THE WEEK ARCHIVES: How cancer bowled a yorker and Yuvraj hit it for a six

He is back home. The chemotherapy has left him bald, and the steroids slightly pudgy. But that trademark smile and ever ready wit are intact. He is back in his Mumbai pad, meeting friends, relaxing and recovering. And, he is quickly getting back to the routine—waking up in the morning, go for a walk or to the gym, working, eating kadi chawal and gobi ke paranthe, and hanging out with friends. The routine may seem banal to us, but, it is a dream come true for Yuvraj Singh, after all that he went through.

Back in Chandigarh, THE WEEK met his mother Shabnam Singh, who said, "It's been just a couple of days since he went to Mumbai and I came home to Chandigarh. Of course, I miss him a lot. He is also happy not to see my face I am sure (laughs). He is grown up enough and knows how to take care of himself. His doctors said that after four weeks we do not consider you ill. It has been six weeks since. The chemo and drugs are out of system. They say he is normal and can play anytime now."

Yuvi underwent three cycles of chemotherapy to treat mediastinal seminoma. And, he had one of the better names in the industry to advise him—Dr Lawrence H. Einhorn, distinguished professor of medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM). Attached to IUSM's haematology and oncology divisions, Einhorn is cyclist Lance Armstrong's oncologist. Yuvraj was referred to Einhorn by Dr Nitesh Rohtagi, senior oncologist, Max Hospital, Saket, New Delhi. Rohtagi had treated Yuvraj in India, and accompanied him to IUSM.

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After the regimen, Yuvraj could barely keep food down, forget relishing it. At times, even water was anathema to him. Currently, he is on a diet, recommended by a London-based dietician. The largely organic diet is designed to detoxify his body, raise immunity and build strength.

During the treatment, gone was the cocksure Man of the World Cup Series 2011. All decisions, medical and otherwise, rested on Shabnam's shoulders, and she even had to spoon feed him at times. "I deserve 20 Test hundreds for the pain that I am going through," he told his mother. He would not allow her to be away for more than an hour.

For now, she is back to reassuring her second son, Zorawar. "We left so quickly," she said. "There was no time to explain to Zorawar what had happened. He was very upset with me, and still is."

At the lone media interaction after his return, Yuvraj said: "At the moment it is very important that I look after my health, eat the best diet and have the best surroundings. The focus will be on my health, rather than being emotional and saying 'Oh, people want me back quickly'. When I come back on the field I want it to be when I am absolutely fit... even if it takes me an extra month. But, I am sure that I will return."

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He is expected to start training soon, then play in domestic matches and gradually get back to international cricket. No short cuts here. Definitely no comebacks before August-September. There are cynics who believe that it is asking too much of him, putting undue pressure on him. But the schedule has been cleared by his doctors.

Rohtagi said: "How can we say Shah Rukh Khan is unwell and not talk about when is he doing his next movie? At the end of the day you see Yuvraj as a cricketer and not as a person. When a child is unwell, you look at how soon can he get well and go back to school. In the same way going back to cricket is important for Yuvraj. It will take him two to three weeks to be as close to normal as possible."

Rohtagi called Yuvraj a "very clever planner". He said: "He is taking a break, physically and mentally, before making himself game ready. We were playing Othello [a board game, also called Reversi] in the US and I am very good at it. He did not know how to play the game, but he observed me. By the time we were on the sixth [game], he was already planning ahead, making moves."

Former Indian skipper Anil Kumble has no doubts about Yuvraj's comeback. Kumble spent two days with him in Indianapolis, taking time off a personal trip. "He desperately wants to prove he is a good Test player," said Kumble. "He delayed proper treatment because of cricket. I am glad he has come through this so well. Yes, he can make a successful comeback. His cricket career is still very young."

The challenge, hereafter, will be mental than physical. Said Rohtagi, "He has a lot of mental strength. He is surprisingly keen. He needs to challenge himself physically. It is about how far he can jog, how much weights he can lift.... He has to push himself to the limits and then stop. The following day, he must see if he is able to reach the same level or go beyond."

His high physical threshold level as an athlete ensured apt treatment in IUSM. Shabnam said that the flight to the US was gloomy, but the pall lifted when she met Einhorn. His office had pictures of quite a few athletes he treated, but Yuvraj was his first cricketer. And, the doctor had only the vaguest idea about cricket.

Rohtagi said, "I explained cricket [to him], because Yuvi's training is different. It was important in deciding on his chemo. A cricketer is on the field for a long time, it involves short spurts of running and lot of stamina. Lung capacity is different when you run in short spurts."

Einhorn's prognosis reassured mother and son. Said Shabnam: "The doctors told me, 'When the cancer is curable, we do a very aggressive treatment'. They said they were going to be harsh on him. 'But at the end of the day you have to see that he is getting better. The harder it is, the better it is going to be'. That was something that controlled me, that this is just temporary. The results were going to be permanent." Both Einhorn and Rohtagi felt that Yuvraj's lifestyle needs no drastic change.

In Indianapolis, Yuvraj's treatment lasted from January 25 to March 16. He was alone with Shabnam for the first two cycles. Apart from his mother, two others formed his support system—Nishant Arora, his manager and childhood friend, and Paroon Chadha, an Indiana-based software entrepreneur known to Rohtagi.

"The first chemo cycle gave very good results," said Arora. "The tests after the second cycle made doctors change the last course of therapy. He took the first cycle, the second was very tough and by the third he was really struggling. As a friend it was very difficult to see him like that, but still he always had a one-liner or two ready."

He used to pray for a normal day, when he would not puke, would not feel aches or get acute shivers. A good day would be waking up without nausea, headache or the itchiness of chemo burns. For a couple of hours he would be cheerful and go for a walk by the canal. Then there were days he would be slow to wake up, because he just did not want to open his eyes and go through the day retching, feeling weak and achy."

Despite him coming out a fighter, Shabnam said it was nightmarish to see him go through the treatment. "It is the most horrible treatment," she said. "The less said, the better. I was counting days, wondering when it would just end. Especially, the days of chemos. I was alone for two chemos and it was just so nightmarish. Getting him into the taxi and the hospital.

“For the first chemo we were at the hotel, there was no food available for him. By the time for the second chemo, we were in an apartment and I had started cooking. So we were a little better off. But he would vomit whatever he ate. He would not want to take medicines, water... he would get cranky, start crying."

She was on her toes all day, waking him, feeding him, cleaning his bed and room of vomit and clumps of hair. His taste buds were ruined, but she cooked different dishes, hoping he would be able to keep something down. Yet, she is not looking to paint a larger than life picture for herself. "Tell me, which mother would not do what I was doing?" she asked. "I did not think about myself, about how I am feeling. It was all about him. You cannot start pitying yourself. You have a child to look after. He was a two-year-old again, scared of the world and looking up to me for reassurance."

Time and again Team Yuvi brushes aside its role, giving credit to his willpower. Chadha said: "He always used to talk about upcoming tours and series. He had a firm plan in mind and nothing was going to come in its way. I saw how everyone around him went from just hoping for the next few hours to be incident-free to hoping for a good day or two to eventually realising how defiant he was."

Shabnam said he would go online to be inspired by the number of well-wishers praying for him and standing by him. Yuvraj was a model patient, she said. "He never winced at any test," she said. "The number of needles that had gone inside him! I would have just fainted. I was like you cannot prick him anymore. He would say 'Relax, Mom, I am fine'. He would just keep quiet, not utter a word or joke and smile...."

Chadha said he was amazed by the depth of Yuvi's inner strength. "He wanted to play Ping-Pong with me," he said. "And I was the school champion in high school. So it promised to be a fun evening... He started very sluggishly, as he had not been active for several weeks." Yuvraj lost the first game and then quickly refocused and started on a second one, which he lost only by a point.

He then forced Chadha to play a third one, which he won. "Then he wanted to play one last game as he did not want to wrap up the day being one down," Chadha said. "He beat me in the fourth game, fair and square.”