same building and the owners knew I had done some carpentry in the past so they asked me to work on two bats. This was in the late 90s. I did a good job because I knew how to use the tools and I was playing cricket,” he says.

And so began the journey of the ‘Bat Doctor’. The boys who used to get repairs done by him went onto play Ranji Trophy cricket and subsequently for India. “I remember when KL (Rahul) came to my shop. He was 13. He had just landed in Bangalore and didn’t know anything. Robin (Uthappa) used to come with his mother. Manish used to eat ice lollies all the time. Such sweet boys,” he smiles.

Word of his drive for perfect balance spread quickly, and soon Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, MS Dhoni and many others had him set the ‘feel’ right.

“They get bats from manufacturers and the cricketers ask me to modify it, set the ‘feel’ right. Every batsman has his own feel for the bat. I understand what he wants,” he says while picking up a bat to explain how the alignment of the handle to the blade is the difference between a good bat and great bat.

Bhandari, as he often does, slips into an anecdote at this point. It’s 2006, and he’s sitting in the waiting room of the NCA at the M Chinnaswamy stadium, waiting on Tendulkar to finish a meeting with then-coach Greg Chappell…

“Sachin had the tennis elbow and back trouble, but apparently Chappell was saying his eyesight was waning too. After the meeting, Tendulkar asked me to take two bats and work on them,” he recalls without skimping on the details.

“I took it home, thought about it and then weighed the bat. I took it to the Kamath Hotel and weighed his bat on the weighing scale they use for their sweets. It was 1362 grams. I knew that was too heavy. I trimmed it down to 1250, but I knew if I told him that he wouldn’t use it so I told Raghu (D Raghavendra, the throwdown specialist) to call me when Sachin starts batting in the nets.

“I slipped in the bats and he used them and was happy with them, but before leaving I told him these are match bats. He played with them and scored 157 (141 not out) in the DLF Cup in Malaysia that year. More importantly, there were no elbow pains and no backaches. He sent me 11 bats to modify the next day,” he laughs.

He returns to now, opening up about business taking a hit because of the pandemic. Still, he says, he won’t charge more or capitalise on his celebrity clientele. “If my work is worth 200 rupees, I can’t charge 400 rupees. It doesn’t sit right with me. I usually just tell players to give me how much ever. Sometimes they forget to give but that’s fine,” he says matter of factly.

Unwise as it may seem, it’s beautiful to watch the coming together of an artist’s vulnerabilities, a purist’s defiance and ethos from a time forgotten in a figure that can be easily missed.