Sri Lankans could just be saddened to note that their favourite West Indies cricketer Darren Sammy has been anxious to know why he had been called “kalu” which means black in Sinhalese.
Sammy has no grouse whatsoever with his adoring Sri Lankan fans who hold him in high esteem.
What is reported to have worried Sammy is that while playing for the Sunrises Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2013/14, he had been called “kalu” by “smiling team-mates”.
Sammy built up his reputation among Sri Lankan fans when in 2012 after beating the home team in the final of the World T20 tournament, he and his team mates toured the Colombo city with the Trophy posing for photographs with local boys and girls.
Two years before in 2010 Sammy was so enduring to reporters on a Test tour of Sri Lanka that he once asked a journalist after a Press conference, “birthday Maan where is your cake birthday Maan, no question birthday Maan”.
With that question posed to Sri Lankan veteran journalist Christopher Dhambarage, Sammy became an instant hit among local media men.
It is being said that “kalu” also means black in Hindi, the most widely spoken language in India.
But now besides wanting to inquire from Sunrises team-mates what it meant, Sammy has said on his Instagram video that he thought the reference was to a “strong stallion” (horse) which he felt was “uplifting”.
“Please tell me there’s another meaning to that word and when I was being called it, it was all in love,” he said. “I thought it meant ‘strong stallion’ or whatever it is. And I saw no problems with it.
“Every time I was called — it was me and (Sri Lanka’s) Thisara Perera — there was always laughter in the moment. So, being the team man, I thought, ‘Hey, teammates are happy, it must be something fun.’ But you could understand my frustration and my anger when it was pointed out to me that it wasn’t funny at all. It was degrading,” Sammy was quoted by the AP news agency as saying on his Instagram message.
But Sammy will always have plenty of ready made homes to make him comfortable whenever he visits Sri Lanka.
“I have never seen Sammy get angry with anyone. He’s the kind of guy I will invite home and introduce to my parents,” said one Sri Lankan admirer Shehan Weerasinghe.