Pondering Pedigree

I leave religion out. It is not my cup of tea. I believe there are others who are better equipped to write about Vakkom Moulavi as a religious reformer.

Though I don’t look at my grandfather with my faith eyes, my professional pedigree is too heavy to shrug off. Not that I want to wriggle out of that coat of default honour or dim his reflected glory.

Though my father, Mohammed Iqbal, Vakkom Moulavi’s youngest son, was not an intellectual giant or had not done any significant writing to be mentioned in the “intellect parlours” unlike his brothers, he was my early inspiration.

For me, he was a romantic who played the flute by the window on a rainy day or listened to Talat Mahmoud on a moon-lit night or with a few quick strokes did a sketch of Indira Gandhi or Bertrand Russell. He adored Mrs Gandhi for her strength of character and Russell for his philosophy of knowledge and love being the inspirations of life.

He was not an intellectual rabbit either. A Socialist in his younger years, he plunged himself into the world of literature. His collection of books included titles from Chaucer to Chaplin and Russell to Ruskin Bond.

Shakespeare, Keats and Shelley with a smattering of Russell and Koestler, that’s what my sister and I heard during our prolonged dinner. And, when Uncle Abda was around the dinner conversation would prolong further and end up with a brief recollection of family history after a Gandhi-Jinnah rundown.

Though in my teens I had been drawn to the secular, rational and humanistic values, I have moved away from the “logic and rationale” stronghold. It is the heart that takes one closer to the truth, not the brain.

Writing and passion for journalism run in the family. But, if I am not wrong, I am the only one among the clutch of Vakkom Moulavi’s grandchildren who “practises” journalism as one’s bread-winner. In the beginning journalism was a passion for me. A noble vocation no doubt, it has evolved from being a passion to a job to a loan installment provider.

My maternal grandfather, Mohammed Kannu, edited three pre-Independence newspapers—Al Ameen (Freedom), Aikyam (unity) and Prabhatam (Dawn)—before he took up teaching.

So virtues of journalism must run thick in my blood, as far as lineage theories go. But each time I accommodate a PR piece into the magazines that I edit in the hope of turning them into an ad, and making my bosses happy in the next management meeting, my lineage hangs heavy.
It used to stare at me cold. But not any more. I have realised that most stories stop by the buck. You can take the horse to the water but you cannot make it drink. Brave and honest journalism still thrill the public and make the journalist a hero.

But that’s about it. It’s business, and profit-driven as any other business.

Any breaking story is a mere revelation of facts. And, facts are not the truth. We read that Pontius Pilot did not wait to hear what the truth was. If he had, would the human history be different? A good question.

But the early fire has not died out; its embers still turn in my belly. Having a journalist as wife keeps the bloodline alive and streaming.

So much for a glossary of personal facts.

What about Vakkom Moulavi in this bloggers’ and citizen journalists’ era?

…wait for more posts…

Chasing The Monsoon, Fleeing The Fever

We fled the state before the last frontier fell. All around us, people were falling like nine pins. Some couldn’t move their hip, some their joints, some had rashes as red as tomato on their face, some just dropped down in a sudden attack that sapped the last ounce of energy in their body.

The war isn’t bloody, but of blood. The enemy is small in size but, it needs your blood to survive, and it gets it anyhow.

Kerala, the lush-green south Indian state of high-profile tourist attraction, has been blessed by nature in many ways. There aren’t any of the climatic extremes that other Indian states come under. The people have high standards in literacy and political awareness, and the state supplies a major chunk of the Arabian Gulf’s expatriate workforce.

Every year monsoon rains mark the beginning of the academic year. Fresh minds go to schools under colourful umbrellas. The slanting raindrops drench their smiles and wet their uniforms. Those who work abroad come home in monsoon to experience the rains. Kerala celebrates the south-west monsoon, which begins at the southern-most tip and runs along the western coast high up the northern India.

But this monsoon, a virulent viral fever has swept across the central-south parts of the state, claiming nearly 200 lives so far and affecting hundreds of thousands of people. It was chikungunya to begin with, but now doctors say there are a few variants of the viral attack.

Our lack of knowledge of what’s happening back home didn’t discourage us from buying our flight tickets in peak holiday season. It was only after we got our tickets in our hands did we see the banner headlines in Malayalam newspapers about the fever that plagued the central part of the state where we would be staying at least half of our month-long holiday.
There were large illustrations of the villain on the front pages of all Malayalam newspapers: mosquitoes. They are spreading the virus across the state, sucking blood from thousands and helping the vengeful virus go bodies.

Friends had warned. “Be careful, especially with Jeena.” Jeena, my wife, is recovering from hemiphlegia, the remnant of the post-partum stroke she suffered two years ago.

Even when we landed at a waterlogged Trivandrum airport and drove home through the silver of lush rain, little worried were we about the virus. In fact, we were in the dark about its virility. Flying in from Dubai where it was sweltering summer, we marvelled at the rain, breathed in the smell of soggy soil and wet wind.

The newspapers continued to lead with the death toll in reverse despite the chief minister’s historic determination to demolish the hill-station resorts constructed on government land. Day after day, mosquitoes won the battle for media prominence over VS Achuthanthan’s attack on lobbies.

When the villagers first heard of chikungunya, they stopped eating chicken. Poultry farmers cried foul and declared that their breadwinners had nothing to do with the virus that crippled the state. Health Department cleared the air and saved the chicken from gourmet disgrace.

Chikungunya—transmitted by the Aedes Aegypti mosquito—was first detected in 1955 in Africa and last year caused the deaths of around 200 people on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion. Aedes Aegypti is distinguished by zebra-like white markings on its body
The name of the disease is derived from the Swahili word for “stooped walk," reflecting the physique of a person suffering from the disease whose symptoms include sudden fever, chills, headache, nausea, vomiting and joint pain.
Both poultry business and viral fever continued to flourish.
We travelled to Thumpamon, my wife’s house, in Pathanamthitta district—the epicentre of the viral outbreak and one of the worst-affected areas. With acres of rubber plantation, Pathanamthitta hosted thousands of mosquitoes in the coconut shells which are used to collect rubber sap.
All around our house, people fell sick by the day. Those who walked head high yesterday, stooped around in pain today. Medical shops had run out of medicines, and bakers rusks and buns—a usual diet of someone down with fever or flu.

My father-in-law played forehands and backhands with an electric, racquet-shaped mosquito killer. He went into each room and waved the racquet from corner to corner and from curtain to table cloth. He killed a quite a few every night and smiled triumphantly each time a mosquito was burnt to ashes.
But, one morning my wife’s mother couldn’t get up from her bed. In hours, she grew weak and pale. When I took her to a nearby hospital, the emergency unit had patients stacked like sardines. And more were coming in by the minute.
They sent mummy home after a few hours. Not that she was better but there were worse cases and there was a shortage of beds. The fever left after a few days but the pain remains, even after three weeks.
My wife and I said that there was only one way out: Believe that we were living in Goshen, the biblical place where the Jehova’s people lived when He brought plague of many kinds on the Egyptians. “Let’s believe we are in Goshen.”
We drove back to Varkala, my place, in Trivandrum district. The fever followed. In one of our neighbouring houses, six people were down. “This is my fifth trip to the hospital,” said my neighbour, who himself was in hospital for two weeks. His sister had “tomato fever”. She had red and round rashes on her face.
Everyone in the two houses opposite ours fell one by one. The fever left after a few days but the pain in the joints and hip remained. My schoolmate and neighbour who runs a busy poultry and goat farm was transfigured from a healthy, hard-working man to an apparition of his old self in a day. He wobbled into a taxi to a hospital. His staff fell one after the other. His business limped to a painful stop.
The doctor who lives a couple of houses away, who runs a clinic, stopped his car to greet me, and all he spoke was about the versions of the virus. “It is viral fever but the symptoms in two patients in one house are different.” He said vector control was of no use as the mosquitoes continued to lay eggs in the creaks and fissures on the bark of trees. “What will you do when they do it (laying eggs) high up in the trees? How far will you go fogging?” He said even the eggs were infected and the new-born mosquitoes carried the virus.
Dr CR Soman of Health Action for People said: ''You cannot have dramatic measures by which you can control the Aedes mosquito. The very breeding pattern of the Aedes mosquito is so congenial, especially in a rain-fed state like Kerala. One rain and for the next 10 days you have hundreds of small collections of water in which the Aedes mosquito can lay eggs and breed a new generation.''

The Opposition party did what all Opposition parties do—they conducted state-wide hartals to protest against the government’s “failure” to control the fever. They said the chief minister should try and get rid of the mosquitoes rather than the lobby that had built resorts on government land. The chief minister continued to prefer JCBs to electric-racquets.

We watched the viral fever playing the role of a great leveller as retired professors, vendors, daily-wage labourers, auto-rickshaw drivers, newspaper boys, housewives, husbands, servants, actors and actresses, teachers, engineers and doctors fell bitten by Aedes Aegypti mosquito.

We coined new phrases: “Once bitten, three weeks sick”. We recommended a correction: “beware of dogs” to “beware of mosquitoes”. And, we said Keralites now prefer dog bites to mosquito bites.

Reports say about 1,000,000 people were affected in four districts of the state, and blame the government for the epidemic.
Investigative newspaper Tehelka reported: “Is the much trumpeted Kerala health model deteriorating? Given the nature of epidemics wreaking havoc in the erstwhile Travancore-Kochi region, it seems so. This year itself, till July 16, as many as 193 persons died due to the outbreak of various kinds of viral fevers including Chikungunya in the state. Though the Union health ministry and a number of research agencies continue to swear that Chikungunya is not a deadly disease, doctors working in the affected areas have nothing else to blame for. With the surfacing of a few Dengue fever cases from the same region, there are enough indications that the state is sliding into a public health quagmire.
“As many as 8.75 lakh people suffered viral infections since May this year and about 8,011 among them are still undergoing treatment at different hospitals. So far, 157 cases of Chikungunya have been identified. A state which had been boasting of its high level of vaccination and its preparedness to fight any epidemic is rattled by these developments.”

We watched the fun, till it crossed our walls. First, the aunt who takes care of our cooking woke up one morning with pain in her ankle and in no time began to shiver. She came back from hospital old and blown.

We began packing.

On the eve of our early morning departure to a mosquito-free Dubai, my sister, who had been looking after our two babies, clutched around her hip and looked for a bed. She could barely get up to make some coffee for us before we left for the airport at 2 am. She was our last frontier.

We flew out of Kerala before sun-up. We went chasing the monsoon but fled the fever that has withered the leafy state.

The world has come to this “God’s Own Country”, hailed by some of the highly influential travel publications as one of the world’s 50 must-see destinations. Now let’s see how far the thin and designer-wear-clad Aedes Aegypti can keep the tourists away.

As we were driving home in an acrimonious Middle East summer, my sister phoned up to say she’s got tomatoes on her face.

My wife held my hand with her right hand, stretching over her recovering left hand, and said: “Goshen!”

Drugs, lies and tear-jerkers

A leading vernacular daily in the south Indian state of Kerala recently ran an eight-column story above the lead on national-medal-winning 400m runner Jasmin Joseph.

She is one of the eight athletes who have tested positive for banned substances during the recent 33rd National Games, according to Indian Olympic Committee, the report said.

The story did not portray Jasmin as a victim but rather presented to its readers the predicament of the national champion.

Jasmin had tested positive once earlier during an inter-varsity meet. Now that she is tested positive two times, she is not sure of the IOC verdict.

Jasmin, who lost her father two months ago, is the only hope of the poor family, said the story. What she calls home is a two-room mud house. She was hoping to join a college for her post-graduate course on the merit of her sporting achievements.

I spoke to the reporter since Jasmin was away in Delhi. A general reporter who doesn’t know much about doping in sports and its intricacies, all he spoke of was Jasmin’s plight.

Jasmin swears that she did not use any performance-enhancing substance, and the banned substance must have entered her body through a medicine which she took for cold (later she said it was chikungunya, a viral infection that was rampant in Kerala at that time). She may be right. But, as a national winner she must be aware of the dangers of taking “any medicine”.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) is firm in their stance. They send out regular list of banned substances and conduct awareness campaigns during major Games.

But one wonders how far does an athlete like Jasmin, who has pinned all her hopes on her athletic career, know about doping and its punishment.

When I interviewed David Howman, the second top official of Wada, a couple of years ago, he said the “caught” athletes are not victims of the system but cheats. He underlined Wada’s commitment to root out doping and that professional athletes must be responsible for “what’s on their body”.

We saw the classic case of Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif, who were banned before the World Cup for testing positive. They are prominent, world-class cricketers who must know about the dangers of reckless use of medicine.

In countries like India and Pakistan, and for that matter, those in the Middle East, awareness on doping must be widened. The athletes must know that they are playing with fire, and if they are taking any medicine they must make sure they do not contain any banned substance.

Local associations or national Olympic committee of each country must make sure that its athletes are aware of doping and Wada. Coaches must be educated on the possible ways through a banned substance can enter an athlete’s body.

Yes, Jasmin’s story maybe a tear-jerker but rules are not sticks to be broken. In an age of pod-casting and phone-casting, athletes from the Third World are still mostly in the dark about what’s happening around the world.

Cross-border bonhomie

There are many writers, critics and fans who argue that the concept of Afro-Asian series is a non-starter and a farce. And, it’d better if it is scraped. But there is a minority who breathes against cricketing parochialism.

In an age of jading globalisation, why wall off a game which has its roots in colonization?

The second edition of the Afro-Asia series, which was held recently in Bangalore and Chennai in India, suffered a slight pre-tournament ‘crisis’ as a television company had pulled out of its agreement to telecast the matches live. The channel found no reasons to spend big money when there were no superstars like Sachin Tendulkar in action. It may be a good business decision, but it also points to the clichéd fact that cricket has become nothing but mammon’s handiwork.

But before the axe fell on the series, spread in another TV channel ready to telecast the action. But the saviour channel couldn’t bring in enough advertisers in a short span of time.
However, the games were on; devoid of hoardings around the ground and the Asians wearing endorsement-free t-shirts. A welcome sight.

But that doesn’t mean that the cricket played in the three matches was sub-standard.

Having watched two sleep-inducive hundreds from two Indian stalwarts in Bangladesh—Sachin and Sourav—it was like vernal showers to watch Asia skipper Mahela Jayawardene carve out another couple of innings of artistry.

We saw him polish a gem in the World Cup semifinal against the Kiwis, and now against the Africans under South African Justin Kemp, he extended that touch as he smoothed his bat through the African attack. For a while, one forgot about the blood stain and fixing muck on the game, and watched the action with a toddler’s joy.

It doesn’t matter whether Mahela plays for Sri Lanka or Asia. When he is in that blessed mood, even the kiwis begin to fly.

In the same vein, why bother whether MS Dhoni is bludgeoning his bat for India or Asia? The Indian keeper is not the prettiest sight at the crease, but the young man has a wise head and paces his game as the situation demands. The way he played along with Mahela in the third match when the Asians had lost five wickets for 40-odd runs shows he is more than a bang-bang boy.

And, how he changed gears in the final overs! Not only did he outscore Mahela but he also stunned the Africans with his improvisation. If he looks stiff in defence, he looks snappy in attack.

The old hat, Shaun Pollock, showed glimpses of his batting talent with a hundred, Justin Kemp swatted away the Asians, AB de Villiers’ caught and stopped whatever came anywhere near him. Mohammed Yousuf stroked home the point there is absolutely nothing in a name—talent remains the same, be it Yousuf Yohanna or Mohammed Yousuf.

At the end of the series which the Asian took 3-0, the winner was cricket as both the teams braved the sweltering heat to hit up over 300 runs. It was some entertaining cricket for those who cared to tune in or turn up.

And, that’s what the real fans want. A good game of cricket, and no one will complain if the organisers or players make money. In fact, they must; only then will the fans get to see more of these beyond-the-border camaraderie and high-fives.

The questions that the Asian Cricket Council and African Cricket Association are asked—on the timing of the series and the choice of venues—hold water, though these may not strictly be within their control.

The ICC should make sure the series is scheduled more appropriately in their Future Tour Programme, and the hosting nation must take into consideration climatic conditions, especially since the players come in from different weather zones for a brief period.

If these are the ‘major’ criticism against such a series which sees Mahela and Dhoni punching their gloves after spanking an African attack or Tikolo and Ntini perform an African dance for sending Sachin off, let’s make some efforts to organise the tournament in a proper way so that it will gain the respect it deserves.

Let’s play Asia against Africa. Europe against Asia, and Oceana against America. Let’s play some good cricket devoid of jingoism. Let Mohammad Asif and S Sreesanth bang their hips and shout hurrah for seeing the back of a Steve Tikolo.