FAMOUSLY, in 1993, in a moment of rare inpiration ignited by a brace of double hundreds against pathetic England, striding out of the gigantic shadow cast by his schoolmate Sachin Tendulkar, Vinod Kambli attempted to set his success in perspective. Sachin took the elevator, he said, and I the stairs. It was then, in the immediate afterglow of his Bradmanesque run, that I met him in Delhi, in pursuit of a story exploring the visceral connections between two top talents who had emerged from the wrong side of the street to dominate high profile, posh sports. The sportsman I was clubbing with Kambli was Ali Sher. A caddy in his origins, Ali Sher had just become the first Indian golfer to win the Indian Open twice.