Typos

A STORY FROM THE MARKET OF STORY-TELLERS

2012-02-16T09:54:00.001+05:30

I stumbled across this story quite by accident. Did you know that two of India’s finest actors Shah Rukh Khan and Dilip Kumar, share the record of having the same number of Filmfare Awards in the Best Actor (male) category? Maybe you did, but there’s more in common between the two than what first meets the eye. Both Yusuf Khan, aka Dilip Kumar, and Shahrukh Khan are Pnathans and trace their origins back to the same little market square in Peshawar called Kissa Qhwani Bazaar.

It’s a romantic name – Kissa Qhwani Bazaar-the market of story-tellers, and it gave our films two of its most romantic story-tellers. In the old days, when Kissa Qhwani Bazaar was a part of the Silk Route, this market was indeed an enchanting little town where merchants from all along the length of the Route, and from West and Central Asia, would meet and trade in this bazaar. Bands of soldiers would pass through this town between assignments and spend some of their gold to live a little before they went to court death again. And while businessmen would haggle over deals, over meals and cups of green tea; and soldiers would look for love and laughter, professional story-tellers would liven up the place, entertaining people with their tales of love and valour in the shadow of wars. It is these professional story tellers who gave this Bazaar its inimitable name.

Today, Kissa Qhwani Bazaar, I gather, looks much like the rest of the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan where men in long flowing beards in pakuls and salwar-kameez walk the streets, Kalashnikovs by their side and distrust in their eyes. But I could be wrong of course, because the legacy of Kissa Qhwani bazaar is intertwined with the most courageous act of pacifism in the history of man. The red dust that lines the streets that lead to this market square is an ever present reminder of the day when proud Pathan blood flooded these streets and anointed this square with the mark of nearly a thousand martyrs – nameless numbers today, and yet as brave as the bravest of them all.

This is the tragic story of their greatest glory. The story begins with the arrest of Khan Abdul Ghaff ar Khan, the tall soldier of peace and pacifism on April 23rd,1930. Ghaff ar Khan, a Pashtun (Pathan) leader whose spiritual integrity and commitment to non-violence and the cause of Undivided India’s independence had won him the devotion of thousands of his countrymen, especially Pathans, had started a social reform movement with his band of 100,000 followers, a non-violent army called the Khudai Khidmatgars (servants of God).

That fateful day, Khan Abdul Ghaff ar Khan had urged his followers to stage non-violent protests across Peshawar in support of Mahatma Gandhi’s salt march. After a public meeting where Ghaff ar Khan urged the people of the frontier to rise, strongly but peacefully, against the British occupation, he, along with some of his senior leaders, was arrested and imprisoned. His supporters rallied for his release, staging peaceful protests across the North-West Frontier. A large contingent of Khudai Khidmatgars gathered at Kissa Qhwani Bazaar and staged a peaceful demonstration, protesting against the arrests and the unfair laws enacted by the British. Unnerved (Ghaff ar Khan believed that the British respected the war-like Pathans in martial combat but a peaceful Pathan intimidated them far more), the British administrators ordered the army to march into the bazaar and scatter the crowd. Armoured cars and soldiers with guns surrounded the market square. The Khidmatgars chanted slogans in support of their leaders and protested against the unfair British laws. The crowd remained undaunted and kept chanting, non-violently. The British officers, perhaps unnerved by the sight of more than a thousand Pathans, armed with unyielding spiritual courage even when staring into the barrels of British rifles, gave the orders to shoot. A hail of bullets ripped through the crowd, felling the front line. Even as those in front fell, those behind them came forward to take their place, baring their chests, welcoming the bullets with a prayer on their lips and the dream of an independent dignified and undivided India in their hearts. Wave upon wave of men crashed into an unrelenting wall of bullets. The square resounded with the hellish crescendo of screams and slogans and gun shots. While the soldiers reloaded, the Khidmatgars off ered to take their dead and injured leave if the troops also left the Bazaar. The troops refused to leave, so the Khidmatgars stayed on. The troops were ordered to fire again at the unarmed crowd. Royal Garhwal Rifles, the most celebrated British Indian regiment, and the most decorated for their valiant exploits during World War I refused to fire at the unarmed protestors. It was the first time that a regiment of the British Indian Army had refused to obey orders. At the time they were removed from the scene and replace by another contingent but this defiance sent shock waves through the British administration and the tremors must have shaken the very roots of Imperial Britain. And this act of defiance was triggered by the uncommon valour of the Khidmatgars.

This carnage continued for six hours, from 11am to 5pm. The unrelenting British guns had met their match. Bullets failed to weaken their resolve. The Khidmatgars remained peaceful all through this blood bath. And even though they didn’t raise a hand, they had the courage to come forward to pick up their wounded brothers and greet their death till a volley of bullets struck them down.

Kissa Qhwani Bazaar finally had a story of its own. Some say 400, some say a thousand, died that day. It was a massacre that rivaled Jallianwala Bagh in scale, and yet more than a massacre, it was a battle between two ideologies. The Khidgamatgars lost mere lives that day, but the Brits lost far more, their strength and their honour.

Sadly, neither India nor Pakistan cares to remember the Khidmatgars. But the story of these pariahs of history will forever be told and retold in a market of story-tellers called Kissa Qhwani Bazaar. May the memory of their sacrifice live long and inspire…

BETWEEN KILLER CELLS AND A YELLOW SEAT

2012-02-09T09:56:00.000+05:30

Right now, while you are reading these words, Yuvraj Singh would be sitting in bed with a copy of Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not About The Bike, reading through his favourite passages, trying to prepare himself for the arduous months ahead. Indeed, Armstrong’s account of his battle with testicular cancer, a condition so severe that doctors gave him less than 40% chance of survival, and subsequent Tour de France triumph is one of the most inspiring stories in the history of man.

But there’s a story that should matter even more to Yuvraj Singh while he charts his long and lonely route back to international cricket after he’s been treated for cancer. This story begins with a yellow seat that sat far away from him while he took guard at the Melbourne Cricket Ground during that Australian summer of 2007-08. As the bowler walked back to his mark, Yuvraj must have squinted at the sun and then looked straight ahead at the long on boundary, then at the sight screen and then at the spectators on the first and second tiers of the stadium. There were spectators and supporters, cheering and jeering, but Yuvraj’s gaze must surely have traveled further up to the top tier where amongst the row of blue seats sat the proud little yellow seat.

It seemed to be a million metres away from the square. That seat is a taunt that teases every batsman who walks out to bat at the MCG. And Yuvraj Singh must not have been any different. There’s a small plaque near the seat that mentions the fact that this seat was once struck by the biggest six to have ever been hit by a batsman at that ground. That yellow seat amidst a row of blues is a challenge for every batsman to try and match or surpass that feat but none have succeeded so far. Yuvraj himself has smashed a few colossal maximums and he must have fancied his chances.

But that yellow seat really is a long long way off on this massive ground. He must have wondered what kind of a man could muscle a ball that far into the stands, and the answer is a man who had cancer.

Simon Patrick O’Donnell was on top of the world. The year was 1987 and the then un-fancied Aussies, under Allan Border’s stewardship, had just won the cricket World Cup in India. Simon O’Donnell was a young all-rounder with the team and had done his bit for the cause. His champagne soaked clothes were yet to dry when Simon got the news after a routine check that he had been diagnosed with a form of cancer, not very different from the kind that Yuvraj is fighting. Shock and dismay hade to make way for courage and faith.

Like in Yuvraj’s case today, selectors and fans alike hoped and prayed for Simon’s return to good health but in the same breath wondered if he would ever regain his strength and stamina as well as his repertoire of skills to make it back to the national team, if and when he did survive the cancer. A little more than a year went by. Simon had beaten the cancer and was back in the domestic circuit. The Australian team was returning to India for the six-nation Nehru Cup and Simon was back in the team.

Skeptics wondered if Simon had really merited selection or had he been a sentimental pick. It didn’t take long for Simon to scatter the naysayers with his heavy hitting. In 1990, the O’Donnell bat, a meaty willow mace, smashed the Sri Lankans all over that park in the desert in Sharjah for what was then the quickest half-century in ODIs. His 18 ball 50 was a record that stood for another six years. He went on to become one of Australia’s most valuable one day cricketers. And then on that fateful day at the MCG, in the year 1993, during a Sheffield Sheild match, as Greg Mathews skipped up to the wicket tobowl, O’Donnell readied himself for the delivery and then smashed it out of the park. The ball whistled and soared and then crashed into that seat high up on the stands, which was then painted yellow to immortalize that monstrous hit.

Cancer couldn’t kill O’Donnell. It only made himstronger. Today he is about fifty and a very popular television commentator. And if O’Donnell can, is there any reason why Yuvraj Singh can’t? The people of India owe Yuvraj Singh all the prayers he needs to get through this rather difficult time.

To hope, wish and believe that the man who has the fortitude to hit Stuart Broad for six sixes in an over and win us the World Cup will surely find the courage and the conviction he needs to keep his chin up through the debilitating chemotherapy and those fits of self-doubt, is perhaps all we can do. Cancer is a nemesis we understand better today.

There are ceres and promised that hold out both hope and healing. Perhaps familiarity has even bred a bit of contempt, but the disease still remains an apparently indiscriminate killer. It is inevitable that there would come a time when most cancers would be treatable diseases and nothing like the specters of doom that they are today. But until such a time as that, we will need to keep looking at a Simon O’Donnell, a Lance Armstrong or perhaps soon enough, a Yuvraj Singh, to remind ourselves, that though we be weak of flesh and bone, with courage, the spirit can soar above sickness and disease, healing every pock that mars our own…So get well soon, Yuvraj, for somewhere out there, sits a yellow seat you need to smash...

MALICE IN WONDERLAND

2012-02-02T10:10:00.001+05:30

I was too young to remember how old I might have been, but remember that I was in love. Those deep round melancholy eyes, her soft chestnut tresses and the gentle touch of her fingers as I held her hand in mine will stay with me forever. As we gazed into each other’s eyes, I realised that we were about the same height, though she must have been a fair bit older, at least in her mid-teens. Her other hand brushed my hair away from my eyes and traced the bridge of my nose, and then slowly, caressed my cheeks and then she looked into my eyes, and then with a naughty gleam, touched my lips with her fingers. The fingers ran the length of my mouth and then stopped at the corner where the upper lip turned into the lower lip and stopped. I stood there transfixed.

A strange unfamiliar thrill raced up and down my spine while my heart was beating like a tribal drum at a drunken feast. Pinky, as cool as the cucumber she must have had for lunch (I could tell… we were that close), shuffled closer on her dainty feet and then tried scrape the corner of my mouth with her finger. I remembered that I had just polished off two sticks of candy floss and a sugary wisp or two had been clinging to my mouth. Pinky scraped them off, with her index finger, very carefully, and in a manner not unbecoming of the adult film stars of the day, popped that finger in her mouth and rolled her tongue around it. She seemed pleased and I felt accepted, like I had made an inadvertent offering to a deity and she had conferred an intimate blessing. At that point, Pinky’s chaperone, a thin little man in his 40s seemed a little confused about where this might lead and screamed out at her to behave herself. Pinky’s face was inches away from my own and she pouted and moved in closer… I instinctively edged towards her, and was millimeters away from my first real kiss with an unrelated female when my father’s hand on my shoulder restrained my forward drive while the Pinky’s minder rebuked her and pulled her away by the arm.

I was heartbroken, and as she was being dragged away, she threw one last look my way and those sad eyes told me that I wasn’t alone in my despair. I pressed my face against the bars that separated us and my hands gripped them tight as I watched her walk away from me, hand in hand with that heartless man, into the gloom. Half way down the dark corridor, she stopped and I wondered if she would pull free and run back to me like I had seen them do in the movies… but no, it was something on the ground that had caught her eye. She bent down and picked it up from the ground and stared at it for a brief while. She took it to her lips and seemed to nibble at it for a while. Then she turned one last time and threw it towards me with as much gentle grace as she could muster and the object, as if in slow motion, carved a gentle arc through the air and skidded to a stop, just inches from my feet. It was a half eaten cucumber…

It was almost evening, closing time at the zoo, and even though I was a little sad to have had to let go, there was this exhilaration that I found difficult to contain. I had never been this close to an Orangutan before and I was pretty sure none of my friends had either. I couldn’t wait to tell them about Pinky’s sad eyes and her surprisingly gentle touch. And I had to come back again, to see Pinky… and to see the others. I loved the zoo. It was my favourite haunt…

My father is a hobby artist and he has spent many happy hours sketching animals in the Delhi Zoo ever since he moved to this city, and he was good friends with a zoo vet and many of the keepers. By the time I came along, he was a bit of a privileged guest at the zoo and we had access to many of the ‘off limits to public’ zones of the park. I loved the zoo from the moment I first set foot in it. The water birds, the deer and the antelope, the giraffes and the gaur, the big cats, the apes and the elephants.. I loved watching them all and the wide open spaces and the happy energy of the visitors had infected me with an enduring love for the place.

As I grew into my teens, I became obsessed with sports and spent all my weekends playing cricket for whichever club would have me. I missed the zoo but lure of the game, like that of a new lover, was all consuming. The years rolled by, and I hung up my bowler’s boots, and then came a Sunday when I didn’t have a game to go to. So I picked up my camera and went to the zoo instead. It had been a while but all the old memories came rushing back as soon as I walked through the gates and entered.

I hurried past the water-birds, and the white tiger enclosure and then past the basking hippos. I had to meet Pinky. It had been a decade or more since I had last seen her but orangutans live for half a century in the wild and even longer in captivity. There was every reason for me to believe that I would be looking into those limpid pools of mischief soon. It felt a bit like I was going to meet a childhood sweetheart from school long aft er we’d both grown up to be mature adults.

“Mar gayi sahab! Bahut time hua… pata nahin kya kha liya tha!” I had not ruled out this possibility and yet these words hit me harder than I had expected them to. I trudged away without looking at the exhibit that had replaced Pinky in her enclosure. And like a scene from a Christopher Nolan film, the happy zoo changed in front of my eyes into a grim and depressing freak show. It’s not that I was depressed about Pinky. Well, maybe that too, but more than that it was as if I had stumbled and dropped my glasses and suddenly could see this once upon a time wonderland for what it truly is – a prison for unhappy beasts that have been reduced to pathetic caricatures of their wild selves.

I took my camera and went from enclosure to enclosure, looking for the old happy winds that had carried and coloured my childhood but all I could see everywhere were neurotic unhappy animals eking out unhappy unhealthy and unnatural lives, shortened by disease and boredom and stress and neglect. The small cramped cages, which I had found rather convenient as a kid because of intimate access, I now realised were thoughtlessly cruel living conditions. The sloth bear enclosure was surrounded by visitors pelting stones and empty mineral water bottles at the animals. The enclosure was strewn with litter that had been thrown by visitors trying to tease a reaction out of these bored beasts. One of the bears was chewing on a plastic container. It was surely a matter of time before one of the bears swallowed something dangerous and then died. All they would have said is ‘…pata nahin kya kha liya tha’. There were no keepers in sight I could run to and inform about the plastic bottles. There was no one there to tell the crowd about the animal, or to stop them or at least tell them that their actions could end up killing the bears.

Callously, perhaps even unwittingly, these visitors went from enclosure to enclosure, teasing and tormenting the animals.

In their gloomy little coops, the macaws, brilliantly coloured and exceptionally intelligent birds, were pining away. Their boredom had made them neurotic and some of them had plucked most of their own feathers out. But the saddest soul in the zoo would have to be the big male Asiatic elephant. He must have been a magnificent tusker but in all my trips to the zoo, I never once saw him roam free in his enclosure. His keepers were afraid of him and kept him chained in his stable. A magnificent animal whose spirit was designed to wander is doomed to a dreadful prison sentence at the end of a short chain.

I used to love the zoo as a child but now I wondered if inflicting so much pain and suffering on these mute beasts for our own selfish ends was worth the effort? Animal rights groups have been screaming themselves hoarse about the need to close down all zoos and focus energies on conservation efforts in the wild instead. On the other hand zoos, no matter how terribly shabby they might be, helped me fall in love with the natural world, and its a love that still endures.

So are all zoos hell holes in disguise, which have spread nothing but misery and disease? Or are they essential partners in educating both children and adults about those we share this planet with? Is it possible to rehabilitate zoo bred or zoo-raised animals back into the wild? If not, then why do we need to bother with zoos at all?

Pertinent questions all, and I’m going to spend the week to come searching for answers in the offices of the Central Zoo Authority, in the placards and slogans of animal rights activists, in eyes that peer at us from behind bars that hold the innocent, and in the corridors of my own heart. And whatever the answers may be, once I find them, I will come running to you, so that together we can change the world… one more time!

YOU’VE GOT TO TRY THIS AT HOME!

2012-01-26T09:49:00.001+05:30

When I was a little boy, not too long ago, and the runt of the pack that roamed the playgrounds that dot this nice leafy corner of south Delhi I call home, I used to spend a lot of time reading comic-books from DC. Some of these were very yellow, dog-eared old imported editions that my uncle used to read when he was a young boy. These comic books transported me into Metropolis and Gotham City where the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight did heroic things to save lives and entertain readers. But then I could separate fantasy from reality and once I was done with the story I didn’t think about it too much. But I did spend a lot of time thinking about the back pages in some of those comic books which had a lot of advertisements – toys, and flavoured gum and radio sets and the like but what caught my attention was none of these. It was the picture of a man smiling at the reader with his arms folded in front of his chest. His arms and chest rippled with sculpted muscles that rivaled that of the superheroes in the comic-book and his name was Charles Atlas.

Atlas had a little tale to tell, in comic-book style, of how a skinny young boy who had been bullied at the beach and insulted in front of the girls for being a sissy, sends for a Charles Atlas workout programme and is transformed within weeks into a hunky and powerful young man. This sculpted to perfection Greek-God then goes back to the beach and beats up his former tormentor, while onlookers marvel at his might and his muscles.

Charles Atlas died long before I was born, and so I couldn’t have asked him for a programme booklet and even if someone else was running it in his wake, I was too young to figure out the complicated international telephone and order codes etc. And neither did I have the money nor the courage to ask my parents for it.

So I was doomed to remain skinny and puny, and all I could do was read that advertisement every now and then and wait for a miracle to transform me into that beefy boy in the ad. But it did not happen. Gymnasiums weren’t as popular then as they are now and I eked out my days at the low end of the self esteem scale.

Then one day, I spotted one of the bigger boys in the playground walking around with a tube like apparatus with cables attached to it. He called it a bull-worker and said that the manufacturers say that if working out with it does not transform your body within weeks, they would return the money. So, does it work? Well, he had only begun, he said. I was fascinated. This sounded like something out of the legendary Charles Atlas programme (for the record, it wasn’t). I wanted to try it. But this guy said that I shouldn’t try these exercises before I was eighteen. He said it would stunt my growth if I strained my muscles at my age and not grow any taller. I didn’t want to be skinny, but I didn’t want to stay short either. I decided to wait till I had become as tall as I could get (Today I know that isometrics, unlike weights, under normal circumstances, should do nothing to impede skeletal growth, but in those pre-internet days, rumours would fly thick and fast and one was always better off safe than sorry. I later learnt that bull-workers were used for a form of training that had become rather popular in those days – it was called isometrics.

Isometrics involve a maximal contraction of the muscle while pulling or pushing against an immovable force that was said to generate immense strength and add size and shape to a muscle in double quick time. As the years went by, I waited for the day when I could get my hands on a bullworker without having to worry about staying short, but somehow by the time I got there, both bullworkers and isometric had gone out of fashion.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, barbells and dumbbells, gymnasiums and nautilus machines were the done things of the day and soon, bull workers and Charles Atlas comics (the Charles Atlas method, by the way, has little to do with isometrics, but more of that later) had to be content with gathering dust in the corner. I had gotten into martial arts training by then and had started collecting Bruce Lee’s training manuals. In one such training manual, I found references to isometric training and memories of my introduction to isometrics came rushing back. Bruce Lee had designed his own isometric apparatus. I didn’t have access to a similar apparatus but I modified them so that I could do them with a bullworker, and thus, many years after I first heard of them, began my first isometric workout…

Since then I have discovered many other variations of isometric workouts which don’t require any apparatus. Both Bronze Bow publishing and Animal Kingdom workouts have some excellent and fairly comprehensive books on the subject. But why am I telling you about this? And should you be trying out for yourself? Well, the answer to that is a rather irritating ‘it depends...’ And it depends on what you want from your workout.

Proponents of isometrics like fitness author John Little and fitness expert John Peterson will tell you that isometrics are the most effective and quickest route to developing immense muscular strength. Not only that, but isometrics are also apparently excellent for packing size and sculpting the muscles and creating an aesthetically pleasing physique sooner than most other forms of exercise. Is that true?

Well, I have been training my body isometrically for a while now and I can assure you that few exercise systems can match isometrics in terms of radically reshaping the body’s contours. Isometrics won’t burn fat or create the kind of muscle separation that a combination of high intensity weight training and cardio would give you but it will very quickly transform a soft flabby body into something that would resemble a scaled down version of the Farnese Hercules. And even though isometrics are not what Charles Atlas had in mind when he came up with his comic book advertisement, isometrics are perhaps the quickest route to a visible physical transformation.

These workouts can be done without apparatus, anytime and anywhere. Moreover, it has been said that isometric workouts are healthier and safer than weight workouts because there’s little chance of injury, since literally, not a muscle moves during an isometric workout and the spine stays healthy. Also, muscle mastery and mental concentration improve rapidly and “nerve impulses to muscles and tissues and glands” are enhanced, which help the body stay young and healthy.

So what’s the catch? Why hasn’t it taken the world by storm? Why don’t we hear of strength athletes like Manny Pacquiao or Hollywood strongmen like Jason Statham or Vin Diesel talking about how isometrics changed their bodies? Is it a complete system of health and fitness?

And here are the answers. If you want to dramatically change the shape of your body with minimal investments of time and money, nothing beats good old isometrics. But if we are talking about enhancing athletic potential or even pure strength, then there’s a snag to contend with. Isometrics do build strength but only in the zone in which the muscle is being trained. For instance, if you try and push against a wall with your hands and put your whole body into it for about 10 seconds of maximal effort, then will build a great deal of strength in that position and the muscles in your arms and shoulders and chest will grow strong and beautiful, but this strength will not necessarily allow you to bench press more weight than you could in the past or punch a heavy bag really hard. These activities require you to build strength through a range of motion and not just at one point of complete muscle contraction. (I have seen my body transform with isometrics but I’ve got to admit that during that same period, though my strength levels did not recede, they did not improve that much either.)

So if what you want is a good looking physique with muscles that are strong but your lifestyle does not necessarily demand that they be very coordinated, then isometrics is the best possible value for your time and effort. But if you are looking for something that will help you not just look good but hit a tennis ball better at the club or manage an impromptu bed press, then you’ve also got to incorporate some conventional training tools like body-weight calisthenics or weight workouts.

And it is a complete workout in itself for general health and fitness. Well nothing beats yoga or a hard and soft qigong workout (which would incidentally include a fair number of isometric moves) if you ask me, but if isometrics are your thing, add about twenty minutes of running or better still, shadow boxing, thrice a week to give your cardiovascular and nervous systems as good a workout as the isometrics would give your muscles and bones and tendons and ligaments.

A word of caution: always remember to breathe correctly; inhale while you build up tension in the muscles, exhale while you hold the contraction and then inhale again as you relax the muscle. At no point should you hold your breath for it could trigger sudden changes in blood pressure and even damage the heart.

If you think isometrics suit your lifestyle, pick up a good book by one of the authors mentioned above, read it carefully, check out a few video demonstrations on the internet and then ideally start your programme under an expert’s supervision and with your doctor’s blessings.

Isometrics are a potent tool and need to be handled with care.

As for me, I’m going looking for the next great workout while you try and push that wall over…

So long, and like I said, don’t hold your breath while I’m gone…

THE WAIF FROM NOT QUITE XANADU

2012-01-19T10:25:00.002+05:30

Not too far from Delhi, less than half a day’s drive away, there breathes a sleepy little town with a few secrets to share. It has been four years to the day since I last travelled to Shekhawati and stumbled upon its myriad charms. If you don’t have an attic to clean or a lunch to host this weekend, I recommend you to go and pay this sweet little town a visit. And just to help you make up your mind, here’s a story from the vault about...

“Can’t go further. I want to go home. Mamma waiting, Monsieur… Arrivederci! Adios! Adios!” My guide was adamant. He threw a fervent glance at the wicker gate, the thornbush fence, and the lengthening shadows crawling across the stepwell. He looked at me, piteously. “Arre, kya hua? Scared?” I asked. “No monsieur, no… it is late, manne jaave dejo!” and with that our guide, all of eight years and 28 inches, jumped off the car and scampered away into the dusty haze. This was a strange place. . .

I had chased the clouds across a clear blue sky, over bumpy roads, past brown fields and blue bulls; and groves of burnt trees that looked like tall, gaunt lepers to reach Shekhawati, a Marwari cultural outpost in western Rajasthan. And why here? Well, to get even. A friend of mine recently returned from Khajuraho and couldn’t stop raving about the ‘sheer’ beauty of its temples and the unashamed cultural self-awareness that they exude. But with Khajuraho overbooked, I left for what a little bird insisted was the next best thing – the frescoes of Shekhawati.

If perchance, one such bird happens to whisper the same in your ears, give it a warm smile, and then wring its neck and pluck its feathers till it squeals and confesses that it hasn’t got the foggiest idea because the truth is that Shekhawati has all the beauty and erotic charm of a decomposing corpse. Yes, there are some old havelis, and some beautifully restored ones too, with frescoes on their walls that are typical of the region – warriors, camels, queens and kings – but there is nothing breathtaking or awe inspiring about them. So if you’re going there for its frescoes, don’t bother, and yet go there you must for the little wonders that roam its streets.

Driving into Mandawa, central Shekhawati, I was hailed down by a pint sized waif. “Bonjour Monsieur! You want guide. I guide. I show Shekhawati… in Italian, French, German, Spanish and English… you want?” I couldn’t believe my ears. This little urchin would’ve struggled to dunk a basketball if I had a hoop around my waist; his snotty-nose seemed to have been running for so long that there were moraines etched under his nostrils; (Why didn’t he use a handkerchief? “bizhee, no time have”) and he rattled off the same sales pitch in the remaining languages (yes, yes I do understand a fair smattering of all four). I was stunned, as were a busload of German tourists who’d reached the same spot. This was Laloo, and he was in business straightaway. With all the confidence of a school teacher herding a bunch of kids, that little mite of a boy led the bunch of awestruck Germans into the narrow lanes of Mandawa. I tagged along...

Only to be shunted out – by the scruff of the neck. I had followed the Germans into an old haveli which Laloo promised had some spectacular “golden paintings”. But the caretakers – fair imitations of Hagar and Hilda ‘Horrible!’ – refused to unlock the hidden treasures till I moved out. ‘Hilda’ pointed at me and kept on a diatribe. Laloo, sympathy writ large on his face, urged me to leave. “Only for foreign peoples... she saying...” I should’ve felt what Gandhi felt that fateful day at the train station in South Africa, but then the only ‘revolution’ I’m good at is orbitingaround my wife. Miserable, I sat down on a parapet and waited for the group. After sometime, the Germans, trooped out and Laloo came up, and with a sympathetic pat, rattled off some of north India’s choicest expletives in honour of the lady of the house. “No worrying, I show you Kamasutra...” The Kamasutra? Ho-hum, not that I was particularly keen, but now that I’d come all the way... But did he know the Kamasutra? “Eroteek! I know!!” and with that he gestured, and revealed that the world of birds and the bees held no mysteries for this little devil. Ah, the end of innocence, but whose loss is it anyway? Cutting through the musing, Laloo dragged me by the hand, and took the Germans and me to a haveli, whose walls displayed amorous couples engaged in improbable congresses. Not bad, but no match for Khajuraho. Laloo sensed my disappointment. “No like? I show more... in Mukundgarh.” Oh well, but since I’d come all the way... So leaving the Germans behind, we drove towards Mukundgarh. En route, next to the highway, I saw a stepwell,and a wicker gate. It was dusk, and in the failing light, I could make out the contours of some old ruins... I stopped the car. This place almost called out to me, but Laloo looked nervous...

“Mamma..! Mamma waiting, Monsieur. I want to go home...” But hey, that’s another story...

INTO THE HEART OF DARKNESS AND LIGHT

2012-01-12T09:54:00.002+05:30

In a dark and savage world where nothing rules but raw nature, I came across a story of surprising tenderness and togetherness. It made me wonder if it takes the fear of death to always remind us of what it is to be truly alive, to always remind us that we need each other to become what we are to be and to remain who we are... So here’s an extract from the vault... An account from my journey into the heart of darkness and light, into the blood-red horizon where land and sea meet, where death can strike from the shadows or the shallows, into the last forests where man still fears to tread – into the forests of Sunderban

The faithless faithful Keshab Giri is a pious man. Every evening, the bearded priest of Kultuli village would go to a banyan tree by the river and pray at its feet, light a clay lamp, then walk back to his hut by the paddy fields. This evening wasn’t supposed to be any different.

But as Giri walked, the village seemed unusually quiet. Even the village curs had fallen silent. All Giri could hear tonight was the sound of his bare feet rustling the dry grass. At the foot of the great banyan, Giri began his prayers. The air around the tree was heavy with a pungent, unfamiliar odour. Maybe it’s from the bank, he thought. Dead cattle, rotting flowers and once even a dead man, swollen and yellow had drift ed past these shores. But this smell was different – overpowering, but alive.

Giri tried to return to his prayers. He couldn’t. He opened his eyes to light the lamp… there, inches away from his forehead, hanging from the branches was a striped tail, its tip flicking. “I fell over backward, chanting Maa’s name. My eyes met the tiger’s. It glowered and snarled, but didn’t attack,” Giri said. “Quivering with fear, I screamed ‘bagh ayese... tiger’s here!’ Within minutes, the whole village had gathered, flaming torches in hand. We surrounded the tree and started chanting Maa’s name… the tiger seeing the crowd, climbed higher up, and then jumped off the tree, past the crowd and into the village.” Giri pointed at a hut behind a duck pond, “…ran straight into it, past an old woman lying by the courtyard, tore through the wall and into the paddy fields. Astonishingly, no one was hurt. Maayer kripa… grace of the Mother.”

As we spoke, a sea eagle called and a streak of bright orange lit up the horizon. Dawn was breaking over the Sunderbans. Word had spread that a tiger had swum across the river from an island forest and entered the village, and we’d given chase. But we’d reached a little too late. The tiger had been captured by the forest officials and taken away before we could reach. But the journey hadn’t been in vain, because I got to meet ‘Maa’.

In most parts of the country, ‘Maa’ would mean any of the many forms of Durga, but in the Sunderbans, it does not refer to a Hindu deity but a Muslim one – and one both pious Hindus and devoted Muslims pray to together – ‘Maa Bonbibi’. Legend has it that Bonbibi, born to poor Muslim parents, was abandoned, and then brought up by a deer in these forests. Blessed by Nature, she became the protector of these forests and all who enter it in good faith. Bonbibi shrines, with the idol of a goddess sitting on a tiger, dot the Sunderbans. And today, Kultuli was going to thank Maa for keeping them safe.

The villagers had organised a jatra – a musical play celebrating Bonbibi. As the gaudily painted actors got into the act, on a makeshift stage, Giri Baba’s friend, a dark eyed man with a shock of white hair and a wispy beard, Muttalib Mollah, whispered, “Sunderban’s villages have both Hindus and Muslims, but in truth they are just children of the forest. The Musholmans pray five times in a mosque and the Hindus do their temple aarothi, but when it is time to go to the forest, we are together in our prayers to Maa Bonbibi. The Muslims tuck their beards and sit arm in arm in front of an idol with the Hindus who have no qualms about praying to a Muslim deity. Even when riots have spread across the Bengals, the Hindus and Muslims of the Sunderbans have lived as brothers… because the forest forces us to remain human, remain humane and stay in touch with what religion was meant to be… a source of strength, a divine bond, with our Khuda, our soul and our neighbour. A night in the forest is enough to teach you that. Theek bolchhi dada?” Muttalib turned to Giri. Though engrossed in the jatra, Giri turned, put an arm around Muttalib, nodded and smiled “theek… aekdom theek”. The play was long, the actors terrible and the music off -key, but the Kultuli crowd cheered, enraptured and entranced. The stage was empty now. The crowd was dispersing. Giri asked Muttalib to sing. “Aekhon kayno… why now?”. He was reluctant. “Gao na, aamra nachbo… sing, we’ll dance” Some people around him also insisted and a reluctant Muttalib went up on stage. Giri told me that Muttalib sang Hari kirtans really well.

Muttalib started, tentatively first, and then with gusto… The musicians returned, the dhols erupted, and the crowd stopped and turned. Muttalib was singing and ‘shaking’, and Kultuli, Hindus, Muslims alike, were ‘shaking’ with him…

This was my last day in these magical forests. It was a good day…

MIRACLE ON WHATEVER STREET

2012-01-05T09:50:00.001+05:30

It’s a New Year again and this year, let me begin by recounting an encounter with a miracle. We could all do with a miracle or more in our lives, and a miracle sculpted with human will, that shapes many other lives in need of a miracle is one worth celebrating the start of a new year with. BKS Iyengar turned 93 on the 14th of December. This is the story of the day I met the man and his miracles...

The Dutch often claim that God lies in the details. Well, no one can accuse an Indian of looking for Him there so I’ll spare you the same, but honestly, if you’re ever in need of a dash of divinity, look up the details about the man in my story and go pay him a visit. You won’t be disappointed. I had seen his pictures and read his books, but he seemed different when I met him in the flesh. He seemed to have been hewn out of the rugged rocks of Vetal hill, now casting its lengthening shadow over the city of Pune. It was late afternoon, and since I seemed to have disrupted the man’s siesta, I sat across him with some trepidation. He wasn’t a big man, but his diminutive 90-year-old frame seemed hard pressed to contain the colossus that breathed within; his voice rumbled deep inside him and hit me with the heat and force of a freshly ejected cannon ball. I’d been warned that he did not suffer fools – especially fools with press cards – gladly.

And why was I here? Well dear reader, like any self respecting gadfly with a pen, I was out risking life and limb to bring you the truth – the truth about miracles. And since yoga boasts of more miracles per century than any other art or science, I thought of meeting the man who the BBC described as the Michelangelo of yoga – Shri B.K.S. Iyengar. In the beginning, I was a little disappointed. When I asked the great yogi if he had acquired any siddhis, he responded with what a rather egotistic rant, “I have conquered the world,” he boomed, as the windows rattled “…but do you know how I was as a child?” he asked with a boyish smile that made his bushy eyebrows dance. I was beginning to like the man… “I was sickly and weak, I had tuberculosis and couldn’t attend school... the doctors said I didn’t have long to live…” and it was then that yoga found him and breathed health and strength into his dying body. Th us resuscitated, Iyengar surrendered himself to yoga and was perhaps single-handedly responsible for the yoga revolution that is sweeping the world today. “From a dying child, I became a man who taught yoga to the world, isn’t that a miracle?” he asked. Yes, yes I wasn’t convinced either, and ‘Guruji’, as his disciples call him, must’ve noted my disappointment.

While the interview was in progress, he called out to young lady who walked past us. “You wanted a miracle? Well, here is one. Nivedita, tell them your story.” Nivedita, a little bashful to begin with, began her story: “I was bed-ridden for 15 years of my life. Th e doctors couldn’t tell me what was wrong with me, the tests couldn’t… I was told I’ll never walk again. My life was as good as over, until I met Guruji. After one look, he prescribed a set of asanas and soon enough I was able to sit, walk and run on my own. Today I’m in the best of health, and teaching yoga – a life that my doctors and I believed was impossible for me.” Just then, a blonde woman walked in to ask ‘Guruji’ something about a class that was in progress at the time.

“Ah, here’s another ‘miracle’!” exclaimed Guruji. “Shai, tell them your story.” Sure enough, Shai, from Israel, revealed how she had an obstinate brain tumour that simply refused to respond to medication or surgery and how her life had become intolerable with constant nausea and headaches, but once she started yoga with Iyengar, the pain and the nausea went away, she stopped taking her medication and even her doctors say that she should “keep doing yoga because nothing seems to work the way this does.”And so it went on… there was Raya, a reformed Indian delinquent, there was this charming Danish breast cancer patient, Ingellsen, an ever so sweet woman in her 60s who said: “I’ve surrendered myself to Guruji, I owe my life to him… there is something divine about him.”

B.K.S. Iyengar may not have resurrected the dead (yet!), but he sure comes close. As I walked away, I was filled with a deep sense of regret, for not too long ago I had lost a relative who might have lived a longer, fuller life if I had had the sense to bring him here. If you share your life with a Nivedita or a Raya, go tothat miracle worker on Hare Krishna Mandir street, because for you or yours, God might actually lie in that detail.

THE REACHER AND THE SETTLER! REALLY?

2011-12-22T10:14:00.000+05:30

Margaret and I go back a long way. In the early days we would spend hours trying to pigeon-hole her wise-cracking, horse-riding, ever-charming boy-friend into one of the categories in this book she would carry around with her. ‘What kind of a dog is your man?’, was the title of the book and we spent many happy hours wondering if one of my closest friends was a noble and Great Dane or a mere German Shepherd, or was he a wild Blue-tick or a frisky Cocker-poo.

Today, that book sits forgotten in a dusty corner of their kitchen loft where Maggie stashed the book after they got married. So Maggie and I talk about real dogs, happy marriages, Sunday barbecues, kids – the ones they should have had and the ones they will have and other happy things. Then the other day, I mentioned Surbhi and Sahil (our protagonists from last week) to wise old Maggie and she sprang a concept on me…

But hey, I forgot to tell you about Surbhi and Sahil, and how their made-in-heaven-marriage collapsed in a heap around them. So yes, they split up. We could see them pulling away into different worlds for weeks and months and years but somehow they didn’t seem to. We would bring it up and they would just smile and brush it away. Then Surbhi met this boy, one of her students who happened to be a talented dancer. He had dreams in his eyes and music in his bones. He danced and smiled but more than that, he spoke and he would listen. And when Surbhi spoke about her dreams that danced in her eyes, she noticed that the sparkle caught the boy’s eye. She didn’t remember it having caught Sahil’s eye, not now, perhaps not ever… It made her wonder if Sahil understood her. She knew this boy did.

Then we got this message from her… She had packed her bags and moved in with her student. Sahil didn’t know what hit him. He ran after her and tried to bring her back. He didn’t know where he had gone wrong. Surbhi would always look up to him, in awe. When did the plot change? When did Sahil fall from that altar, and fall so low that she didn’t even want to look back or help him up?

Many moons have passed since then. Some of us thought that Surbhi might return, but she hasn’t yet. Sahil spends his evenings talking to whoever would listen, and we all do because he is now the Sahil of old, his voice quivering with passion, his eyes looking for the light and his heart pouring out love. But the woman who waited for so long to see it all was now in another man’s arms.

When I spoke to Margaret about them, she had a theory which she had borrowed from an episode of ‘How I Met Your Mother. She called it the principle of ‘the Reacher and the Settler’. The way I understand it, here’s how this works…

In every romantic relationship, so say Maggie and her sitcom, there’s a wide-eyed reacher, (who could be the man or the woman, and let’s say it is the woman in this case), who knows that the object of her affection is way out her league, and a magnanimous settler who knows he could have gotten better but then affection, complacency, or perhaps just good old fashioned love makes him ‘settle’ for the reacher who is reaching out for all she is worth for the settler.

I wondered if that really was true, so I asked around. Funnily, it isn’t an easy question to answer. Most find it a little difficult to accept that they are the ones reaching out, and yet they find it equally difficult to accept that they settled for less than they could have. So they hemmed and hawed for a while and then went one way or the other. Meanwhile Margaret insisted that usually it is the settler who was more likely to stray, especially if life with the reacher would repeatedly remind the settler that there could have been more to life.

So was it really true, I asked myself. And between my wife and me, who was the reacher and who was the settler? It wasn’t a difficult question to answer though… Seventeen years ago, my knees were all but worn to the bone because I spent every waking hour on my knees by her side. Guess that doesn’t make me much of a settler. So a reacher I was. But then, if it is the settler who is more likely to stray, then why was I not worried and insecure about my partner? On the contrary, why did she at times tease about being the one more likely to stray? And then I remembered that I used to tease her in the same manner not so long ago. And there it was… an epiphany right there in that moment.

It dawned on me then that while every relationship has a reacher and a settler, those roles are like money in the market. In a healthy relationship, those roles change hands every few years and that is the secret to keeping a relationship alive and kicking. If couples get stuck in these roles, the relationship goes stale and is reduced to a habit. But a relationship is not a habit but a living organic dance between lovers and friends where each takes turns to lead.

And here’s the science behind the supposition. As an humble reacher, while I was jumping out of my skin and comfort zones, striving to better myself so I could measure up, inadvertently and almost imperceptibly I actually started growing into a better man. And then as the years rolled by, at a subconscious level, my partner sensed it and started playing catch-up instead. And so we played, reaching and settling and waiting to reach out again, and that is the dance of love that keeps us together, helps us grow and makes this relationship a new one every now and then.

The day we settle into our roles and stop reaching out and growing, this relationship will die. We could drag the corpse around like so many others do or just bury it the way Surbhi did, but love will surely stagnate and die, the day you stop trying.

It’ll be a new year soon, and between resolutions for losing that gut and kicking the butt, do stop and ask yourself if you are reaching out enough. And if you are the settler, ask yourself if you are you inspiring the reacher enough? And this question, dear reader will help you better all the resolutions you ever made and never kept… so stay in love and Happy New Year!

THE WHYS AND WOES OF LOVE

2011-12-15T10:02:00.000+05:30

Love doesn’t look like a bright red heart at all these days. It has just gone pear shaped, and all green. No one believes in it anymore.

Actually that might be little too harsh. What I meant was that no one seems to believe in eternal love anymore. All around me, and just as much around you I’m sure, couples who seemed to be forever in love are falling out and drifting apart, away from each other. It needn’t necessarily end in legal separation, but when you meet them, you can tell that the relationship has reached the end of its tether for the staleness begins to show. Why does that happen? Will it happen to you? Will it happen to me?

Well, I hope not and I’m not going to tempt fate by claiming to know how to make every four letter word work better for you just because I got lucky. No sir, and no ma’am, I’m a seeker, just as much as you are… But I will tell you a couple of stories about some friends of mine and maybe we both could learn some lessons on love, enduring and everlasting love as it was once meant to be…

So here’s the first one…

Sahil and Surbhi were batchmates of mine. Surbhi was the queen bee. Every drone worth his droning would be batting his hopeful wings, hoping to catch her eye. The only one who wouldn’t was Sahil. Surbhi was good at games, remembering names, extending a hand, playing with the band and all those other good things that rhyme. Sahil on the other hand was a shameless academic genius. And absurdly good-looking too. Class toppers are supposed to be nerdy, pencil-necked geeks. He wasn’t. He was more like Johnny Depp in contact lenses and a suit. We all hated him for all that, just as much as we loved Surbhi for all that. Then they got lumped together for some of the presentations. Surbhi was a brilliant speaker and a pretty good student herself and together they lit up every presentation they made. For all his ‘attitude’, Sahil was all jelly inside and Surbhi’s warm eyes and sweet smile had him eating popcorn out of her hands at the movies, and before you knew it he was eating sweets out of her hand at their wedding. Yes, they got married as soon as they could and this was a marriage that was made in heaven. Sahil doted on her and Surbhi was in awe of her husband. He was smart and rising rapidly up the corporate ladder, while Surbhi experimented with her career choices and eventually chose to become a dancer. She taught salsa at a popular dance school and spent her weekends teaching dance to handicapped kids and slum children. Sahil would brag about his wife’s good kind heart to his friends but when she would try and talk to him about her work, she couldn’t quite get through.

Sahil cared, and he wanted her to know that. Even though he wouldn’t always say it, he knew she would understand, that even though he was busy playing golf after work with his bosses, she knew he was proud of her.

Husbands, admit it. Within a few years, months and at times weeks of getting married, our wives lose us to the television, or golf, or the quest for the next big car and somehow our relationships aren’t the same ever again. It’s almost like we court obsessively till we tie the knot and then our passions go off on a vacation, only to return like an iron-curtain defector who returns occasionally for fleeting visits and is treated like a rare celebrity.

And wives, it’s not like we need less of your love just because you have a kitchen, a kid and a career that leaves you drained. But more of that later…

As time rolled by, Surbhi and Sahil got drawn into their parallel worlds a little more every day. Some of their friends could see that although they went back to the same house, they weren’t really at home with each other. Their worlds had grown too far apart. Their conversations were functional with none of that youthful chatter about dreams and each other anymore. Conversations were difficult without an event to hang on to. If you were to ask them if they had a problem, they would frown at you and honestly wonder if you had lost your bearings, for to them, life was meant to be this way. If there was a vacuum, they didn’t see it, until…

Wait! Surbhi and Sahil can wait, I need to tell you about Vishnu and Nida before we finish... In the advertising agency where they worked, Vishnu was the charismatic creative head and Nida was the awe-struck starry-eyed trainee. Flamboyant and forceful, Vishnu happened to be a good friend and a very popular, if at times moody boss. Nida was his talented and elegant protégé. In her eyes, Vishnu could do no wrong. She used to hate smokers and yet she found Vishnu seductive when he smoked. Vishnu could get rather loud and boisterous at times but Nida felt he was merely being passionate about his ideas.

And Nida’s sparkling effervescence didn’t go unnoticed. Vishnu liked her work. And he liked her energy and her chic and stylish presence. They went out a few times, “to discuss work”, and then Vishnu started dropping her home. Vishnu didn’t talk much about her but Nida seemed rather smitten. One fine day, they announced they wanted to get married. We weren’t surprised but their parents were. They came from very different families and faiths. This wasn’t going to be easy. Vishnu didn’t have much trouble really, but Nida had to run through walls of fire to convince her people that she really wanted to marry this man. At one point of time, she was ready to give up her ties with her family and the life she knew, just to be with this man. And Vishnu stood by her through it all. Her family blinked first and soon they were married, happily ever after, and so we thought.

Three years later, Nida packed her bags and went back home. She couldn’t bear the thought of spending another day with the man she once worshipped. Her god had fallen off the altar, his halo smashed to sharp edged shards that snagged her dreams and left them bleeding.

The truth is that Vishnu was still the brilliantly creative professional he had always been at work. He hadn’t conned her or lied to her. And neither did she accuse him of that. And yet, Nida, in her own words, “was sick of her marriage”.

I would love to tell you more about the hows and whys of love and why it got this way, but as you can see, we’ve run out of word count, so hang in there and watch this space next week. And while you’re at it, I recommend you switch off that television, go up to your partner and talk about their dreams. If you haven’t done this in a while, you just might end up meeting a nice new stranger. Good luck!

THE SIGH OF THE TIGER

2011-12-08T10:51:00.001+05:30

So you want the magic pill? You want that quick fix that’ll help you fit into that pair of jeans you loved turning around in, and into those arms which once used to clasp at the elbows around your back but now the fingers barely seem to meet, and yes, in your partner’s dreams (it’s a family magazine and that’s what we will call them) where your torso is usually replaced by someone else’s from Baywatch or whatever else you watch… Well, you’ve come to the right page, but before I give you the methods, here’s a bit about the man…

It was a small spiral-bound little yellow book where I first saw his photograph. It was a black and white image of an oldish man. He must have been in his mid-60s. A shock of white hair framed a face that you couldn’t quite call handsome or otherwise. But considering the fact that he was way past his best-before date, this should sound like a compliment. It gets more interesting by the inch, after that.

A taut, strong neck, surprisingly unwrinkled, flows into a sculpted pair of traps and shoulders that look like someone put a pad over a pair of round river rocks. Then that barrel chest and heavy sinewy arms that hung unashamed on either side of a midriff that you knew could take a punch even if you did add an ‘a’ in the mix on a bad day. We’ll stop there, as far as the picture goes, but here’s what I found out about the man in the mix. His name is John McSweeney and he was one Ed Parker’s (Ed, for those not in the know was one of America’s biggest martial arts icons and his students include some of the silver screen’s most celebrated action stars) early star students. McSweeney rose to be a celebrated martial artist in his own right and came to be known for his punching power. It was said that a McSweeney right could drop a horse dead. When John McSweeney started teaching, he stripped his karate down, focusing only on techniques that were equally effective in a New York alley as they were in a Manhattan Dojo. With their karate shorn of all the trappings of tradition and techniques that were mere relics from a different battleground, McSweeney’s Kenpo students became a would be rapist or mugger’s worst living nightmare.

But that isn’t important here. You are not reading this to fight off rapists and robbers. You are reading this because you want to know to fight off the ravages of time, and of the lack of it. You want to know how you could fight off that double chin, that beer/bore children belly, the wasting away of those once robust arms... That’s what you care about and therefore you must read on...

You see martial artists need to train for three things – technique, endurance and power. For developing techniques boxers box, wrestlers wrestle and karatekas do katas. For building muscle and cardiovascular endurance, they all do roadwork of some kind... Cycling, running, rollerblading etc. And for developing the power to knock a man out cold in their punches and kicks, these super athletes lift weights, do endless calisthenics and hit the heavy bags. But what does John McSweeney do? We know he did not bother with tradition. He just wants to do what works the most in the least amount of time and so he tries it all but he knows he is looking for something else... Then one day, he goes to the zoo and stands in front of the tiger’s enclosure. Guess all these boxers and fighters find a kindred spirit in these big cats that have to kill to live... Remember Sylvester Stallone in some of those Rocky films? Anyway, our man, McSweeney, sees this tiger stretch out its feline form with a grace and power that makes the whole body quiver. And that was his Eureka moment.

John McSweeney thought that if the tiger could build its phenomenal power by just stretching and contracting his muscles with such intensity then maybe instead of lift ing weights he would be better off tensing his muscles till they could quivered and he might well approach the mind boggling power to weight ratio of a jungle cat. And so began Mc- Sweeney’s experiments and eventual love affair with what has come to be known as ‘dynamic tension’ – the act of moving a muscle through its range of motion while tensing it as much as possible. McSweeney developed seven primary exercises which he called ‘The Miracle Seven Tiger Moves’. There were three other exercises too but these seven would do for you for now. In McSweeney’s own words, his system is nothing but “contracting and extending your muscles with great tension while thinking into them. It’s the mind muscle connection...” that builds incredible strength, and if I may add, tones your body and builds muscle that is both strong and supple. And as McSweeney adds, you don’t need any weights or equipment. You can train anytime, anywhere. Most importantly this method of training, since it’s just muscle resisting muscle without any jerky snappy movements, is safer than most other forms of exercise.

Just remember to keep breathing, through both nose and mouth, exhaling when exerting, and inhaling when not, and not hold your breath at any point of time.

These workouts have a bit in common with the hard qigong moves of Hung Gar Kung Fu. Interestingly, the Hung Gar style of fighting and training the body found inspiration in the movements of the tiger and the crane. And yes, you should know that Hung Gar masters are known for their strength and vigour. So you now have a martial artist vouching for these workouts, and a centuries old fighting style endorsing the principles of these workouts, and last but not the least, you will now have yours truly giving his grateful perspective on the matter.

Last week I had expressed the constraints that tie us all down and while I had been meaning to get back to the workouts from the beginning of my early youth, now that I’m admittedly in the fag end of my early youth, life and its demands leave me no time for those happy hours in the gym. I had been looking around for some do-it-anywhere workouts and three months ago, I came across a book by John E. Peterson and Wendie Pett titled The Miracle Seven, the aforementioned yellow book, and that’s where I met Mc- Sweeney’s tiger moves.

I added them to my regimen which included calisthenics and yoga, but because of its convenient and comprehensive nature, I found myself leaning on the Tiger Moves whenever I was pressed for time. Soon I realised that while I might miss out on other bits of my workout, it needed very little other than desire to manage the tiger moves at some point in the day. I could do them in shorts and tees, office formals, shower cap or whatever else, wherever else. And I wanted to, because I saw my body go from soft and pudgy to toned and er... if you must know, some would say approaching a shape not too far south of what one might describe as.. er... rather athletic, even if I do say so myself.

John McSweeney says that the tiger moves are an ‘instinctual exercise system’ that will help you develop incredible strength, health and youthful vigour that would stay with you all your life, and develop proportions like that of a gymnast or a ballet dancer. Having stayed with the tiger moves for the last few months I’ve got to admit that I feel the only reason I might not be able to send you a postcard at 90, flexed and toned in my Levi’s 501s, would be because I would’ve a grown a modest bone or two by then.

Oops, I almost forgot, but where are the miracle moves? Well, I recommend you visit www.bronzebowpublishing.com and let John Peterson and Wendie Pett, spiritual inheritors of the McSweeney legacy, take you through the moves that promise to reshape your life.

Hey, breathe... remember to breathe...! You are about to become what you were meant to be...

THE TIGER MOVES: A PRELUDE

2011-12-01T09:37:00.000+05:30

I feel your pain, yes, I do! There was a time you used to be fit, and looked it too. No, it wasn’t a six pack tucked neatly into your low-waisters necessarily, but at least it was flat….ish. And the shoulders had the nice rounded look of one who knew how to work with his hands, if you know what I mean. But look at that lying wall of glass in the dressing room that tells you that you aren’t young any more. Look at those once proud shoulders that have caved in with the weight of keeping up with the kids, the boss, the deadlines and the EMIs. And whose is that thing you are wearing around your middle? That… that lumpy thing that seems to grow from you and yet doesn’t seem to be a part of you… where did that come from? Just the other day, you would fit into a size 32 and then it got a little tight and you thought you would start running every day and lose the extra bits instead of buying a new size. Then it was your birthday, or was it Diwali, when you got all these new clothes and they all surprisingly got you clothes a size too big. You meant to get them changed but when you tried them on, the fit didn’t seem too bad. So you thought you’d wear them for a while and then get them altered.

That was some years ago. And somewhere in the middle, the details got a little fuzzy. Every three months, you would start running, or going to the gymnasium or those kickboxing classes and then it would get too cold to rise early. In the evenings once the presentations got done, or once the kids went back to school or when you were done with the next round of tours. What’s the point starting and stopping and starting all over again, you thought. So you buy a new pair of trainers and a new gym-bag and sipper to mark this new resolve (or was it the new mountain-bike this time?), and there you go, working on the inches. This time they’re sure to go.

You remember the disapproving look your wife gave you when you tried to fit into that singlet that she bought you in a fit of madness on your honeymoon ten years ago, and that look drives you through the first four winter mornings. And then you get late on Saturday night, you have guests over on Sunday and your wife tells you how nice you look in that new tie and how she’d much rather you remembered to drop her over at her mother’s rather than fit into that singlet and before you know it, another three months have gone and your new gym bag is happy getting stuffed with old books and magazines you’ve removed from the library but haven’t yet decided to give away, just like the other two old ones in the closet, one stuffed with your stamp albums and the other with the stuff you didn’t want the kids to see.

So there you are, unfit, unshapely, unhappy and unfulfilled, on the cusp of another year-end, and wondering if you will ever get to be the way the photos say you once used to be, or hoped to be, depending on whose photos we are talking about here. What’s worse is that those gym-bags in the closet tell you that your plans of ever being a regular gym-rat or trail-cruiser will not work.

So maybe you should give up on the idea of sweating your way back to shape and instead try one of those new fad diets… Atkins, at-kin’s whatever… So what if you don’t lose even an ounce of weight? At least you’ll have something new to talk about when you meet friends over the weekend.

Or maybe you should just drop whatever else you are doing and quickly read the rest of this story. You might want to kiss the hand that typed these words…

John McSweeney is the man to kiss actually, for if you ask me, he has created a ‘do it anywhere’ workout that is arguably the best in the world. How can I tell? Well, like almost every other 30 time, for me, has proven to be a faithless lover. Like your story above, I too have struggled to squeeze in a workout every few months. I too have fretted over that unrecognisable man in the mirror and I too have wondered if I’ll ever become half the man I hoped to be.

But John McSweeney changed all that. It’s been four months since I first read about the man and his ‘Tiger moves’ and I have since gotten back into the best shape of my life (for the record, I was once a dedicated gym rat and I wasn’t really an embarrassment to the establishment).

I don’t mean to brag. The ‘best shape of my life’ might be just pooh-pooh stuff for you but the point is I went from being all puffy and soft to a point where instead of my friends buying me clothes a few sizes bigger than the ones I was stuffing myself into, they were actually saying things like “Ah! You’ve been going to the gym!”, while all I had been doing was just 15 minutes of McSweeney magic, anytime, anywhere.

Unlike weight workouts, I did not need to haul dumbbells and barbells and a bench around with me. In fact, I did not need a road to run on, bars of all sorts to push and pull on or even a mat to lie down on. All I needed was 15 minutes and the willingness to focus mind and body into a concerted effort that was bound to bear sweet fruit.

There have been times when I have been working a tight travel schedule and even then I managed squeezing in a quick work out while waiting at the terminal. When getting a work out is this easy there really are no excuses for missing one.

So watch this space next week for the rest of the story on the man and the methods behind the McSweeney miracle workout, but just in case my word isn’t good enough for you, then read up what fitness guru and author John Peterson says about his first meeting with McSweeney. “ McSweeney was 63 years old then… but looked a lot closer to 45 and moved like a man of 25. And he said he expected to stay that way right up to the end of his days… which was exactly what he did!”

Now show me a man, or a woman, who wouldn’t want people to say that about them when they are 63, and I’ll show you someone who would rather spend their fifteen minutes looking at the mirror wondering what ran over them, while the rest of us could just roll up our sleeves, and believe me that’s all the preparation it takes, and get into our ‘tiger moves’.

So hang in there folks, for your way out of yourselves …

THE MAN WHO WON THE RACE

2011-11-24T11:10:00.000+05:30

My hall of heroes has been awfully noisy for the last few months. Champions who inspired me through thought and deed have been keeling over like eager pins in a bowling alley. And on the 19th of November, another titan rolled over to forever rest in peace. This is my second elegy in two weeks and I surely hope I don’t need to write any more of these for some time to come. The name of this unassuming man once shook up an empire. His friends called him ‘Dolly’, but history would remember him as the man at the centre of the D’Oliveira affair.

His name – Basil D’Oliveira.

He had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for a while now and I had written a story about him during India’s tour of South Africa. I reproduce sections from that story to remind you about a remarkable life that simmered with passion and a quiet dignity that humbled one of the cruelest regimes in history.

To tell you his story, let me take you to the time when he lay in bed, cold and dead, his eyes closed to the world for good. But if those eyes could talk to you still, they would have told you tales of all they saw…

For what they saw when they were young was a world full of hate and fear. Do you see that world now, a world far removed from here and now, many miles and many years away, in Cape Town, South Africa? You see a road and some kids playing cricket in the heat and dust of the afternoon. They’re playing hard, with enthusiasm, but you doubt they have the skills, except for the tall lad with a bat in the middle, whacking the ball to all corners with ease. Suddenly, you hear angry sirens… the game stops. The kids freeze, and once they know the direction of the approaching police car, the kids run in the opposite direction. The white policemen run after the dark-skinned little urchins, but they escape. It’s apartheid time in South Africa. “Coloured” kids go to jail for playing on the streets.

Anyway, you follow the kids on their run, especially the tall one with the eyes you know, as they run through streets and lanes, past hovels and slums, until one of the younger ones calls out to the tall one “Basil! Basil!! I think we’re safe now…” The tall one slows down, looks back at him, runs to him and puts an arm around him…the two friends are tired, but they’re happy…to be free, free to run and play. They look at each other and laugh, and laugh till they cry…

Basil grew to become quite the star in the local matches amongst non-whites (once hitting 46 in an eight-ball over), but he couldn’t ever hope to play for South Africa. Born into an Indian-Portuguese family in South Africa, he wasn’t allowed to play with white South Africans because the minority white government felt that it was beneath “white dignity” to mix with people of Indian or African origin. But as little Bas’ talents blossomed, so did his dreams. He was loved by his people for his brave and explosive batting, his tall hits and taller scores, and he’d like me to add, his steady, often inspired medium-fast bowling. But he’d grown too big for his ‘coloured’ boots. He wanted to play Test cricket. He’d watch the great white South African cricketers playing in the big stadium, and from his little segregated corner in the stands, wish he was there on the field, playing with them. He made up his mind to try the impossible. If his homeland wouldn’t have him then he’d try and play for the game’s homeland – England. Basil had a friend he trusted. A man he believed had a heart as bright and bold as that golden voice of his BBC commentator, John Arlott, a household name in every Commonwealth home with a radio. During the 1950s Basil was already on the wrong side of 25. Time was running out and he knew he was reaching for the moon, but he had to try. Arlott didn’t know of Basil when he received a letter from him that spoke of his dreams. But the story of a gift ed boy trapped by the colour of his skin touched a chord in his heart. Arlott wrote back, and thus the two exchanged letters and hope until two years passed. Then it began to wane. Basil was grateful for Arlott’s support, but he knew it was too late. He was too old now… Then out of the blue came a letter from Arlott. He’d persuaded an English club to hire Basil as a professional. The pay was meagre, but at last Basil would play as a professional.

Basil was delirious and his family and friends were so happy for him. In his dreams they saw their hopes of dignity and acceptance taking flight. But those dreams had come with clipped wings, only to flutter and shatter on the hard, cold floor. Basil didn’t have the money to pay for his way to England. But help walked in, in different hues. Friends, both brown and black, wrote letters and raised funds, and then Gerald Innes, a white South African cricketer, heard Basil’s story and put together a team of ‘whites’. They played a match, defying apartheid laws and its brutal police action, to raise funds for Basil’s journey. Years later, whenever Basil would be asked to add his voice to the crescendo against ‘the white man’s tyranny’, his memory of Innes walking amongst the spectators with a pail in his hands, raising funds for his cause, would always soften his stance. In England, it was a quiet start for the boy from the streets, walking behind his mates, looking for ‘coloured-only entrances and toilets’, but soon his great talent and greater hunger saw him take the leagues by storm. In five years, he’d become a British citizen, and perhaps because he’d lied about his age on arrival, was selected to play for England in 1966. He was 34 (or, more likely, 38). The old light in his eyes must have glistened for a while, for he must have shed a silent tear in prayer and joy that day… And then runs, dozens, scores and hundreds more flowed from his blade, and Basil scanned the horizon. England was due to tour South Africa and he was in form. This was the day he was waiting for, when he’d return to the land of his birth with so much to prove. It was a moment that he and his people had been waiting for.

But then the unthinkable happened. Basil lost his touch. It was 1968 and the Australians were touring. Basil was dropped after the first match. Four Tests later, they’d announce the team for South Africa. Basil was worried. Meanwhile, South Africa’s Prime Minister, one-time Nazi sympathiser, BJ Vorster was also worried. Not co-incidentally, Basil had been approached by a South African tobacco magnate to coach ‘non-white’ South Africans for more money that he’d ever seen. The ‘catch’ – he’d have to make himself ‘unavailable’ for the tour. Basil was tempted. He could secure his family’s future if he accepted… But, what of his dreams? And all those people waiting back home to see ‘Bas’, the ‘coloured’ Test cricketer? Though not in the team, Basil refused and hoped for a miracle.

It was the final ‘Test’ at the Oval and batsman Roger Prideaux fell ill. Meanwhile, Basil had turned out brilliantly in a county game and was picked for the final match. When Basil walked out to bat, he knew he was battling not just Aussie bowlers and the pressure of a comeback but also battling the South African government that wanted him to fail, as well as the weight of the expectations of every man of colour around the world. Basil scratched the pitch with the toe of his bat and took guard for far more than his team that day and slammed158 iron-willed runs that took England to victory, like in a fairy tale. What could stop his inclusion for the tour now? But alas, something did. The selectors were informed that the South African government won’t allow a player of ‘colour’. However, the English selectors maintained that, “Bas had been dropped on ‘cricketing grounds only’”. The nation erupted in support for Basil. But Basil felt betrayed by his adopted nation and maintained a stoic dignified silence even as the storm blew and grew. Then, as luck would have it, Cartwright, a bowler, was injured and Basil was recalled to the tour-team. But before a bemused Basil could join the team, Vorster exploded in Bloemfontein, calling the English team a team of “the anti-apartheid movement.”

Now the English couldn’t drop him and Vorster wouldn’t have him, and so the tour was cancelled. Bas felt sorry for his English team mates, and for himself, but most of all for his people back home. His integrity and proud dignity in the face of such rejection and betrayal stood out in stark contrast to the terrible racial bigotry in South Africa and the English sporting establishment’s tacit support. The West having hitherto turned a blind eye to South Africa’s excesses was now disgusted and embarrassed; it began to sever ties with South Africa. Within a year of refusing Basil, South Africa had become the pariah of the world, shunned and abhorred for its inhuman policies. If not for Basil D’Oliveira, the shy Indian boy from the Cape, who knows when, if ever, the world would’ve noticed, and who knows how much longer South Africa would’ve taken to become the great rainbow nation it is today.

So you might not have met, and you might not have known, but we all still owe old Bas for pushing the world in the right direction all those years ago. Nothing quite as dramatic as the story of the other Indian in South Africa who got thrown out of a train, but significant nevertheless… So do say a little prayer for him, for the world needs a Dolly, even if good old Dolly has no need for it anymore. God bless you, Bas!

A FORGOTTEN OLD MAN, HIS SANDAL AND HIS STORY

2011-11-17T10:04:00.000+05:30

In the cold inky blue of a frosty Beijing night, the Red Theatre stands out like a bright red flame emitting warmth and light. On a night like this even without the pre-booked ticket in my pocket, The Red Theatre would’ve called out to me like the open arms of a long lost lover in city full of strangers. I hurried across the road, through the gates and up the cold wet steps of the theatre and entered a world draped in red and ochre.

The Red Theatre is famous for showcasing traditional Chinese performing arts like kung fu, but I would be lying if I said I had expected the theatre and the performance to be world class in terms of quality. To begin with, the theatre had this officious communist-sounding name, which by the way, was a huge improvement on the rather oxymoronish Chongwen Worker’s Cultural Palace Theatre; a name it went by before Mao’s (Zedong) China became Yao’s (Ming, the former iconic NBA star) China. And secondly, Chinese production values have always emphasized quantity over quality.

But having said that, I did expect the very highest standards of ‘performance kung fu’ even if the platform was going to be loud and kitschy. But boy, was I wrong. The auditorium was well appointed and the stage impressed with its scale but nothing had prepared me for the brilliance of ‘The Legend of Kung Fu’.

I sat mesmerized as I saw the sublime blend of music and martial arts weave together a magical tapestry that told the tale of a young boy at the Shaolin temple and how he found enlightenment through kung fu. Halfway through the show, my neighbor, a fellow Indian, shook his head and said “isn’t it sad that we have nothing like this in India. Our classical music and dance is all fine but nothing compares to the virile vigour of a martial tradition. Our national character would have been different if we had a proud martial culture rooted in our history like the Chinese..” I nodded in agreement but I was too distracted for a conversation. My whole being was funneled into the mystical world on stage - beams of light, blue yellow and red, dancing in circles around the stage, catching the actors, skilled martial artists all, in shades of light and shadow - as the story unraveled its seductive charms.

Suddenly a little boy appeared, not on stage, like I first thought, but like a vision in my head. That little boy danced with the lights and the music for a while and then the stage faded while palm trees appeared around a lake where the child jumped in and began to swim across it. Once on the other side, he pushed his long dark hair away from his eyes, removed his tunic and wrung the water out. It is then that I realized that the boy wasn’t Chinese but Indian.

A voice…! The child looked up. Someone was calling out to him. I followed his gaze and saw a bunch of soldiers from another time, carrying shields and javelins. I wondered if these were friends or foes, but then I saw the child smile and run towards them. Ah, friends! This boy seemed to be a prince of some sort and this was some ancient kingdom by the Malabar Coast. The stage had faded completely as I got immersed in this story in my head.

The boy grew up nursing a keen interest in the ways of war as well as the scriptures of his chosen faith – Buddhism. He was the son of a king and he had the best teachers in the land instructing him on both paths which seemed to converge in his heart as he pursued their truths. He found that the way of the warrior, one who dedicated his life to the pursuit of excellence in his chosen martial art and then forged his will in the furnace of war for truth and justice found the same sense of enlightenment as those who meditated on the teachings of the Buddha and the scriptures for years in seclusion, and often sooner.

The boy was named Bodhitara. And as his understanding of the truth grew, so did his resolve to share it with the world and help them find the same peace that he had found. As the third son of his father, he was not bound by the same responsibilities that chained his elder brothers to the throne and so he left his kingdom, Kanchipuram, in modern day Tamil Nadu and became a wandering monk who spent his days sharing the light with the world.

Bodhitara was now known as Bodhidharma and he travelled across the length of India and then found himself on a vessel that was sailing east and after battling storms and pirates it dropped anchor in a Malaysian harbor. Bodhitara did not stay here for long and moved north towards China. However, he did linger long enough to leave behind his martial teachings which metamorphosed into the Malaysian martial art of Silat.

Along the way, Bodhidharma met kings and philosophers, learning and sharing, teaching and training all he knew of the way of peace and the way of war. And then he reached that famous Buddhist monastery in the mountains called Shaolin. But Bodhidharma, now known as Damo in China, was disappointed. The monks in the monastery were in poor physical and mental condition and their weak bodies just couldn’t handle the rigours of sustained meditative practices and nor could they defend themselves against the bandits who often raided the temple.

Damo went into a cave and stared at a wall to meditate on the problem. And it is said he meditated for many years. If you go to Shaolin today, they will show you the cave where Damo meditated. At one point, he felt his eyelids go heavy with sleep and so he cut them off and flung them to the ground. Where his eyelids fell, so runs the Chinese legend, sprang up a little plant whose leaves, when brewed, helped the monks stay awake through their austerities. Today, they call it tea.

When Damo found his answers, he went to the monks and taught them techniques to strengthen their bodies against disease and dacoits. Some of those teachings were inscribed in an immortal classic, versions of which survive to this day – The Muscle/Tendon changing classic or Yijin Jing. And these teachings that Damo brought with him all the way from India’s southern tip were the pillars that held up the Saholin Temple through wars and famines and floods and fires and laid the foundation of Shaolin Kung fu and qigong.

“Rise son, and honour the teachings of Damo…”, said the old master on stage, and mention of Damo’s name brought me back to performers on stage. The master continued, “… and as you honour his path, you will find the way to enlightenment.”It’s a sad irony that ‘Damo’s way’ became the way for a land far away from his own, but in his homeland, the twin arts of Kalaripayattu and Marma Vidhya (the art of striking the vital points), in which he trained with such passion to become the warrior ascetic, have been languishing, forgotten and forlorn, like an old senile grandfather left to die in a corner of the family courtyard.

About 155 years after Damo was born, sometime in the sixth century A.D., a minister from the Chinese Emperor’s court was returning from his travels and chanced upon Damo on the Pamir range that separates China from Central Asia and asked the revered sage where he might be going, to which the sage replied he was headed home. Then the minister noticed that Damo was walking bare feet and was holding a sandal in his hand. When the minister asked him why, he replied “you’ll know when you get back to court.”

Once there, the minister told Emperor Wei about his meeting. The Emperor was shocked when he heard that for Damo had died three years ago. Damo had been buried behind the monastery in Shaolin but when they reached his grave it was empty except for one sandal.

If only Damo could have brought Kalaripayattu and Marma Vidya back from the dead the way he himself returned from his grave, perhaps my neighbour wouldn’t have been lamenting the absence of a martial tradition in India.

The curtains came down on the show and we stood up and gave the performers a standing ovation. But I left the theatre with a gaping wound in my heart, regretting the fact that we had squandered with apathy and neglect the very riches that have enriched our neighbours so…

JOE FRAZIER: AN ABSTRACTION

2011-11-10T09:55:00.001+05:30

Every time I open my book of heroes, a gust of wind blows a leaf away. And swirling with it into the great blue beyond disappears another life well lived, another inspired moment, another story that tells you that mortal though you be, these winds will carry your story on their lips into eternity if only you have the courage to dare.... To care.....!

This week, i’m interrupting ‘The Dragon’s Den Diaries’ to pay my dues to an inspirational light that shall flicker no more. Join me if you care.....

I was born the year he retired and so for a long time he did not show up on the radar of my adolescence. Then I watched a prize fighter in cricket whites smash the bejesus out of Kapil Dev and co. Until then I had eyes and heart for only two cricketers. Fast bowlers both, from across the border, one a proud pathan named Imran Khan and the other his left armed protege, Wasim Akram.. I thought batsmen were wimps to hide behind helmets and chest pads while these long haired warriors unleashed thunderbolts and lightning like gods from the heavens. I had no time for willow wielders until one day I saw this powerfully built dark Hercules swat those thunderbolts off his nose and into the stands with the arrogance of lion at a dog show and I sat up and took notice. They called him Vivian Smokin’ Joe Richards. But why’d they call him Smokin’ Joe? I learnt they called him that after a heavyweight boxer called Joe Frazier, a man Richards admired and in him, more than any other cricketer, found his true inspiration . And why did they call him that? Well Joe Frazier was a relentless fighter who used to steam in at his opponent. But more importantly, the two smokin Joes had another thing in common. They were giant-slayers in a land of giants. Both of them were less than six feet tall, taking on opponents who were much bigger and taller and yet they had the power and the panache to remain standing even as they knocked the stuffing out of their rivals. While Richards took guard against big tall fast bowlers during his career and left them cowering in fear with his onslaught, Joe Frazier at 5’10” was rather small for a heavy weight boxer. And yet, he stood toe to toe with some of the most formidable men to ever step into a ring, and more oft en than not, emerged triumphant.

But there was one cowardly giant that Joe found impossible knock out. He fought till his breath lasted and he fought hard and true. But on the 7th of November, the once mighty Frazier was knocked out cold by a contender he couldn’t see. Liver cancer snuffed out Smokin Joe’s light and there would be no rematch this time.

Joe’s legacy, much like his personality, simmers under the surface. He didn’t fight for the black man’s pride the way Ali did. Nor did he have the wit and charm and focussed humanitarian spirit of a George Foreman. What Frazier did instead was inspire with his courage and passion. Born into near poverty in a racially charged environment, young Joe fought for dignity and pride long before he started fighting for money. And yes, he fought for the love of the game. For why else would he spend his afternoons at an abattoir where he once worked, practising his punches and pummelling butchered carcasses while his colleagues rested. And of course he fought for us, the little guys. No matter how big your opponent, watching Joe lashing out at the big guys helped us believe we were no less, even if the inches be so....

The Joe Frazier story, beyond the trilogy of Ali fights and the ‘Thrilla in Manila’ was one that revealed itself to me in patches, first as the icon for an icon and then in dogeared books and grainy black and white videos. But in every story I read, and in every picture I saw, I saw a man who seemed to fear no one and love every one. That’s an epitaph few would complain about....

Rest in peace Smokin Joe for your stories will forever be blowing in the wind.....

THE DRAGON’S DEN DIARIES: DAY 1

2011-11-03T10:01:00.000+05:30

It had been a long day. Grey and near freezing, there were a million needles flying with every gust of the cold old winds that whistle their way through thousand-year-old ramparts and shiny new towers jostling for space in this ancient city that has flourished and floundered and flourished again in the shadow of the Great Wall. This was day one in Beijing. Dusk was settling in and darkness fell with a sudden eagerness that surprised me as I wandered around the hotel. Cloudy and windy, and ensconced in a bluegrey smog since I had landed, Beijing hadn’t really opened her doors and pulled me in. It was more like she kept me waiting at the door, cold and lonely, out on the threshold, to see how much I wanted her. I wasn’t in the mood for trials of love though and I just slumped down on my seat, comfortable, but homesick, wishing I was somewhere else, where the sun didn’t need ‘the people’s permission’ to shine. The bus drove past the proud yet scarred heart of the city – Tiananmen Square. The vista dwarfs our own Rajpath the way Yao Ming would dwarf Tendulkar. And the place makes you feel differently too. While an India Gate tries to look good and impress like a handsome and hopeful kid on prom night, Beijing’s Tiananmen Square is like a dominating patriarch, grand and powerful, generous when so disposed, yet forbidding when not. ‘I have a lot to give’, the square seems to say, with the massive monuments to ‘the people’ all around the square and Chairman Mao’s mausoleum, glittering in the corner of my eye, smaller, but far more distinct than the massive sprawling structures around it, with a golden star anointing its crown, but ‘you better behave yourself ’ it says, with a deep soft rumble, ‘or you might not like what I give’, it warns. I was impressed, but it didn’t feel any less lonely. I wandered some more and saw the cold streets and pavements empty themselves of shoppers and drifters. The roads were still busy though with people rushing home from work. I wondered as I wandered, what might be a good way to spend an evening in a city where no one knows me, where few can understand me; and where I have a lot of time, a little money and the unfamiliar feeling of having nowhere to be... And then I saw it, a building with a bright red grid facade and a bold neon sign, ‘The Red Theatre’. And across the top half of the facade was the towering cut out of a bald man looking like he wanted to sit down, but someone had taken his chair away. He didn’t seem too happy about it either. It was the cut out of a Shaolin monk doing tie ma bu or horse stance – a signature Shaolin Kung Fu, hard yet meditative, stance that denotes power, endurance, calmness and balance. I’m a sucker for macho moves. In that sense, I haven’t yet grown out of my teens and so in the warm glow of the lights from the Red Theatre, my mood brightened up and I rushed to the ticket counter. It was a full house. I would have to wait for the next show. That would take another 90 minutes, but with some time to burn, I hopped onto a bus and thought of taking in more of the sights of Beijing before returning for the show. The bus, like the rest of the city, was as slick and modern. Except for the people to remind me, this could have been any first world capital city. Actually that’s being unfair. Very few first world cities, Berlin is the only one from the list of great cities that comes to mind, that compares with the scale, history and stately grandeur mixed with modern development and opulence. Most other first world capitals would struggle to encompass the range of extremes that is Beijing.

We drove past the diplomatic enclave of the capital and the brilliantly lit golden facade of the Beijing Hotel, perhaps the city’s oldest and definitely one of the world’s grandest, at least on the face of it, just took one’s breath away. I must have been looking at the hotel with a lot of longing for I stood up from my seat for a better view when I heard a voice under my armpit ‘vewee nice but vewee vewee expensive!’ I followed the sound under my armpit to its owner and saw a young lad in his mid 20s, or could have 7-8 years either way and I might not have known any better, shaking his head at me. I smiled and nodded. And then I went back to looking at the hotel as it floated past my window. ‘You ken see Tiananmen Square and even little Forbidden City from hotel’, the boy volunteered. So I asked the lad if anybody could get rooms in the Beijing Hotel or did one have to be a diplomat to be allowed access? ‘Why not? Ken have...If money, ken have room...’ My thoughts wandered to the Ashoka Hotel in Delhi, which would qualify as The Beijing’s Indian counterpart and that’s where I realised that while both India and China have had similar beginnings, the Chinese leadership has always sought one thing with dogged determination that Indians at the helm can never be accused of having too much of, and that is a fist full of pride. The difference between these two states, if you ask me, and my teachers would tell you that you really shouldn’t, but if you still had this manic urge to go ahead and ask, I’d say that beyond the complications of a functional democracy and the virtues of a planned economy, beyond the distractions of a free society and the constrictions of focused growth, the primary difference between these two nations lies in the value these nations and generations of their leaders have attached to pride, in their national identity and in their legacy. I am not saying that one is better or worse, just saying it like I see it. So that’s my two-bit insight as far as our comparative economic cultures are concerned.

I was lost in one of the toilets of the Ashoka when I heard the self-appointed guide under my armpit exclaim ‘tha iss the Forbiiiiden Ciiiityyy’. And in the evening light I saw the hulking silhouette of the once forbidden city rise above the traditional slanting roofs of the old quarters of Beijing. In the darkening gloom, the Forbidden City wasn’t little by any means but did look very forbidding indeed. Home to China’s emperors for more than 500 years, these palace grounds were off limits for most commoners and death was sure to follow anyone who wandered uninvited within its walls. Today, thousands flock within these long dead walls, hoping to snatch a glimpse of what it must have been like to walk within these hallowed walls as a designated god, with a world beyond that is all mine for as far as the eye can spy, with queens in the palaces and concubines in the pleasure chambers, life must have been rather busy indeed for China’s rulers. But more forbidden tales for later. For now, I had a show to catch... And a show that would remind me of home, for reasons both good and bad.

I had reached the Red Theatre in time to catch my show, and while I waited for the curtains to rise, there was a polite announcement in accent-free English.... ‘Wait a while, please be nice!’

THE HOBBLED HOBO

2011-10-27T07:00:00.002+05:30

As autumn slowly meanders into winter, India’ homeless would gather around a handful of winter shelters and hope to survive the cold hungry nights. Invariably, there would be too many homeless and only a handful of shelters. Yet again, the winter will exact its pound of flesh... But just in case you come across one such and are unsure about what to do, here’s an old yarn from the vault…Hope it helps...

It wasn’t long into the afternoon when we first saw him… We were a little lost and needed to stop and ask for directions, but that hot summer afternoon, on that usually busy bridge across the Yamuna that connects what Delhiites fondly call ITO, to the sprawling industrial pastures of Western UP, there wasn’t a soul to be seen… as we trundled along slowly, we saw him bundled in rags by the pavement… We stopped to ask, he got up… a ghastly sight with his long matted hair gathered in greasy clumps, his sunken cheeks stretched over high cheek bones and at his chin grew a scraggly beard… his filthy and tattered clothes seemed to have grown brittle with dirt and age and his skin was dry and scaly… There are many such homeless tramps on our streets so I didn’t think twice about rolling down the window and popping the question when the stench hit us and we saw flies buzzing around what must have once been his left shin. His left leg below the knee had swollen like the stomach of a dead cow and near the shin was a gaping hole. “Gosh, he’s got maggots in there!” My friend Eravee exclaimed… “And isn’t that a bone sticking out from that wound?” I looked and realised that it was so. The man seemed to feel no pain though. He casually started peeling dead skin from his foot and then looked at me as if to ask why I had disrupted his slumber… So I stopped staring and asked him the way to our destination. He mumbled and pointed to his left … we drove off ….

“This is the capital. How could a man with a shattered rotting leg be lying around on a busy flyover without anyone stopping and doing anything about it?! It’s shocking!!” I exclaimed. “What’ll anyone do,” asked Eravee … “What did we do? Aren’t we walking away too, just like everybody else? We aren’t doctors; we can’t take him home and the condition he is in, can’t even take him to a hospital… We don’t even know if we’ll be able to pick him up without worsening his condition. And then who cares for him, pays for the treatment etc? He obviously has no one to do this for him… really, who cares? Would you… could you, or I take on this responsibility?”

“But isn’t there anything one could do? How could we allow something like this to happen in front of our very eyes and not react? I mean, this is not someone being robbed or raped on gunpoint wherein concerns for our own safety stop us from stepping in and trying to help, right? I’m sure there is something we could do to reduce this man’s suffering… isn’t there?” I asked…. “I don’t know…. I’m sure there are some NGOs we could ask around for,” Eravee wondered aloud. Hmm, NGOs… these days, isn’t there one for everything one could think of (and thank God and their funding organisations for that)? So, we called a friend of ours who we knew would’ve been busy spilling coffee over her keyboard at that hour and asked her if she could find out about an agency that was committed to providing medical aid to the homeless. And that resourceful little Samaritan called us back with a handful of options. Eravee called on two of those numbers and sure enough, we got a response from a certain Mansoor who promised to reach the said spot and attend to the tramp… We were relieved. We felt that even as we drove off, we hadn’t ‘walked away’ from our responsibilities … aah, the moral high ground offers a great view… of oneself.

However, when I called that evening to check with Mansoor about our patient’s health, I found out that apparently they hadn’t been able to locate the man and had left without him. I was upset and grew skeptical of this Mansoor. I asked him why they couldn’t spend more time looking. He said he tried his best… Disappointed, I arranged for a meeting the next day with Mansoor at the venue so that he wouldn’t have an excuse this time… he agreed… and sounded rather somber…

Next day, I was late and reached the spot more than an hour behind schedule… I was afraid that Mansoor might leave, citing the delay as an excuse, so I called him to assure him and he assured me in turn, saying I’d find him there. We were supposed to meet at the mouth of the aforementioned bridge and that is where I found Mansoor and his friend Mr Tingle. We drove up a few metres and we found the man just as we’d left him… There was a dirty rag tied around the wound. I couldn’t go near him because of the pungent odour and grime around the man. But Mansoor gently put his arm around the man and started talking to him… he had my respect… I strained to hear the man but couldn’t understand a thing. Mansoor tried to explain…“His name’s Babu Rao. He’s from Andhra Pradesh. He came here looking for a job and can’t quite remember how he injured his leg. He seems to have lost his mind a bit,” he surmised. “Now what?” I asked. “Well, it’s a terrible wound… he’ll need a surgeon. So we’ll have sent to a charitable hospital. But we’ll inform the cops first… the ambulance wouldn’t take him unless the cops are present. Don’t worry, it won’t take long, but we’ll have to be here till they arrive.” I nodded… Mr Tingle dialed 100 and informed the cops while Mansoor called CATS* on 1021099 (a friend of mine suggested we could also try dialing 1092). Within 15 minutes, both the ambulance and the cop car had arrived, but Babu Rao wouldn’t budge. Mansoor put an arm around him, “Kya hua baba… kyun nahin jaoge…” Babu Rao mumbled… “He fears that he’ll be jailed… the homeless are terrified of the police”. With a compassionate patience, Mansoor explained that they were only here to help. Rao seemed to trust Mansoor and after a lot of cajoling, he agreed and was carried into the ambulance. “Don’t worry… he’ll live,” the ambulance driver called out as they drove off.

“We couldn’t sleep last night”, Mr Tingle said as he saw the ambulance off … “We felt really bad about not being able to rescue him yesterday. There’s so much that needs to be done for the homeless but we just can’t seem to do enough. Two years ago, in Fatehpuri, the government had set up some temporary night shelters to protect the homeless from the biting cold of Delhi’s winter nights. Mansoor and I had gone to help and inspect the arrangements. Outside one of these tents, at about 9:00 p.m., we saw an old man haggling with the caretaker. “The caretaker’s not letting me in… please ask him to let me… it’s so cold outside”, the old man complained in desperation. We rebuked the caretaker and asked him to let the old man in. The caretaker apologised and showed us in. Inside, the shelter was bursting at the seams. Equipped to house 60 inmates, it was packed in with more than 250 people. It couldn’t have taken in ant without squashing it. It was so difficult telling the old man that there just wasn’t any space left . Our words took the fight out of the old man. He nodded… he understood… The caretaker emerged with a couple of blankets and we wrapped them around the old man as he sat down outside the tent. We promised to look around and let him know if we found a place for him and left . After hours of searching and calling, we finally found a shelter which had some room. We rushed to Fatehpuri. In the December mist, we could see the old man where we’d left him, wrapped in blankets, sitting outside the tent, his right hand holding on to one of the tent’s ropes. As we got closer, we called out to him but he didn’t budge… So Mansoor patted him on the shoulder and then on his bare arm. Mansoor froze… the old man’s hand was cold and stiff … he was dead! We felt so hollow, so helpless that day. And this feeling hounds us all the time…. because of our countless limitations, we can’t always provide help on time, and are haunted by the thought that would it be too little… too late. When Mansoor called last night to say that they hadn’t been able to look long enough to find this man, that old helplessness returned. We were feeling sick in the stomach as we waited, unsure if we’d be reaching this man in time… I’m so glad we did…” The enormity of their task was obvious… I asked him if there was anything we could do to help. Mr Tingle smiled, “Just let people know that they don’t need us to help people like Babu Rao. Just call the cops and the ambulance (take note, folks, the numbers are up there for Delhi and each city will have its own) and insist that you’ll wait for them to show up. They’ll do the rest. Just remember the numbers, and please don’t hesitate to help. The homeless aren’t always junkies and losers but oft en people from decent families who’ve been pushed out of their homes in distant villages by catastrophes and feuds. They come to our cities seeking shelter and a livelihood. We might not have the means to offer them that but don’t they deserve at least our compassion? Remember, circumstances, whether ours, theirs or of those who we love, could change, have changed, in an instant… I always believe that if we keep doing our bit for those in need, providence too tries its best to let us keep ‘doing’, never ‘needing’…”

FOR JONAH!

2011-10-20T10:04:00.000+05:30

While the world watches the Les bleus collide with the all-blacks this Sunday to decide which set of massive sweaty arms get to drape themselves around the Rugby Union World Cup Trophy at the Eden Park in Auckland, a few kilometres away, in a quiet room in a hospital lay a man who wished he was there...

As New Zealand’s all-blacks line up, eyes rolls, hands meeting thighs like claps of thunder, and heavy feet beating the turf as one, the french team would look on, bemused, and hoping that there was a glint of steel in their cold unblinking eyes. But the Haka, the Maori war dance, melts even nerves of steel and that man lying in his lonely hospital bed would know that... He would know that more than most for he had seen that fear in those that stood and in those that fell before him. It all seemed to be from a time oh so long ago... He just didn’t feel like the same man anymore. He would see the muscled backs and burly bottoms swathed in the blacks he once wore with pride huddle into a scrum and he would wish he was there; he would see them running along the flanks, drawing blood on the field and gasps from the crowd and his heart would ache for him to be there... And then he would remember that it is not just his heart that’s aching. He is in pain... Some would say he is dying.

The teams would be locked in battle, the crowd would be cheering and screaming and then some would go silent while others would be beating their chests and roaring... Whistles will blow and trumpets would blare and yet, through all the frenzy and the feasting, through the tears and the celebrations, the colossal shadow of a giant would still linger... not a soul would leave the ground that day without having spared a thought or a prayer for that man in that extra-large hospital bed not too far away.

Jonah Lomu is a giant among men when he irons out the kinks in his 6’5’’ frame and stands tall but even lying down, his sprawling frame commands respect and reverence. Strangers speak in hushed tones in his presence and even when speaking of him, I wouldn’t be surprised if rugby fans went down on one knee and took a bow every time someone spoke or heard his name.

Here in India, he isn’t really a household name but then nor is Sachin Tendulkar in Brazil, Russia, China or Chad... That doesn’t diminish the greatness of Tendulkar and so you get my drift ... This 36-year-old man once strode on the rugby field like a Goliath and there never was a David ever in sight. Jonah Lomu is closest thing to God that has ever graced a rugby but this man wasn’t always this formidable force of nature that would mow down opponents like a bowling ball exploding through the pins. There was a time when little Jonah would cower behind a bed and shiver with fear while his father swore to thrash the living daylights out of him if he could lay his hands on him. It didn’t matter what little Jonah might or might not have done for that hissing spitting electric cord that became the emissary of his father’s wrath seemed to find him anyway, stinging his eyes with teenaged tears and marking his body with the pain and humiliation of abuse and shame.

In the little boy’s heart, confusion and despair gave way to anger and hate. The strength in his sinews grew, keeping pace with his hate and his anger, until one day, when his drunken father stumbled in to slake his thirst for violence on the back of his own son’s back; it was the last straw... Jonah lashed out in self-defence and sent his father sprawling to the floor.

From there, the young Jonah got into carjackings and gang wars and found rugby in the nick of time.

Not only did he have great size and strength but also a great burst of speed available on tap. And this made Jonah into a rare genetic freak who was both strong and fast. They started calling him the freight train for his ability to just charge through an opposition line-up. Jonah was invincible on the ground and a rockstar off it. Records and opponents tumbled and Jonah seemed to do no wrong. But while the world celebrated his triumphs, inside him, his body was imploding. Nephrotic syndrome, a debilitating kidney disorder had been gnawing away at his insides even as the world was raising a toast to the magnificent physicality of Jonah’s exploits on the outside.

The man who could do everything but fly was reduced to acknowledging that he now found it difficult to walk. Without a kidney transplant, Jonah was staring at continuing with dialysis thrice a week and looking at slowly rotting away alive to a horrible sad slow death. Someone donated a kidney and all was well for a while. In fact he even considered a comeback but as soon as his dreams started taking shape, his kidneys failed him again. Sometime around the time the current World Cup began, Jonah, still barely 36-years-old, was rushed to the hospital yet again... Secrecy shrouds his current condition, but whatever it be, it wouldn’t be good. So while we wait to crown the new champions this Sunday, let’s also spare a thought for that man lying in that hospital bed not too far away from the action and send out a little prayer his way too...

For all the runs along the flanks and the thrills in our hearts and spills at your feet; for making watching rugby not just a sporting spectacle but a transcendental experience and for blowing our minds with the power of your passion, we wish you, Jonah Lomu – an all-black, all-heart braveheart, a speedy recovery. And for those of you who are still wondering what’s the big deal about this big guy, check him out in his matchvideos, finish shaking your heads in disbelief, come right back here and join us in our prayers for his well being... Until then, hang in there Jonah, and don’t worry, the world’s hanging with you... Get well for good, soon!

NOT SO BULLISH ON THE BAN

2011-10-13T11:55:00.000+05:30

Death, I’m told is inevitable… But what if it is imminent?

If I knew I was going to die, what should the colour of my death be?

Should it be the pale white of a clinical death, away from the eyes of onlookers, on a tiled floor smelling vaguely of disinfectants mixed with a sudden terrified burst of faeces and an impending sense of doom, and the sudden cold touch of death as the lights go out? Or should I choose a deathstreaked with vermillion… the colour of blood and sand and the setting sun… the colour of a life, short though it be, but one spent in the pursuit of passion… Taunting fate, venting hate and even in death, becoming great... There is pain in this death, but there’s pride too… And even though my corpse is dragged through the sand leaving a trail of blood and gore in my wake, there is a strange dignity in dying as more than just a mere hunk of meat…

Dead though I am, in which death do I find more of me? Which should I choose to be my destiny?

Pacifists, humanists and animal rights activists all over the world are celebrating the death of the bullfight in Catalonia, but I wonder if the bulls are joining in the celebrations. The question is – does the Catalan ban on bullfighting make life any easier for the bull? Those well-meaning activists who are celebrating the end of what is an indefensibly barbaric spectacle need to ask themselves that question, and the answer cocking a snook at them is ‘no!’, for the bulls, if anything, are now doomed to an even bleaker future.

To understand why that might be the case we need to account for two things, the first being the bull’s perspective, and the second its alternate fate. For the first, let me borrow from Death in the Afternoon, Ernest Hemmingway’s seminal classic on the corrida. Hemmingway described the fighting bull as a wild animal unlike any you might hope to meet on a farm. He, the bull that is, descends from the same ancient stock of wild cattle that once roamed the plains and hills of the Iberian Peninsula. It is a creature whose magnificence was shaped by natural selection of his desire to roam, to fight, to mate and to protect his herd. It does not stoop to the toils of farm work, nor bend and bow to the huts and tuts of a cartman or his yoke. It just lives to be free and to fight for it, if it’s not. The Spaniards find both, nobility and beauty in its form and in its fierce spirit. Perhaps, that is why they pay to see a fellow man dominate this force of nature. Incidentally, the best matadors or bull-fighters, like Jose Tomas, used to be right up there with Real Madrid and Barca’s soccer stars in terms of popularity, endorsement deals and salaries not too long ago. And even now, they might still rank ahead of cyclists, golfers and tennis stars in their home country. The fighting bull, Hemmingway would insist from his grave if he could, would happily choose to go down fighting in the ring than meet his end in a meat factory. You might say Hemmingway was an aficionado and he loved and found inspiration in the life-and-death drama of a bull fight. But allow me to insist that I’m not an aficionado, and for the record, a vegetarian by choice (except for the odd portion of fish which my mother and my wife made me promise I would taste if they cooked it or when I’m out at or by the sea where procuring a vegetarian meal might increase my carbon footprint far more than if I was to consume what’s locally and immediately available…Makes sense? Do say so if you think it doesn’t for I’d happily give this up and just do the ‘right thing’) and yet I too must agree that given the limited choices, most living beings, including you and me, would choose a death in the afternoon over death for an afternoon’s meal.

And this brings us to the question of ‘what next for the fighting bulls of Catalonia? What does the future hold for them?’ Do they now get to live out their lives munching daisies in the sun while making love to all the cows in their harem? The sad truth is that they will perhaps get to live even shorter lives, sold to the butcher for veal and steaks. At least the bullfight gave the bulls something to die for… a chance to go down with honour, with dignity, expressing the full might of his genetic potential, as a near equal to the man in the ring and with a chance to take his killer down with him. In the old days, bulls that killed the matador were allowed to live and fight again, but they became too good for the man in the fight for they learnt from every fight. So, we changed the rules. Now, even if the bull wins the bout, he is put to the knife in the corrals. So much for our sense of honour.

But that really isn’t the point here. The question is, how does it matter if bulls are killed in a fight or in a factory as long as they are killed anyway? If anything, the tradition of the corrida allows a bull to be true to its nature, or even some perverted version of it, even if for a few moments, that life on an industrial farm as a tenderloin steak on legs would never allow it. If a battle is to be fought, it must be fought for the bulls and to better their future and not merely to protect or titillate our sensibilities. This ban serves only our motives and not the bull’s.

So what do I suggest, you might ask... And so I dare to say that before we talk of ending blood sports like the bullfight and even horse racing, we need to first create a world that refuses to confine and consume animals for mere sensory pleasures. Otherwise, these animals would only get condemned to an even bleaker and shorter life. I don’t want to drag you into a debate on vegetarianism in this issue but would want to reiterate that if we are celebrating our victory of rescuing the bulls from the ring only for them to end up in the pot a lot sooner, then that’s no victory at all.

Of course it would be ideal if every animal in man’s service could be set free to roam in an eden that could give them food, freedom and shelter, but that is a utopian dream that would take long to come true.

Instead, until such a day when bulls are free to roam without worrying about ending up as ribs and chops, instead of destroying cruel traditions that engage man and beast, we should perhaps look to modify the terms of engagement and make life richer and better for both. To understand what I mean, let me introduce you to Bushwacker, one of the happiest bulls in the world. Bushwacker is one of the top-ranked bulls in the Professional Bull Riding circuit. Unlike Spain’s bullfights, bull riding is a sport that evolved from the cowboy culture of the Americas. The goal for a bull rider is to try and last as long as possible on the back of a one tonne bull that is bucking and jumping for all it’s worth – a test of skill and control over raw power and gravity-defying agility. Man and beast meet as equals and part ways after battle, with respect in one heart and relief in the other. Blood might be spilt, bones might be broken, but neither by design. The riders are sporting celebrities and the bulls are as prized and feted as racing thoroughbreds. And until such a time as we can find space in our hearts and heartlands to allow fellow creatures to just be, that’s the way bullfighting should have gone. The sport should be modified to retain the art and the spirit of machismo without necessarily ending in death for either man or bull. And that’s a bullfight worth fighting for...

LESSONS FROM CONTROVERCITY

2011-09-29T09:57:00.001+05:30

September 27 is World Tourism Day, a day that celebrates the impact of tourism on our shared values as a global village. And this special issue you hold in your hands is about rediscovering forgotten stories. So I thought of rummaging through my list of forgotten stories and looked for one that would both question as well as be the answer to our shared values as global citizens. Here’s what I came up with.... Hope it helps....

“Amsterdam is an amazing city! It has this really nice ambience!! You must go there”, GA was gushing. He had just returned from his honeymoon, and of all the sights and sounds from Champagne to Cologne, all he could remember was Amsterdam. “It has..”, GA leaned over conspiratorially, “a legal red light area, red lights(!), women on the streets, everything legal”. “I’ve heard that it’s got these really beautiful canals?”, I asked. “Canals? Oh yeah canals! Yeah, yeah, nice but you’ve got to hear this, they have live sex shows, can you believe that? Really nice!” GA had a glazed look in his eyes. “Really, that’s interesting…”, but GA wasn’t listening. His eyes had that faraway look of a man reliving some past glory. Amsterdam cropped up again in a later conversation with an elder cousin. He had just returned from a vacation to Europe. The Dutch capital was yet again the star of the itinerary. “Oh, it’s really nice”, he said. After a moment’s silence, he added, “They have sex shows you know”. My jaw must’ve dropped a bit for he quickly added, “It’s perfectly respectable there you know, I went there with my wife!”. He had the hurt expression of a diabetic caught with a mouthful of rich creamy chocolate cake in his mouth. “It’s low calorie, and I gave most of it to the dog too,” he seemed to say. “Of course dada! But is that why you liked it so much?, I asked. “No, no, it has…, it has this…, this really nice ambience”, is all he could muster. Nice ambience, eh? This I had to see. So, not too long ago, I was travelling with friends and family and had stopped over in Antwerp (just about a couple of hours from Amsterdam). On a really grey day, while most of the group seemed happier indoors, the missus and I, along with some Belgian friends, left for the El Dorado of civil liberty – Amsterdam.

Other than the obviously popular red light district, controversial Amsterdam honours homosexuals with a Homomonument and sells marijuana legally in stores and cafes. One can even buy a ‘good death’ – euthanasia, just as legally in this city. It’s a heady cocktail of sex, drugs and death. Understandably, not many seem to notice that Amsterdam is a beautiful city. The bottlegreen canals that run through the city and the lovely little boats make it one of the most romantic cities in the world. Along one of these canals, stands a brick red house, where there once lived a young girl who lived a short sad life and wrote a moving memoir, now famous as Anne Frank’s Diary. And then of course, there is the Van Gogh Museum which is impossible to enter because it is always, either too late or too full.

De Wallen, the red light district was a short walk and a long wait away. Narrow lanes, awash in red hue, flanked by shop windows, each with a bed, a chair and a rather friendly lady, pressing against the glass pane as if her parents had locked her in and gone off to the beach, and here she was all dressed up (down?) in a bikini and nowhere to go. Every time we’d pass a window, a resident lady of love would look at me and smile. Her eyebrows would dance, she’d wink and… Phew, for a moment I felt like Brad Pitt in Nymphtown. No wonder this place was popular. There were groups of Americans on a guided tour, walking past posters of all assortments and shades of human and non human couplings, and ushers at theatre gates announcing, “Show is on! Show is on! It’s alive! It’s alive!!”. “That’s Dutch for it’s all live”, said my Belgian friend. “Have a feeling they do it on purpose when they see the Americans. Never know what draws them”. Behind the bright lights though, the truth is that having legalised prostitution, the Dutch government ensures that sex workers have both rights and responsibilities. The use of condoms is mandated by law, and human trafficking is limited. Pimping is illegal and prostitutes are protected against exploitation by law. This has ensured that the scourge of HIV/AIDS is contained to such an extent that only 7 per cent of prostitutes are affected, most of whom are drug users and in all likelihood, contracted the virus from an affected needle. A far cry from the situation in India where prostitution is illegal, but trafficking and coercion is rampant and almost half the country’s prostitutes are HIV positive. The writing is clearly on the wall but someone’s yet to read it.

Back in Antwerp, someone from the stay-at-home group asked us “How was Amsterdam?” “Nice, uncle! Really nice ambience!” we replied, almost in chorus.

THE UNLIKELY LOSERS (OR SO YOU’D THINK!)-II

2011-09-22T10:20:00.000+05:30

Last week, I wrote about three unrequited loves and promised to tell you more. And since I began this story, it is I who must take it to its logical conclusion as well, for whatever it is worth.

I spent a lot of time thinking how I would tell you what I have to say. Should I try and make it funny, or should I reveal what I have to say through characters invented to meet the moment, and then I realised that today’s page is about being honest and ‘me’, and so I should abandon all ‘technique’ and ‘artifice’ and just say it like it is.

So here’s the story, bare and true…

I was a very confused kid in my teens. I believed I was good.

I had a strong sense of self-worth, like we all do. We all believe that we are talented, pleasant, likeable, even lovable and special. Like the rest of you, I believed I was meant for great things and that someone special and beautiful was out there waiting for me to walk up to her and carry her away in my arms. And I found her too, just a few houses away. She was my best friend’s sister and my sister’s best friend. The more I saw of that smile that lit up her face and my heart in the same breath, the more I wanted to see her beaming face. I would walk past her school bus-stand in the mornings half an hour before it was my time, hoping to catch a glimpse of her and I would spend my evenings playing cricket or soccer with one eye on the game and the other looking out for her, and soon as I’d see her or turn deaf to all the sounds in the park and hear her laugh and talk, like a delicate ankle-bell tinkling on a quiet summer afternoon, I would run in faster, hit the ball harder or at least hope to. More often than not, I would miss the ball altogether and end up hitting the ground harder, biting the dust and swallowing defeat. But come next evening, I would try again, and again and again…

This girl, who made me play an evening’s sport with the reckless passion of a ready-to-die for glory gladiator, hated my guts… How do I know this? She told my sister, who very dutifully spilled the beans on me just when and where they would hurt the most. She said, and I quote “Where’s that irritating brother of yours? I hope he isn’t coming to the park today. I hate him! He is such a painful show off !!”

Evidently, in spite of having strong potential references in her brother and my sister, this vacancy wasn’t going to be open to me. And yet, in less than five years from that day, as soon as I turned 21, I was married to her. Let me tell you how that happened. But before that, what had I done to deserve all that hate?

Well, after we fell in love and got married, I asked her if what my sister had told me was true, and if so, why did she hate me so, for, for the life of me, I couldn’t work out why someone like her should “hate” someone as…, you know… someone as… (such immodesty is beyond me, but feel free to fill in the blanks with superlatives of your choice) … as me.

So as I lay with my head in her lap one Sunday afternoon, and she playfully ruffled my hair with those hands I had dreamt of holding every evening in the park, and playfully asked her the same question again, hoping to hear something like, “I was naïve and I didn’t understand you and how you were so different… just too good to be true etc….”, she, I’m hoping involuntarily, clutched my hair tight and tugged at it and said, “You were obnoxious! Arrogant and irritating and….” By now she really was pulling at my hair and I realised her memories of the past had begun to influence her present actions and so I let out a little squeak. She hurried back to the present, let go of my hair, smiled and then did a lot of nice things that good sweet wives do, and then continued. “You used to bug me. You’ll ask me and the others some stupid obscure questions just because you happened to know the answers and you would try and pull everybody down just to try and prove that you were smarter than everybody else. I really disliked those bits about you at the time. You were nice and interesting, but this thing about you was such a turn off. And then when we met during our MBA, you had changed… changed so much, and for the better.”

Hmmm, so I had changed, suddenly, but imperceptibly, but how? And when? And perhaps more importantly, why?

When we look back on those years today, I begin to understand what she meant. I was the same nice guy if you will, then, that I am today and I knew it. But I was worried that the world around me did not. So in conversations and discussions I would make it a point to try and prove that I knew this and I had an opinion about that. All I wanted to do was to impress the person I was talking to. I wanted him or her to feel that I was intelligent and likeable. So I’d go, “Hey, did you know that Mikhail Gorbachev got the map of America tattooed on his forehead so that his grand kids could shoot at it with their suction-cup dart guns?” And once the joke fell flat, I would move on to the Socratic method of asking questions off the group, but unlike Socrates, I was not looking for the truth. I was just trying to make a statement.

Often, during these discussions that I would drag my closest friends into, my opinions would run up against those of others. Now you must remember that my beliefs were not mere beliefs but manifestations of my self-worth. So if I felt that Imran Khan was better than Kapil Dev, it didn’t matter how bitter and stupid the discussion became, I just wouldn’t let go of my stand because admitting to another’s opinion, to me, was like admitting I wasn’t good enough.

I wouldn’t stop there either. At the time, I must’ve been desperate to make my world believe that I could be funny. For I can find no other reason why I would try so hard to make jokes about my friends, pull them down and take pleasure in seeing others laugh at them, the butt of my, at times, cruel jokes. Don’t get me wrong. I loved the guys I would make jokes about. But at that time I used to think that I could be good only if I could prove that I was better than the others.

So, yeah, I guess I really was an obnoxious fool.

But why did I change? Honestly, I don’t know, because I’m telling you all this in retrospect. But here’s what I think…

Through all these years, I had a friend who saw the real me – a shy and desperate kid lurking behind this mask of complexes and unwitting arrogance, hungering for love and acceptance. He didn’t mind my discussions, he tolerated my stupid adamancy and he forgave me my rude jokes. He never once attempted to knock me down or hit back for trying to make him look like a fool or for cracking jokes at his expense. I could do all I wanted but I could never do enough to upset him, or even hurt him. I’m sure I must have, but he never let me, or anyone else feel that.

He understood me then more than I ever did, and I was only beginning to understand him, but then he was gone, just like that. He was just 19…

I never told him I loved him. And just when I wanted to, he was gone, forever. For hours, days, months and years, he stayed with me, in my head, replaying a lifetime’s adolescence shared together, from dawn to dawn… and shared dreams crushed under the wheels of a wayward bus.

But even as his memories tore at me, they liberated me. For the first time, I began to see him for who he was. I saw that he loved because he wanted to love, gave of his love honestly, unconditionally and without artifice. I saw that he was the most honest person I had ever known for he never lied to himself. And I saw that he had the courage to be himself, and the compassion to believe that he didn’t have to be good at someone else’s expense. And this is why he was so loved, by all of us, even by someone as emotionally insecure and parasitic as me.

His legacy touched and changed me and made me into the man his sister loves today. I am glad I changed but I wish he didn’t have to leave for me to learn my lessons… miss you…

THE UNLIKELY LOSERS (OR SO YOU’D THINK!)

2011-09-15T10:11:00.001+05:30

Every good story, I’m told, has a set-up, then a problem or a hurdle if you will, and then the climax. So this one is not going to be a good story, because the problem is the set-up, and we can’t talk about the climax. It’s a family magazine after all. But I’m going to tell it anyway because it is important… Doubly so for you if you think it isn’t. But it is absolutely vital for you if you are the kind who would publicly trash the idea of what I’m about to tell you and then slink away into a corner and hurriedly flip to this page to see if it makes sense… any sense whatsoever. And mark my words, in red if you please, for if you are going to do any of the above, consider this page some much needed therapy.

Now that I’m done with the hard sell, here’s the setup…

AP was one of the brightest students I’ve ever taught in a class room. He is tall, pleasantly tanned, well boned and fairly fit. When he is being a good boy, he speaks well enough to both entertain and inspire. He has read more books than you might have seen and seen more movies than you might have read about. And yet he is cool enough to stand toe to toe and go a few rounds with you in the muay-thai ring and he might bloody his nose but he won’t sully his reputation. So he is a nerdy-jock, or a jock-nerd, whichever the case may be, and a very interesting character but for all the time he was here with us, he couldn’t manage to land himself in a decent relationship. He might lash out by saying he never really cared much for a ‘decent’ relationship anyway but if you looked into those big brown eyes long enough, you’d know he was lying, more to himself than to you actually, but lying nevertheless.

Now, read what is to come very carefully for this could be you. AP could make the ladies laugh, he would listen like he meant it, and he could talk about the all the stars from Bandra to Beverly Hills, and all their toys and their trysts with bright blue pills. So what gives?

Why would a man who is a good talker, a good looker, a good listener and gets a tick on nearly every box that counts still go back home to an empty room or his guy friends if they had the time? Why should a man like him fail to keep even if he could find true love?

The second case file is from the family folder. It’s a cousin who is right now living in Singapore, alone and unfulfilled as far as we can tell from here, though he does make a fair show of being too happy and busy for a real relationship. This chap has an ivy-league education, a job that pays him for being smart and aware and he cruised into his thirties a short while back in a swanky new BMW convertible. So he has it all going for him you’d think, but here’s what the women he has been friends with for years, like the chorus of muses from a Greek tragedy, have to say about him… “He is a show off! How do you talk to him? He just won’t listen! Granted, he is an interesting character. But do I need a lecture about blood diamonds and Gujarati millionaires and the Antwerp diamond industry just because I happened to wear diamonds to our date? He is a great guy, has a good sense of humour and is really nice, but why would life be fun if I’m stuck with a guy who has a TV screen on his head that’s stuck on CNN and I don’t even have the remote? Sometimes I think he knows so much that he has forgotten how to feel…”

Now what do you do?

Ladies, before we go any further, you need to know that these stories aren’t just an effort to help my fellow men understand themselves better, but also their unheard cry for meaning and understanding. These are good boys who would make wonderful partners. Unfortunately they are misunderstood and are lost. They would need your help and your understanding, and the rest of this piece, to find their way back into your hearts…

So going back to the set up, let me wrap up part one of this story with a tail to this tale.

This one’s about a guy my wife used to know when she was in her teens. She didn’t like him much. But I’ve heard it said that this guy really liked her. But my wife, she couldn’t stand him. What was the matter with him? Well I was curious and so I asked her and she said “he was a pain to be around. Such a desperate show off... I knew he liked me.... And he was the nice sort but I could throw up as soon as I’d see him...”

As you can see, there’s a pattern here but here’s the first twist in the tale and that is the modern day fact that today, my wife is married to this very man who she once hated. You’ll be happy to know that she doesn’t throw up as often as promised either and by most accounts, including her own, she is happier than she’s ever been.

Ostensibly, there would seem to be a lesson lying in wait somewhere in there, for all three of us. But who is to know if my fortunes are a result of my methods or a moment of masochistic madness by the lady in question. Anyway, that is a story for the week to come when we explore that dark zone of enlightenment that lies between the problem and the climax. Until then, hang in there and check if your life is set up a bit like our setup. God bless if it is and God bless if it ain’t....

A TALE THAT TIME FORGOT

2011-09-08T10:27:00.000+05:30

Dates… I hated them while studying history in school. They ruined the story for me. And dates, I loved them when I waded into love. I looked forward to them, counted them, remembered them. I came to realise that whether I loved them or loathed them, in this life, there was going to be no escaping them.

Every month and week has its fair share of them. There are these private, insignificant dates that my life depends on not forgetting, like birthdays, anniversaries and yet to be kept promises. And there are those that are like ornate gravestones in the churchyard of time, marking the passing of one that mattered, one that ought to be remembered. There was one that went by last month – the 15th of August, when India awoke ‘to life and freedom’. And there is one coming up on the 11th of this month that is a bit of a gash on the butt-cheek of time…it still doesn’t let you sit down and say ‘I’m at peace with my world’.

But why am I pouring this soppy gruel down your page? Well, that’s because there’s another important date coming up – the 25th of October. It is the day when the Bolsheviks stormed into power in Russia in 1917 (the actual date is November 7th according to the Gregorian calendar but since the Orthodox church in Russia in those days kept time with the old style Julian calendar, the Russians still call it the October Revolution). And let us not potter around about the exact date for it really isn’t the point here. The point is that the course of history changed irrevocably that day, or so you think. But the truth is that all these dates, be it the 15th of August, the 11th of September or the date on which sprang the October Revolution, they all owe their existence to other forgotten dates that impregnated the seeds that flowered into days that shaped our world. This story is about one such date… one that lies forgotten, like an unmarked nameless grave. A celebration of an underdog from history’s date-file…

The year should be around the late 1800s and the month really isn’t important. Just picture a train running through the heart of Western Europe. Let me help you with that. It’s the dining car of a train thundering through from let’s say Cologne to London. It’s evening and you can see the countryside, fields of green and amber and blue skies streaked crimson and gold rolling out of your window and meeting far away in the horizon. Clumps of willow and birch stand like old ladies conferring at a tea party in the soft light of a setting sun. Every few miles, you see a farmer in a blue or brown beret ploughing the field behind a large draught horse. You look away from the window and take in a view of the carriage, the wooden panels, the embroidered drapes that look rich and feel cheap, the ornate little chandeliers, the heavy tables and the chairs that seem a size too small and the liveried waiters waiting on them and you wonder if you belong in here. You hear a little voice fading away and look outside the window to catch a glimpse of three little boys running with the train, their woolen jackets and shorts and schoolboy cap are all you can see as they stop to pant and wave their hands at the passing train and all the fine people who they can see but know will never meet.

The dining car is filling up now and the table next to you is taken by a middleaged German couple. The man is not very tall but heavily built. His hair seem to have known the discipline of a comb once but it’s all forgotten now, like the memory of a strict father that fades as a child grows out of his home and town. But it’s the whiskers you’d notice first, an unkempt explosion of hair and will that refuses to be tamed, almost like an embodiment of the man’s spirit. And his eyes, they seem to know what no one knew and believed what few understood. This man was hard to miss. The lady with him was of an aristocratic bearing, and seemed to be a gentle foil for the man’s obvious fire. The couple settles down next to you and they both smile and greet you and those around them. Supper is soon underway. The train is hurtling across France and it is dark outside. In the inky blackness, you can still see the silhouettes of the trees and the woods in the distance if you strain really hard but most of the passengers are busy eating or talking. But then everybody stops doing whatever they were at and stare when another passenger who enters the dining car with a spring in his gait. He is a very young man of middle height, a Prussian, but something in the twirl of his moustache, the twinkling eyes and the sculpted beauty of his contours suggested that the passengers were in the presence of a luminous star. All the seats were taken except for the one next to the middle aged couple and with a smile and a flourish, the young man walks up to the table, greets the pair and takes the last available seat. They strike up a conversation and soon it is all warm and nice, unlike the country outside that was simmering with the heat and dust of unrest and political change.

Suddenly, a loud explosion tears through the car and derails it. Anarchists had blown up the train with explosives lining the tracks. The lamps blinked, tables crashed, people screamed and there smoke billowing above leaping flames that had engulfed the upturned carriage. The middle aged couple had been crushed under a table and both of them seemed to have lost consciousness. Flung far away from them was the prone form of the young Prussian. In the light of the flames you could see the form stir and gather strength as it rose, slowly, but surely and then the man stood up, ran his hands over his muscled and seemingly indestructible form, dusted his trousers and must have been looking for his wallet when he heard a moan. He turned towards the sound. The Prussian saw the pile of splintered boards and tables and followed the sound to the place where the injured couple lay. With a vigour that would have done Hercules credit, he lift ed and tossed boards, tables and the beam that had trapped the pair underneath. Seeing that they were conscious, he gently helped them to their feet and the man and the woman thanked the young fellow for saving their lives. The man with the beard extended his hand and introduced himself.... “My name is Dr. Karl Marx and this is my wife Jenny. Thank you so much for saving our lives and for the pleasant conversation during dinner. We will always remember you....” The young Prussian smiled and shook the extended hand and said “My name is Frederick Mueller and I work as a model for artists.. It was nothing... how could I turn and run away from someone who is lying helpless while his life is in danger.... But we should make haste for the fire is almost upon us....”

With that, the young model guided Dr. Karl Marx and his wife away from the scene of the accident. As the flames flickered and spread, you could see the three silhouettes hurrying away into the inky blackness of the night. At that time, how were they to know that while one man’s books and ideas were soon to change the world, the other was going to take London by storm as the strongest man in the world... A man the world would come to recognise as Eugene Sandow, the one who would single-handedly start the body building revolution with his great strength and hitherto unseen sculpted physical beauty. Indeed, strange are the ways of fate and chance. I came across this incident in a book written by the great Bill Pearl, a physique champion from the 1960s. And although some details about the dates are a little fuzzy and the authenticity of the story thus gets a little diluted, I found it a story worth sharing and so here it is, hopefully garnished just right for you to wonder..... What might have happened to the Berlin Wall, to the October Revolution, to the war in Vietnam or to the cold war chess in Afghanistan, if Sandow had not had the nerve, the strength and the courage to rescue Dr. Marx from under the debris that fateful night? No one remembers that date today and yet it was the seed for so many others. So let’s hear it for the underdog be it one from a date-file, your life or the mirror, for in their own little or not so little ways, for don’t they all matter?

‘BETWEEN A MAN AND A SNOWMAN’

2011-09-01T15:39:00.000+05:30

I always knew I was going to be rich and famous... Just like you all did too... But I tell you what... I really will be rich and famous when I grow up... Because now not only do I have a dream, I also have found the way to realise that dream.

You see, in ancient tribes, boys need to go through a rite of passage to be accepted as grown men. If you are a Masai, you would need to stalk and kill a lion; in Vanuatu you would need to jump off a high platform with nothing but vines tied to your ankles... Land-diving they call it and it’s the mother-god of all bungee jumps. In ancient Scandinavia I’m told they had to find a woman, which isn’t easy in those snowy wastes (and it is rumoured that desperate snow-blinded men have oft en mistaken a polar bear for one), chase her down, sling her over one’s back and run back to the village before the woman’s tribe catches up. Too bad if you picked a bear though.... In those ancient worlds, that was the only way to sow the oats and watch the fields grow and prosper. Anyway, even without any lion hunting or bear slinging, my farms are doing just fine, thank you but a man’s got to be a man at times. And since it’s about time I got some acceptance... as a man to begin with and then as a full grown one to boot, I have chosen my rite of passage.

But before I tell you more, here’s a brief backstory...

The year was 1938 and a British officer with a French name (yes that happened in those inbred imperialistic times) was lost in the upper Himalayas. The snow was white... The sun was bright and soon the poor guy lost all sense and sight. Lost weak and blind, Captain d’ Auvergne stumbled and tumbled down the icy slopes into what he thought was sure death but what he would today, were he alive, describe to you as two big strong hairy arms of God. Well, no he wouldn’t really call themthe arms of God but they were definitely God-sent... Those arms were the arms of what he swore was a female yeti-the abominable snow woman if you will. The Yeti, about 8 feet tall, he claimed, nursed him back to health and once he was fit enough to return, he was free to go. She didn’t want to eat him, or keep him in return. And nor did she want his babies (the last bit is a pertinent point for many Yeti accounts by local travellers speak of male Yetis abducting young women for heaven knows what end).

Captain d’Auvergne’s account of his Yeti encounter has always been my favourite cryptozoological bedtime story. Somehow, the other accounts of Yetis kidnapping girls and bringing down yaks with one massive blow didn’t seem to fit in with the picture I had of the bamboo chewing gentle giant.

Yeti legends are as old as the mountains perhaps. The people of these high reaches have come to accept the Yeti as an unpredictable and reclusive neighbour. Mothers would tell their children to behave themselves or else the Yeti might come and take them away. Sometimes a Yeti in the woods or high up above the tree-line would let out a helpful whoo-hoo just then and the kids would close their eyes and huddle up close to mom and turn into little chubby cheeked angels, at least for a while.

So what is this Yeti? The locals say it is a large ape-like creature, about 8-13 feet tall. It has long reddish brown hair and is an incredibly powerful creature with a conical head and ape like features. European travellers have also seen what they thought was a Yeti but most expeditions in search of the elusive snowman, including one by Sir Edmund Hillary and one by the greatest mountaineer of them all, the redoubtable Reinhold Messner yielded nothing conclusive. Sceptics say it must have been a brown bear, or perhaps the Tibetan blue bear... Others say that what a certain eye-witness saw must have been a mountain hermit or a large monkey. What has added fuel to the dismissive fire has been the discovery that a lot of hitherto well-known Yeti relics turned out to be hoaxes. Where are the bones?’ Why aren’t there any pictures they ask...

And what do these doubting Thomases and Janes have to do with my rite of passage into the lives of the rich and famous? Well, I am going to prove the naysayers wrong, find the Yeti, write a million copy best seller about the expedition and its success and show the world conclusive proof of the fact that the Yeti exists.

What’s that? Why am I so convinced about finding the Yeti, you ask?

...because I know it’s there! And hush... If you come in a little closer I’ll tell you why.... You see, the Yeti isn’t a snowman or a mythical beast at all but a very real beast called Gigantopithecus and it is waiting for me to rediscover it up on an unnamed mountain.

How do I know it’s there? Didn’t Gigantopithecus disappear in the deep sea of extinction a few hundred thousand years ago?

Well those are all answers for another week. Meanwhile, I’ve got to run... Have an expedition to plan... A man to become...

TOUGH LOVE

2011-08-25T10:00:00.000+05:30

August 26th is celebrated as National Dog Day through much of the first world. Dogs that have saved lives, dogs that have brought smiles and dogs that are waiting to be euthanised because there’s no one waiting to give them a home, are all recognised and celebrated for the space they share with us humans in our lives. On such a day, here’s a story from the vault to remind you of your responsibilities as a pet owner

It was a grim afternoon at the Sharma residence. Little Sahil was inconsolable. He refused to eat and was just sitting there on the floor, cradling Asghar’s tired little head on his tiny lap. Sneha and Rahil, Sahil’s parents and good friends of mine, were cursing the doctor’s tactless remarks when I entered… Asghar, their 8-month-old Saint Bernard puppy, their son’s best friend, was seriously ill and the vet had rather insensitively decreed the inevitable in little Sahil’s presence... “before we could prepare him”, as they put it. The adorable little animal had been a bundle of joy during my previous visits. Asghar’s naughty hazel eyes could melt any heart, and one just had to give him a cuddle when his little wet nose nuzzled up to you. He was the darling of the neighbourhood, something of a mascot for the kids in the area, as he tumbled and trotted behind them. That chubby little brown and white fur-ball was quite simply the star of the evening in the neighbourhood park, for while it joined the children in their games, Asghar also gladdened the hearts of evening walkers and senior citizens with his antics… indeed this was sad news for many…

“Sahil! Sahil!!” Rahil called out… “... idhar aao beta… and get Asghar. It doesn’t matter what this doctor says, we’ll go to a better doctor… Asghar’ll be fine in … right, Asghar?”, and gave a pat each to the pair. Sahil, all of seven years, tried to wipe his tears away and Asghar wagged the tip of his tail and put his head on Rahil’s knee, as if to say, ‘I know you’ll do your best… I understand’. It wasn’t easy to keep a dry eye at that moment… Sneha went over, put her arms around Sahil and led him and Asghar to the verandah. Rahil turned to me, and he spoke with a tremor, “Thanks for coming over. I need your help. You’ve seen how Sahil is about Asghar… he’s heartbroken. And it’s not just him. Asghar’s such a darling… even I can’t bear the thought of losing him. But the doctor seems to have given up… he says Asghar’s immune system is very weak and now he might have this liver disease that could prove fatal… Asghar might go anytime…” Meanwhile, I was trying very hard not to get into the ‘I-told-you-so’ mode when Rahil interrupted, “I know… I know… you told me I shouldn’t pick up a puppy from that pet store but he looked so cute, so adorable… and the place seemed clean, the proprietor was friendly… how’d I know that things could be this bad behind that pleasing façade…?”

Just before they got Asghar, Rahil had mentioned that they’re thinking of picking up a puppy from a pet store to add to their sweet little family and I’d suggested that maybe picking up a puppy from a breeder might be a better idea. Rahil obviously didn’t think much of it and picked up Asghar from a pet-store a week later. Evidently, it wasn’t a good idea.

Yet, most people looking for a pet would head for the nearest pet-store and pick up a cute little puppy of their choice from there. The friendly store manager, the bright and colourful décor, the cute little puppies and the manager’s repeated assurances with respect to the pup’s quality and lineage make for a heady cocktail — irresistible bait for most. Not many return empty handed. Most, like Rahil and Sahil, go back with a puppy in one arm and packets of feed and bedding in the other — unwitting patrons of one of the cruelest industries on the planet — it’s called the puppy mill industry.

Most pet dogs in most households are unhappy products of this industry. Let me take you back to how the puppy comes to be in the store… Far away from the brightand shiny pet-shop, probably in a derelict shed or backroom of a cramped apartment, these unscrupulous backyard breeders ply their trade, where they keep pairs (or at times only the female) of popular breeds like Labrador and Golden retrievers, German Shepherds, Pugs, and the like… The dogs are kept in cramped squalid quarters, given barely enough food to survive and are usually caged for life. Their world, from birth to death are the four sides of a wire-cage or the walls of a room and they hardly ever experience a kind word or touch and usually don’t live for longer than half their normal lifespan; especially the brood bitches (usually coming into heat twice a year after their sixth or eighth month. Though they shouldn’t be bred from before their second year or fourth heat and then too only every other year, puppy mill breeders or PMBs start breeding from them from the first heat onwards and in every heat, wringing the poor animal dry even before she reaches its prime). These unhygienic conditions lead to disease and neurosis in the animals. What is worse is that these puppy mill operators, in their bid to make a quick buck, breed mothers to sons, fathers to daughters and brothers to sisters. This rampant inbreeding and over breeding ruins not just the immediate litter but also leads to congenital weaknesses that become embedded in the line and make the progeny unsound, both of mind and body.

How does buying puppies born to such mothers aff ect you, the buyer? Well, to begin with, these inbred pups have genetic defects. Secondly, the pups should’ve stayed with their mothers for at least eight weeks because mother’s milk builds immunity and littermates teach them essential social skills. Instead PMBs usually force-wean the puppies and send them off to pet stores in the fourth or fifth week, thus saving on feeding costs. Also the puppies survive on nothing but a trickle of milk from a weak and starving mother. And since the puppy mill business runs on volumes, PMBs compromise on cartage, cramming as many puppies as possible while transporting them. Some always die in transit, but it doesn’t really matter because what they save on transportation costs more than makes up for the loss. In essence, for PMBs, the puppies you so lovingly buy are just commercial goods, just like chickens and goats meant for slaughter, and every time you buy from such breeders, like Rahil did, you end up supporting these heartless criminals and their cycle of greed. And that isn’t all. If you’re lucky, then like Asghar, these cute roly-poly puppies you buy from PMBs are likely to fall ill with debilitating diseases within the first few years and become far more expensive (vet bills, medicines, time spent in care-giving) propositions than what you might have budgeted for. But if you’re unlucky, these pups with weakened bodies and temperaments could become unpredictable and dangerous and might need to be put down. Either way, it’s almost always a sad, painful and short life.

So what can one do about this? Perhaps unknown to you, worldwide, animal rights groups have been clamouring for a legislation that puts a stop to this cruel trade but not much has come of it. The only way to stop puppy mills is to stop buying from them. Like I told Rahil, “If you really care about animals and their welfare, neither you, nor anyone you know should ever buy a pet from a pet store. ” But then Sneha’d said, “God forbid but if Asghar goes, we’ll need to get another pup to help Sahil get over his pain. We’re hoping you’ll help us find a better pet store…” She almost begged…

“Sneha, there are no ‘better’ pet stores. Pet stores are commercial units where a bag of dry feed worth eight thousand will find better treatment than a pup with a going price of five thousand. If you really want a pedigreed dog, you should go to a breed specific breeder who unlike the PMBs has dedicated himself to a particular breed or two of his choice. Such breeders breed dogs with the specific aim of improving the breed and don’t sell puppies to people they deem incapable or unsuitable as pet owners. Be prepared to be interviewed thoroughly before being ‘allowed’ to buy a puppy from such a breeder. For instance, a well known Tibetan mastiff (a large mountain dog for the uninitiated) breeder refused to sell me a pup because I don’t live in a farmhouse (because the breed in question needs the space). And breeders who care will never sell their pups to a pet store. So choose the right breed and be prepared to pay at least three times more than what you’d pay at a pet store. But at least you’ll know that the puppy you’re buying is happy and healthy (many breeders provide insurances and guarantees) and its parents, instead of being unhappy, tortured, inbred curs, are, in all likelihood, pampered show winners.” And if all of this seems too much of a hassle, I suggest you go to an animal shelter and pick up a mongrel pup. You would’ve given the orphaned animal a home and it’ll cost you nothing to buy and very little to maintain (most strays are very hardy creatures).

PS Just in case you were curious, Asghar has pulled through his illness and for now is happy and healthy, bringing joy and light to the Sharmas and their neighbours… but beware, not every family is as lucky.

NOT A REQUIEM YET

2011-08-18T10:21:00.000+05:30

Bring out the shroud while the rain drops drone The king has fallen from his throne Down the pitch rolls the mighty crown Where the victor waits to wear it to town It is too late to be clutching at Strauss For isn’t every Duncan destined for a tragic cause Bruised and battered the champion lies Are we applauding the winner even as he dies? Or is there hope; will he live… yet again will he rise?

And to that I say, of course India will rise again. And soon. But would it be soon enough to win at the Oval and salvage pride, hope and a final scoreline that at least leaves the bylanes of shame and despair and gets somewhere close to the highway that leads to respectability? More importantly, would we be good enough to bounce back like world beaters, reclaim the top spot and keep it for a while like the West Indians or the Aussies ? My money says we would, but for that, a few things would have to change.

But why did India lose the way it did? Popular opinion would suggest that India’s bowling is toothless and wouldn’t really dent a batting line-up as powerful and varied as England’s. They say that without Zaheer Khan, India is just not good enough to bowl out teams twice. But if that were to be the case, India would never have reached as high as it did in the Test rankings. One good bowler would never make us the world’s top Test team. We had a Kapil Dev once, and New Zealand had a Richard Hadlee, but neither India nor the Kiwis came anywhere near world domination in the 1980s.

And don’t you go about trying to fling Harbhajan Singh’s name at me and trying to suggest that he is the other reason why we managed to consistently run through sides around the world over the last couple of years. And that’s because I can’t remember the last time the turbanator turned it on, or in for that matter, to play anything more than a supporting role with the ball. Why, his batting has been spinning more magic than his doosras for a while now. Now, you must understand that I’m not being critical of the man’s recent performance. I’m just saying that he has been pulling his weight without being exceptional and so he isn’t necessarily ‘the other reason’ why we have been doing so well as a unit until this series.

I would go so far as to say that our bowling looks fine, even without a Zaheer or a Harbhajan. I am not saying that we don’t need them. I am just saying that even if both happen to get injured, we have enough options available to fill those big boots. However Amit Mishra and S. Sreesanth are perhaps not those options. Here’s why…

Cricket is a game that is perhaps more cerebral than all other athletic pursuits put together and as the ‘experts’ insist, is played as much between the ears as it is between the wickets.

Just look at Lasith Malinga. He knows that he can’t really swing or seam the ball. But does he still try and bowl reverse-swingers like Waqar Younis? No. Instead he develops that mindbogglingly accurate toe crushing yorker and teaches himself how to vary his length and pace to keep the batsman guessing. On the other hand what does a Sreesanth do? He opens his spell believing he can blow the batsman away. And while he has delightful swing and can touch the low 140s, he is hardly express quality. But I guess if you try telling him that, he’ll send a screaming bouncer your way as well. So every 15 overs, he would bowl a real peach which might or might not get him a wicket but the rest of his stuff get clobbered all over the park. Then I guess he ends up feeling like it’s yet another ‘just not his day’ day and his spirit drops low and his pace drops lower. Then he tries bouncing Alastair Cook while trundling in at 130 and gets clobbered some more. The ball swings all day, but swings wide and wider. There is talent but there’s no thought.

Here’s another example of ability without attitude. Amit Mishra can turn the ball a mile while Anil Kumble couldn’t. But while Kumble planned and plotted the downfall of entire teams with his marginal movement and incisive thinking, Mishra turns his arm over with a childlike wonder and wonders “What’ll it do now… ah a perfect leg spinner. Darn, too bad it missed the edge, the wicket keeper and the pitch. Ok… let me see what the next one’s like… OMG! OMG! It’s a googly… but why is it flying to the stands… bowled it too short, did I? golly.. let me try a flipper next… or maybe a top spinner...”

It’s a pity that we have a man who thinks like Kumble, bowls the same way with limited spin but is aided by limitless creative and consistent ideas, has succeeded in all forms of international cricket that he has played in and yet hasn’t been blooded into Test cricket yet because he is an off spinner. Ravichandran Ashwin is too good a bowler not to have played for India yet just because Harbhajan Singh is an off spinner too. Play with both if they are your best bowlers I say. Did Clive Lloyd ever say I wont pick a Michael Holding because I already have one express quick in Andy Roberts? Did anybody ever say we shouldn’t pick VVS Laxman and let’s pick the left handed Hrishikesh Kanitkar instead because we already have two very good right handed middle order batsmen in Dravid and Tendulkar?

As for the rest of the attack, Ishant is a proven match winner. He just needs direction, in his bowling and in his thinking. And Praveen Kumar might not have the pace, but he has both the talent and the spirit of a future champion. I spent some time thinking about medium fast bowlers who achieved greatness at that pace and though up quite a few… Alec Bedser, the English medium-pacer made a man no less than Bradman his bunny once. Then there was Terry Alderman’s out swing at a little above medium pace which won Australia a pair of Ashes urns and made Australia the kings in waiting through the early 90s. And last but not the least, PK needs to look no further than the last cricketing knight, Sir Richard Hadlee who every batsman, from Desmond Haynes to Sanjay Manjrekar claimed was the best bowler they ever faced and one who was better, though slower at 35 than he was at a nippier 25. What PK needs to learn is not to pack on more pace but how to make his swing work against world class left handers. As for the third seamer, between Jaidev Unadkat, Umesh Yadav and Verun Aaron, we will find the man we need and something tells me the last named is most likely to be the one, because he seems to think like a winner even before he begins to bowl like one.

As for the batsmen, let me recount a story I heard Ashok Malhotra, former cricketer and selector, narrate on television. He mentioned that while he was a selector, he once saw a batsman tear apart the South Zone attack during a Duleep Trophy match and score a big double ton. So Ashok called up the then chairman of selectors Mr. Chandu Borde about this explosive new find and then walked up to the young man and told him to pack his bags for the Indian team’s tour of Australia. However, in the next match which Malhotra was watching with Mr. Borde, this young man came out to bat against a quick and whippy Zaheer Khan who bowled him a snorter and dismissed him without so much as a how are you. Chandu Borde just looked at Ashok Malhotra and shook his head. That man did not make it for that tour to Australia. His technique wasn’t considered good enough against fast bowlers it was said. Well, too bad I guess for who knows what Virender Sehwag could have done against the Aussies during a series that we otherwise list 3-0.

The point I’m trying to make is that there is no dearth of class and ability in a Yuvraj Singh or a Suresh Raina or even a Virat Kohli and a Rohit Sharma. They just need a long rope which will help them build self belief. Who knows, these could be our ‘fab four’ for the decade to come. Chance, faith and persistence allowed Gautam Gambhir to blossom. These four just might need a bit of the same.

India’s consistency and success has allowed us to mature as an audience, and not tear down our heroes at the first sign of defeat. The calendar and the BCCI have received their due in terms of flak and criticism instead of Dhoni’s house being stoned. But besides keeping faith in proven class, picking for cricketing intelligence as much as ability and spacing out the calendar with enough space for recuperation and preparation, there’s one more thing that needs to be addressed and that is the role of the coach.

The way the team’s fortunes soared with the tenures of John Wright and Gary Kirsten and plummeted ignominiously during the dark days of Greg Chappell’s reign would suggest that the coach plays a vital role in an Indian dressing room and Duncan Fletcher just doesn’t seem to have ‘it’. I’m sure he has the plans but he hasn’t been able to execute or communicate the same to younger members of the team. The bowlers sprayed the ball, the batsmen batted without a plan and everybody, especially during the English innings at Edgebaston, seemed to be at their wit’s end. Traditionally India would start poorly but always got better as the series progressed, even in the 1980s and the 1990s. But here things have only got worse. The thinking just didn’t blend with the team.

Fletcher might be a great coach but apparently, not for this team. Something’s got to give there. Every great team gets a wake up call. The West Indians were shocked out of their pants by pace in 1974-75 and then again were beaten by lowly New Zealand in1980 while the Australian dominance over the last decade or more was punctuated by losses to England and India. Each time these champions learnt from their losses,got back on their feet and hit back harder. Now India’s been knocked down and it’s our turn to rise from our ashes and take wing again…

THE OTHER GANDHI

2011-08-11T12:16:00.001+05:30

In an issue celebrating unsung heroes, I was a little confused about the hero I wanted to talk about. We were celebrating the accomplishments of little known men and women whose work has reached and touched more lives than their names have. Perhaps their time is yet to come. Perhaps tomorrow will know them, recognise them and want to be inspired by them. But, what about a forgotten hero... A hero that lies forgotten in his grave... The dust that whirls around the headstone was perhaps once a man who inspired a whole nation. But today it is just dust blowing in the wind. What hope does he have...? Isn’t this forgotten life an unsung hero too...?

I remember one such.... I spoke of him to you many years ago and yet it is a story that needs retelling, for he is a hero who needs to be remembered... So, I dug through the archives and found you his epitaph, for if he had lived in the memory of his people, they might not be dying the way they do...

Khan Abdul Ghaff ar Khan, also known as Frontier Gandhi, was born in 1890, in Hashtnagar in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) of what is now Pakistan, a region that was described by George Molesworth of the British Army in 1919 as one where every stone ‘has been soaked in blood’. I still remember the grainy, black and white images of a tall man with gentle compassionate eyes that flashed across TV screens the day he died. I was told he was a man of infinite peace but it is only now that I realise that he was also a man of infinite courage.

The rugged beauty of the mountains of the Khyber that links the NWFP to Afghanistan is home to the fiercely proud Pashtuns or Pathans. When these fierce warriors are not busy fighting off the British, the Russians or the Americans, they are immersed in their own tribal feuds where blood is the currency and honour the prize. But Khan Abdul Ghaff ar Khan, or Badshah Khan as he later came to be called, had a diff erent vision for his people.

Beneath the veneer of the aggressive, blood-thirsty Pashtun, Badshah Khan saw a race of generous and brave people blinded and disgraced by violence and ignorance. When just 20, he began his mission of uplifting his people by setting up schools for men and women. From that mission evolved the vision of freeing India from British Imperialism and thus was born a loft y philosophy, born as much to faith, as it was to feeling. Khan was a deeply religious man whose interpretation of his faith led him to the realisation that non-violence was a ‘weapon of the prophet’. He started a peaceful movement against the British with 1,00,000 of his followers called the Khudai Khidmatgars (God’s servants), all committed to the principle of non-violence and the cause of the nation. But to the British, the non-violent Pashtun was a confounding anomaly who they brutalised in an attempt to elicit a more familiar and violent reaction. In 1930, in Peshawar for instance, more than 300 Khidmatgars sacrificed their lives when British soldiers opened fire on a non-violent demonstration.

The Khidmatgars, the same Pashtuns who are today vilified as vandals and terrorists, bared their chests to receive the bullets replacing those that fell before them without ever raising an arm in protest (many more would’ve died if elite soldiers of the Garhwal regiment had not refused orders when asked to fire at the unarmed Khidmatgars). But through the torture, the beatings and the pain, the man, the philosophy and the Khidmatgars endured, mirroring a similar movement in another corner of India led by a man he was to befriend like a brother, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. To Badshah Khan, his chosen path of non-violence was only natural. ‘There is nothing surprising in a Muslim or a Pathan like me subscribing to the creed of nonviolence’ for that, he believed, had been the path of the prophet and the faith, more than 1,300 years ago.

Khan dreamt of a unified, secular India and had spoken extensively against the partition of India. When the Congress, of which he was a senior member, accepted the divisive concept, he expressed his sense of betrayal but maintained his close association with Gandhi. The new regime in Pakistan felt threatened by his ideas and repressed the Khidmatgars ruthlessly. And Khan, who ought to have been a national hero, spent most of his remaining years under house arrest. Abandoned by those he trusted, and persecuted by those who feared him, today Badshah Khan lies in a grave in Jalalabad, the man forgotten, his ideals forsaken. If the Nobel Committee had had the sense to celebrate the contributions of this peaceful soldier of Islam, maybe the afterglow of international recognition would haveimmortalised his beliefs amongst his people. And that could’ve changed the fate of one of the most volatile regions of South Asia. But that would perhaps be expecting a little too much of a Committee that awarded a foul-mouthed war criminal like Henry Kissinger with the peace prize and forgot about a Mahatma.

YET ANOTHER WALK IN THE WOODS

2011-08-04T10:12:00.001+05:30

I crossed the stream that separated the camp grounds from the woods and headed east, camera in hand, towards the darkening gloom. The forest seemed to be alive to my presence, like a wolf pack circling its victim, and tightening the circle like noose around an unsuspecting victim.

But there were no wolves in this patch of green. Of course you could seek no comfort in that fact. These forests were crawling with killers. Snakes that bit and surly pigs, leopards and tigers and drunken bears, they all roamed these woods in search of something to kill, to kill that burning craving in their stomachs. Anything would do... anything slow and unwary, without too many quills or horns or fangs to get in the way would do just fine. And in that entire forest at that moment, nothing, not even a new born fawn, suited that description better than yours truly....

But that thought didn’t stop me. I walked on mesmerised by the sound that now echoed through the forest. Branches snapped and whole trees seemed to come crashing down as the earth shook under the weight of the fallen giants.... Elephants! I wanted to photograph a wild elephant while on foot, like the hunters of yore. The thud and crash of trees and branches was like the song of the sirens... A sound that held the promise of great danger and even greater beauty.

Fear, I reasoned was the companion of every lover worth his heartbeat, for doesn’t every great love demand its share of fear and trepidation. Some die by it but most live to love and share the fruits it bears. So statistically speaking, since most photographers die of old age instead of being killed in their prime (or way before ‘prime’ even considered sauntering into the horizon like in my case) because they were attacked by their models (unless of course you’re shooting Naomi Campbell, in which case the odds, admittedly, stack up rather steeply against you), I reasoned I had a good chance of making it back in good health with a photograph or two to show for my efforts.

By now, I had crept in closer to the sounds of the pachyderm party. And there seemed to be a party inside me too. My heart was booming to a rapid beat and my intestines felt like they were being plucked like harp-strings. It’s not a nice feeling. I had grown a goose-bump rash, which, if you were to run your fingers along my skin at the time, would’ve done a whole lot of good for your blood-pressure issues, if you catch my drift. What it didn’t do a whole lot of good for was my own blood pressure though, for it soared and plummeted like the Mumbai skyline as I drew closer.

I needed something to calm down. And then I remembered that the forest I was walking through was once the haunt of the great hunter-raconteur Kenneth Anderson. Not too long ago, three decades and a bit, to be exact, you could have chanced upon good old Kenneth if you were to be where I was that day. He might’ve been out hunting a man-eating leopard or tiger at that hour, hurrying to his machan before darkness falls. Or maybe it was a marauding sloth bear or a rogue elephant he was aft er. Or perhaps he was just out ‘ghooming’, like he used to say in his books. These tall teaks must have seen his adventures walk past them as they unfolded. If only they could talk and tell me of the stories I had grown to love in the books KA wrote. And there was one more thing I wished I could ask these trees... Where the @#*! (it’s not a habit and I hardly ever use them but at times like these, few words can say it the way these four-letter ones can) is the elephant...? Or the elephants? The sound, which until now was calling out in a straight line, suddenly broke into fragments and seemed to surround me. Was it a whole herd? Or just one sore rogue? I couldn’t tell if the surround-sound feeling was real or just a bouncing echo. It was like being stuck with Bruce Lee in the hall of mirrors during the climax of Enter the Dragon.

At this stage, you must be wondering why I’m making such a big deal about wild elephants. Aren’t they the most friendly of all wild animals? They take us for rides, play cricket in silly costumes at the circus, show up for weddings etc. Shouldn’t they be the easiest to photograph? Let me answer that notion by recounting what a Sholaga tracker told us the previous morning. There were three of us – V, a dear friend, A, my dearest wife and I. We were going for a hike through the woods and Sivan, the tracker, was our guide.

We walked the same route that I had taken this evening and then walked along a stream bed in search of wildlife. In the early hours we saw a pair of Indian bison – magnificent beasts, amongst the tallest of all wild oxen. The pair melted into the bush as soon as they sensed our presence. We saw the spoor of a sloth bear near a termite mound and the scat of a big cat. Sivan reckoned it was a panther... Perhaps the all-black variety that was relatively more common in these parts. And all along, Sivan was as calm and cool as the cucumber he’d been snacking on.

But then we traced our way back to the river-bed and here Sivan froze. Almost on cue, so did we. “.Yanai!.....”, (elephant) he whispered. “So, let’s go see them,” I whispered back but Sivan gestured for me to stop. He backed away from the spot and said it was too dangerous to approach the beast over open country. “Of all the animals in the forest, we fear the elephant alone. Unless they’ve become man-eaters, tigers and leopards would always slink away from the mere presence of man. The bear only attacks if it’s cornered, so we usually have little to fear from them. But ‘Yanai’ is another matter. Herds are not usually dangerous unless you come between a mother and her calf.”

“But if you happen to see a lone elephant, give it a wide berth. It’ll either be ‘musth’ or worse, a ‘rogue’.’ Male elephants have these glands near their temples and once a year, these glands ooze a secretion. Its a sign that the bull is going through a phase where his sex-hormones are waging a crusade against his will, pushing him to seek a mate and sow his wild oats. Most such bulls, if they have found a mate wouldn’t bother people. But the ones that can’t find a mate or are driven out by another male give vent to their frustrations by knocking over trees, pulling out stone markers along forest paths and attacking people, cattle and carts. However, once this period is over, the elephant becomes as amiable as any other. But the rogue is the villain of the forest. Some do because they were shot at by people and even though the wound doesn’t kill them, the pain scars them and they seek vengeance. Others just become bullies. We have one in this part of the forest. Last year it entered ragi fields and ate up our crop. When we tried to stop him by bursting crackers, the bull refused to budge. Instead it chased us out of our fields. While we ran into the village, two brothers ran into a hut. The elephant reached the hut just as the brothers closed the door behind them. But the elephant didn’t give up. It rammed the hut and knocked a wall over. While one of the brothers escaped, the elephant knocked the other down, trampled him and then gored the now lifeless form a couple of times. Then it entered the village, smashed a few other huts, drank toddy from the pots in one of the houses and then knocked over some trees in our orchards.” A rogue, he says, is worse than a tornado.

By now, we had reached the high bank of the river and Sivan pointed at a dark boulder like shape that moved between the branches. ‘Mad Yanai!’ He whispered, meaning the rogue. The elephant was facing away from us. But what if it turns and charges, I asked Sivan. “If the trunk is straight, it’s a mock-charge... An elephant would never risk hurting its trunk during a charge so just stand your ground. But if it has its trunk rolled up and out of the way... run!. Climbing these short trees wouldn’t help so just run....” (I later read that taking sharp turns or running at right angles might help increase distance because while the elephant can outrun most humans, it isn’t good with corners. Also jumping across ditches or ravines might also deter the elephant because they aren’t keen on jumping).

As we walked away from the spot, I wondered what I would do if the elephant did charge. Sivan can take care of himself and I would back myself to run away from most elephants. But what about the wife, or my friend who was nursing a bad back. How easy would it be to run away knowing that the elephant was gaining on my wife or my friend? If I survived the chase, how would I live with the price I paid for my cowardice? On the other hand, could I really do much?

The walk back to camp was a torturous one. What would I do? What should I do? Finally I decided that I would do what we used to do in a game called cut the cake. Like tag, one chases and the other tries to escape but if one were to run between the two and ‘cut the cake’, the chaser now had to run behind the one who had cut the cake. I hoped the elephant too would remember the rules of the game if such an event were to come to pass. Although this reduced my chances, it was the only way I was going to run from an elephant....

Anyway, back to our little tryst with the bamboo eater(s?) this evening. As I edged closer to the sounds I tried to peer through the brush and see the animal. And then I saw it.... No not the animal, but the bushes parting. The elephant was moving towards me in a hurry. I still couldn’t see it but I heard a terrible trumpet and the sound was bearing down on me.... I gave up all thoughts of taking a picture... I did not wait to find out if the elephant was chasing or just running out of fear and I did not wait to find out the one thing I had sworn I would before running from an elephant and that is check if the trunk was rolled or straight. Call me a coward if you will, but I just ran without a second glance and I was happy...

Happy to be alive, happy for the rush in my veins and most of all happy that I had no cake to cut when I did get charged... I could still tell myself that when the time comes, I would still have the courage to cut the cake. And put that raised sarcastic brow to rest, will you? For now that we are so far away from the elephants, behind my glass table, I’m even more convinced that if push came to shove, I would cut any cake for love... Try me!

THE CHASE

2011-07-28T12:56:00.000+05:30

I don’t remember the place. Maybe it was a highway running through the forests of the Western Ghats, a grey ribbon hopping and twirling around cones of mossy green spires that peer into the clouds. But it could just as well have been the Shivaliks. Actually it doesn’t matter where it was because… Ah well, let’s save the because for later….

So there I was driving through the highway, tailing a truck when it suddenly stopped dead right in front of me. I tugged at the wheel and swerved out of the way. I muttered a silent prayer that merged with a curse as I pulled up alongside the trucker but he wasn’t listening. He was staring, eyes wide and white, and his mouth agape at the sight in front of his eyes.

And you wouldn’t believe what I saw. An elephant was standing in the middle of the road, staring straight into the eyes of the trucker and then like striker gathering rhythm before a penalty strike, it jogged up to the truck and rammed its head right into the wind-shield and smashed it. Then it turned towards me and trumpeted out a screaming challenge. Then that five ton behemoth waddled up toward my car and challenges be damned, I thought. I abandoned my car and ran towards the forest. The beast screamed again and gave chase. I hopped and skipped and ran for dear life while the elephant, a beast amongst the biggest of its kind, bulldozed through the undergrowth and the lantana as its beady eyes searched for me. I turned back to see if he was gaining on me and remember noticing that his tusks were rather small, mere tushes, for bull this big. I kept struggling through the brambles and before I knew it I had reached a clearing. Behind me I could hear the earth being torn up, trees crashing to the ground and the kind of general mayhem that reminded me of the Earth Song.

If I hadn’t been coughing up my intestines out of fear, shock and sheer exhaustion, I should have been more than a little surprised to notice that this clearing wasn’t just a clearing but a little village-town. Dung cakes drying on ochre walls, stone cobbled streets and clothes clipped to clotheslines, bright blues and vivid pinks on open rooftops and then a dry step-well surrounded by a boundary wall right in the middle of where the village-town square would have been. I ran up the streets and down the alleys and what do you know, the persistent pachyderm just wouldn’t relent. It chased me up and down the lanes past every heavy wooden door I knocked on and yet no one opened the door. The place was empty. Turned away from every latched door, I ran towards the step-well. I jumped over the walls and slid down the stairs and hoped that the elephant wouldn’t notice. The animal walked around the wall, its proboscis hoping to catch wind of his quarry and then my eyes met his, and for a moment we both froze. And then with frenzied fervour, the massive domed head started beating down the wall as it rammed it with all its might. The tremors that shook the wall travelled along the village floor and shook me up like a pea on a beating drum. There seemed to be no escape. There was nowhere to run.

I heard a branch snap and then another, and I wondered which way the sounds had travelled. The elephant was knocking down a wall so who was snapping those branches? I heard sounds. Whispers, human voices… and a sense of urgency. But there was no one here. Then whose voices did I hear? Was I dreaming? And if I was, then which was the dream and which one reality? But the tremors… they ran through both my worlds as the earth trembled under my feet. I woke up with a start.

The window was open and the cotton curtains were sashaying in rhythm with a rather stiff afternoon breeze. Whoever had been whispering outside my window had disappeared by now. But the earth still shook and yonder in the bamboo forest, branches still snapped and crashed onto the forest floor. I went up to the window for a closer look and saw two men hiding below the sill. They looked up at me and said “Yannai! Yannai!! Mad… Yannai… mad!” they mumbled and pointed toward the woods that had gathered a few hundred yards away from the hut, like a large shaggy dog on a leash, glowering menacingly at all that lay beyond its reach. Oh, by the way, Yannai is the Tamil word for elephant and my cottage was one amongst twenty others that made up this eco-resort on the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border where the teak forests of the Bandipur Tiger Reserve hailed out to the bamboo groves of Mudumalai National Park.

This stretch of the forest was famous for its elephant herds and I had travelled all the way south because I wanted to capture a few photographs of this region’s famed elephants and especially the magnificent tuskers. I had been fantasising about chance encounters with these forest giants ever since I boarded the flight to Bangalore and it was perhaps my overactive imagination that drew me into that crazy dream I began this story with. Anyway, as things stood, I had thought I would put my feet up and unwind on day one but since the elephants had come calling, I grabbed my camera and the longest lens I had and hurried off towards the edge of the woods. The two men who had been hiding under my window ran behind me and asked me to stop. I did, and turned… “Yannai mad! Very mad….sorry stop… but danger… very danger.” I smiled and showed them my camera and tried to explain to them that the 400mm lens on my camera would ensure that I maintained a safe distance between my subject and myself. The two men however seemed unconvinced.

I did not have the time to invest in building popular consensus with respect to how I might have wanted to spend my afternoon and so I left the two of them jabbering away animatedly and jumped across the narrow brook that separated the wild groves from the resort. I took a few test shots to check if the light was right. And then I heard that sound again, like thunderclaps, of yet another tree being dismembered. I balk at the thought of entering the bamboo grove all alone, rubbing elbows with these wild elephants. But I could not turn back now, and so with a prayer on my lips and a camera in my hand, I entered the portal into their world… but that’s a story I will complete in the days to come. Until then beware of elephants in your dreams and give them a wide berth. They can give you quite a workout even as they chase you around in your own mind.

IN THE MASTER’S WAKE

2011-07-21T10:03:00.000+05:30

If, for some masochistic reason, you happen to have read more than one of these weekly columns I drag and wrench out of my reluctant laptop, you’d know that I’m an absolute sucker for miracle-tales. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years in dusty libraries pouring over crumbly sepia-tinged, dog-eared pages and websites that promise to reveal ‘the secrets of energy and ecstasy’, loo King for tangible evidence of a claimed miracle. And I’ve seen glimpses… a shadow here, a silhouette there, but nothing more that I could touch, tell and know. I’ve trudged through the proverbial deserts and valleys, and desolate forts, and waited by the banks of unnamed rivers in forgotten forests in search of a promised sign or a whispered legend, and heard a lot, but saw very little.

But this story is about a man who, it is said, performed a miracle a day. I’d hoped to learn from him someday, for it is also said, that all who’ve learnt from him are often good enough to repeat his miracles. But this meeting will have to wait for another time and world for he breathed his last two months ago, on the 19th of May. He was 91. Many were surprised that he died so early, for those who knew him believed he would only die when he grew tired of living, and he didn’t seem tired at all. But it wasn’t to be. He wasn’t a God… just a super man. His name was Koichi Tohei and this is not his obituary. Well, for starters, it’s a little too late to pen one, but more importantly, this ought to be a celebration of the life he lived, the examples he set and the path he blazed…

But before I tell you about him, let me tell you how I came to know about him. I had been studying AiKido for a few months with my Sensei (teacher), an extremely pleasant man in his 40s. For those of you not familiar with the art and philosophy of AiKido, it is a martial system far gentler than the striKing arts like Karate or Muay Thai. Here, instead of an opponent being battered into submission, he’s gently guided away from the defender and pinned or disarmed. But the highest purpose of an AiKido defense is not to merely disarm the opponent physically, but to disarm his intentions and make a friend out of a foe.

Now all that is great for building character and friends, but at the same time there’s another mystical dimension to this martial art. And I had no inkling of it until one day I experienced its powers, first hand. We’d usually finish our AiKido practice with a round of breathing exercises called Kokyu Dosa. It would involve a pair of AiKidokas (practitioners) holding each other by the wrist and testing their ability to extend the mind. Basically it is a test of heart not strength, which usually ends with the one with the weaker ‘will to love’ sprawled on the floor.

Since this was an exercise that we did at the end of our workout, and perhaps the energy involved too subtle, Sensei realised that we were only going through the motions and didn’t really believe in the power of this ‘heart energy’ or internal power that he called Ki. And so he told us he would give us a demonstration. There were four of us in class that day. And it’s important that I tell you about all four of us. The smallest amongst us was one of Sensei ’s senior students, Ashish. About 5’8” and solidly built, he worked with a consulting firm and had been a Karate black belt before starting his AiKido training. Then there’s me, standing at well above six feet if I can manage to squeeze my ungainly feet into my wife’s vertigo inducing high heels. For the record, that I fervently hope you’ll never ask me to match or break, I have successfully dead-lift ed 120 kgs for reps (one and a half repetitions would surely qualify a plural) and half-squatted more than 200 kgs. I know those weights wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in many gyms, but do try them before you remind me that our women weight lifters often lift more to warm up. Then we had Manav, a friend and colleague who stands at about 6’2” in his fraying socks and is built like a granite wall. Last and 6’3” at the very least stood Sensei ’s senior most student, Ajay. Ajay’s father was the president of the power-lifting federation of India and he had been a collegiate champion in the sport. He was also the squash champion for his club. During our arm-wrestling friendlies, I would manage to hand the wooden spoon to Ashish before losing valiantly to Manav, while Ajay would knock stuffing out of everybody’s egos by pinning our wrists before we could breathe or blink. Oh and did I tell you about Sensei Sethi? A little man at 5’6” of well-rounded goodness and warmth, you thought Sensei would never hurt a fly, unless the fly hurt him first I guess. So Sensei sat down in seiza (a seated position on his knees, a lot like the vajra asana), extended his arms and said, “Let me show you what the Kokyu Dosa is good for. I want two of you to hold my right arm and two of you (pointing at Ajay and me) to hold my left and try and push me to the ground.” We looked at each other and at Sensei and hesitated. Our combined weight would have been in excess of 400 kgs and the added force of us pushing violently could really damage him. “Come on… hurry up. Let me see the strength in my students”, he said. Ajay looked at us and said, “If Sensei wants us to push as hard as we can, then let’s push real hard.” And there we were, four of us pushing down as hard as we could on one little man who takes one deep breath and then, irrespective of the weight on either arm, extends his arms as he exhales and sends us flying; not a word I would use casually, into diff erent corners of the room. It was like we had ropes tied to our waists that pulled us into the walls of the dojo, away from his arms. We staggered back to Sensei who hadn’t moved a millimeter since we began pushing. He was beaming and said, “That is Ki! And Kokyu Dosa is your introduction to the power of Ki.”

Sensei had to move to another city a few months later and there was no one else in the city teaching the art. But I was hooked, and so began my exploration into the world of Ki. Since I could not find teachers in Delhi, I went looKing in books and journals and came across the writings of Koichi Tohei. Koichi wasn’t your conventional martial warrior. He studied AiKido with the founder, Morihei Ueshiba, and was in all probability his finest student and one who understood the principle of Ai-Ki-do (the way of harmonising with the universal energy) best. Through his studies with Ueshiba and his training in mind-body unification through breath work with Tempu Nakamura (who learnt the art from a Nepalese yogi), Tohei was already exceptionally strong in body and mind when he got draft ed into the army for WW II. This theatre of war was perhaps the greatest test possible for AiKido’s principles. Tohei was commanding a unit in NanKing, China. The Japanese army, ruthless at the best of times, shocked observers and the world with its sadistic excesses in NanKing. And yet, Chinese authorities note, Tohei’s unit was known, even in the heat and hate of battle, for treating both citizens and soldiers with Kindness and compassion.

After the war and Morihei’s passing, Tohei felt that humanity had more to gain and learn from the exploration of this amazing internal force called Ki than just the mere repetition of combat techniques. And this is what makes Tohei Koichi unique. While there have been many martial artistes and yogis who, during the course of their practices, have stumbled upon this miraculous energy and performed miracles like rinsing their mouth with molten metal and spitting out condensed steel balls or going on for days without food, water or even air, few have been able to transmit these abilities into their students. But in Koichi Tohei, we had a master who tested and trained his students on their ability to perform miracles like the immoveable body, the unbending arm (something like what Sensei Sethi demonstrated) and maKing the body mountain-heavy or feather-light. These ‘miracles’ defy the laws of gravity and physics, and while his students might not be flying around on their own steam or be ‘bulletproof’ just yet, it still is evidence of one master showing the world that the body and the mind in unison could achieve the impossible and that this was no mystery from the misty mountains, but an art that could be taught and acquired by all who came with an open mind and an open heart.

So even though Tohei Sensei has taken off for a better world, there would be many he has left behind to teach us the way of the Ki; and if you do intend to walk that way, do remember to pack in the cape and the red over-underpants. You might need them sooner than you know.

RIP Sensei Tohei!

A FORGOTTEN FAIRY TALE

2011-07-14T09:45:00.001+05:30

Graveyards are like a book of fairy tales. Each story is book marked with a gravestone that hints at a story that begins with ‘Once upon a time....’ and in the end they all died, one way or the other, ever after

Alex tossed one way and turned the other in his sleep. Entangled between his restless legs, the blanket slid off his torso and fell to the floor to reveal rippling muscles that reached out from his waist, lean and sinuous, and then fanned out along the wide breadth of his back and shoulders... like a family of pythons slithering up the trunk of a tree and then spreading along its branches. He had made a pillow of his arms, and his head rested on those corded cables of steel. For a man of such strength, he looked surprisingly vulnerable in his sleep. As you drew away from him, you could see that he wasn’t a big man. In the dim light of the lamp by his bed you could now see the angry scars of old wounds from not too long ago running along his hands and his sculpted chest. There were beads of perspiration gathering on his forehead like the drops of dew gathering on the leaves outside his window. It was going to be a very important day for Alex when he wakes up but for now he was far away... Dreaming of a day from some years ago... It was the first great war, but it seemed so long ago...Alex was frowning. It was a dream he was trying to push away... But it wouldn’t go... that day, smoke and clouds and a reluctant sun made it seem like it was still dark as night. He couldn’t tell if it was thunder or machine gun fire.

While rain and German bullets kicked up the mud and wet grass around him, Alex pulled out his sabre and egged his horse on towards the enemy’s flank. He didn’t know if he would live to see the sun shine today or his home in the Polish countryside. His Cossack comrades had left him for another world, to live or die alone...

A bullet whistled past his left arm and another seemed to ram into his left thigh. But he didn’t feel the pain... Perhaps it was the saddle, maybe it was the adrenaline... He didn’t feel a thing. He just dug his heels into the horse... Blinded by the fog and the smoke he turned his horse towards the woods. But the horse wouldn’t run.... Alex turned to see clumps of grass and mud dancing up and down close behind him where the bullets kicked into the earth. He kicked his heels hard into the bay stallion’s flanks but the horse just buckled to ground. Alex realised it was the horse that was hit and he jumped clear.

He could run now. He had lost his comrades and now his horse was hit. He couldn’t fight. He’d escape. But his horse... If he left his horse behind, the Germans would cut up his one companion who carried him through this great war, and feed him to their dogs. He was alone now and he couldn’t bear to be any lonelier.

Astonishing his own self, Alex hauled up the horse by its broad neck and pulled him into the thicket, away from where the bullets were flying.

Between the trees, with his head on his horse, the exhausted soldier lay, aware of the footsteps that marched his way. He wished he could pick up his steed and run but for once that great vigour was spent. He lay there hoping that those who marched were friends not foe as he drift ed into a dream within a dream.

He woke up in a prison cell next morning. The Germans had got them. His horse was lying butchered in the trough where the German war dogs were fed and he was lying chained to the walls of his prison.

They told him he had fought like a mad man when they caught him. They had to bind him in chains. He saw his own body, one that he had forged at the anvil of his will into a work of art and strength unmatched amongst his peers, as it lay torn, twisted and shackled.

As days, weeks and months went by and his body healed, he taught his mind to believe that chains couldn’t hold him. He was tortured and told he’d never get out but he didn’t believe them. Every day, with all the might left in his 5ft 5in frame, Alex pulled against the chains. He pulled and pulled with every muscle and tendon in his body straining against the shackles and guards would look at him and laugh. ‘War horses can’t break those links and he’s only a little man... He must’ve gone mad with grief because we fed his horse to our dogs’ they’d laugh and Alex would only pull harder.

Then one morning when the guards changed positions, the new ones went to Alex’s cell to see the mad man pull some more, only to run back screaming ‘the mad one’s gone..!!’ The chains hung from the walls in shame, twisted and broken, like the man once was who they once held. And the bars of the cell too had given way to the might of the little man who had bent them apart. One of the bars was missing... They found it later outside the prison walls. Alex had twisted it into a hook to scale the walls.

It was a gloomy day like the day he’d been captured but today was different. He had always been strong but had never been stronger... Perhaps today he was stronger than any man had ever been. They won’t get him today. He ran... through lanes and fields to the river... He heard footsteps echoing behind him in the narrow cobbled streets... It was cold.... He ran towards the river. The current was strong. He jumped... The water... It was very cold... The current was very strong....

Alex woke with a start. The dream... It always ended with him in the water. And no they didn’t get him in the end. He had escaped to Paris where he joined a troupe of performers as a strong man. He bent bars, carried horses and broke chains in front of a cheering audience for fame and money. The fans marvelled at the ease with which ‘the Mighty Samson’, Alex’s stage name, performed his feats of strength and when asked him how, and the mighty atom just smiled.

Then Alex caught the eye of Sir Oswald Stall, the famous English theatre owner and film producer. Sir Oswald had invited him over to work in England, the centre of the world’s best circus acts. Th ousands would be queuing up to see Samson perform. It was his biggest night since his escape... It was time to wake up and live a new dream.

If you happen to be in London for a day without any place to be, or anyone to be with, you could take the short ride to Hockley.

Once there, follow the swirling autumn leaves and they will guide you through its streets to the tall spires of St Peter and St Paul’s Church. Don’t stop. Follow the leaves around the wall to the churchyard where they’ll lead you to the gravestone of Alexander Zass 1888-1962.

If you ask the old care-taker in the tweed cap sitting on a rock under the birch tree if he knows whose grave it is, he might, if he likes, nod his head and tell you ‘tis the Russian circus fellow... They say he was a spy too... Was a strong lad I hear...’. If you have a penny to spare and an ear for a story, you could invite him for a swig at the tavern once he’s done and he might even smile at you and tell you some more... Th at Zass trained wild animals for the circus when he wasn’t busy bending and breaking iron, catching human cannonballs and pulling back heavy horses. Leopards and those big African monkeys... ‘Chimpanzees?’ you ask.... He shakes his head..’ Gorillas?’ He shakes his head again... ‘Baboons?!’ And he smiles a wry smile and nods... ‘Yes baboons...! They got his wife...’ he says.’ Bit her to death during an act’. You look shocked and raise an involuntary eyebrow. He carries on unmoved... Zass loved her so.... Was a beautiful girl, not 20 yet.... Th at destroyed him... Wasn’t the same man ever since... ‘He disappeared after that...No one knows what happened next for a long time... And then one day he showed up here’, the caretaker would say before getting up wearily and walking away after tipping his cap...

You might wonder where could a man as famous as the mighty Samson disappear. He was as big as Brad Pitt in his time. His system of pulling against chains gave birth to the isometric workouts that became so popular in the after war years and his books inspired millions and made him some too...

And yet there’s no one to tell you the rest of his story.

But wait... Remember what I said about graveyards being like a book of fairy tales. So just trudge back from the tavern to the churchyard and go to that birch tree and sit on that old stone. Wait for the birds to stop twittering as they nestle in for the night and wait for the wind to warm up to you as the sun slides off the sky. Then the old wind will whisper into your ears, for ‘Once upon a time...’

THE BEAUTY OF THE BEAST II

2011-07-07T10:01:00.001+05:30

The thick vein pulsed and strained against the muscled neck as it glistened with summer’s sweat. Heat and dust and expectation hung around the arena like flies around a meat shop. It was a pregnant pause in the drama of this evening. As the shadows lengthened around the stadium, the muscles twitched and flexed as that powerful cocktail of sinews and bone mixed with incomparable vigour, and a passion for destruction began to roll into motion. Like an orchestra reaching a crescendo, the gale force contained within that… body built of flesh and bone whipped up speed and charged; it’s a word used too often, but you wouldn’t know what it was meant to describe until this moment.

At the other end of the arena stood the target of that uncontained force and fury. A man, standing still – expectant, awaiting, almost eagerly, to receive and respond to the tornado bearing down on him at the other end. The man is a picture of studied calmness on the surface and the crowd’s heart goes out to him. What dauntless courage, they think... But if you were him you would know of that spider called fear crawling up his spine and breaking into a cold sweat on his brow with each passing moment that brought his nemesis closer.

At the other end, a fierce gaze, flared nostrils, and those hulking shoulders contorted and concerted into a coiled moment for the final assault… The crowd holds its breath and it is here that I hold my story, if only for just a moment...

Who are these two characters that are facing off against each other? Well, that depends on your place in time. If you are from a day long before Christ, it could be the diminutive David holding firm against the colossal Goliath. If the Old Testament doesn’t seem yellow enough then we go further back in time to find our way into a labyrinth in Crete. And there you see them, the gigantic man-beast Minotaur battling the handsome, yet human Theseus. Each time and place has its own version of this timeless battle where man with all his fragile courage and spirited wit overcomes a force of nature far more powerful than him to emerge a glorious hero. Odysseus and the one-eyed Cyclops, and Fereydun and the dragon, each land has its own legend that compels a little child to believe that it is possible to overcome that which is stronger, that which is bigger, that which is greater if only one has courage and wit, and a sprinkling of moral fortitude doesn’t hurt either.

And this battle with a fairy tale ending is replayed in forms both old and new in the pages of best sellers and comic books and in frozen frames of box office ringers. It’s the theme of all themes, the motif that defines the human experience, the essence of our race – this desire to see the merely mortal triumph over the divine or the demonic.

But even today, if you want to see this tale play itself out in torn flesh and split blood, you could. You just have to look for the right arena. Of all the sporting spectacles that time has conjured, there are two that still stick to that time honoured script, the eternal battle between man and monster.

To find the first of these arenas, look for a map of Western Europe, find Spain and then close your eyes and point at a random corner on the map. Lift your finger and look at that spot for a while. Concentrate... And then you’ll hear the sounds first…Of people cheering and clapping... Then you’ll smell the dust blowing with the wind... Perhaps, if you’re careful, you will also catch whiff of flecks of dried blood blowing with it. And then you’ll see it...the stands swathed in red and yellow, the ladies with their bright handkerchiefs and the men, looking grave one minute and cheerful the next, mirroring the action in the sands in the theatre below where a little man in bright tight pants and a short jacket emblazoned with sequins and the like, is standing still, a bright cape in hand, while a large black bull, muscles taut against his shiny skin is pawing the ground as he prepares for a charge. Snorting through a froth caked muzzle, the beast, outweighing the matador by hundreds of pounds with horns sharpened to dagger points starts his final charge.

The hump of muscle that runs along the nape of the bull’s neck and down to his shoulder throbs with each hoof-beat as do the hearts of all who are watching... And that man in the line of ire still standing still.... But if you take a close look at him you will recognise that now familiar feeling breaking into a drop of cold sweat on his brow... But here we must leave this battle and go off in search of the other promised battle. And this battle, on the surface, is nothing like the drama of a bull fight.

It began as a leisurely afternoon’s indulgence for gentlemen in white flannels on the English greens. Cricket, ever since His Grace first took guard, has always been about the aristocratic elegance of the cover drive. Bowlers and fielders were the porters of the game, carrying it along for the moment when the master, the batsman, would deign to unravel his magic wand, his bat, and play the strokes that scorched the grass and soared to the skies. But along came a tall lean chap from Balmain, Down Under, who his friends called Fred, who sent the ball whizzing through Dr Grace’s beard and the game had changed forever.

By the 1930s, cricket fields had begun to take on the flavour of the Spanish bull-ring, thanks to a man called Harold Larwood. He was not particularly tall or big but he hurled thunderbolts of hard leather at the batsman’s head that in the pre-helmet days often put them in mortal danger. Oh yes, the game had changed forever.

From an elegant garden exchange between lunch and tea during the long English days of summer, the game had become a gladiatorial contest between wood and leather. It was still the batsman’s game, but the Don of this new era emerged only after Bradman survived and scored while Larwood pelted lethal missiles in a fearsome display of Bodyline bowling that put the fear of death in all who watched. It wasn’t just a mere game of skills and technique. It had now become a battle that could bring death or glory.

Like the Spanish bull fight, cricket, even today, is still about the little guy triumphing over the giant-like bull or the bowler, but every now and then comes along a bull or a bowler that hasn’t read the script. And then blood is shed, bones splinter, things are smashed and sometimes, even death follows. Remember when Mike Gatting was felled by a Malcolm Marshall bouncer that smashed into his face and then bits of bone had to be picked out of the ball? Or that county cricketer who died after being hit over the heart by a short one? No, I’m not celebrating these tragedies by holding them up, but make no mistake it is the fast bowler who has elevated the game to a level where it simulates the David and Goliath scenario, thus taking the game to a plane so sublime that it is in the same breath both primal and heroic.

That is why people would put down their champagne goblets in the members pavilions to see an Ian Botham or a Sachin Tendulkar spit out teeth and blood and then swat the fast bowlers off their noses for screaming sixes. They are the dragon slayers of the day but then what’s a dragon slayer without a dragon or a bull fight without a bull?

Cricket without fast bowlers is just a game, but when one has a Shoaib Akhtar roaring in like he once did, it becomes an epic saga and a stage for heroes... real heroes. So when you see the Indian openers break into a cold sweat as Fidel Edwards storms in, that thick vein on his neck pulsing, nostrils flared as he prepares to hurl another snorter, be grateful… And that’s why I had said in the previous column that fast bowlers are greater than the game, for they make the game greater.

FAST BOWLING FOR DUMMIES

2011-06-23T09:37:00.001+05:30

Andy Roberts loves fishing. When he has the time, he likes drifting out in his small boat to catch something at the end of his fishing line. So this weekend when he spoke about the Indian fast bowlers touring the Caribbean and called Munaf Patel, who picked up 8 wickets in three ODIs, a spinner, he wheeled in a catch with more teeth than he had bargained for. The cricketing world was divided along the seam of the speed versus efficiency debate. Roberts was criticising Munaf for his lack of speed but there were those who stood up in defence of Munaf and said 'So what if the Ikhar express had now become a passenger train? It still got the job done, didn't it?'

So was Roberts just trying to get under Munaf's skin before the Tests? I would say unlikely. Give the man some credit. In the 1970s, even in the face of racial taunts by opposing captains, Andy Roberts, who then was at the height of his powers, still chose to stay silent and let the ball do all the talking.

Perhaps all the great man wanted to say was that line and length with gentle medium paced seamers, no matter how economical or efficient, can't compare with raw pace when it comes to blasting away the opposition. And he is right.... However, fast bowling isn't about matches or wickets alone and is in some ways a phenomenon greater than the game itself. More on that later but before that, here's a rerun from the archives of a crash course on fast bowling concepts which'll set the stage for the debate to come.

Dummy, in this context, would mean you, fair maiden, and you, pretty one, though you be neither fair nor a maiden, and those countless other women, and not a few happy men, whose hearts skip a few beats and then gallop away into a rising crescendo when they sit in front of the TV and see the sculpted contours of a Shane Bond or a Brett Lee tearing away like a wild Camargue stallion until it reaches the wicket. Here the stallion, in mid-stride, transforms himself into a Nureyev, balanced on one leg, the opposite arm thrown heavenwards, where for a split second he is the very picture of poise and grace…. but that moment lasts no more and the ballet dancer that was a stallion, is now transformed yet again into a thunder god who hurls the little red cherry in his hand like a bolt of lightning, powered by an explosion of muscle, sinew and passion… That red cherry, like a comet with a fiery tail torpedoes through the air and before that armored warrior wielding a club of a bat at the other end of the battle zone can move, the ball crashes into his castle, sending his stumps cartwheeling into splintered bits, like a picket fence shattered by a cannon ball.

The Indians are batting, braving the barrage. You join the family in its prayers as the Indian batters duck between drives, and yet in secret, a part of you betrays its admiration for the fast bowler – that lethal but extremely rare creature that stalks the vast oval greens of planet cricket. You find the spectacle of this tornado in cricketing tights blowing away all who stand in his way awe-inspiring, his primal force seductive. And you wonder why, oh why, does your heart beat so when these fast men, from the legendary Imran Khan (did I hear you sigh, dummy?) to the devastating Dale Steyn, charge in?

Well dummy, you are not alone. An elevated heart rate is a universal syndrome when the fast men take the stage. A fast bowler, unlike a batsman or a spinner, is not a creature of skill and toil, his craft honed to perfection over hours burnt in the sun, but a rare force of nature. The network and circuitry of tissue and tendon that he was born with is like a nest of coiled cobras waiting to strike. His muscles explode faster and with greater force than other lesser mortals and neither time on a treadmill nor beefing up with barbells will ever fill in what god left out. So a genuine fast bowler, one that can bowl at speeds that will make most stock cars illegal is a rare privilege. Since the beginning of time on a cricket field, when a burly bearded man called Alfred Shaw bowled the first ball in the history, the fast bowler has always stood apart: a giant misfit, like King Kong in New York, an awesome primordial force that inspires fear and respect that disrupts order, that almost demands to be tamed and chained, for if left to prosper, it will surely destroy all, perhaps even itself. Come to think of it, if a Shoaib Akhtar or a Jeff Thompson were to have the consistency, mental acumen, discipline and longevity of a Sachin Tendulkar or a Sunil Gavaskar, watching a day of cricket would have been about as much fun as watching Christians and lions at the Colosseum – bloody, brutal and worst of all, predictable, terribly one-sided and eventually boring affairs.

Thus, for the sake of good drama, this great force of nature, the all conquering fast bowler is always born with a tragic flaw, like the tragic heroes of yore, from Othello to Oedipus, they all have their Achilles’ heel. Some like Shoaib and Tait lose their minds, while others like Ian Bishop, Waqar Younis and Brett Lee never seemed to stay out of a hospital bed long enough to finish the job. Granted, that when fit and strong, there isn’t a finer or more fearsome sight than a fast bowler at full tilt, but like an earthquake or a tsunami, these ‘phenoms’ ebb and flow only once every few moons, thus ensuring that life for lesser mortals is merely disrupted and not destroyed.

Fast bowlers, irrespective of whether you are a cricket fan or not, will tug at those ancient chords in us that tie us to the beast within and during the Twenty-20 World Cup, if you happen to catch one of these powerful creatures exploding on a cricket field, savour the moment without guilt, for who knows when you’ll see another one at his best again.

(DO I CARE) FOR A FEW INCHES MORE

2011-06-16T09:46:00.000+05:30

No, no whatever it is you are thinking, this is not about what you’re thinking. This is an unashamed elitist rant about me, and you fine people who happen to be like me, at least as far as inches go. Brothers, I know I speak for all of us when I say this that it doesn’t matter what the world thinks or says about us for we know we have what it takes to stand amongst men and say ‘Yes, I am man enough!’

This is for all those men who dared to look down on us because their overenthusiastic genes gave them a few inches to spare. And this goes out to all those women who sneered down the tapered tip of their noses at us and said “… oh, I thought you would be taller.”

Let me start from where it all began. After being cooped up in an all boys monastery for the first eight years of school life, I finally grew wings and managed to hop and strut my way into a co-ed environment. I had hoped for a bit of Riverdale high and moments stolen from pages stolen from a cousin’s dog-eared Mills and Boon. But my first day in class knocked the wind right out of my sails as my hopes sank without so much as a glug or two. It was my first day in class and I remember feeling like Sachin Tendulkar might in the LA Lakers locker room. I was 5ft 2 inches at 13 and everybody around me was taller, way taller. It was one thing to be looking up to the boys hulking a foot or so above my head but what cruel length of twisted fate had ordained that I was to be a head shorter than all the pretty girls too.

I realized that day that inches mattered.

Everyday I would will myself to grow taller. To match the boys was a dream too far to dream so I settled for the girls. I hung on to prayers, branches, doors and hope and lo and behold, I began to wake up a little taller everyday. I caught up with the tallest of the pretty ones and the shortest of big boys. A few years rolled by while I was growing fast and a quick calculation told me I had two years to go before my bones fused and two measly inches or so to go before I hit the magic 6 ft mark. It was inevitable. It was ordained. It was meant to be… or so I thought. I eased my foot off the ‘wishing-for-more’ pedal because now I knew that destiny would take over. Unfortunately, my bones did the same and destiny forgot to keep her word. The inches that were meant to be mine lost their way and fell into some undeserving sod’s lap while a few straggling centimeters still managed to find their way to their rightful owner, leaving me feeling like I was almost there but still not home.

So you and I, we realized we weren’t going to be six feet tall. So what is the first thing we do? We look for someone to blame... I could’ve blamed my parents but then it’s their genes that’s gotten me this far so there would have to be someone else.

And that someone else happened to be Paul Newman. That man, God bless his soul, I was told, was as gorgeous as they come, and a particular favourite of an ‘English teacher’ who was a particular favourite of ours. And if he was good enough for her, he sure was good enough for me. Now I must have been pushing 5’9’’ around that time and while flipping through the last few pages of a stray Time, I came across a snippet that mentioned that good old Paul too was about 5’9’’ and just there and then, my resolve slackened. In that moment when I began to accept that medium needn’t mean mediocre lay not only the root of my failure to reach ‘great heights’ but also the realisation that nearly 6 ft and yet not quite there was still a great place to be... After sifting through the star dust that brightens pages in glossies, screens in theatres and nubile dreams on balmy nights, one can’t help but conclude that their is something undeniably attractive about this matrix of feet and inches that start around 5’9’’ and stop just short of 6 ft - a golden bridge if you will that straddles two worlds- one where be the short and not so tall, who are forever battling the prejudices and subtle taunts of the world, from high school through to the grave. Often as a reaction they end up trying too hard to make up for the lack of inches, like a Hitler or a Napoleon. Not quite the stuff of dreams, dry or not, wouldn’t you say? And at the other end of the bridge are the blessed Brobdingnagians who stand head and shoulders above the rest of us. Not a world that should have much to complain about you’d say, but at the cost of howling like the fox who declared that the grapes are sour, you’ve got to admit that we all know the type that drags his personality around in a coffin made of his extra inches.

So it is left to us who make up this ‘golden mean’ (philosophically speaking the desirable and ideal middle ground between two extremes) to show the world how to wear our inches with a flourish. You obviously realise that it isn’t just sheer chance that year after year the men that make it to the top of the heap as the most desirable of their kind happen to be those that man this bridge between two worlds. From Paul Newman to Richard Gere and Michael Jackson to Mel Gibson and right down to George Clooney and Johnny Depp and yes, a Hrithik Roshan (and I would shove in Brad Pitt and Vin Diesel in the bargain for though their profiles list them at 6 feet nothing, do you seriously want me to believe that any self respecting PR manager would desist from bumping up their client’s height by at least a meagre inch if not more), they are all up there because their inches foretold it.

But then I went to Denmark on holiday and felt like I was back in school again. One sunny Saturday in Copenhagen while I saw the city brush past me, I felt yet again like Tom Thumb. The Danes must be amongst the tallest of races in the world. Every other guy seemed to be 6’4’’ or more and now and then I would see some guy walking around with his head lost in the clouds. And this time I had no hopes of growing any taller either. Late evening as I sat by an outdoor cafe and saw a bunch of drunken revelers tumble past, a rather disturbing thought began to bother me. What if I got into a brawl with one of these giants? Would I have any chance of putting up a fight if I had to defend myself or my family and friends from these guys?

Well I needn’t have bothered on two counts. Firstly, even when drunk, Danes tend to be rather polite and well behaved. And secondly, contrary to popular perception, heights in excess of 6 ft are hardly ever an advantage in a fight.

Yet again, it is the ‘golden mean’ that shines brightest for the best fighters in the world. The invincible Rocky Marciano who never lost a fight after battling towering giants like Joe Louis, the devastating Mike Tyson who repeatedly brought fighters like the 6’ 5’’ in Frank Bruno to their knees before dropping them on their backsides and the greatest MMA( Mixed Martial Arts) fighter in the history of the sport, Fedor Emelianenko are all invincible warriors that hovered around but never made it to the 6ft mark, and aren’t they glad they didn’t. Why, even the best of the Navy Seals, who incidentally brought down the 6’4’’ Osama, are just about 5’10’’ tall.

I’m beginning to think that the goddess that gives out genetic goodies must’ve kissed us right on the mouth for us from the mean to have been blessed with such a delicate balance of abilities and inches and this enormous genetic potential. I may not have done squat with it but the point is, I could have...

Last but not the least, I’m rather convinced that every avatar and every messiah, from Krishna to Christ and a few others I’m too much of a wimp to mention, must also have been about as tall for had they been exceptionally tall or short, the scriptures would’ve mentioned it. The fact that they didn’t would more than suggest that here too, it must’ve been the golden mean at work.

I rest my case.

So I must leave you with the thought that if you happen to be male and anywhere between 5’9’’ and 5’11’’ and some and if you aren’t making history, then you aren’t doing much.

As for the rest of the world on either side of the bridge, what do I say.... ‘eat your heart out’, I guess....

PARABLE OF THE PIG

2011-06-09T09:46:00.001+05:30

This story is not really about him, and yet, call me indulgent but I can’t help but tell you a little bit about Socrates before we start. Socrates is my pet schizophrenic pig. On most days he is happy being a dull boar, rooting for truffles and other trifles, chasing sows and bullying dogs. But every now and then, when something momentous happens, like when an Osama gets shot or a Tiger gets caught or, Heaven forbid, if he ever catches me lingering a little longer than I should around the ham and bacon footlongs on the menu at our favourite ‘Subway’ before ordering our usual paneer tikka sandwiches, something snaps deep inside Socrates and he withdraws into a melancholic reflective shell.

Now when Socrates gets like that you’ve got to be careful because that’s when he starts talking. Yes that’s right... He’s a talking pig. Maybe it’s my fault that in an inspired moment I thought of naming him aft er the ‘grandfather of thought’ but Socrates takes the living up to the name bit a little too seriously.

In fact there are times that he talks about all that’s wrong with the world so much and for so long that I think we might both be happier if he was bacon. Now pray don’t let him read that and let me tell you about what happened this Sunday. It was World Environment Day and I was reading out the news to him (He doesn’t read on Sundays... I read for him. That’s how we do our quality time bit), and when I got to the point about an article celebrating the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and how it had empowered disenfranchised forest folk, giving a new lease of life and opportunity to the forest as well its denizens, both human and animal, I heard Socrates snort. His eyes had that distant flinty look... Ho hum, he was going into another of his ‘let’s sulk till we talk this out’ modes.

There’s only one thing to be done when Socrates gets like that, so I dropped the newspaper and off we went for a walk in the woods.

Once there, we made our way up to Socrates’ favourite spot... A high cliff that overlooked the tree tops. Nature’s penthouse if you will, and once there, Socrates looked away at the horizon deep in thought. I waited for him to talk and then I got tired of waiting. I poked him where I imagined his ribs might be and asked him if he wanted to talk...

Socrates kept staring into the horizon and then he startled me when he spoke... (It doesn’t matter how long you’ve known him... It doesn’t matter if you expect it... he will always make you skip a beat when he starts talking). But this time it wasn’t the fact that he spoke but the thought that shocked me. He said ‘we should have rights too. We need a voice... We need to vote too!’ I don’t know which was wider. My eyes or my mouth, and then I must’ve sniggered but the expression didn’t go down too well with Socrates. He turned away with a look that rested somewhere between derision and pity… The look you might reserve for a dirty little kid with a runny nose begging at a traffic intersection.

A few minutes of awkward silence followed and then he turned and asked ‘what’s so funny? Is this such an improbable idea?’ Well it was time for some cold hard truths. “Socrates, you are a pig! The only recognition you could ever hope for is a satisfied burp aft er you’ve been eaten. You don’t matter beyond the plate. You don’t have rights. Neither state nor faith allows you any. What you and I have is weird and strange... This is not normal. You are not normal... pigs get eaten, not voting rights. You’ve been reading too much of George Orwell, Socrates... I don’t know why you refuse to believe me when I tell you that the emperor of France wasn’t Napoleon the pig.”

Socrates seemed to consider it for a while and then said, “You might have a point there. So let’s not talk about us creatures of the kitchen. But what about those that have rights? The tigers and elephants in the forests... The eagles and the sea gulls, the birds and the bees... The state offers them protection, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t they have rights? Shouldn’t they have a voice?”

But we have laws protecting their rights. We can’t kill them. We can’t eat them. Heck, we can’t even cut a branch from a tree in a protected forest. Those are better odds for survival than you might get in any city, wouldn’t you say?

Socrates (I oft en think of calling him Socky, Ratty or just plain.. er.. Cocky, but he refuses to respond. He doesn’t like nicknames) wasn’t impressed. “You and I, we both know that what you said is far from the truth. If laws were enough to protect the forests and those that stay in them, why would a Sariska have lost its tigers and then even while the whole country is up in arms about it, Panna’s tigers also get poached and eaten. Where were your laws then? Surguja’ s virgin forests were supposed to be safe and inviolate – a designated elephant sanctuary. But you know what happens if the government is the only one vested with the power and the responsibility of protecting the tigers and their forests? The day the government feels that the coal lying in the womb of this forest is more important, read worth more money or more votes, these forests would lose their protected status and would be ripped open. Roads would run through the once pristine jungle like open scars. The remaining woodland would be classified as a ‘degraded forest’ and sold off in blocks to the timber Mafia. And the animals, some driven by starvation would enter villages in search of sustenance and would kill before they are killed. Others would get poached by desperate forest dwellers who themselves have been thrown out of a home that was once theirs and that’s all that’ll be left of it – a barren wasteland, the bones of the dead and a bunch of poor fugitives trying to escape the law and their destiny. The only beneficiaries would be a handful of government and forest officials and private contractors. This is all that would remain of these forests for the government is a trustee unencumbered by stakeholders or a sense of responsibility or accountability.”

The swine had made a fine point. So what do we do? I asked. “The environment would always come second best in any tussle as long as it remains a world without stakeholders or a voice. As long as the animals and the trees are left without a voice or a vote, the government would pay mere lip service while we watch and exploit and plunder when our backs are turned.

It is time that like the FRA, we had a Rights of Wildlife Act that allowed the animals to choose their representative too. You’ve got to let them vote. The NGOs could scream themselves hoarse but they can’t do a thing to stop the government or the poachers. They couldn’t stop the killings in Sariska or Panna. For all of Greenpeace’s posturing, whales are still being killed in all the seas. Drift nets are still decimating dolphins and there isn’t a thing anybody can do about it... The future can’t depend on handouts from the present. It needs to have a voice today, in the present. And without rights, without votes, our wild heritage can only survive so long on charity.”

While Socrates waxed eloquent, my thoughts turned to the tales of heretics who had been burnt at the stake. I was worried that his listeners might be tempted to burn him at the stake even if they agreed with him. His views might taste better aft er that, they might argue. I looked around to see if anybody had heard us.

Voting rights for animals? Who had ever heard of such a thing? As far as heresies go, this was right up there with the sun being at the centre of the solar system and the earth being round.

Ashamed to think that I might be taking my pig a little too seriously, I whispered to Socrates, “Even if what you say might have theoretical logic, how would a wild elephant vote? And how would it know who to vote for? You are going crazy. I should have you put down the day you went beyond a grunt you know...”

Socrates smiled. I swear he did... a cute piggy smile too. And then he said... “Of course, wild animals can’t vote but they know what’s good for them. And so do the rest of us, for whatever’s good for this planet is good for them too. And each forest, grassland and mountain, and almost every species has had its champions who are fighting tooth and nail to protect what they have dedicated themselves to... it’s their cause, our cause, your cause. Some like Diane Fossey have even laid their lives on the line and lost it for the cause. Give people like them the right to vote for us and choose for us. They’ll never let me or even you down. A hundred votes or a thousand or even ten thousand, the numbers for each could vary and we could debate about that. But it is irrefutable that you need to empower your wild heritage with more than just laws and the kindness of a few to battle greed of some and indifference of the rest.

As for us kitchen creatures, there would be a revolution one day like the one in Animal Farm and that day justice will be done. You don’t worry though, for I’ll tell the soldiers of the revolution that you are a good man. Almost as good as any pig. I know your wife and your parents would agree. We’ll be good to you.

Go ahead, don’t believe me. You might laugh now just like a white slave owner, less than 150 years ago, might have laughed if a black slave had told him that one of his children would one day become the President of his owner’s children. He might have even suffered a few lashes for being so impudent, but when the wheels of time turn, justice is always done, isn’t it? Think about it...snort!”

Socrates, having made his point, was done talking.

Socrates and I went back to staring at that line in the distance where a flaming row of gulmohars kissed the clouds as they slipped away beyond the horizon. Socrates seemed to be at peace but I kept thinking if this hog’s hopes were as good as his grunt. Wonder what you might make of it…

THE NATURE OF EVIL

2011-06-02T10:11:00.003+05:30

The young man seemed to be in a hurry. It was late afternoon on Valentine’s Day, and looking at the young man hurrying away from the bus stand, one would have thought he was just another college kid late for a date. It was only if you walked up real close to him as he rushed past you that you would have caught the glimmer of cold steel in his eyes. Shocked, you might have wondered if it was hate that you saw in those eyes until you saw the furrowed brow, the clenched jaws and the Adam’s apple bobbing up and down and the Adam’s apple bobbing up and down and it was then that you knew it was hate and doubt streaked with fear and anger. You walked on, lost in thought of where and whys of the look in those eyes when suddenly your feet freeze. The ground below your feet shakes and shudders and in front of your eyes, a little further away to the right, you see the ball of fire explode. A split second later you hear the deafening roar of doom followed by the sound of glass shattering, car alarms screaming and the loud leaping of your heart. And then come the screams, of shock and disbelief, and of agony and anguish… Stunned, you wonder which way to go, what to do, and then on an impulse you turn to look at the young man who just walked past you… and you see him walking away from you. He was easy to find, the only moving figure on a street where every other person was rooted to the ground, numbed by the shock of the moment. Soon, that man is lost in the lanes of the city…

Shamsuddin had done as he was told. He had ‘delivered the package’ as instructed and then walked away from the ‘site’ without looking back or making eye contact with anybody. It wasn’t easy. He knew that every person he was walking past might soon be walking his last. There were men, women and children. Poor vegetable vendors were haggling with middle-class homemakers. Within minutes this would all be gone. Shamsuddin knew it and it wasn’t an easy thing to know…

He knew his way around here though. It was the route he took on his way back from school. He had been a good student… one of the very best in all Coimbatore, his mother used to say. He had wanted to become a police officer. But it was a dream that turned bad and bitter for Shamsuddin.

Five years ago, on this very street, while a fifteen year-old Shamsuddin was on his way back from school, a police van blocked his path and rough hands bundled him into the vehicle and he was taken away to the police station to be questioned for crimes he had never committed.

Tortured, beaten and then released only to be arrested again and again, Shamsuddin had entered the police station a broken boy but emerged from it a hardened man. Memories of the humiliation he suffered made it easy for him to walk away from the death and devastation that he knew was about to ensue that fateful Valentine’s Day in Coimbatore in 1998. He knew that the only crime he had committed until then was to be a Muslim. But today he would change all that… finally his voice would be heard

Shamsuddin, now in his mid 30s and serving time, was arrested in the aftermath of the Coimbatore blasts, this time for a crime he had committed. His story was told to me by one of the India’s best and brightest – a man who retired recently from one of the top seats in India’s premier investigative agency and was at the time in charge of the investigations that followed the serial blasts in Coimbatore.

On the 14th of February, 1998, a series of 13 bombs exploded in the prosperous southern Indian city of Coimbatore, killing 46 people and injuring and maiming more than 200 and destroying property worth many crores. A Muslim organisation, Al Umma, was found responsible for the carnage and immediately banned. The Tamil Nadu police apprehended a number of Umma activists and tried to get them to talk. But nothing worked, not even third degree methods. It was at this stage that the investigative officer in our story took over the reins of the investigation. His methods shocked the establishment. He disallowed the use of force and torture during investigations and instead tried to talk to the accused. People like Shamsuddin were spoken to with dignity and respect. He must have touched a chord with them for it was then that they started talking… many like Shamsuddin and even SA Basha, the head of Al Umma, shed unhappy tears and opened their hearts to the officer. They spoke of hurt and anger, of repression and regret and a need to be heard. The officer recounted how Basha had told him, “Had we been heard, our concerns addressed, maybe things wouldn’t have come to such a pass.”

This story however, is not an attempt to vindicate the crimes of Shamsuddin and Basha and others like them who have unleashed lethal violence on unsuspecting innocents to right their own wrongs or even give voice to their own pain through the agonized cries of their victims.

Nay, this tale from Coimbatore is but a mere allegory to that law of history and nature that W.H. Auden once warned us of when he wrote: “I and the public know, what all school children learn/Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return.” And if that be so, then perhaps from Belzebub to Basha, the very nature of evil stems from a sense of alienation and injustice. Until we address the pain and the anguish of those who are hurting, we could kill every Osama and hang every Kasab and yet Evil would remain an undying immortal…

THE FIG LEAF

2011-05-26T10:06:00.000+05:30

The world is falling apart, one designer fly at a time. So terrorists be damned and babies be burped while they wait their turn, for how could we talk of anything else this week. Everywhere you look, there’s someone hobbling around with his trousers around his ankles, with the world playing judge and jeery jury. Running their hardest aft er fig leaves in this week’s races are champagne socialist Dominique Strauss- Kahn and Man-U super star Ryan ‘oops-I-said it’ Giggs and bringing up the rear are a bunch of old boys from the Turkish parliament caught with their hands in the hicky-jar and the gnarly old Austrian oak and his maid of dishonour.

It is unfair of course to compare these apples, oranges and avocados to each other for who is to say which is lust and which is love, illicit though it may be, and which mere perversion. But I have sinned, as have you, and you, and you, and so I would not be the one to cast the first stone. Strauss-Kahn deserves the 25 years and the sharp edged slice of medieval justice (if you catch my drift ) to relieve him of his misery, if he is the preying sexual brigand circumstances make him out to be, and the world’s apology if found not guilty. The Turks got more than what they paid for if you ask me and as for Giggs and the Governator, it really is a private affair and we really have no right to point any jealous fingers at them. We don’t know what their married lives have been like. We don’t know if they were happy or unfulfilled. We don’t know if there was love, within or without the marriage. But yes, what we do know is that there was betrayal, and there were lies, and it is that, and that alone that deserves condemnation, not by you or me but by those affected by those lies and the betrayal.

But what is it that spurs people, apparently happily married people, beautiful and the not so beautiful people, successful people and ordinary people, mothers, fathers, leaders and teachers, to commit acts of unbridled passion that are doomed to start with sex and end in lies at the least and a tape (video, audio or if you are really unlucky, yellow crime scene tape) of some sort at worst? Is it the joy of the chase, or is it the ‘heat’ of the moment? Is it a sense of power or is it the fear of losing power? Is it old love or new lusts? Is the lure a forbidden fruit, or is the seed a fruitless marriage? Well, the truth in this matter would depend on who is speaking it. Research shows that as far as types go, no one, which means neither you, nor me, nor our grandparents (if still young enough) or our grand-children(if they are old enough) are, are likely to be or have ever been, above an adulterous thought or two.

We are a polygamous species feigning allegiance to monogamy. It’s a bit like a Jewish family leaving their eight year old son and sixteen year old daughter with a well behaved baby-sitter named Adolf Hitler with the belief that they’ll find ‘nothing wrong’ when they return. Such is the nature of this beast.

The human race is like a buffalo calf kicking for dear life between the jaws of a lion called evolution tugging at its legs while a pair of crocodiles called history and religion is chewing away at the head. Evolution keeps pushing women to seek rugged, strong and masculine genes, the kind you might find at the end of Salman Khan’s cheek swab, when she is looking for a suitable mate to have a baby with. But when it comes to rearing that baby and nurturing her family, she prefers the gentle, caring and communicative type, like the metrosexual Khan who is all heart and epiglottis instead. Left to evolution’s own devices, men would have been too busy spreading their seed far and wide to realize that the above dichotomy could leave them cuckolded. But then along came religion to plot with history and before you knew it monogamy had becomes God’s decree.

Wedding vows may well insist that we are to be together as man and wife, in love and life, today tomorrow and forever. But science reveals that when we are in love, the brain ‘suffers’ from a certain degree of serotonin depletion and no matter how deep the professed love, serotonin levels return back to normal in about two years. In other words, the brain tricks us into falling in love with a suitable mate for only about as long as enough genetic matter has been exchanged to further life and then the partners are, from a chemical standpoint, ready for the market again.

So that might explain the itch and escapades, but what do we do if we want to stay together in spite of evolutionary biology and cerebral chemistry holding their ground? I do not know about the levels of serotonin in my system today but what I do know is that the woman I have been with for the last sixteen years of my life, thirteen of them aft er exchanging vows, is still the woman I want to see when I wake and is still the woman whose hand I want to hold when I go to bed. And when she is away from me, her face is still the one I see when I close my eyes and smile. But does that mean I’m oblivious to the primitive, almost involuntary evolutionary tremors that emanate from the epicenter of my being when I’m in the presence of appropriate stimuli?

I would be lying if I said I was, and the truth is, so would you.

And yet love between soul mates, if you happen to have found yours, you would know is neither shaken nor touched by these tremors and there is a method towards sustaining this madness. Lets exchange notes on that in the weeks to come but until then, here’s an old Taoist thought to keep you company…

Sex is like fire burning on a cold winter night. Ignore it and it’ll wither, leaving you cold and dead. Fan it too much and it’ll burn your house down. But nurture it, acknowledge it, celebrate it and control it, and it’ll keep you, warm, happy and comforted… perhaps it will even be the light…

Until next week, chew on that Dominique…

READY, MATE?

2011-05-19T10:33:00.001+05:30

Last week, I had promised you an insight into the mind of mindless murder and the one man who I think is among the few who understand it best. However circumstances and some friends with a small measure of editorial influence have been insisting that I let the sombre stories rest a little and write a short series about the other end of life... birth and bits of before and after. So with due apologies to those of you who might have been expecting the story I had promised and an assurance that it would follow right after, I begin this series with one from the archives that I had written long ago... To prepare the ground if you will, for what is to follow...

Discussing delicate matters like bedroom bonhomie isn’t one of my strengths. You know, reining in vanity while holding up modesty etc. But these days it’s nearly impossible for me to get through a conversation – any conversation – without everyone, and I mean everyone, asking me “Why haven’t you had a kid by now?” From neighbourhood fruit sellers and eunuchs, ‘well-meaning’ family and friends to hitherto delightful students, they’ve all engaged me in seemingly innocuous conversations, and as soon as they sense an unsuspecting mind and a weakened guard, thrust the question in my face. Without a heartbeat of a chance to parry, I’m left feeling the way the great Julius might’ve been feeling when he said ‘Et tu, Brute…!’ Worse, even as I’m struggling with the idea of a dignified response, I can almost read the unsaid remainder of the said question in inquisitive eyes that wonder, ‘or is something wrong?’. Well, I hope to God nothing is, but can’t a happy twosome take its time growing up? Perhaps a more pertinent question to ask is, are we, both I and my lovely partner, responsible enough to be able to parent a child – a child who will, for better or for worse, share, shape and influence the world in some respect?

It is perhaps a better time to be born than ever before. Cities, unless they’re swimming on oil, don’t get ransacked too often. People, irrespective of colour or gender, can enter parks, hotels and the parliament, at least in theory and usually come out alive and finally the commies are finally on their way out. But good tidings aside, perhaps the world really could become a better place if we demanded more of the two groups that determine our future more than any other – our leaders and their parents; well, not just theirs but every parent and parent-to-be. Electing a government and having a baby are two most vital public decisions, and while one can rectify one’s mistakes every four or five years in case of the former, mistakes in the second case could haunt both parents and society for a lifetime or more.

Feral children, brought up by animals, display disconcertingly wild, animal-like characteristics and behaviour. They prove that higher mammals, more so primates and human beings, are creatures of instruction far more than instinct, and for our innate humanness to surface, we need a humane environment. And yet, murderers, rapists, paedophiles and even the criminally insane are free to rear children. Many such children will follow in their parent’s footsteps for they know no better. Look around you and you’ll see examples of individuals with the patience of a monkey with mange and the intelligence of a pea waddling past, precocious little lives in tow, and one can only live in hope that the kids would grow to be an improvement on their parents.

An instance that I can’t wipe from my memory is of a couple and a child I happened to observe at the veritable mecca for Delhi bongs – the Shiv Mandir. A closet idolater, I was waiting at the parking lot for my parents when I heard a child calling for her mother. She was sitting in a car, with her father, waiting for the mother to return. The child, not older than three or four years, apparently preferred her mother to her father for she kept calling out for her. After asking her to pipe down a couple of times, the father, without warning slapped the little girl across her face. Shocked, the poor kid started bawling loudly, only for her to be shouted at again and threatened with a rejoinder. I was almost about to intervene when thankfully, the mother returned. Obviously, formal education, financial resources and the lack of a criminal record aren’t enough to prepare one for parenthood. While counselling students, I’m struck by how some have become nervous, insecure wrecks because their parents would demand the world of them, while their only form of encouragement has been to tell them how their sister, neighbour and everything else alive on Earth and Mars was better than them.

Most dog breeders refuse to sell a puppy to a family that would not have time for it and yet no one asks parents if they would have time for their child. Rootless children, brought up in the company of maids and drivers often end up looking for family amongst strangers and happiness in substance abuse. From obesity and alcoholism to mangled pavement dwellers, the price of alienating children from their moorings could be high. Talking of pavement dwellers, their children make some metro crossings look like open-air crèches. Of those that survive the streets, some will grow to be labourers if lucky, others, drug pushers or worse. Maybe nature and Socrates have a point when they speak of only the alpha’s right to procreate. Even without taking things as far, shouldn’t we remember that a human being is far more potent than any hand gun or car, and if a license is imperative to guard against their misuse, shouldn’t there be any to ensure a child’s, and the world’s future? As for yours truly and matters of the family… soon enough, friends, soon enough… just in case someone takes the above too seriously

AND JUSTICE FOR ALL?

2011-05-12T11:06:00.001+05:30

I was very young, perhaps no more than 10-years-old. It was a dark moonless night but the house was lit up like a new bride. I was running down the stairs with my younger cousin to see the fireworks that we heard crackle near by when we saw my uncle rush in through the gate. He ran up the stairs towards us and told us to turn back and run indoors that very instant. He was wearing a white silk kurta and his ‘special day’ gold buttons and… and then I saw it. That splash of deep red that had soaked the left side of his kurta. There was too much of it to be betel juice. This was blood…

Once he had herded us inside on the first floor, he told my parents and his wife to not let us out. But they weren’t listening. My aunt was screaming hysterically at the sight of all that blood on him and my parents rushed to his side. It was only then that he seemed to realise the condition his clothes were in… “No, no… this isn’t mine. Aamar na… It’s Madhob Babu… (our neighbour in Chittaranjan Park, the capital’s Bengali ghetto)”. His words were coming out in spurts, just like the crackling of what I now know must have been automatic weapons, in the lane outside. “They shot at him and sped away on a scooter… he stumbled towards me and I held him and helped him walk all the way to his house. He was alive… but he was bleeding a lot.”

It was the night before Diwali. Chittaranjan Park was like one big fair ground. Every park and lane and square was celebrating Kali Pujo and the inky blackness of the night was punctuated with the sights and sounds of crackers and sparklers heralding the day that celebrates the victory of good over evil. Devotees, families, boys and girls, and the children, they had all congregated in these pandals spread out across blocks, immersed in prayers, passions and play when a bunch of Sikh terrorists armed with assault rifles rode in on a scooter like the very arms of Hell and snuff ed out lives and homes with the casual flick of a trigger. While screams of shock and agony rent the now still night, the killers disappeared into the darkness, leaving in their wake scores and more dead and dying. Some lay on the streets, some in ditches where they fell while they tried to escape while others had been shot even as they tried to run into their homes. I still remember my parents recounting a sight from that night of a little girl bleeding and wailing in her festive finery, as she lay by the side of the road in the cold and dead arms of her parents. These weren’t strangers. These were kids I would meet at the bus stand. These were people I would greet on the streets. Amongst the dead was an elderly man who would distribute chocolates to every kid he would meet on his way back with his dog from the milk booth every morning. Who could hope to gain from such a terrible crime? It could not be the work of a soul even remotely human. These killers were inhuman devilish fiends without a trace of humanity in their beings. They and their ilk deserved nothing more than complete annihilation and extermination!

So I heard in the aftermath of that night, and so I believed.

Then, about two years ago, I met a senior photo journalist who happened to work for a while with the magazine you now hold in your hands. He was a battle scarred veteran. In the last three decades, whenever some momentous shit managed to hit the fan in this country, you could bet your last film roll on the possibility that this man was right under it, getting the world an eyeful of the action. While traveling for stories, especially on those long dull drives back from wherever we had wandered, he would recount stories from his days covering every moment that mattered – The Babri Masjid incident, Operation Blue Star, the assassinations, explosions and immolations, the Mandal agitations and so on… On one such occasion, he told me of this time when he was working in Amritsar. It was during the time when insurgency in Punjab was at its strident worst.

A large number of militants were holed up inside a building and the Punjab police commandoes had surrounded the area. In his capacity as a media photographer, our raconteur enjoyed some sort of a ‘media immunity’ which allowed him close access to such situations. While this life and death struggle was playing itself out, he and two of his colleagues wriggled their way into the house. The militants didn’t mind the publicity I guess, or perhaps he knew them since two of them were renegade policemen, but whatever the reason, our man was allowed to take all the photos he wanted as long as he stayed out of their ‘sights’. As bullets rained down from both ends, the photographers ducked and duck-walked their way around the rooms till one of them stumbled over something. The others looked at the bullet riddled walls, the broken windows and their fallen colleague who was now trying to check if he had damaged his camera. And then their eyes fell on what he had stumbled over – a corpse.

They rolled it over and saw a young Sikh man. He must’ve been in his 30s. It was winter but his body was still warm… and riddled with bullet holes. “They got him this morning” said one of the terrorists even as he kept firing at the cops. “He would sit up nights and cry…” continued the militant between rounds. “He just couldn’t get over all the kids he killed one crazy night in Delhi. It was the Bengali colony massacre… our elders had told him not to go that day. But he was a mad man those days. He and his accomplices killed anything that moved that night… it was chhoti Diwali I think. But it was the children that haunted him. The elders rebuked him for killing the children but he just wanted revenge.”

The police commandoes had stopped firing. Maybe they were considering other maneuvers or waiting for reinforcements. One of the photographers prodded the militant and asked “Revenge? Revenge for what?”. The militant scanned the fields outside and then said “Pinta (the dead terrorist) used to stay in Kalkaji, right next to the Bengali colony. He was a regular guy who went to college, played hockey, and watched movies. But during the anti-Sikh riots, a horde of blood thirsty fiends, surrounded his house and set fire to it. He never told me what happened to the women of the house but he would talk about how he saw his father, uncle, brothers and even his old grandfather being pulled out of their home by their hair and beard. Those b@#...rds put car tyres around their necks and set their beards on fire. His elders ran around in circles as they went up in flames, screaming in mortal pain and those Hindus just stood around and cursed them even more.

Pinta was at his neighbour’s place when this happened. They stopped him when he tried to run to his family’s rescue, thus saving his life. But he saw it all. His world was reduced to ashes in a matter of minutes. But Pinta had recognised some of the rioters. They were from the neighbouring Bengali colony. And since that day he burnt for revenge. When he came to us for training, this was all he wanted to do. He was discouraged by the elders here but he would have none of it. But killing the kids that night really aff ected him… he couldn’t get over that.”

The siege ended when cops killed a few of the militants and the rest surrendered. The photographers had their pictures and that was that as far as the story went. But for me it was an epiphany. Th at nameless fiend from all those years ago suddenly had grown a face and a family and a lot of hurt and anger. So it wasn’t just black and white after all…

Last week when I heard that the ‘world’s most dangerous man’ had got his comeuppance in Abbottabad, I was a little taken aback with the jubilation that followed his death.

Perhaps here too, we were missing the wood for the trees.

I wanted to know the truth. What is it that drives a usually sane and normal person into a frenzy of bloodletting? Why should anyone want to blow himself up as well as a whole lot of strangers he has never met? I had to ask someone who would know and I knew just the man. A friend of mine happens to call one of the country’s top investigative brains father. This man had dealt with militants, separatists and bombers of all hues and hurts, and succeeded and he had answers that left me stunned…

So until next week, judge if you must but judge with care, lest you judge someone unfair…

BETWEEN GOD AND GOODNESS

2011-05-05T10:08:00.002+05:30

“I am happy… Without question, I am happy about his death!”, he said with a calm confidence that belied his years. I was surprised. I wondered if he was saying that because he was worried about how I might judge him if he said he wasn’t.

Zuhaib is a cousin of mine through a marriage or three. He graduated recently, and in spite of the ten years or so between us, we have become rather friendly. He is really mature for his years and I am not, so we always manage to find a happy middle ground whenever we meet to talk away the hours. And between talk of Cristiano Ronaldo’s twinkle-toed switch and Stanley Kubrick’s creative twitch, we always find the space and time to squeeze in a chat about religion. Now, he is Sunni Muslim and I’m a Hindu, and yet we manage an easy discussion, even a debate, about the goods and quaints of the faiths we were born into. So when we met last evening, and talk veered toward Osama’s death, I just had to ask him how he might have felt about it, as a citizen of the world… and as a Muslim.

Monday morning television made for confusing viewing. I heard of the operation in Abbottabad from a friend and fumbled through to CNN for confirmation. And confirmation came from the much barracked Barack, no less. I felt numb. Messages celebrating the killing poured in and I saw the crowd dancing on the streets in front of the White House, on the streets of Georgetown and in New York city. And yet I didn’t know what to feel. Osama had wronged the world. There was no denying that. And yet, does a death, even if it be the death of the man half the world calls the greatest villain since Adolf Hitler, warrant celebrations? And that, notwithstanding the fact that many in the other half of the world think of him as the greatest hero to have ever picked up a gun for a cause since… er… since… John Rambo, I guess (I couldn’t think of a historical figure who comes anywhere close to the gory glory of Osama’s methods).

I was confused because while we were celebrating the death of a terrorist who plotted and planned the death and destruction of thousands of innocents, there were homes and lanes and towns and whole districts in every part of the world, from London to Lahore and from Kuala Lumpur to Kashmir, where there was silence and anger; where a father or a widowed mother would hold a 10-year-old child close and say, “Osama, that man of God whose name you carry has been killed by American terrorists. He was a prince who could have lived in luxury. But he heard God’s voice in our cries. He was an educated man but he put down his books and picked up a gun… for us. He traded his life in a palace for the hardships of battle… for us.

He fought them like David (Dawood) fought the giant and brought them to their knees. The cowards killed the Sheikh while he slept but promise me that he did not die in vain… Promise me that you will live up to your name and avenge each drop of his blood that was shed… promise me that you will fight for our honour, for human dignity, for our rights, just like the sheikh did all his life”

Many homes in many countries would have heard these words being spoken as news of Osama’s death poured in. But I wondered if that was typical. Journalists were reaching out to separatist leaders and religious figureheads as well as to the common man in an attempt to understand what the people Osama claimed he represented felt about his death. The reactions ranged from outright condemnation to religious leaders blaming American policies for his admitted excesses. On the other hand, during the course of my interviews with militants and separatists, I had begun to see a human side to the Kalashnikov toting wild eyed mercenaries. I had begun to see them for what I now believe they are – men, women, oft en even children, who are hurt and angry; who believe they have no one and nothing left to turn to; who mistakenly believe, that the blood on their hands is the work of God and that it is something they believe in with such passion, that they would not regret their losses, of limb, life or love, in the pursuit of their goals. Speak up if you think I’m wrong but I think it takes a good heart, perhaps a bitter one too, but definitely a good one, to embrace death with pride.

Was Osama such a man? Was it empathy, or perhaps even compassion, for the oppressed Muslim that fuelled his passions? Was he a good man who fell victim to geo-political circumstances and the well modulated rant of a charismatic cleric? Or was he a misanthropic bigot tempted by a sense of history? And who is the real Osama – the feted war hero of the Russo-Afghan wars, or is it the man who plotted the murder of thousands in cold blood? And is an Osama any different from a Che Guevara or some other such freedom fighter or revolutionary? They all killed for a cause they believed in… then why is one a pop icon while the other a pariah?

Well the last one is easy. A Che Guevara never targeted civilians and non-combatants the way Osama did and as for the rest of the questions, perhaps it’s a case of the elephant and the blind men. But before I forget where we began, let me tell you what young Zuhaib made of the moment.

“I am happy… Without question, I am happy about his death!,” said Zuhaib. And no, he did not say that because he was worried I might take him to be a sympathiser if he didn’t. “I am glad the man was killed,” he continued, “… because not only did he deserve to die because he killed innocents, knowing fully well that even killing one innocent civilian is tantamount to a crime against all of humanity, but also because of what he did to me, as a Muslim. Before Osama, the faith had an aura of tranquility, civility and even tolerance. But aft er 9/11, every Muslim is a potential suspect. We are looked at with suspicion and skepticism and we cannot escape it. Even when people see me entering a mosque, I see the skepticism in their eyes. And I’m not just blaming non-Muslims.

I too am guilty of having lost faith in my fellow Muslims. Today, if I’m stopped near a mosque by an elderly gentleman and asked a few innocent questions, instead of being touched by his kindness and warmth, I would eye him with suspicion and wonder if it’s the first step in an attempted indoctrination. If tomorrow, a Muslim lad wants to rent my house, I would be extremely suspicious and might not even let it out unless I was 200 per cent sure that man is above suspicion. And I have become so wary of being seen with the ‘wrong kind’ that I actively avoid interacting with people I don’t know, especially if they ‘look the type’… you know, with the traditional beard and skull cap. It’s wrong, and it’s unfair, but that’s what even I have become, though I am every inch a proud and sincere Muslim… This is what an Osama has done. He destroyed faith in the faith and so I am glad he is dead.”

I nodded. Osama’s death was no victory. Inconsequential in real terms, it only has symbolic significance, as our reactions to it underscore the civilisational fault lines of the day. But yes, it definitely was justice. Delayed, diff used and perhaps one that matters only as much as a pacifier might to a hungry child but it was justice nevertheless…

BAREFOOT IN THE PARK

2011-04-28T11:04:00.001+05:30

Rosa’s eyes… they are hazel brown, and deep. They stared unblinkingly into mine and there was something primal and brazen in that stare. The smooth touch of her skin sent a nervous rush up my spine as her sinuous form undulated in my arms. I felt her weight on me. She was stronger than I had imagined. My breath grew heavy and awkward…

We were close enough to kiss and for a moment we searched for answers in each other’s eyes, almost daring the other to take the next step. And then she flicked out her tongue and waved it in my face. Almost on an impulse, I did the same. For the briefest of moments one brushed ever so lightly against the other. “Aah… mouth to mouth!,” screamed a voice on the public address system.

In parts of rural Thailand, snake-pits are about as common as dentures in an old-age home. So here I was driving up a mountain in Chiang Mai when I happened to see a big cardboard sign that said “Dance of death with the King!” As soon as I pulled up, I was greeted by a rather squat Thai lady with hair dyed so blonde that it would not have looked out of place on Boris Becker’s eyebrows. She sang out a welcome and then grabbed my arm and tugged. I waited for a moment and the shock to pass and then allowed her to drag me in to see the treasures that the snake park had to off er. We went past the thatched ticket counter and a counter selling snake-skin shoes, bags and trinkets and then there we were, in front of an empty snake pit. “Show start fifteen minute”, sang the lady, and beamed a happy-gappy grin. I wondered where the stars of the show might be. As if on cue, I heard a faint hiss and then the rustling of scales against concrete.

I looked around and for the first time noticed the row of fine-mesh cages behind the seats. The hissing and the rustling grew louder and I followed the sound to the first cage just in time to see the tail end of a snake disappear into the mouth of another. The King was at lunch.

King cobras eat other snakes, both venomous and non-venomous ones. The King didn’t bother to make eye contact and chewed on the tail like Dirty Harry might on gum, and slithered back into a corner. I drift ed towards some of the other cages. There were Siamese cobras in the next one, then a python and then another king cobra. In the far end was a tank full of dirty brown water and I could see a dark shape at the bottom. “Take out! Take out!,” sang the blonde woman from behind the public address system. I looked away from the tank and quickly took my hands out of my pockets. I looked at her trying to understand what she might have meant. “You take out?” she repeated. The intonation suggested a question and I showed my hands. “No, no… you take out Pi-ping... take out water?” she asked again. Hmm… Pi-ping taking out water… I wondered where this was going. I just managed a confused shake of the head. The lady pushed the table and microphone aside and waddled up to where I was standing. Then she pointed at the dark shape in the water and said, “Pi-ping take out water, you want?” Ah, it was Pi-ping in the water. Although I was still a little unsure about whether the lady wanted me to take Pi-ping out of the water or whether it was Pi-ping who wanted to take out water, or was it that she wondered if I wanted Pi-ping’s water, but I decided to go for it. I rolled up my sleeves and lunged in the water. Halfway down, I realised that a misunderstanding now could be rather painful, perhaps even fatal, and so I asked the lady even as I felt Pi-ping’s leathery skin if Pi-ping happened to have a venomous bite. The lady smiled and shook her head. “No Pi-ping very gentle”, she said. And sure enough Pi-ping was as docile as a house cat. I later learnt that Pi-ping is an ‘elephant trunk snake’, also known as the Javan Wart Snake, called so because of the snake’s rough leathery skin.

“Showtime!,” screamed the lady on the mike, and I went and took my seat at the edge of the snake pit. There were a handful of Australians who had come in for the show. I took out my camera and was about to take a few test shots when a little Thai boy, in an oversized tee-shirt that ran all the way to his knees, patted me on the shoulder and then dropped something black and bristly in my hand. I looked down and saw a rather large black Malayan forest scorpion, with its hound’s tail sting poised for what could be an excruciating introduction. And crawling on its back were two baby scorpions. My wife would never agree, but I tell you dear reader, those little baby scorpions are some of the cutest creepy-crawlies you could ever see.

Meanwhile, the first of the wranglers entered the pit with a pair of cobras. Music played and then he teased and goaded the snakes while they raised their hoods and ‘danced’. Then they fooled around with a pair of rat snakes. Each of the wranglers would finish off his performance with a ‘kiss’ and the blonde one would look at the audience with an expression that said ‘have you ever seen a happier threesome?’ and go “Aaaah!... Mouth to mouth!”

Then they brought out Rosa, the reticulated python, and took her around and asked if anybody from the audience wanted to hold her. No one did, and since I didn’t want to hurt Rosa’s feelings, I volunteered. At 15 feet, young Rosa’s pretty small for a reticulated python. These snakes, the longest in the world, oft en grow to be nine metres or more in length. But boy she was a handful already.

Anyway, it was now time for the grand finale. Superstar wrangler ‘Lek’ sauntered in with a huge snake on a ‘snake-prod’. It had olive green scales and its eyes reminded me of an eagle’s. It must have been about three metres long. This was what I had come to see. The king cobra!

Lek had an assistant with him, just like matadors would in a bull-fight. Whenever Lek would get cornered by the snake, the assistant would distract the snake and help Lek get out of the situation. I was on my knees outside the ring, taking pictures when the King raised its hood. And suddenly from taking pictures at floor level, I realised I was now pointing the camera way above my head. The King had raised its hood more than four feet off the ground. I was awestruck, and so must have Lek been for he froze as the snake launched itself in the general direction of his crotch. He was wearing loose track pants and jumped out of the way at the very last moment. But the snake still got one of its fangs into the fabric while the assistant tried to draw him away. A collective gasp went round the snake pit and there was a stunned silence. The audience knew this wasn’t a part of the plan. And perhaps to give the shaken Lek a break as well as prove that the snake still had his poison glands intact, the assistant with the help of the other wranglers subdued the snake. Then, with its head in his hands, he brought it around in front of the audience and then made it bite down onto a glass container with a soft cap. We could see those fangs and those glands squirting surprisingly large amounts of golden yellow liquid death into the container. Those drops of neurotoxic venom were potent enough to kill all 22 of us in the audience. Lek was lucky, very lucky.

But Lek wasn’t done yet. It was now time for his signature move. Like a bullfighter drawing his saber for a final thrust, Lek squared off against the angry snake. He didn’t have a cape so he used his hands to keep the cobra transfixed onto a target and then as the two moved towards each other, with grace to match the matador’s pirouette before his final thrust into the hump of the charging bull, Lek reached over the snake’s hood and kissed it even as the snake looked on, as if spell bound. The audience erupted and Lek took a bow.

The show was over. The King was back in the bag.

The finale was a splendid display of skill and courage and I was glad I got to see it. Unlike the bull-fights in Spain, the snakes aren’t harmed. Not until they are made into hand-bags anyway. And yet it just didn’t seem right to poke and prod these magnificent creatures for the sake of entertainment. I can’t make up my mind about this one. Snake wranglers like Lek are an invaluable asset in the race to create more anti-venom than there are victims. And anti-venom can only be made from the venom of live snakes. So, it’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation here. If wranglers are good, then why are snake charmers bad? And if charmers are bad, why are such snake shows any better?

Well, that’s an issue I’ll save for next week but until then, tread carefully, lest you be no lucky Lek…

LESSONS IN LIBERATION

2011-04-14T14:09:00.001+05:30

By the age of nine, I had been witness to my parents being asked to take me out of school; by then I had also attempted to run away from home, twice; and to add insult to injury, I had been caught ripping car monograms and had seen the insides of a police station before blowing out 10 candles on my birthday cake.

I have supportive parents and some very good friends, who did their best to hold me high but the education system of the time had swallowed me whole and then it spat me out like a bite of rotten wretchedness. Year after year, my report card would say that I was hopeless at math, terrible at chemistry and uninterested in physics. My teachers would push the dreaded document under my nose with an expression that seemed to sway violently between a deep sense of disgust and resignation. I was always at the top of the class when it came to languages or history but I didn’t know it then. No one told me. It didn’t matter…

They told me I was a loser. I believed them.

Christopher Langan had started talking in sentences in his sixth month. He could read at four and at 14 he had read his way past a tome as forbidding and doleful as Whitehead and Russell’s Principia Mathematica. Inside his rather large head throbs a brain with the intellectual might of Samson. Ever since his childhood, Langan has been smashing IQ (IntelligenceQuotient) tests and he oft en scores ‘off the charts’, which means most IQ tests aren’t equipped to test such stratospheric levels of intelligence. He would crack language tests and math problems with equal ease and got ‘a perfect SAT score’.

To give you a sense of perspective, while most of us would be lucky to score about a 100 in an IQ test, Albert Einstein, the man who remains the intellectual standard for the human race had an IQ of about 150. And Christopher Langan with an IQ of 195 or thereabouts announced himself to the world as the smartest man of our times.

He was marked for greatness and he knew it.

Vincent didn’t need to be told he was a loser. He knew it. He had failed at everything he ever tried.

Whenever Vincent fell in love, he was spurned and rejected with disdain. It was his lot to be scorned and despised as an abomination by every woman he confessed his love to. When he tried to be a teacher, he failed. When he tried to be a preacher, he failed. And when he went to study art, Vincent was turned down yet again.

But, in his heart raged a passion that wouldn’t be denied. Eventually, Vincent gave in and started painting. Flames and forests, and flowers and trees, they all burst forth onto the canvas with a repressed fury. And yet the world around him refused to notice.

Depressed and alone, Vincent Van Gogh shot himself. He was 37. He died of his wounds, unrecognised and unknown.

Years after school, I find myself in a class room again. But this time, my flesh isn’t crawling under my skin. This time, while walking into the classroom, instead of feeling like a French nobleman, brought bound and gagged to the guillotine, past an angry crowd of partisans, I feel like a matador entering the bull ring. The task is daunting, but I feel prepared. The audience was expectant and appreciative. I was nervous but I was excited. I was teaching a class, about the CALL (The role of Creativity Attitude Logic and Language in communication) and the class I was teaching was a class of teachers. I had come a long way from those unhappy days in school. Forgive me if I sound smug or pompous but it really isn’t the idea, I’m only trying to paint a contrast. The point is how did I get to be where I was? How did a boy earmarked for failure end up as a man whose thoughts might matter to a whole bunch of his peers who were all rather successful professionals with scholastic records far more impressive than mine?

Well, I got here thanks to an opportunity that was almost thrust my way right after school. I had always wanted to be a cricketer and that’s all I thought I was good for, but then fate conspired with circumstance and I found myself in a B-school class room attending an integrated BBA programme.

I did not expect much, either of myself or from the programme. And yet, as the days rolled by, I felt that for all these years I had been trying to fit in, like paint trapped inside a bottle. But here, for the first time, I felt that there was faith, and there was freedom. Our teachers encouraged us to discover our true nature through the framework of a curriculum that covered the length and breadth of human achievement and helped us appreciate not just our innate uniqueness but also gave us the independence to help us find ways and means of expressing that uniqueness in a manner that created social, and therefore commercial, value.

No longer was I paint cooped up in a bottle. I had been liberated, splashed out on canvas and free to be what I wanted to be, whether it be the rays of the rising sun or the mane of a prancing horse.

It was here that I learnt that it didn’t matter if I wasn’t a genius at cracking convergent (a test of logical sift ing and arriving at the one correct answer, like solving most mathematical tests and most school-level question papers) problems. I could generate equal levels of social value, and interest, if I could be good at solving divergent (a test of creative comprehension, expression and integration, like for instance developing an advertising campaign) problems instead.

I owe a big debt of gratitude to the institution and the idea of business education that introduced me to the possibilities and the potential that lie within all of us, and for the realisation that each of us indeed is a diamond in the rough.

It is an institution and an education system that needs to understand people and their greatest motivations, and therefore it is only natural for such a system to identify that it doesn’t matter if we aren’t blessed with exceptionally high IQs. What we really need to live fulfilling, prosperous and happy lives is a high dose of EQ (Emotional Quotient) instead. Read that as the ability to relate to and understand our own selves as much as the ability to understand the feelings and motivations of others. To live such a fulfilling life, you would also need what Malcolm Gladwell and Robert Sternberg call ‘practical intelligence’ – the ability to read situations and emotions and to act in a manner that would elicit a desired response. It is the ability to build a bridge between your thoughts and ideas and the world’s ability to value and appreciate them.

However, unlike IQ, practical intelligence isn’t a genetic gift . And nor does it imply that just because you have a high IQ, you would automatically also be good with practical intelligence. In fact, practical intelligence is a consequence of culture, upbringing and education. The family is the best source of practical intelligence but what’ll come a close second is a B-school education that invests in you with lots of faith, focus and freedom. Unfortunately, Vincent Van Gogh never had such an education and neither did Christopher Langan. Which is why in spite of his obvious genius, Van Gogh failed to inspire or impact lives while he was around while Langan, his amazing intellect notwithstanding, has been unable to find acceptance or an opportunity and nor does he seem to have the ability to reach out and share his genius with the world.

Today Christopher Langan, the world’s smartest man, after dropping out of college and spending his adult years working as a construction worker and as a bouncer in a bar, spends his time on a ramshackle horse ranch. He gets invited on reality shows as an intellectual oddity and that is the extent of his impact on our world. It’s a crying shame and an unfortunate irony that lesser mortals like us have been able to maximize our limited talents and share them with those around us, creating our own little waves and ripples on the shared surface of our lives while those with gifts far greater than ours have been living lives frustrated by their sky-high IQs trapped inside their limited practical intelligence.

Now if only someone could get Chris Langan some faith and freedom and a B-school education.

THE SECOND COMING OF THE THIRD REICH

2011-04-07T10:06:00.000+05:30

While celebrating the World Cup win on the streets of Delhi last Saturday, I was suddenly reminded of a day from very long ago. It must have been about a couple of years after India had won the World Cup in 1983 when a favourite uncle of mine, an amateur cricketer who used to knock the ball around for Hindu College, came over to our house and saw me beaming with pride at an archival centerfold image of Kapil Dev holding the World Cup high in one of the first ever issues of Sportstar that I ever bought. He looked at it for a while and said that whenever he saw that image it reminded him of a story… a story which at the time I found rather strange. It was a story from the Ramayana, the story of Bali and Sugriva.

Bali, the invincible lord of the vaanar sena was immensely powerful. Warriors great and small would bow in reverence as the great one would stride into their presence with his mighty mace resting on those massive shoulders that seemed to span the breadth of the earth. Bali’s younger brother Sugriva, though able and strong in his own right, was in awe of his elder brother’s prowess. Bali ruled Kishkindha with Sugriva by his side. Sugriva, though a devoted brother, might forget himself for a moment and think what it might like to be king, but the sheer presence of the indomitable force of Bali would bake his dreams like dewdrops on the desert sands in the afternoon sun.

But one day, a demon challenged Bali to a fight and as Bali gave chase, the rakshasa retreated inside a cave. Sugriva tried to stop Bali but the great and impetuous warrior followed his quarry inside the cave while Sugriva waited outside. Gripped by fear and anxiety, he waited for a sign. The sounds of battle reached his ears and then a deafening silence followed. And then there was blood, streaming out like an angry tongue from the mouth of the cave. His mind, clouded by horror, sorrow and fear, and what only a cynic might call the slightest trace of ambition, was convinced that the blood was his brother’s and Bali must have met his end. With a heavy heart, Sugriva blocked the entrance to the cave with a massive boulder, ostensibly to keep the demon in, and ran back to Kishkindha.

News of the king Bali’s death shook the city and the nobles suggested that Sugriva should be made the king. The reign of a great king was supposedly over. There was a new king now. And as he wore that crown on his head, he held it high for in that moment there was both pride and glory. But in his heart he would have known that the crown was too heavy for his head; that he was a mere pretender to the throne and no match for the one whose crown fate had snatched and placed on Sugriva’s head instead.

And soon enough, Bali returned. He had vanquished his nemesis only to find his way home blocked by a boulder placed by his brother who he thought had taken both his wife and his throne. Sugriva tried to explain but Bali’s wrath was too fierce and fists too strong. Sugriva’s resistance and his pleas crumpled like a leaf in a flame and he barely managed to escape, scarred and scorched, with a few of his trusted friends. Stripped of his throne, his crown, his queen and his pride, Sugriva the accidental king was king no more but a mere fugitive, cursing his fate and cowering in fear of the king whose crown he had dared to wear…

In 1983, when West Indies lost the World Cup final to India, like Bali, they were seething with rage. They had been denied a crown that was rightfully theirs by a quirk of fate and a brilliant catch. That winter, they entered the lair of the new champions and blew away the Indians. The new World Cup winners were beaten five to nothing in the one-dayers and three-nil in Tests. The pretenders had been put in their place and the real champions with their explosive batsmen and demonic bowlers had announced to the world that the era of West Indian dominance was far from over.

By narrating that story, I don’t mean to pull down the old masters. My generation owes Kapil’s Devils a debt of gratitude for infusing us with pride and self belief. And while that victory at Lord’s may not have been the final nail in the coffin of West Indies’ supremacy on the cricket field, but it may have well been the first. But ‘uncle’ had a point. No matter how good or gift ed were the India team of the time, world beaters they weren’t. In the 80s, at best, India were second best by a country mile. In fact, except for Australia’s last three victories and the first two by the West Indies, none of the World Cup victories of the past really heralded a new world order.

But this time when Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men in blue made the World Cup their own in Mumbai last Saturday, it was a definite sign that seemed to announce that modern day cricket was experiencing the charge of its ‘Third Reich’. If the 70s and 80s saw the stadiums of the world being ruled by the Calypso Kings from the islands, then from the mid 90s onwards and right up to 2010, it was the reign of the imperious Aussies that left the rest of the cricketing world fighting over left overs in its wake. And now, the crown of this World Cup victory sits not on a head that is uneasy with the weight of its glory like Sugriva’s but on one that was anointed for such glory, many years ago in the spring of 2001 on a hot and blustery afternoon in Kolkata.

Ever since that day, India had been hacking away at the halo of invincibility that seemed to surround the men in gold and green from Down Under. Just the way the Australians were the first ones to score a few knockdowns against the West Indies in the early and mid 90s before deposing them and assuming the mantle of World Champions, so too have the Indians struck repeated body blows in their duels with the Aussies all through the first decade of 21st century before knocking them down for the count more than once since the tri-series in 2008 and at the World Cup. The count down has started and the Aussies are still on the ropes.

And if you’d excuse a round of gloating, this seems like a good time to remind you dear reader that just before the World Cup, I had gone out on a shaky limb and written that all the signs suggest that India would win the World Cup, and before you claim “so did I!”, I had also said we would win it batting second. So with that, if I now have your attention, and dare I add, a whiff of grudging respect, let me stick my neck out and predict that Mahi’s boys in blue are now going to seal their claim to the crown of the world by knocking the Australians out in their backyard this December. And in that victory will lie the seeds of eternal greatness for this team, for the lessons from that tour will lay the foundation for India’s campaign in 2015.

Staggered World Cup wins are for pretenders. The real champions win a string of them and this time India is no Sugriva but a veritable Indra, destined to rule the gods of the game for a fair while to come. In the next issue I will dwell for a while on the ‘hows’, and for some doubting Clarkes and Johnsons, on the ‘whys’ too, but until then, let’s stand shoulder to shoulder and raise a teetotaler’s toast to the team and drink our fill from this cup of joy.

THREE CHEERS AND SOME FEARS

2011-03-31T10:26:00.003+05:30

There’s no joy in being a killjoy so forgive me for what I’m about to say, but say it I must. So tell the trumpets to trumpet no more, if at least for a while. Pull down the streamers from the walls and stop not to mourn for the king, for his naked corpse still lies in the forest, and his crown and skin and bones in a bag, waiting to be traded.

Perhaps we are celebrating the return of the tiger a little too soon.

Tuesday morning saw us waking up to some very good news in a very long time. Newspaper stories about the environment in the last decade or so have only perpetuated a sense of gloom and doom. But this Tuesday was different. Tiger numbers across the country, claimed the NTCA (National Tiger Conservation Authority which replaced the much maligned Project Tiger), have gone up by a robust 12 per cent. On the face of it, this is definitely good news and perhaps the nation ought to congratulate one of our most involved environment ministers in a long time.

And yet there are a few questions that need to be asked. Firstly, in the absence of absolute transparency with respect to the census methodology, can one really be sure that the suggested numbers are truly indicative of stability and growth or are the new numbers a result of statistical extrapolations and manipulations?

Secondly, it is an undeniable fact that camera traps are an improvement over the traditional method of counting pug-marks. But have these new methods undergone tamper-proofing checks? Thirdly, how credible is the assumption that tiger numbers have gone up almost across the board when these same tigers have in fact lost almost two million hectares of prime habitat over the same four year period?

And with investigative and enforcement agencies all along the tiger range countries insisting that there has been an increase in cases of tigers being poached, of tiger bones and skins being smuggled and the like, the head seems reluctant to go along with the heart and joining in the celebrations.

All this cynicism might even be a little unfair to Minister Jairam Ramesh but faith in the claims of the government agencies in this country has been reduced to a bad habit kicked long and hard for most Indians. Credibility can only be earned back if occasions like the census are an annual affair instead of the ‘once in four’ affair of Olympic proportions that it currently happens to be. And the ministry’s methods have to be open to scrutiny and should be endorsed by non-governmental experts and agencies.

But my concerns don’t stop at that…

I was driving through a small forest just outside the Ranthambhore National Park some months ago with a local Meena guide and he told me a startling story. He said that villagers around Ranthambhore oft en supplement their diet and garnish their celebrations with wild venison and wild pork. Instead of hunting down deer and wild boar with their traditional bows and arrows, these poachers prepare food-baits with grains and molasses and then place small home-made bombs in them. When the poor animal bites the bait, the bomb goes off and in most cases kills the animal instantaneously. However, if the animal is unlucky, it might only lose a jaw or the muzzle. A slow painful death through blood loss and starvation would follow.

And this happens within the precincts of one of India’s most popular wildlife parks, which gets more attention than most from tourists and conservationists from all over the world as well as from the media and for these reasons is a priority even for enforcement and conservation agencies. And yet, the impunity with which these animals are poached underscores how vulnerable the forests and its denizens are and how toothless and impotent the protection mechanism.

After the fall of Sariska, India’s rusty conservation machinery creaked into motion yet again and with some degree of concerted and focused effort, has hopefully pulled back the tiger from its descent into the abyss, but we cannot afford to focus on the tiger at the cost of being oblivious to the plight of others. Following is a shortlist of endangered animals that have been forgotten in the din of the battle to save India’s tigers…

The Common Leopard

The leopard’s hardly common anymore. When the smuggling of tiger parts became a little more difficult than it used to be, poachers and traders started hunting down leopards. Leopard bones and organs are a steady substitute for the tiger in most markets. Reports say that for each tiger killed, six leopards have been skinned to keep up with the demand.

The Tibetan Antelope

The Tibetan Antelope or Chiru is an extremely endangered animal that wanders the frozen slopes in North Kashmir. The fine pelt of this graceful animal is woven into the finest shahtoosh shawls and scarves. And three to four chiru have to be slaughtered to make one shawl.

Once upon a time, Kashmiri weavers were renowned for their skill in weaving the most exquisite shahtoosh shawls. Aft er the ban on shahtoosh, the same weavers shift ed their focus toward pashmina. But in the volatile powder keg of Kashmiri politics, a former chief minister attempted to throw the fat in the fire by suggesting that the government ought to lift the ban on shahtoosh because it was essential for the economy of the state. But it did not occur to the good minister that with less than a 100 of these antelopes left in the state, the economy couldn’t hope to go too far on the back of 24 shahtoosh shawls.

The Sloth Bear

The famous dancing bears of India have been freed from the noose that forced them to dance but there’s a new threat that looms. The demand for bear bile and fat for traditional medicines in South- East Asia has led to widespread poaching of Sloth bears in the country. And tiny bear-cubs are battered to death because their paws are a vital ingredient in exotic soups in the same region.

The list goes on and on and on. Water Buffalo, Asiatic Lions, Elephants, The Great Indian Bustard, The Gangetic River Dolphin, The Rock Python and the Barasingha are all as highly endangered animals that are still hunted down for greed and sport. The state has pledged to protect them and owes them as much protection as the tiger but we are reluctant to learn our lessons until it is too late.

Sariska was a wake up call for the tiger. But most other species can’t afford a Sariska.

If the tiger indeed has returned then celebrations are surely in order, but as we cheer the big cat on, let us not leave the rest of them feeling like street urchins waiting for hand-outs at the end of the party.

THE SEVEN IMMORTALS

2011-03-24T09:54:00.000+05:30

The suitors have started reaching for the bride. Hands, sweaty and dirty after a long hard day of battle have begun to dream of what it would be like to touch and kiss the one they are fighting for. The mind flits between savouring the tantalising ecstasy of imagining your arms around her and wincing at the thought of the excruciating agony you would suffer if you had to see her leave, cradled in the arms of a bitter rival. The hard brown earth of the subcontinent has been soaked in a lot of sweat and not a little blood. The pretenders have been ground to dust and they have dragged the corpses of their aspirations back home with a lot of deep open wounds and a few honourable scars to show for their ardour. But move aside world, the contenders are here… It’s KO time at the World Cup.

But for just a brief moment, let me take you away from the heat and dust of battle between wood and leather and take you up the Himalayas into a realm where on both sides of the cloud-spearing mountains brew legends about seven ancient sages. These sages are called by different names on different sides of the mountains. They might perhaps be different people too but what is common between the legend of the seven immortals from Bombay to Beijing is that they started out more or less together and since then have shaped and impacted their world and time in a way that has changed it forever. Centuries have passed and yet even today, it is said that the immortal masters are still around, subtly inspiring and guiding the wheels of life along the dirt-tracks of time. Some say they have seen them while others will tell you that it is their ideas that go on forever, showing generations and epochs the light and the way.

Well cricket, especially limited overs cricket, has its own list of seven immortals. And this page is an ode in praise of these seven masters who revolutionised the game within the span of their careers. Every player playing for the cup today, be it captain, batter, fielder or bowler fast and slow thinks of at least one of these seven immortals during the course of a game even today for it is on the shoulders of these giants on which rests the game as we know it today. So doff your hats, pinch your skirts and bow just a touch… for you are about to meet the ‘Immortals’.

Let’s start at the top of the order. Opening the batting in the 70s and 80s in ODI cricket was all about seeing off the new ball. Tough, dour and gutsy men would pad up to the prospect of surviving ten overs of pace and bounce and swing and seam in order to protect the stroke-players in the middle from the fast bowlers. And it was the golden age of fast bowling too. Almost every team had one or two (or four if you happened to be the West Indies) who could put the fear of death, defeat or worse in the minds of the opposition.

Then, in the mid 90s a short stocky man from Sri Lanka with forearms that look like knotted baseball clubs went to Australia to try and prop up a floundering career as a middle order batsman and spinner and changed all that. Promoted to open the innings with a license to kill, Sanath reinvented his own career as well as the first 15 overs in every game of limited overs cricket that was to follow with his first few murderous strokes – vicious pulls and cuts that sent the ball soaring into the stands. Sanath’s heavy hitting at the top of the order on that Australian tour was followed by lots more of the same during the 1996 World Cup in the subcontinent which knocked every opponent out on their way to a cup triumph. Today, every time a Virender Sehwag or a Chris Gayle goes out to open, somewhere in their minds lurks Sanath’s shadow, egging them on…

The next Immortal was a difficult pick. I had to pick a slow bowler with the greatest impact on the game and had to choose between a cricketer who is widely regarded as perhaps the greatest of his era with a train load of wickets – Shane Warne, and another who transformed the traditional whipping boy of ODI cricket, the off-spinner, into an attacking option with a secret weapon. After much deliberation, I thought of batting for the latter. His pile of wickets wouldn’t even keep you warm through the night while Shane Warne’s must’ve cost a few forests and yet you can’t help but pick the man who invented the ball which finally made ever off-spinner feel like a man.

Before he came up with the doosra, off spinners were usually cannon fodder. And today, if the world is wary of Muralidharan and Harbhajan, it is because they owe more than a wee bit to this man who once played for Pakistan but you could find him today rolling his arm over on the English greens. Say hello to Saqlain Mushtaq. The third one might be a bit of a surprise. He was a brilliantly gift ed batsman and decent slow-medium bowler but plagued by a bad knee condition, he never quite realised his greatness in the middle order. But it is as a imaginative tactician that he makes it to this list. Martin Crowe captained New Zealand during the 1992 World Cup and took them within touching distance of the trophy. Although they lost in the semi-finals to eventual champions Pakistan, his innovations left their mark on the game. Four years before Arjuna Ranatunga took a leaf out of the Crowe manual for out-of-the-box tactics and promoted dashers and pinch hitters like Sanath and Romesh Kaluwitharana to open the innings and take advantage of the field restrictions, Martin had pushed a big beefy out-of-form and out-of-sorts batsman called Mark Greatbatch and told him to ‘have a go’ at the bowlers. As it turned out, it was a stroke of genius and Greatbatch and Crowe had started what Sanath then refined, nay forged, into a deadly art. At the same World Cup, Crowe startled a few opening batsmen by opening the bowling with Dipak Patel, an off-break bowler and started a trend that is still being employed by captains to good effect in the current WC.

The next two are my personal favourites but you don’t need me to tell you anything about them. The twin Ws, Wasim (Akram) and Waqar (Younis) are all time greats whose pace, swing and creativity at the bowling crease left a whole generation of batsmen wishing they had been born in a different time. And yet the craft for which they are remembered most today was one for which they were reviled and persecuted by many who lost to them in the early 90s. Reverse swing was an unknown art in those days and when the two of them would move the old-ball around like a yo-yo at speeds beyond 90 mph, many a batsman tried to calling them cheats. But they usually ended up losing both their case and their wicket. Today, no new ball bowler can claim to be worth his IPL cheque if he can’t ‘reverse’ the ball.

Speaking of bowlers, there is one who taught the world how to bowl at the death and won the World Cup for his country while he was at it. Unlike the fast bowlers who traditionally bowled the end overs, he wasn’t lightning fast. Instead of trying to bowl the ball as fast as he could, he tried to bowl it slower than usual, thus foxing the batsman as he wound up for the slog. Steve Waugh used to be an all-rounder in the mid-80s and his calm and subtle changes of pace in the end overs helped Australia win a few tight ones including the final during the 1987 World Cup. Steve’s back injuries might have stopped him from bowling halfway through his career but it was he who set the tone for ‘deathbowling’ with his slow leg-cutters.

And last but not the least stands that immortal little genius who transformed what had always been a chore, for weekend and perhaps even international cricketers, into a glamorous statement in athleticism. A good but not an exceptionally great batsman, Jonty Rhodes never set hearts racing with his bowling and never really captained an international side but standing there at backward point, this great athlete would bounce and pounce on anything within reach, saving hundreds of runs and pouching catches like falcon plucking pigeons in mid-air. The history of fielding can be divided into two eras – there was once a ‘before Jonty’ era and now there is one ‘after Jonty’ where coaches around the world hold him up as an example for their teams.

It doesn’t matter where or who you are watching on a cricket field today for if the cricket you watch and enjoy on your television screens today is so much more enjoyable a spectacle than it ever was, it is because of these seven immortals. We all owe them a standing ovation, and a word of thanks…

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

2011-03-17T10:25:00.000+05:30

It was a strange photograph. It was neither depressing nor grisly. In fact it reminded me of a Van Gogh painting. There was something about the coarse ordinariness on its surface and the overwhelming power of the emotional undercurrents of the moment that reminded me of The Potato Eaters.

But I had had enough. I turned away from that page and flipped to the sports section. But halfway through a story about Chelsea’s prospects in the Champion’s League this season, I stopped, and went back to the photograph.

Half of a flight of wooden stairs dropped down from the top left hand corner of the picture. Next to the stairs, to its right, lay broken shards of glass and a twisted and bent cabinet. At the foot of the stairs sat an old man, his left hand clutching a bundle to his chest with his head resting on the broken steps. He was dressed in a dark blue sweater and light blue track pants and leaves and dirt and splotches of dried mud clung to them. But it was his face that was the canvas, for it was etched with lines of exhaustion and despair and the furrowed brow seemed to suggest a dull nagging ache or thought that seemed to be bothering him even as he slept. And something about the man reminded me of a child who had woken up but pretended to be asleep because he didn’t want to go to school… of a soul desperate to escape the inevitable unhappy truths of a sad new day.

I didn’t know the man. I didn’t know his name or who or what he had lost during the night. I didn’t even know if the house that the picture found him in was his own or one that he had run into in a moment of desperation and I did not even know if he would have been happy to wake up at all that morning, but it really didn’t matter. That man had been dead for more than a day when the photographer found his body in a house destroyed by the tsunami in Sendai in north-eastern Japan.

What must have been going on in his mind when he saw that wall of water rushing towards him like a giant muddy monster slithering through town swallowing up all that lay before it. “High ground!” he must’ve thought, “I have to make it to higher ground!” He would’ve rushed inside the nearest house, perhaps his own, but the water would’ve reached him even as he turned. By the time he reached the stairs the water would have flooded the floor. Gasping, panting and struggling through the thick cascading slush, he must’ve tried to clamber up the stairs, but his strength failed him. Weakened by age, exhaustion and adrenaline, the man must have held on to whatever he couldfind as he slid back into the rising waters as they closed above him even as his last breath ebbed away into a stream of bubbles lost in the raging waters of that dark day.

But is this the inevitable scenario during a tsunami? When the big wave strikes (and it oft en strikes so hard that it actually moves a nation, literally) are we all doomed to drift with the waves of fate, to live, or more likely die, on a raft or a prayer? Or is there something we can actually do during a fit of Poseidonic rage that can actually ensure (or at the very least increase the odds of) our survival?

The more survivor stories I read, the more I’m inclined to believe that no matter how wrathful the waves maybe, they perhaps always give us a chance, or at the very least, a sign. From the shores of Chile and the Maldives to Japan and Hawai, every soul to have survived the apocalypse will tell you that if you stick to the following principles, you give yourself a very good chance of surviving a tsunami. Here they are in fairly random order but the first one is the one that saved the most lives so even if you forget the others, when the sirens go off or you see the ocean reaching for the sky before it reaches for you, remember to…

Run… run to higher ground!

I know it’s fairly logical that when the waves come calling, you should reach for higher ground but how high is high enough? A good stout hill, high enough to keep you high and dry and yet not too steep or difficult to climb, especially for the old or the weak, is ideal. But what if there are no hills to climb? Well big tall buildings with strong foundations and quite a few floors also give you a good chance. And if the building’s not too tall, go straight to the roof. That’s your best chance.

Cars off er little protection unless you’re using them to drive inland if you get stuck in the flood but Koichi Takarain, a truck driver who was stranded in his tall four-tonne behemoth was able to survive the tsunami even as the waters swirled around him and carried away smaller vehicles.

And what do you do if you are stuck without tall buildings, hills or trucks to climb and there’s a tidal wave chasing you down? You look for a tree. Hopefully one that is at least 50 feet tall. Smaller ones in all probability will get washed away.

And if you do get washed away, grab some floating debris. It could be your last chance.

But even before you run to higher ground, teach yourself how to read the signs of the sea. Tremors on the beach are a sign for you to head for the hills. And if there’s a sudden drop in the water level or the sea recedes, leaving a bare bed in its wake you better brace yourself for it’s a sign that the ocean’s about to spit far and long.

Never delay an evacuation for anything. For ‘anyone’, maybe its worth the risk, but for nothing else. Abandon all thoughts of retrieving your valuables until the danger has passed.

And lastly, heed all warnings and do not take them lightly until you get an all clear from local authorities. In May 1960, when a tsunami hit Hawai, the first waves aft er the warnings were rather small and expecting the worst to be over, a teenaged Carol Brown returned to her house by the beach a little too soon only for huge wave to sweep her and her house away. Carol survived and learnt a terrible lesson.

Whether you live by the coast or happen to find yourself on a beach during one of your holidays, and God forbid but if the big wave strikes, hope these lessons from those who have been to death’s door and back will hold you and me and those we love in good stead. And with a prayer on my lips for those who are still battling their terrible fate in the land of the rising sun, I hope and wish that such battles are few and far between in the days of our future.

A PREEMPTIVE STRIKE

2011-03-10T09:58:00.001+05:30

On International Women's Day, I woke up to the story of a forgotten woman hitting the headlines. Aruna Shanbaug has spent the last 37 years trapped inside a body that is decaying bit by bit away as we speak. She is suffering for the sins of another while the world wakes up every now and then to her plight and wonders if her right to die is greater than her duty to live... But the more important question is 'Ladies, if you were in Aruna's shoes that fateful day, what would you have done? Could you have done more? I hope it is a question you never need to answer, but God forbid, if the question were to ever stare at you in a dark lonely corner, may the story that follows reveal the powers you hold in your head, your heart and your hands. Th is is an old one from the vault but one I'd like to repeat over and over again, especially on a day like this, because you need to know and believe that there is nothing fair about being the weaker sex. You can be as strong as they come and by the time you are done with this page, I hope you will know that this isn't just a comforting cliche but a palpable truth. And then every day could be a happy women's day... at least for you!

This story is not about Aruna Shanbaug, and yet, I must tell you her story before I start... Aruna is 60 years old. By all accounts, she spends her time staring at the ceiling but can’t see a thing. Her teeth are rotting away and her bones have twisted themselves into shapes of their own volition. Those who have known and loved her wish for her death, and yet her life clings on, to what hope, no one knows…

Aruna has been living her life on this municipalhospital bed for the last 35 years, semi-comatose, but whenever she hears a man’s voice, she screams, in fear, in agony and in memory of her last waking hour…

Thirty-five years ago, on a November evening, Aruna, then a 25-year-old head-strong head turner, a nurse in a hospital in Mumbai, was on top of the world… she was going on leave, she was going to marry the man of her dreams. In the hospital basement which housed the dog-lab, she changed out of her uniform and was about to leave when she felt the cold steel of a dog chain around her neck… it was Sohanlal, a ward boy sweeper she had rebuked earlier … Sohanlal assaulted her, tried to rape her… and since she was menstruating, sodomised her instead; strangled her with the dog chain and presuming her dead, left her crumpled and bleeding…

Today, Aruna’s body and spirit, ravaged and broken, lie on that lonely hospital bed while Sohanlal having served a seven year sentence, roams free. Some say he is working in a hospital in Delhi, but you wouldn’t know him if you saw him… he has a new name.

This story isn’t about Nishtha (name changed), and yet, I must tell you her story before I finish…

Not too long ago, Nishtha, in her 20s, was walking past a construction site in Delhi, on her way back home from a mall. Suddenly, a couple of guys followed her into a lane and pushed her against a brick wall… one of them held her neck, and her shoulder, pressing her face into the wall, while the other started fiddling with her clothes…

Five minutes and a few screams later, some labourers had gathered in the lane. With glazed eyes and a gash on her lower lip, Nishtha was panting, standing with her hands on her knees, and at her feet lay a man in his 30s, clutching his groin, writhing and groaning in pain. His face was bleeding from cuts under his right eye and his mouth, and his accomplice had run away… some say it was his screams that the labourers had heard. But could’ve been Nishtha’s screams, said the man who told me this story… “She’s very aggressive when she’s angry… you wouldn’t think a girl as slight as her was capable of such anger… such volume, such violence…”

Nishtha though is your everyday next door girl in every respect, save one. Every other day, for months, she’s been spending her evenings training in something called Krav Maga, but hey, this isn’t about her. This is about you, and about every woman you know and care about… This story is about the time I spent training in the same dojo which Nishtha often frequents (her peers told me about the legend that precedes her) and saw other women too, petite and bashful in repose, transformed into formidable amazons under duress.

Having spent some time studying various martial arts, I realise there are many that off er greater health benefits or cultural moorings, but there perhaps aren’t any that help you feel safer. Martial arts styles like Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai might be as deadly on the streets but they demand high levels of skill and aerobic fitness, virtues, you’ll admit, that are beyond the reach of most of the women we share our lives with. Krav Maga, on the other hand, trains the body, and far more importantly, the mind to handle attackers who are invariably bigger, stronger and fitter. Unlike other martial arts, Krav Maga is not a sport. The training focuses exclusively on real-life situations and on surviving that situation instead of scoring points. I know what you’re thinking, especially if you happen to be the elegant, gentle, feminine type (specifically referring to women here); ‘I don’t need this. I don’t use public transport. I have a driver. And there’s a guard outside, so what could possibly happen to me? Besides, I’m too much of a lady…’ Well, let me remind you ladies, Dhananjoy Chatterjee, the man who raped and murdered 14-year-old Hetal Parekh was the security guard of her housing complex. Ma’am, you’re safe only when ‘you’ can keep yourself safe.

Surveys of convicted rapists reveal that they look for a ‘soft target’, someone who wouldn’t be a lot of trouble. Aft er three months of Krav Maga, I assure you, any girl would be ‘a lot of trouble’.

What good is it for the gentlemen amongst us, you ask? I asked my instructor the same question… He said, “Remember IC 814; if I’d been on that plane with some of my students, I don’t know about us, but the hijackers wouldn’t have survived the hijacking (incidentally, sky marshals on various airlines have been trained in Krav Maga). Moral of the story – if you are a man, Krav Maga prepares you for heroism, and if you are a woman, it prepares you for life, without fear, and with dignity.

SOMEONE QUICK! REAL FAST!!

2011-03-03T10:26:00.001+05:30

I got late with this one. I should have started writing this afternoon but I spent the last three hours picking my way past old lovers piled on top of each other in the basement - A T-shirt with an embarrassing self-painted motif, too old and a size too small to wear but too dear to spare or share; old yellowed dog-eared issues of magazines that I know I’ll never read but would miss dearly once they’re gone; the only cricket bat with which I managed a double digit score…the handle had disappeared or disintegrated but the rest of it was all still there – chipped and moulded, but a proud piece of wood nevertheless – and last but not the least, the treasure I had come to seek – hiding in the corner, caked in a dry crust of mud from a happy day in the sun from many years ago – a pair of size nine spiked fast bowler’s boots.

An assortment of indignant spiders and millipedes and a tailless gecko scurried out of the pair as I picked up the shoes and apologetically shook them free of their lodgers. After lying forgotten for all these years, I’m sure the pair felt that their loyalties lay with the squatters but it was time to remind the boots of the purpose for which they’d been crafted – to pound the earth and coax it into releasing the forces of nature into the feet that wore them and to grip the soil with passion and power as a hand high above hurled a cricket ball towards its logical conclusion – to shatter the wickets at the other end.

We have good memories, my cricket boots and I, for let me tell you once again, if I haven’t told you already, that I’m the fast bowler this country wishes it had. And why, you ask, am I bothering you yet again with this startling insight, except for the fact that a leading news weekly happened to make the mistake of trusting me with a page all to myself? Well, because I spent the day looking at a bunch of dibbly-dobbly Irish bakers and bankers who look about as menacing with a cricket ball as Santa Claus might with a whip, tie into knots the same English batsmen who whacked our boys in blue out of the park in Bengaluru. Finally, the English did break lose and tote up a 300 plus score (which the Irish happened to chase down). But that’s really not the point. The point is that highest score for both England and Bangladesh in the World Cup so far, in spite of playing against minnows like The Netherlands and Ireland, happened in their games against India. And while I still maintain that this is meant to be India’s and Tendulkar’s World Cup, and our batting might might yet be enough to steal the Cup, but our bowling ‘attack’ has been leaking runs like a baby hippo on diuretics and there isn’t a diaper in sight.

So to cut a short story shorter, the sight of Indian bowlers disappearing into the stands faster than you could say “enough Patel” or “whoosh Chawla” on one hand and the welcome spectre of some of my… er… ahem.. peers, fellow 35-year-old pacemen Shoaib Akhtar and Brett Lee, still bowling fast and straight like seasoned snipers on the other, pushed me to believe that there might be a case for reviving retired dreams and pushing the selectors to have another look at yours truly, for really, how much worse could I do than returning figures of 5-0-53-0?

Am I jumping the gun? What about Zaheer? Undeniably, Zaheer Khan is a good wily bowler who nearly won us the match against England. But is he an Akram or even a Lasith Malinga? Can he single-handedly and consistently destroy batting sides irrespective of the surface? Maybe not. And in my opinion, the most potent bowling weapon on these fl at surfaces would not be spin but pace – not medium barely 130 kmph cannon fodder pace but raw red hot 145 kmph plus pace – and reverse swing.

Shaun Tait, Mitchell Johnson, big boy Bennett, Steyn, Akhtar, Kemar Roach and the man I believe would prove to be the bowler of the tournament, Lasith Malinga – they’ve all announced themselves with a big bang on the batter’s helmet at this World Cup and have proved to be the decisive difference between their teams winning or losing. On the glass top ODI wickets of the subcontinent, spinners and conventional medium paced swing and seam bowlers rarely find purchase and are the easiest to scoop, reverse hit or helicopter to the ropes and stands. Indian fans must get used to the sight of our bowlers and fielders shaking their heads, clueless about how to staunch the flow of runs. Our only bet, and it isn’t a bad one, is to hope that we bat true to form and in a batter’s game, since that’s what ODIs are, it is the best batting side rather than the most balanced team that will hopefully win.

But the bigger problem is the way the Indian cricket machinery has consistently managed to discourage and destroy every fast bowling talent the country happened to throw up. In the 90s Javagal Srinath had to sit out his best years because the selectors had too much respect for ageing seniors to give our fastest bowler a chance to inspire fans and wins at home. Another genuine quick, Prashant Vaidya was ground to dust in the dust bowls of Vidarbha and was reduced to a shadow of himself before he got to play for India. In the more recent past, a tall wiry lad from Ikhar suddenly grabbed headlines as a bowler with the potential to become one of the fastest in the world. On his debut, he made the English batsmen hop and hobble and was the toast of the nation. But just a few seasons later Munaf Patel has been reduced to a gentle trundler who is efficient at best. Useful but nothing approaching the greatness he was perhaps marked for. Poorly coached and over worked in his early years, injuries both real and imagined haunted and hounded the desire to bowl fast out of his system.

And pray where did the old Ishant Sharma go? The one who gave Ricky Ponting nightmares and ever so oft en let slip a 150 kmph thunderbolt that stunned batters? All through his tour of South Africa not once do I remember him beating the South Africans with pace. Mahendra Singh Dhoni is a very good captain with brains and bravado to match his brawn but even he’s been instrumental in sending out the wrong signs to the few fast bowlers that remain in the cupboard. Umesh Yadav is perhaps the quickest bowler in the country today and gave even Sachin Tendulkar a hard time in the nets in South Africa. But he didn’t even get a game. Instead it was the gentle medium-paced swing of Jaidev Unadkat that got the nod.

In spite of his terrible outing in the first WC game, the only Indian pacer, other than Zaheer, who has the ability to take and not hope for wickets, is Sreesanth. And yet the team management has done all it can to make him feel like an outcast - rebuked in public and he has been left holding his ears in a lonely corner. I wouldn’t blame him for trying too hard in his next game, if he gets one that is.

Our spinners and batters have taken us to the top of the cricketing pyramid today in most forms of the game but irrespective of what happens during the World Cup, the sad truth is that we will fail to realise our dream of becoming a dominant cricketing power on the field like the Australians yesterday or the West Indians before them. Destiny has given Indian cricket the opportunity to have one of the greatest teams in the history of the game, perhaps the first of the ‘Invincibles’ from the subcontinent, but there’s a vital ingredient missing in the mix – a pair of genuine fast bowlers, ideally one that swings the ball and the other who hits the deck and seams it around. Somewhere amongst our billions, there are two young lads waiting to get noticed. Until then, in case the selectors can’t wait, I have just cleaned my boots…

THE SHORT LIFE AND WONDERFUL TIMES OF ARCHIE JACKSON

2011-02-24T09:59:00.000+05:30

Archibald Jackson was the only Australian cricketer who died during the infamous Bodyline series in 1933. Archie Jackson was only 23 years old, and engaged to be married when he died. Those were strange times. It all began in 1930 when England was hosting the battle for the Ashes and the great Donald Bradman scored 974 runs at a mind boggling average of 139.14 to wrest the series from the Englishmen. For the return series in Australia in 1932-33, the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club) appointed a ‘gentleman’ cricketer by the name of Douglas Jardine to captain England. Jardine, a Mumbai born Scotsman, though not in the team during the 1930 Ashes series, had keenly studied the rise of the phenomenon called Bradman. He was an intensely competitive cricketer with an astute understanding of the game and had devised a plan called ‘leg theory’ to stall the Aussie juggernaut.

Central to his plan was a small wiry man who was at that time the fastest bowler in the world – Harold Larwood. Larwood, a coal miner from Nuncargate, unlike Jardine, came from a working class background. On one occasion, he bled from the nose during a morning’s game aft er having worked all night in the collieries of Annesley. Undaunted, young Harold had gone on to take a hat-trick in that match. While Jardine, many believed, played cricket with a sense of colonial snobbery and pride, Larwood was a passionate professional for whom cricket was his only way out of the mines. These two men became the central figures of the series which came to be known as Bodyline. The term was coined by an Aussie journalist to describe a method of attack where a battery of fast bowlers, led by Larwood, would aim a series of short pitched deliveries at the body with a predominantly leg-side field. Chins were cut, knuckles broken and skulls cracked open. The crowds were furious. Jardine and Larwood were mocked and abused, and were even offered police protection. But Jardine’s plans were undeniably successful, for the Don was only scoring half as many runs. He still retained a more than respectable series average of 56.57 but compared to his career average, and especially his staggering average of the previous series, the Don had finally been caught fending off the backfoot.

Archie Jackson though, was far away from the action. In the previous series, he had scored a valuable 73 as he partnered Bradman in a 243-run stand, and in 1928- 29, Archie had scored 164 runs on debut at the age of 19. At the time, and through out his brief career, Archie was spoken of in the same breath as the great Don himself. Many considered him as great a batsman, none less so than the man who was rated by Bradman himself as the greatest fast bowler he ever faced – Larwood. Larwood had tremendous respect and admiration for young Archie, ever since the moment when Archie, on 97 on debut, cracked a lightning fast delivery from Larwood to the fence to bring up his hundred. Larwood and Archie became the best of friends and the toughest of competitors. The great bowler respected Archie because even on nightmarish pitches, Archie would take a beating without fl inching and more oft en than not gave back as good as he got. But this time, Archie was’t there. Larwood, like an angry god in heaven was sending down thunder and lightning while Archie was dying of tuberculosis in a hospital bed in Brisbane. An artist with the bat, Archie was loved for his respectful and sporting behaviour on the field. Always a kind word for a ball well bowled, or a catch well taken, even if it happened to get him out, Archie had friends in both teams but dearest among them was the much maligned Larwood. As the crowds in Brisbane bayed for Larwood’s blood, 23-year-old Archie was preparing to say goodbye to it all, but there was one last thing he had to do before he died.

During the fourth day of the Brisbane Test, Larwood received a telegram “Congratulations. Magnificent bowling. Good luck – all matches, Archie Jackson.” Hours later, Archie passed away. Australia forgave Larwood and accepted him as their own, and a few years later Larwoodmade Australia his home. The telegram remained one of Larwood’s prized possessions till the day he died in 1995, aged 90. The World Cup is here, but as the battle rages, let’s not forget the lessons from Archie’s life – its just a game, played not for a cup or an urn, but to find friends and share love in return.

DON’T SAVE THE LAST DANCE FOR ME

2011-02-18T09:59:00.000+05:30

“There he is….,” whispered the good doctor in my ears as we stopped and I followed his gaze and that long thin finger pointing straight ahead. I peered through the trees and the bushes and saw a tall dark figure sitting on his haunches under a tree. He was looking away from us, leaning lazily against the tree. His long powerful arms were resting on his knees and those sad eyes were looking away into the distance, perhaps reflecting on the years spent on the road… years of untold agony. The wounds on his body had healed now but the memory of that festering wound, the humiliation and searing pain of being castrated while he writhed on the ground, tied to pegs that pulled him apart, and the dull gnawing ache of slow starvation had scarred him forever. He wouldn’t have been a year older than twenty and yet he seemed so old. There was great strength that still remained in his limbs but his spirit seemed to have grown weary of the world.

“Don’t make any sudden movements…”, warned the doctor. “He hasn’t gotten over the trauma of the torture. We don’t know how he might react.” I nodded as I kept staring at the hulking figure under the tree. Mesmerised by the scene, I had forgotten about my camera. Ever so slowly, I raised the camera to my eyes, took aim and pressed the shutter button, and even as I did so, I realised I had made a mistake. The muffled whirring of the camera as I shot the frame had been magnified manifold in the quiet stillness of the evening. My heart skipped a beat and the doctor’s hand gripped my shoulder in a gesture that conveyed both concern and fear. Shimmering in the fading light of a setting sun, the figure under the tree shift ed his weight slowly and turned towards the sound. His eyes seemed to search for something to focus on and found me… with a scream he lumbered towards us as if in a rage, and then just as suddenly he seemed to remember something that had been burnt into his very soul that stopped him in his tracks. He rose to his full height and that scream of anger merged into one of pain. He folded his arms and shook his head and body from side to side, gyrating to a strange rhythm – it was a grotesque dance that would have made me laugh had I not known the pain and fear that had gripped Bhola when he saw me… and realised who I was – a human being.

I stood there for long, perhaps a whole minute as I watched Bhola dance his funny dance, standing tall at more than six feet, his head moving round and round in giddying circles like a man possessed but his eyes… his eyes, they just begged and pleaded for the pain to go away… from his head.

His mother had been murdered while he was still a toddler, and he had been sold off to a master who trained him to dance in front of an audience. The punishment for not dancing on cue was terrible torture. His teeth were broken, and he had his nails pulled out. He was starved and branded with hot irons. He was emasculated, without pain-killers or medication while still very young because his master thought Bhola would be easier to control as he grew older and stronger. When Bhola saw people clapping as he danced, he wanted to rip their throats because he blamed them for his pain but his master’s presence stopped him. Th at day when he saw me, all that pent up his anger and hate erupted inside him. He wanted to strike me down and hurt me the way he had been hurt for so long but then he remembered the pain that always stopped him… the pain that would never go away unless he danced… the pain that would never go away until the day he died...

“Let’s go…”, the doctor said. “He will keep dancing as long as we stand here”. We turned to walk away but aft er a few steps I was tempted to turn and steal a glance at Bhola again. I turned just in time to see Bhola slow down when he realised we had walked away and saw him come down on all fours, take a step or two towards us, twitch his nose and then gently walk away towards the shadows. An electric wire-fence is all that separated us from that large male sloth bear but Bhola was so terrified of us humans that he would never come close… always seeking seclusion like a hermit. I had come to this bear rescue centre near Agra run by Wildlife SOS, an NGO committed to wildliferescues and anti-poaching operations seeking stirring stories of rescues and heart warming stories of the bears and their keepers. And sure, all that was there, but the most powerful memory I walked away with was the memory of Bhola dancing to drown out the pain in his heart.

Dancing bears were a common weekend sight during my days in junior school. And I loved to see them dance. The bear looked like a large cuddly dog and to see it rear up and dance was almost to see a talking animal from a fairy tale step out of the pages of a book and walk through the lanes of my childhood. At that time, I didn’t know that the bear danced because a red hot spike had been driven through it muzzle and one end of a rope was inserted into that burning hole. Th at rope ensured that the wound never healed and even the slightest tug would send the beast into paroxysms of pain. Then as the wildlife laws started being taken seriously in the cities, they moved to other towns and busy tourist highways like the ones that go to Jaipur and Agra until the eff orts of NGOs like Wildlife SOS and enforcement agencies across the country ensured the complete rehabilitation of all the Kalandhars (bear trainers who trace their family trade to the wild animal trainers of the Mughal court) and all the bears had found homes in rescue centres like the one in Agra. Th at, one hoped, had brought down the curtain on a terrible tradition and secured the future of a species for a long time to come.

But one had hoped in vain. The dancing bears were gone and no one was poaching them for the Kalandhars now and yet the sloth bear was disappearing from our forests. While the country clamoured and laboured to save the tiger in a place like Ranthambore and celebrated the slightest jump in numbers, no one noticed that the sloth bear population in the very same park had been reduced to less than 15 per cent of its original population in a little over a decade and a half. Where had the bears gone and why? I will try and answer that question next week. Meanwhile, you could go and pay Bhola a visit… but speak gently and tread soft ly. Remember, he is hurting still….

WHAT TO SAY AFTER ‘I DO’

2011-02-10T09:36:00.001+05:30

This one’s from the trash-can of time. Written then as hopefully handy advice to make up for cheap gifts at a slew of weddings, here’s another look at some of the ‘notes from the secret diaries of a still happy husband’. Thought you might find it useful as the season of love finds its way to our shores again… especially if you happen to be on the right side of a marriage ;-)

Don’t bother reading this, because in all probability, I didn’t write these hurriedly scribbled words of advice for you. And who needs advice anyway…not you. Not unless you just got married, like two of my cousins just did. In that case, you’ll be busy climbing every tree in the vicinity hoping to find the ‘Fruit of Knowledge’, failing which, you might find every bit of advice rather useful…something to hold onto, albeit briefly – just like rocks on a shoreline that give you hope even as the high tide of holy matrimony sweeps you off your feet and into those turbulent waters. Advice, on such occasions, could be your life jacket to the future…

And why am I just the person to dispense it? Well, if I haven’t said this before, let me say it again…We, my bride and I, got married when I was 21. About as soon as I could. And yes… yes… mujhe unme Rab dikhta hai… except, of course, when she’s screaming at me for leaving my clothes on the floor and my shoes on the bed (tab unme Mom dikhti hain… and what’s worse, it’s not like Mom has stopped screaming either. The baton wasn’t passed, it just gets flung at me... in twos now!). But that isn’t the point. The point is, between all the baton ducking, we’ve managed to find our way through many a marital mire, thanks to a little luck and a lot of love. And now that ‘tis the season for sayin ‘I do’, maybe I could share my learning with those, who, like my cousins, have leapt before they could look, and help you, even as you try to smell the roses through the coffee. And even if you didn’t JUST get married, JUST pretend that you did… it’ll only help…

1. DON’T BELIEVE THAT MARRIAGE CHANGES ANYTHING FOR IT DOESN’T: Marriage doesn‘t and isn’t supposed to make you more committed, secure, responsible or keep you in love. It’s merely an announcement that two people, because they’re in love or because they believe they might learn to love, have decided to live together. The two of you have to make the marriage work; the marriage can’t work for the two of you.

Just because you’re married, don’t expect too much of each other. Pretend the marriage never happened and you’re just living-in, two souls in love, bound by nothing but love and friendship. And do keep these two bonds alive, and fresh...

2. YOUR BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING SHOULD ALSO BE YOUR OWN: Th is isn’t about community weddings and nor am I insisting that you marry whoever your best friend happens to be, irrespective of gender. All I’m saying is that you and your partner should grow up to be, if you aren’t already, the best of friends. Romance and lust are like autumn and spring – short beautiful interludes between blazing summers and freezing winters. They’ll surely return, but just as surely, they’ll disappear in the heat and dust of summers or the cold hard truths of winter. Then, what you’d need most is a friend – someone to stand by you, selflessly, without passing judgment. And if your partner can’t be your best friend, he/she will be someone else’s. You might not like that.

Above all, when you’re both old and wrinkled, your greatest joy would be to sit in a garden in the evenings with your best friend, enjoying a cup of tea, a heartfelt conversation and the beautiful sunset…

3. BEWARE OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY SYNDROME: Partners in a marriage, oft en inadvertently, become imperialists and colonisers. A husband I happen to know, I’m not going to say who, once complained bitterly about how his wife always chooses which side of the bed she’d want to sleep on. That’s cute enough but here’s what made it worse. “Whenever I get out of bed to go to the loo or for water, I’d always return to find the missus sleeping right in the middle of the bed, splayed out at such an angle that the only way I could get some sleep was by hanging on to the edge of the bed, my legs sticking out like sugarcane from one of those heavily loaded tractor trolleys you see on the highway. When I get to office, my sleepless eyes all red and puffy, colleagues elbow me in the ribs, wink and say ‘you don’t seem to be getting much sleep. Way to go, old chap.’ If only the buggers knew…”

This state of mind is rather common amongst newly married couples. The ‘bed’ incident is only a microcosm of a greater malaise. A partner might not even realise when and how he/she intrudes into the other’s space so much that things become claustrophobically dire for the other. Trying to control your partner who trusts you, inadvertently or otherwise, is akin to betrayal. Guard against this at all costs, for then the relationship dynamics and the friendship will suffer. If ever in doubt, just ask. You’re best of friends, remember…

4. LAST BUT NOT THE LEAST, THE BEDROOM BRAWL: Sometimes you could be forgiven for thinking the idea of marriage must’ve been someone’s idea of a cruel joke. A man and a woman have near opposite body rhythms when it comes to ‘getting cosy’, if you’ll pardon the euphemism…You see it’s a bit like the rainsand the river. One is programmed to manifest itself in short bursts and a trifle indiscriminately while the other is programmed to stay its course, relatively speaking, and go on and on… and yet they’d die without each other. To cut a long and rather interesting story short, the bedroom offers a couple its greatest challenge because of the physiological, psychological and evolutionary differences which, once surmounted through a bit of educated understanding, could become the bedrock of the relationship. There are other more opportune platforms to understand the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of the birds and the bees, but your key words are ‘understanding, patience and passion’. Understanding would take a while coming, so meanwhile be patient and don’t let the wait dim your, or your partner’s, passion.

This isn’t the last word and you will have to swim in these waters on your own, but if this piece keeps you afloat for a while, it would’ve done its bit…Stay in love, stay together and God bless.

THE CUP OF DREAMS RUNNETH OVER

2011-02-03T10:27:00.002+05:30

The balls don’t matter for we have more than we need. But it’s poor Sreesanth. The temperamental fast bowler has been mumbling away between deliveries to all the gods that might care to listen, promising that he would be a good boy…A better than good boy, if only he could last a little while longer. There’s a deafening silence in the packed Wankhede Stadium as the tall mean Morkel, South Africa’s and this World Cup’s stingiest bowler starts off on his long gangly run towards the wicket…Sree stops mumbling and tucks his chin behind his left shoulder as he takes guard… thumps the bat into the dusty Wankhede pitch and billion hearts stop breathing as the sweaty lump of leather leaves Morkel’s hand, singes the pitch and swings away towards first slip. It’s fast and full but wide.

At the other end, the man who has been carrying the cross for daring to play god, breathes a sigh of relief… “Leave it alone, Sree… Please.”

Sree did not want to play at it. He told his body to let it go. But in a rebellious insolent corner of his head, the desire to hit it hard raised its reckless head. What pleasure it’d be to thrash this arrogant fast bowler, to put him in his place. That impetuous voice in his head grew louder, drowning out every other voice. Sree’s feet stayed rooted but his hands were drawn towards the ball like a moth to the flame. Wild wood met shy leather and the ball ballooned up towards third-man. Sree shook his head in disgust. He couldn’t bring himself to look…the players, the stadium, the country, they all held their breath as Lonwabo Tsotsobe back-pedalled in a hurry (he had been brought in to stop Sreesanth from scoring the all important single and scampering away from the firing zone). Tall though he is, Tsotsobe wasn’t tall enough for the occasion. The ball danced tantalisingly close to the outstretched hands and then like a teasing mirage floated away from the fielder and gently tripped over the ropes.

Like bubbles rising to the surface in a glass of freshly poured champagne, the stadium erupted with joy. Sreesanth was running around in circles of incredulous joy while the South Africans slumped to the ground, surrendering to the celebrations all around. They had yet again come so near, only to be left standing without the ring…the eternal best-man at his beloved’s wedding.

While the world around him whipped up a frenzied whirlpool of emotions that threatened to pull him in, resisting its pull for a few moments more, all by himself at the centre of the wicket stood that man from the other end. Looking up at the dark night sky, beyond the hot white light of the floodlights, the man whispered a silent prayer of thanks. Though they might still call him a God, the cross had finally lift ed. India had finally won the World Cup. Sachin Tendulkar was free to be a man again. He took off his helmet and smiled, more in relief than joy, and collapsed on his knees. And then a wave of blue engulfed him as his team mates hugged him in a joyous pile up.

Something tells me that these are the scenes we’ll see at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on April 2nd, 2011 when the curtain comes down on the biggest extravaganza in the cricketing world. Ask yourself, whether you be Indian or not, and put a hand on your heart and tell me if it isn’t true that India seems destined to win this World Cup? They are a team as good as any that’ll take the field for ‘the cup that counts’. And playing at home these tigers are well nigh invincible. No host has ever won the World Cup you say? The pressure’s too much, is it? Well Dhoni’s boys have shown time and time again that they have learnt to play the game for the sheer joy of it, with victory or defeat being an important but not an all consuming factor in the game. This approach has helped them win from near impossible situations like champion sides are wont to do and my bet is that the well endorsed cool carbonated waters running in their veins would keep them safe from the pressures of playing in front of us rabid fans.

So since we are not really holding back our fantasies,let me go the whole hog and take the sheets off the rest of them.

So going a step beyond the late Paul’s call here’s prediction number two. I say that the batsman of the World Cup would be Sachin Tendulkar. Now before you crinkle a tired nose and begin to pull it down as unoriginal fanaticism, hear me out. I enjoy watching a fast bowler sending the stumps on a merry cartwheel far more than a batsman carting the ball over legs square or long, and so while the rest of India was gushing over a teenaged Sachin’s exploits in the 90s, I was out cheering for the thunderbolts from Allan Donald and Waseem Akram. Even today, I would take a torrid spell of scorchers from a fast bowler over most other sporting spectacles. But the idea of establishing Sachin Tendulkar’s unquestioned greatness above all others of his generation is an idea whose time has come. Lara may have been more lyrical, Kallis more resolute and Ponting more aggressive, but no one has given more back to the game and the fans than Tendulkar, and if the 200 at Gwalior and his recent purple patch is anything to go by, it is a sign of the game paying its dues to the great man. This fairy-tale promises a happy ending.

Prediction number three is one of those relatively uncomplicated ones. The four semi-finalists. I think India and South Africa would make it from their group with India topping it and going up against Sri Lanka. And South Africa would face off against defending champions Australia for a repeat of the semi-final between the two titans at the last World Cup in 2007. This time though I would expect the South Africans to turn the tables on the Aussies on the strength of a batting line up that fights hard and deep with the likes of Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, good old Jacques and Graeme Smith having consistently belted truck loads of runs in in the sub-continent. And with a bowling line-up that has two of the most dangerous, and I daresay, two of the very best fast bowlers in the game today in Morne Morkel and the magnificent Dale Steyn, I usually wouldn’t worry too much about the remaining 30 overs. Not until you are up against a batting line up that starts with Sehwag and doesn’t stop at Yusuf Pathan.

And why no England or Pakistan, you ask? Well ever since the Raj, the English have always been unhappy tourists to the sub-continent. Kevin Pietersen has started complaining already. Their seamers rarely feel at home in our dust bowls and except for Gatting, none of their batters ever get it when the ball starts spinning.

As for Pakistan, fate, or what you will, has dealt them a flurry of body blows. Their best bowlers are either too old or absent; their batters are pulling in different directions and the fans don’t know which way to look and for how long. Pakistan cricket needs to take a long hard look at itself and any miracles against the run of play would do Pakistan cricket more harm than good in the long run, so for their sake let’s not hope for any.

Lastly, you wonder how Sreesanth got to play the final when he isn’t even in the team? Well, since we’re just whetting our world cup dreams, I thought why not reward him for his gallant showing in South Africa by selecting him in place of the injured Praveen Kumar. It might happen yet.

And what if the weeks to come prove me horribly wrong, and leave me with an egg all over my face? Well Holi’s round the corner. I’m hoping it wouldn’t look all that bad.

SHADOW PEOPLE

2011-01-27T10:19:00.001+05:30

“Sorry is just a word. The white man might pretend that the wounds have healed because he said he was sorry but my people still suffer…”

In the streets of every big city in Australia, there lurk the shadow people. You don’t see them on the streets but every once in a while you find their tracks, on the billboards, in a name, in the souvenir stores, and every once in a while, playing a big game. These are the ghosts of the Aboriginese, the indigenous people of Australia who were once spread all over the great vastness of the island nation, but now only a relative handful remain, swept away under the fringes of a still predominantly white Australia. Symbols of their culture reverberate in the strains of the didgeridoo (the long hollow pipe that sounds like a musically inclined elephant in heat), in names of cities and streets (Yuendumu, Woolloomooloo), in the colours on a boomerang or on a wall in a gallery, and in the cheers at a footie game (inspired at least in part by the Aboriginal game of Mam Grook) and yet you can’t see them... the Aboriginese have vanished…

Then one day, near Darling Harbour, I see a green flag pinned to the seat of a bicycle. It said, in letters big and black – White Australia has a BLACK past. I wanted to know what it meant, and what it meant to have been a part of that past. As the flag fluttered up a hill and disappeared, I heard the sound of an elephant in heat. I chased the sound and found a man dancing by the harbour. His features were unmistakably Aboriginal. Behind him sat another man, younger and lighter skinned, his swollen cheeks blowing away for what they are worth, into what looked like the trunk of a small tree – the didgeridoo. They told me that a man called Russell Dawson could tell me what it meant, because that past was also his past.

Dawson is Aboriginese; his tribe – The Kamilaroi; and his bush name - Waaji Wallu Doungu Thanni Bunjalong Goomaroi. He is a big man with a big heart. When I called on him in Melbourne, he called me ‘brother’, and I believe he meant it. He thought I would understand his pain because I came from India – a country that had been a colony; a country that was righteous; a country that believed in peace. He greeted me with the words Shanti! Shanti! and I believed I would understand…

Dawson began his story. “You don’t see my people on the streets because there aren’t many who are still around. And that is because up until 1967, merely 40 years ago, we were treated like animals. We, the oldest civilisation on earth, one that goes back more than 40,000 years ago, were classified as fauna, as vermin, by the white administration. White hunters would go out with their guns and hunt our people down in cold blood…for sport. Hundreds of thousands of indigenous Australian men, women and children have been killed, and no one was punished. Weweren’t even worth a butcher’s goat. You ask me, so I’ll tell you but these are difficult stories to tell… they are not old enough yet, and they churn our hate… in many parts of Australia, white settlers would go in groups, round up a tribe, gather all the men and cut off their penises. Our fathers would scream and run and thrash about in pain, while the white man would laugh as he saw them bleed and die. The babies and the young children would be buried alive upto their necks in the earth and then the white man would come in his heavy boots and kick their little heads off . Then white man gets drunk on rum and drags out our mothers. They rape them till their lust is slaked. Then they’d take red hot iron bars and burn them into the women’s vaginas, and beat them to death…” I was quiet. “I know what you are thinking brother..” Dawson said. “You are from India, the land of social harmony, the land of non violence, the land of Gandhi, and you wonder if such barbarism is possible. But it happens. Remember the Nazi holocaust…” Dawson was wrong. I know such barbarism is possible. Because my land is not just the land of Gandhi, it is also the land where Priyanka Bhotmange’s 17-year -old body lay, on the infamous soil of Khairlanji, with ‘rods sticking out of her genitals. It is also the land where almost everyday a dalit woman is stripped naked, or a minor dalit girl-child is gang raped and murdered, and in almost every case, there are no witnesses, and no one is punished. And this story isn’t 40 years but four days old.

Dawson twisted the knife. “India is beautiful. Her people, wonderful. You know the red dot your women wear on the forehead. It is the red land of Australia. Like you, we believe in peace. We have never raped our land or our women. We live in peace with other tribes as equals. If you look at our people, you’ll see we are similar… beautiful and peaceful”, he said with a laugh and a pat.

I smiled and walked away with the realisation that it isn’t just Dawson’s hurt that needs understanding….

Tomorrow’s papers will insist that not much has changed in these three years, but someday it will…it has to. This Birnam Wood too would move one day. Until then, Happy Republic Day…

MOKSHA, MEDITATIONS AND ALOOR DOM

2011-01-20T10:22:00.001+05:30

I had something else in mind for today, something dreamy and lyrical that spoke of dead trees and the full moon, of long lakes and the last loon, but alas it wasn’t to be…for I ran into an old favourite - Professor Kaku (uncle), at a dinner hosted by him last night. Now PK is not your everyday professor. He has been a popular, much loved and decorated academic who has been teaching economics and philosophy at various universities for decades now. When he speaks, people listen. So, when he spoke to some of us last evening over steaming plates of luchi (flatbread) and aloor dom (Bong potato preparation), I choked back a silent protest and heard him out. In begining, he was speaking on the rather interesting subject of paranormal phenomenon with a fair bit of authority, borrowed undoubtedly from his many studies of the subject and his proven method of reading and ruminating. All was well while we delved into instances of near death experiences, ghosts and ghouls and the sort. The professor dismissed some and deliberated upon others and then the conversation veered towards miracle cures, hypnosis and past life accounts which were duly shredded and shot down. Personally, I was open to the idea and the possibility but had no evidence to counter or confirm the professor’s perspective and so I divided my focus between the man’s fascinating dissections and our hostess’ equally fascinating ability to transform the modest aloo into a delicious work of art on a platter.

And then, without warning, the topic slid into what threatened to be a conversational quicksand – yoga! I had just stuff ed my mouth with more aloo than I could chew as I looked around, open-mouthed, at the round table pulling down and dismissing the great art, the great path as a mere set of calisthenics. I felt I had to do something. It was like watching Draupadi being disrobed in court and having to choose between being a silent and helpless Yudhishtir or the valiant saviour in Krishna. For the sake of posterity, let it be said that since the occasion demanded a miracle, I tried hard to levitate in the presence of the gathering and put to rest all doubts about the powers of a true yogi, but perhaps I was weighed down by the not inconsiderable helpings of aloor dom and I confess I didn’t try too hard in light of possible impolite accidents in mixed company.

However, let it also be said that I was not content to remain an impotent Pandava under the circumstances either, and therefore mustered a mild protest. Mild, because the professor is, like I said, an ‘old’ favourite, and I didn’t want to come on too strong. And there was also the small matter of the professor’s reputation of not suffering fools with a smile and coming down with a heavy argumentative hand on opinions that poked him without much apparent merit. Aft er all, the professor was the veritable mountain in his circle from which would flow all knowledge, sustaining those who lived on its banks even as it emptied into the ocean of our lives. So, as you can imagine, going against the flow wasn’t easy. I tried sharing my own perspective a few times but PK was blowing like a raging tornado and my arguments were flung aside like dry leaves in the wind. I gave up, but yoga, as the odd faithful might have noticed, is a dear subject, and even if posthumously so, as far as last night’s conversation is concerned, for whatever it’s worth, here’s my defence of the great art, the great path.

Now, I was used to defending against people pooh-poohing yoga as a ‘fi tness activity’ for the old and the infirm but what the professor said just knocked me out of my socks, for PK insisted that practicing yoga would lead to errr… ‘a smaller brain!!’ Now, I’m assuming the good professor meant that as a metaphor because though I had read about excessive exercise leading to atrophy of other almost as vital bits, but this one was a doosra from nowhere. Professor was trying to say that yoga, perhaps by virtue of being a physical activity to begin with and secondly because of its said goal of moksha and liberation through detachment was about withdrawing from the world and therefore using one’s faculties as little as possible as one progressed on the path, thus losing one’s cognitive abilities through disuse.

Now let’s look at the evidence. Modern research in the area of neuroscience suggests that not only does yoga (which incidentally means not just asana but the complete practice of breath, postures and movement, combined with meditation) improve and direct the flow of blood to the brain, especially the frontal lobe that deals with awareness, concentration and focus but scans can show how the practice of yoga can enhance brain functions within weeks of starting a practice. In fact, yoga has been used successfully to reverse some of the effects of Alzheimer disease and memory loss in patients and has been shown to be a more than reliable preventive tool.

And what of the assumption that yoga, ideally, is about dissociating from those around us, withdrawing from life and living alone on a mountain in search of salvation? Well, to that I would say, to each his own, Kaku. The yogic ideal of moksha is not a life of nothingness but a life of freedom – freedom from disease, from ego and so on. A freedom that can only be attained when one is at peace with oneself and that is possible only if one is healthy and has cultivated relationships that bring peace, given as much as one received, not in mere material terms but emotionally and spiritually and has become great enough to accept one’s smallness; free from the laws of disease and death as much as from the pressures of commerce; to love and serve and to know – without ego or prejudice, that is the goal of yoga.

And detachment as an ideal does not mean to love less, but to love more, not selfishly or in isolation; to not let success go to one’s head nor failure to one’s heart, nor rejection to one’s ego but to look at all three as mere signposts that help us evolve. And who is to say that it is only those that go up a mountain are ‘withdrawn and detached’. All one has to do is knock a few doors away to find a husband too attached to a TV set, a mother too attached to a career, or a son too attached to another city to care for anything else. Most luminous yogis of yore, from Vishwamitra to Agastya, and even the mythological yogic ideal of Lord Shiva have all known love and family and joys that come with it.

Lastly, one only needs to look at some of the greatest minds to have shaped our lives – Edison, Mozart and the great Leonardo of Vinci who have spoken of the ‘meditative state’ as being their most inspirational and creative state to clinch the argument from PK. In fact, da Vinci’s greatness is attributed by experts, amongst his other virtues, to his adherence to Corporalita – his focus on the balance between mind and body, for the key to mental acuity hides in the contours of the body.

Now if only I could find a way to make Kaku read all this. Actually, on second thought, it’s better if he doesn’t, for Kaku always makes a strong comeback. But I have a sinking feeling he will read this… Kaku reads everything.

MORE THAN A MOUTHFUL

2011-01-13T09:57:00.000+05:30

I’m in pain. It’s not mortal agony just yet but it still hurts, and leaves you feeling oh so empty. And no wonder I feel empty. I haven’t eaten since morning. It’s not like I couldn’t… it’s just that I didn’t! I’m at a Sunday barbecue and every once in a while I see liveried waiters marching in purposefully, cradling shiny handsome platters in their neat whitegloved hands. And as they walk by, the nose follows in the smoke-stream, inhaling aromas that speak of sensual pleasures, of juicy roasted hams that’ll melt in your mouth and exquisite fillet mignons, of smoking grilled lobsters and golden chicken wings dipped in deliciously full-bodied barbecue sauce. Ah, the undying ache of unfulfilled dark desires that leave you aching deep inside.

I look, longingly, eyes smouldering with desire, but I don’t touch. Instead, I tear myself away from the warm, happy and sizzling meat counters and drag myself towards the vegetarian cold and green vegetarian counter. Ah cheese, and baby corn… and ah yes some more cheese, and then they have broccoli, and I did I mention some more cheese and then of course there’s chick peas and there you go… yet more cheese. I oscillated between cottage cheese and blue cheese and sampled some gooey cheese with a bit of smelly cheese, threw another long look at that leg of ham and then sat down at the table and stared reproachfully at the lumpy mass on my plate. My friends at the table were busy chewing on succulent pieces of chicken breasts and I happened to see my reflection on a pair of sun glasses. Th at grave expression on my face that seemed to say “darn! Now what do I do with you?” seemed strangely familiar. Now, where had I seen that expression earlier? Was it…no, not that...or was it…? No, unlikely… No…no…it was…it was… ah yes, it was my math tutor from school!

Overcome by nostalgia and empathy, I felt sorry for that sorry little plate and choked down some chunks of cheese and a mouthful of ferns and weeds. I kept at it till I gagged and then gave up… giving up meat wasn’t easy. For those of you who have always been vegetarians and for those of you who’ve never considered giving up scavenging, here’s an analogy that could perhaps help you understand how blue one gets when one decides to give up eating meat after having been a connoisseur of ‘fine meats’ for most of one’s adult life. Imagine this…you are back to being 20 something and are single and alone at a beach resort in Goa, or Ibiza if you will. The sun and the sand and the rush of the surf as you would know is a heady cocktail… you spend the days by the beach and the nights at the taverns. The whirling blur of toned bodies, intoxicating rhythms and the whiff of the sea floods the senses...Then one evening in the pool you are gently undulating into a relaxing backstroke and accidentally bump into someone. Disconcerted, you turn and come face to face with this rather attractive young lady (actually feel free to choose a gender that suits your mood at the moment) in a saffron sarong, rubbing her forehead where she got poked by your elbow…you apologise, she smiles…there’s small talk as you both wade out, and then you remember to look away…you hope you made the right impression. Looks like you have…she’s smiling at you next morning. You meet, you talk, you preen and dance…Then you feel like you have known each other forever. You love the way she makes you feel and you know there’s no one who made you feel this way before. You share your nights and your days and that time and space you wish that time would stop, but nay, the grains of sand are always shift ing, slipping and sliding into unwanted tomorrows. Before you know it, it’s time to go… You promise to keep in touch but life has plans all its own, and as it twists and turns into the alleys of time. The years roll by and you get busy. Friends and cities come and go and memories of that enchanted holiday so long ago gather dust and mist. But every now and then, on balmy nights and breezy days, you hear her voice and see her smile…you miss her so and long for the warmth of her touch…you feel a sudden lonely pang and wonder where she might be. But you’re all grown up now and too busy to fall in love, so your folks find you a nice agreeable young lady and you marry her to live happily ever after. You move into a bigger house and life is good. You can’t complain.

You are leaving for work one day, while sending texts in a hurry and bump into someone accidentally. You turn to apologise and (I too apologise for the corniness…) and whaddyaknow… it’s her again, rubbing her shoulder as she looks up and smiles that sweet gummy smile you had once known so well. The clock turns back in a hurry and freezes, till your wife calls out and asks if you are fine. She’s your new neighbour, and she’s unattached, still.

Now imagine the pain that’ll wrack your heart everytime she waves at you, smiles and walks by. Th at is the pain I feel at Sunday barbecues and tandoori dinners when I’m stuck with a plate of cheese while you are tucking into those plates of well done steaks and tiger prawns that I had once known so well.

So if it really hurts so much, why bother, you ask? Well, if I haven’t said it often enough, here’s one more reason why. A colleague of mine, a staunch PETA type who would’ve happily posed nude for one of their campaigns, if not for the fact that he’s so hairy he might actually look like he’s campaigning ‘for fur’, once declared that a non vegetarian’s sins are no less than the sins of a rapist. After a dramatic pause punctuated with a few ‘how could you’s, he went on to explain that since most of mankind, except for perhaps the Eskimos, eat meat purely for sensual pleasure, they are no better than those vile men who rape and ravish a weaker individual to satisfy one’s carnal appetite, for little more than pleasure.

I had to admit that logic, though distant, wasn’t absent in the argument. And if one were to say that it isn’t fair to equate the rights of fellow human beings with that of lesser fellow creatures, isn’t it the same mindset which allowed white man to rape, enslave and even murder blacks, browns and yellows for centuries without guilt because they were considered lesser beings? And isn’t it the same mindset of assumed superiority that encouraged the upper castes to ruthlessly exploit the lower castes in this very country? And isn’t it obvious that it is only a matter of time before we also come to realize, or more appropriately, before we have the honest courage to admit, that those we kill and eat for our pleasure today are also creatures with equal rights to life and liberty even though they be very different?

But when that day arrives, I wouldn’t want you to look at your plate the way my math teacher looked at me so I’ll go looking for some vegetarian delights in the coming weeks so that you can see the light without losing your appetite…bon appetit!

THE OLD MAN FROM THE SEA

2011-01-06T09:54:00.000+05:30

It was the 8th of January and it must’ve been a cold night in Netanya (Israel). An old man was lying in bed, wrapped in quilts and sheets. There were people surrounding the bed and the mood was somber and grave. There was something vigorous about the old man even as he lay there in bed. The liquid grey eyes looked tired under the rugged brow but the rest of him lay there like a coiled spring, like a big cat in repose. The broad shoulders, the strong chin and those gnarled fingers that looked like digits you wouldn’t want wrapped around your neck or wrist, all seemed to suggest a man of great but contained strength, but those tired grey eyes were at peace with the world around them. As the night wore on, tired heads leaned against the wall and nodded off into a disturbed sleep while others wearily walked into an adjoining room waiting for first light… any light.

The old man closed his eyes and smiled a half smile. The room had become a little stuffy and someone opened a window to let in some fresh air. The salty breeze wafted in from the Mediterranean and reminded the old man of a day nearly 60 years ago…

The Pentcho was no ocean-liner. It was an old riverboat that was being tossed along the waves like an old haggard lion that had been surrounded by a herd of wild buffalo and was being passed on from one angry pair of horns to another. It was a long way from home and a young man stood on the deck and held on to the railing, drenched in the salt and the spray, thinking of the home he had left far behind. There were friends and family and the streets and stores he had known since he was a child that he knew he would never see again. It was a land he had loved but that land had betrayed him and driven him away.

The time was 1940 and Europe was in the eye of an evil storm. Anti-Jewish sentiments whipped up by Nazis, Fascists and their supporters across Europe had resulted in incarcerations, mob violence and mass murders that left Jewish communities across Europe feeling vulnerable and violated. He was reminded of his father who had been a police officer in his native Bratislava, in Slovakia. He had taught him how to wrestle and how to box and how to walk with dignity. He thought of the numerous wrestling tournaments he had won, the plays and the ballets on stage and the thunderous roar of the crowd that always seemed to follow him. But now it was all gone. The roar of the crowds had been replaced by the baying of a mob. The very people who had clapped for him now stood in corners, armed with clubs and knives, waiting for him or any of his people. The police and the anti-Semitic mobs hounded him and his community like wolves and he remembered patrolling the block with his friends, rescuing those who were attacked, fighting and defending his people against these marauders.

He realised that fighting on the streets against armed assailants was a world away from fighting in competitions. He fought hard but knew he couldn’t fight for everybody. Therefore, he started teaching those who would learn how to defend themselves. He realised that the weak and old people needed to learn how to protect themselves far more than the strong. So, he modified his techniques, made them simple and based them on natural human instincts and normal everyday movements which were easy to learn and more importantly, remember and repeat when under attack. For a while the resistance stood firm but later it all went out of hand. In fact, when the local administration and the army got involved in the persecution of the Jews, the community was left with no choice but to leave. Many left when they could while some found it difficult to tear themselves away from their homes. He was amongst the last to leave on the Pentcho, one of the last boats to leave the coast of Europe, packed to the brim with Jews desperately hoping to escape the toxic shadow of the Holocaust before it consumed the continent.

Lying in his bed all these years later, he was reminded of that day when he had left his home with nothing but the wet shirt on his back and headed for the Promised Land. Here in Israel, he became a hero. His brilliant martial abilities and perceptive skills as a teacher endeared him to the Israeli Defense Forces where he became Chief Instructor. He trained the new nation’s greatest soldiers and laid foundation for Israel’s national security. But his greatest gift to the world was yet to come. Aft er retiring from duty he started teaching civilians the art of self defence as he had come to know it. He called it Krav Maga (Contact Combat).

For 88 years, he had fought opponents in the ring, fascists on the streets and fate on the boat but he did it all so that “one could walk in peace”. And on January 9, 1998, he was at peace, with his past, his world and his life. He sighed a long deep sigh, held the hand closest to him and gently let go. Imi Lichtenfeld, champion wrestler, Jewish resistance fighter, a pillar of Israeli society and the creator of Krav Maga breathed his last exactly 13 years ago but his martial moves and philosophy have left behind a legacy that has made the world a safer place.

Sky marshals on planes, commandos in battle, law enforcement officers from New York to New Delhi and civilians like you and me walk in peace today because of Imi Lichtenfeld. I walked into a Krav Maga training centre three years ago and had the opportunity to learn from masters that had been trained by Grandmaster Imi himself. I have seen wimpy boys and delicate ladies transform into bold and confident urban warriors who know how to take care of themselves and their loved ones with a calm courage in the face of daunting odds.

On this New Year’s day, when I read about a 17-year-old being raped and murdered, her face smashed beyond recognition, I know that more oft en than not, it is a crime that could have been prevented. Six months of Krav Maga and most girls would be too hot to handle for an aspiring rapist. This New Year, I hope and wish for you lives in the lap of love and peace, but if you ever need to raise an arm to protest or protect, I hope you would have tried a little Krav Maga… for there’s nothing quite like it to help you walk in peace.

JOURNEYS INTO OTHER WORLDS

2010-12-23T11:18:00.002+05:30

In these pages, I have written to you of lands far and near and of lives forgotten and dear; of food we eat and people we meet; of those we love to love and those we love to be, but amongst it all, every now and then, I’ve written about the time I spent staring into the abyss, into worlds beyond ours. And aft er each trip to these dark corners, this question would linger– “Is there life beyond death? And does this ‘life’ at times wander with questions of its own, looking for answers it hasn’t found, stumbling into realms that intersect our own?”

Let me take you through these journeys, some of which you might have encountered in previous issues, and let’s together brush away the dust that had settled on these experiences…

According to lores and legends that speak of the world of spirits, there are places all around us which, because of the way the earth rises and folds (fault lines, river banks, formation of hills etc.) or due to the history and nature of the energy trapped in certain areas, have become receptacles for supernatural experiences. In other words, those places are haunted. And even those who walk in flesh and blood aren’t immune to the seductions of these corners. Perhaps that is why I oft en find myself wandering about these places, not with a preconceived notion seeking to either refute, or reaffirm, but with an honest curiosity, seeking to know and understand…

THE HAUNTED STATION

Begunkodor is a tiny station on the Purulia-Jharkhand border. Here the earth is dry and red and the black hills cast long shadows on the tiny village of Bamniya that lies to the south of the station. The station lies deserted today, with tuft s of grass peeping through the red brick walls. No passenger walks this platform and no train would stop here today and none have for decades now. The air is still and heavy and for some reason, even the birds seem to avoid the station and the lone dead tree that stands next to it.

It is said that the last station-master was a kind man who helped the village boys with their studies and games. Then one day, the children ran crying to him and told him of their playmate who’d died aft er being bitten by a snake. The station-master was saddened by the news and retired early that night. In the middle of the night he heard a voice that seemed to be calling out to him. It was a child’s voice and he wondered why one of them was calling at this hour. In his sleep he walked up to the door and even as he opened it, he recognized the voice – it was the voice of the boy that had died. The next day the villagers found a delirious station-master lying in a dry well.

The boy’s mother heard rumours that the station master had seen her son and went looking for him the next night. She must’ve found something because the station-master said the next day that he heard her banging on his door but he was too scared to open. He heard a train thundering past that very moment and heard a terrible scream. He dragged himself to the door and with quivering hands, opened the door. What he saw left him rooted to the spot and the next morning villagers found him lying in a heap by the doorway. On the tracks below lay the mangled remains of the mother. They found an arm and the head some metres away.

Two nights later, the station master disappeared. No one knows where he went and none of his successors lasted longer than a week. Some of them said they saw a woman running along the platform at night screaming out a name, while others said they saw a child sitting on a branch on the tree in the dead of the night. I later learnt that if a child died in the village, it was buried under that tree. Since then, no station master has ever agreed to man Begunkodor station and no train has ever stopped here since…

As night fell and I walked away from the station, I felt a strange gloom that had descended on the place. Twice, I felt I was being followed and while a part of me knew it was the sound of my cargo-pants brushing against the grass, another part of me made me stop and turn…but when I did, all I could see was the silhouette of the station and the dead tree framed against the inky-blue sky and a lone light from the village flickering against the shadow from the hills. I wished the village well as I drove away…

THE ENCHANTED VALLEY IN RUKHAD

This one happened by chance. I was travelling through the forests around the Seoni hills in search of the potter’s village that inspired Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book when my car’s radiator broke down on a rocky forest track. There was a stream running through a shallow valley not too far away and as I walked down to the water I saw a red flag fluttering in the cool breeze. Now this forest was in the heart of a great wilderness where wild beasts stalked the night and even in the day, we hadn’t seen a soul for miles and miles. So what was a flag doing over here? I looked around and found a cave and a cow tied to a stake. The cave seemed empty so I waited for a while and then I saw this hulking figure draped in black walking towards me.

The man was a tantric, and once an engineer from the city of Nagpur. But he had given up his job with a public sector power company because this place called out to him in his dreams when he was a child. He had sleep walked his way to this valley when still a child but then he had been found by his family and had to return. The dreams followed him though and then when he was old enough and had fulfilled his obligations, he returned to this valley. He had no guru in the flesh but there were evolved spirits in this valley and this river, he said who were his teachers… They had taught him all he knew about tantra. He told me that the hills around the valley formed a yantra which attracted spiritual energy and spirit guides and to meditate here brought the sadhaka closer to siddhis and salvation.

I didn’t know what to believe and so the man said “wait till the moon comes out… you will see the spirits frolicking in the river with your own eyes. You’ll hear their songs and power of their spells. ” This is the closest I had ever come to a ‘promised spiritual experience’ but I had a plane to catch. I thanked the man for his time, filled up the jerry-can with water from the river and hurried back to the car, but I vowed to return.

It has been many moons since I went to these places and some others like them and it is time I returned. Death is our final frontier and one day we’ll all know, through objective experiences what it means to die and do we really live on aft er the body gives up the ghost. But until we do, perhaps it is these in-between places straddling the realms of the flesh and the spirit which might hide the mysteries of a world beyond death. This new year, I’ll try and go look for some answers, and will keep you posted.