Mumbai Mayhem

The blogosphere has been splattered, much like the carnage itself, with varying accounts of the mindless mayhem we had in Mumbai for 3 days. Thank God it's over, or is it?

While there are thousands of questions and thousands more waiting to be thought out, there is only one answer - the evil needs to be exterminated at its bud.

Where is the bud and how do we exterminate it? We all know for the entire length of known human history, there have been umpteen instances to suggest that men killed other men, and committed heinous crimes continuing to shock the generation only to be upstaged by the next. So, to preach angelic interventions is not only impossible but also impractical. The biggest difference in the current wave versus the earlier times is that the enemy often attacked in person and took pride in the fight to finish. Now, it's an unknown enemy, backed by unknown forces, supported by unknown causes and perpetrated against unknowing nations. There are many who'll disagree, who'll profess to know where exactly these crimes are coming from and who exactly are behind it and how exactly they go about it, but they'll remain theorists. How else do you explain that at one end there is a continued resurgence of terror and on the other we have reactive democratic forces who lack the resolve to beat their own territorial boundaries and mental blocks and seek solutions.

The israeli security agencies have suggested that the Mumbai combing operations were far from perfect but that's how they will be. Ours is a nation which hesitates to rope in talent. We are net exporters of human resources and armed forces and value our own lives very little.

It needs a resurgence of a nation to counter the current forces against India. We are very very far from that at this stage.

Heady times for Indian Cricket

It's not been very often that the Indian Cricket fan has had extended periods of euphoria. Sure, there have been series wins, thumping wins at that, but very soon thereafter there have been colossal losses or uninspiring performances and the build up has simply fizzled out.

One just gets the feeling that there are enough indications to suggest now that India may continue to be able to put across opposing teams more often than not. Phew! how careful can one get in choosing one's words! Can we just say that there is a clear trend, as technical analysts might say, towards a winning phase for India now? Surely, a series win against the all-conquering aussies is enough of an indication. The way they smashed the visiting pommies in the first one dayer - it seemed like they were batting in the highlights. Onward Ho!

What's wrong with Gilly? He's been one of my favourites throughout his career and one really liked his competitive spirit, his ability to live and let live, his honesty and above all his cricketing skill. Unfortunately, he hasn't exactly endeared himself to Indians with what he's written in his recent book. If I were literate enough on the choicest native expletives (hereinafter called CNEs) and he was patient enough to go through the same, I would construct a fully indexed page on words beginning with 'Maa-ki...'. Both he and Symonds seem to find it extremely difficult to believe that there could be such a phonetic resemblance to these abusive words. They only need to drive at near full speed on any of north India's roads and keep their recorders in play to catch up. To further explain the vernacular, this particular CNE is best delivered with a nasal accent and a suffix 'tho' is usually added to it... try it now, 'teri maa-ki tho..'. Howzzat!

While 'Maa-ki' or 'Behn ki..' expletives are certainly not music to one's ears, they are infinitely milder when pitted against racial abuses. One would certainly credit Bhajji with a good knowledge on the CNEs. But for god's sake, it's been nearly a year now; enough water has passed under all the bridges all over the world and let's let sleeping dogs lie!

On second thoughts, the last sentence may please be expunged - dogs and monkeys have no place in a column on cricket.

Train to Pakistan

It's been a fairly long time since my last entry. I've been a little 'tied up' as they say in corporate circles. In the in-between times I've been doing a bit of reading. The last one I put down only last night and it continues to haunt me into the working day!
I must say that I've come across this book quite a few times and have somehow chosen not to pick it up. This time I'm glad I did. It's a unique combination of a fiction work, almost bordering on real-life and supported by some vivid, albeit gut-wrenching, images from the sub-continent's inglorious past. I'm referring to the old-wine-in-new-bottle edition of Khushwant Singh's Train to Pakistan which has Margaret Bourke-White's tell-tale photographs of the partitition. The story is well-known; three communities senselessly murdering each other for political ends, which most of them had nothing to do with. In fact, the author points out that freedom is only for the fortunate few who are moneyed; for the rest, it's merely a move from one master to another and a continuation of misery. The story, however, comes across as a well-packaged, poignant tale that touches several human chords. Even Hukum Singh, the Government's personification, is badly shaken by the turn of events and a train load of corpses sent from Pakistan. Shortage of wood and fuel to burn the corpses led to use of the bulldozer to grind them to the earth. If one hoped this was some unpalatable work of fiction, there're are the photographs from Margaret's camera that etches it in memory. How the hell did she take so many pictures from such close quarters and still retained sanity to bring it to the world! Such madness on such a large scale is perhaps a thing of the past, but every now and then one is reminded that being inhuman is definitely part of being humans!
Well, I've moved onto Mulk Raj Anand's 'Untouchables' - another from around the same era. Promises to be equally brutal in the revelation of our society's darkest sides.

Mom, all the way..

Another poem for my daughter Sandhya's school assembly..

From birth till today,
Schoolday or holiday
For me, I can proudly say,
It’s been my mom, all the way.

She knows when it’s wake-up time,
Or its time to learn a rhyme
When time comes to comb my hair
Or searching for a matching pair
When we have to go to Doctor’s calls
Or for us to go to shopping malls,
Till the time it’s to go to bed
Making sure we’ve been well-fed

For me, I can proudly say,
It’s been my mom, all the way.

Homework music or dance
She leaves nothing to chance
Every dress I wear
Every Barbie every teddy bear
Every story, every dream
Every chocolate or icecream
Any sneeze any cough
Every detail is taken care of

For me, I can thankfully say,
It’s been my mom, all the way

It’s not just your affection,
In everyway it’s perfection.

A poem for the School Souvenir

A few days ago I composed a small poem for my daughter to use as her contribution for the Annual School Souvenir.

I thought I'll publish it in this blog here just to retain it on the world wide web

Visit to the Singapore Zoo

Friends, I wish to share with you,
My joy of visiting the Singapore Zoo,

I started with the Penquin
Some above water, some still in

Then we saw white Polar Bears,
They always seemed to move in pairs

When we got off the Tram ride
We went straight to see a lions’ pride

Primates were everywhere
We went as close as we could dare
I was almost at one’s tail
When my sister let out a loud wail

Thrilling to watch giraffes so tall
Rhinos, white tigers, zebras and all

But best of them, was the Elephant show,
The eldest ‘Komali’ was our favourite, you know,

We rounded off our trip to the Zoo,
By taking pictures with a Kangaroo.

Imagine sitting atop an open car
Watching these wild animals in Africa!

Catching up with history and myth

Always had that nagging feeling about my inadequate knowledge of other religions; i.e. religions other than Hinduism. Not that I profess to know a great deal about Hinduism either, but faith is a great healer and I've been at peace with whatever knowledge I had. Until yesterday...

...I finally brought myself to do a bit of study in that area. What I learnt must be commonplace for most readers, but for those like me, who have hesitated to find out, I wish to share my learning.

Well, it begins with Abraham - I didn't have the time to search before him. Abraham's wife Sarah couldn't beget him a child and suggested that Abraham better get one through their Egyptian servant Hagar. Their child was Ishmael. Years later, Abraham and Sarah had one of their own, Isaac. Ishmael's descendants took the form of various Arab tribes and from one of them emerged Prophet Mohammad who propogated Islam.

One of Isaac's descendants was Moses who brought God's commandments to a slave community which ran away from Egypt. This group later came to follow Judaism or jewish faith. From this set of followers of jewish faith arose a rebel leader who encouraged his followers (largely poor people) to disregard scriptures and orthodoxy and follow his teachings. This was Jesus.

So, you see, they all emerged from the same family! As indeed, have all men and women. Doesn't it explain how there is fighting, bloodshed, manouevres, greed, treason and all that (as there would be in a large family) interspersed with relatively lesser periods of love and peace?

I think it's apt that this piece comes on a day when Raj Thackeray believes that people from the North don't belong in Mumbai. One may ask who's Mumbai is it anyway, but one can't reason with anyone living in fool's paradise. Instead, begin with 'A' and remind him of Abraham!

Whacked at WACA

It was a stupendous effort to come back from a two-test defeat and still beat the Aussies at Perth. That said, winning teams take a few lessons even from those matches that they've won convincingly. If one were to bring out the magnifying glass and scrutinize this performance, the following analyses would emerge:



(i) The Indian bowlers frequently allow the bottom half to pile on the runs. One could put this down to a drop in inspiration after getting the top half cheaply. The alternative theory I have is that at team meetings, perhaps there is a plan for the top half, but none for the tail enders, who by the way are no mucks with the bat.



(ii) Key top order players allow the team to be way laid even when they are in strong positions. In all fairness, the top order crumbled in the second innings and it took another Laxman special to give us a respectable overall lead.



(iii) Catching still needs some sharpening - crucial catches went abegging in each innings and threatened to undo some brilliant bowling.



The absolute positives for me were Ishant Sharma's bowling and Dhoni's wicket-keeping. He's quite clearly not in the Gilly/Healy mould, but my word has he been effective in this series! The ball was swinging quite a bit after it had passed the bat, but he kept his eyes on the ball and was safe, if not spectacular.



When matches go in favour, captaincy usually gets a little pat and in this case Anil truly deserved the victory. Save for the last hour or so when Johnson and Clark put the attack to the sword, he seemed well in control of his troops. Aggression comes naturally to him and herein lies the difference between his and Dravid's captaincy.



Our selectors don't like to be left out of the limelight, do they? It is the umpteenth time when they've made an announcement on team selection when some contests are still to go - in this case the last test. Asking Ganguly and Dravid to prepare to go home now is sure to affect team spirit. And who are there replacements? Electric fielders, but unequal batsmen, in Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina. Let's just hope that Ganguly and Dravid leave their footprints all over what will be their last Test on Australian soil. As indeed, one would expect from Sachin, Laxman and Kumble.