sabin iqbal

Yuvraj’s Insurance Ad Shows Marketing’s Ugly Face

2012-02-06T02:20:00.005+05:30

Timing is important both in cricket and life, and more so in advertising.

It is sad to hear that Yuvraj Singh has been diagnosed with stage one cancer, and he is undergoing chemotherapy at the Cancer Research Institute in Boston. But it is even sadder, if not shocking, to see a television commercial featuring him endorsing a life insurance product.

Any intelligent and smart marketing guy would push the ad now at any cost to drive home the point.

But it is nothing but insensitive, perhaps inhuman, to air the ad in which a fit and philosophical Yuvi talks about the unpredictabilities in life—that you don’t know when ‘life can bowl a googly at you’--while he is fighting cancer.

Those who watch the ad know for sure that they all need a life insurance cover because you hear from the horse’s mouth that a national hero who had played a significant role in winning the World Cup for India hardly a year ago is now fighting cancer.

The marketing brains of the national company have hit the nail exactly on its head by pushing the ad into the news bulletins today when all the channels had the Yuvi news item in the headlines and constantly scrolling across the screen.

Interestingly, the ad in which Yuvi endorsed an energy supplement has him replaced with Salman Khan—full of life and vigour. After a few minutes you see Yuvraj talking about the ebbs and flows of life.

One cannot but kick the walls of the bedroom in angst against the way consumerism has lost its sensitivity. Or, has consumerism ever had a heart?

Yuvi’s family, especially his parents, would not take it well to see their son, the personification of youthful vigour and zest not so long ago, now advising his fans across the nation to go for a life insurance cover.

It is not wrong, by no means. In fact, from a marketing point of view it can’t get closer to the bull’s eye to sell a product. The hero who endorses the product himself has been taken aback by the cruel surprise that life has thrown at him.

But the company would have done Yuvraj a great honour by not running the ad at a time when the precociously talented southpaw is undergoing chemotherapy. The tumour that he has been diagnosed with is reportedly not malignant and he might be back on the field carting those famous sixes. That’s another story, but to run the ad, using his unfortunate passage in life as a marketing tool is callous and pathetic.

It is not a brilliant ad campaign but a poor display of human values and ethics. Would a Yuvi smarting under the shocking events in his life approve of the ad running this time? He may not have a say since he has been paid to shoot it, but to run it on national channels talks volumes of our collective apathy and callousness. None of his parents has spoken to any media, and it is understandable, and that makes the timing of the ad even worse, and it leaves an ill-feeling towards the brand. It is just another example of the corporate world’s opportunistic character.

In other words, the marketing department of the insurance firm has done a rather foolish thing by airing the ad because it can be a boomerang and pull the brand value down.

Yuvraj’s last tweet, on Jan. 27, said he’s inspired by the legendary American cyclist Lance Armstrong’s story of surviving cancer and winning the Tour de France for a record seventh time.

The 30-year-old tweeted that he was reading autobiography “It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life”. “I’m sure it will motivate me and pull me throu(gh) this time! Livestrong Yuvstrong!" he tweeted. Another way of reading the tweet is to know how anxious Yuvraj is about the tumour and his comeback to active cricket.

The insurance company, which has many other business verticals, would have set an example of business with a human touch had it not run the commercial, at least on a day when the news about the player undergoing chemotherapy was flashed across the nation.

When the Social Media platforms are inundated with wishes and prayers for the player who is known for his fighting spirit, the business house that ran the commercial has in fact cut a sorry figure.

We live in a cut-throat world in which we come across nearly 5000 message a day, and to rise above all these to sell our brand we need to bury values and sensitivities. But then, for what?

Yuvi may come back and pick up the ball from anywhere outside the off-stump and send it into the sea of frenzied people at the midwicket, but to see him selling life insurance policy while he himself is fighting a tumour precariously tucked somewhere close to his heart is not palatable at all.

People Series--I

2012-01-26T08:46:00.002+05:30

It is people who make life interesting and exciting. They continue to intrigue and interest us

Being a proclaimed believer in God—an unalloyed creationist, much ridiculed by the intellectuals who brag they had an arboreal past, a cerebral present and an uncertain future—I am often thrilled at both the individuality and plurality of mankind.

No two men are the same. Never.

My father and his nine brothers were as different as chalk and cheese. My mother and her three sisters are as different as pudding and payasam.

My identical twin friends—who look mirror-images of each other—are different in their own ways. Their likes and dislikes are different.

So, men are different.

And, that keeps us going—watching them, observing them, being one of them.

I often feel at sea in a party, but I love being there. Not for the booze. Not for the noise. Not definitely for the glamour and pomp.

Parties give me an excellent opportunity to watch life. It is a perfect slice.

I curl up in one corner like a daft. No friends to review the good old days. No aunts and uncles to discuss future and no buddies to guffaw with.

I sit in a corner, and watch the fun—I mean the people. I realise how conscious that aunty is of her sari with shimmering works of pearls and of that lonely sleek white-gold chain with a dazzling yet simple diamond pendent that often plunges its head into her creamy cleavage.

I see how that girl preens, bearing the full lusty weight of a hundred eyes on her pretty face and shapely bosom. She knows, and she is thrilled inside—there is a festival of fireworks in her heart—but she won’t show it. She wears an expression of boredom, like the sage-like brunch-time ocean.

And, that boy, who has Salman Khan’s shoulders and John Abraham’s everything. He’s got a few buttons off to show the glimpse of his fatless, façade of a youthful chest.

And, that makes the uncle next to him desperately clutch at the double measure of Black Dog that thaws a hillock of ice cubes. Of late, uncle is not impressed by his own appearance. The hair falls thick and fast, denuding the scalp, helping spotlights reflect in no time. The belly is shamelessly out. He feels like strangling the young, smart guy who strides up to his wife and says, ‘Hi aunty, you look stunning!’

‘Bastard!’

Uncle goes for a bottoms-up, and asks the counter boy with spiked hair for another double shot.

I sit nonchalant, munching a chicken drumstick, listening to Avial belting out another of their Malayalam hits, watching the specimens of life parading before me.

But of all people, I dread the bores more than poisonous snakes or barking dogs.

These men are in many guises. They can be your mother’s beloved brother; your boss with a notion of changing the world; your neighbour; your grandfather’s childhood friend. The list goes on.

I often feel the only species that God regrets making are the bores who don’t get the umpteen hints you drop.

Once they begin, they won’t stop unless you fall dead, and that too only after they are sure that you have no sign of life left in you.

They are brilliant and have a very high IQ, but they won’t read your body language which clearly says you are bored to the core. They will not see you looking out through the window behind them at insignificant heads bobbing beyond the wall.

They think you are their ear-pierced bonded slaves who have no right to utter a word of protest as they go on haranguing—giving lectures on good governance to office ethics to punctuality to etiquettes to gardening to good old days of values and virtues to how bad you are in your life and how they can help you become effective and smart in life.

They are like these little snakes in video games, which gain in power and vigour after eating each fruit—they gain more strength by talking, and more talking.

Nothing is more discouraging and disturbing like a button-holing bore (it’s not my phrase, but I don’t remember whose it is). Button-holing bores are the worst. They are as close to you as the button-holes in your shirt. Nothing is closer to you than these people, but they bore you to death, leave you bleeding, and suck every ounce of joy in life. They leave you disillusioned, frustrated, angry and often sad.

Mussolini and Hitler pale in comparison. Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar put down their guns at their sight and run for cover, eschewing their bloody missions. Buddha might lose the proverbial composure.

Nothing can save you from these bores but God. You seek divine protection and grace to survive another session. And, you pray that they will understand the joys of brevity.

Oh, brevity, the soul of wit!

But there are also people who just don’t speak anything, no matter how many dragging hours you spend with them. They consider every word from their mouth precious stones.

You often feel like saying: “Oh, say something you dumb!” But they won’t budge or move their whistle.

Who says silence is golden? Having someone who bores you by talking nothing is only second to the button-holing bores in terms of lethality.

One of my colleagues with The Gulf Today in Sharjah used to tell me about his brother-in-law who spoke only a few words in a day. He used to keep money for his wife at a particular place in the cupboard. His wife would pick it up from there without asking anything.

Intrigued, I asked why he was so angry. “It’s not that he is angry with any of us, he is like that.”

I would have torn him up like a piece of paper if he was my brother-in-law as much as I would have run for my dear life at the sight of a button-holing bore.

As I walk out of the party late in the night, it is raining. And, I am sure someone must be observing me as a perfect example of men who come to parties, sit through like a mug and walk out like a fool!

(First published in yentha.com)

Seventeen Years Ago

2012-01-25T13:09:00.009+05:30

I wouldn't have written this piece if not for the 'Vakkom' Group in FB.

How do I remember my father who passed away on this day 17 years ago? A decade-and-a-half is a pretty long time to get out of any form of mourning.

True, I don't remember him every day. But it is also true that there is not a day that he doesn't beat within my bosom.

The evening when we buried him in a nondescript corner of the cemetery behind Kayalpuram mosque is still as fresh and vivid as yesterday afternoon. The indifferent cashew leaves, the thud-thuds of the gravedigger's pickaxe and hoe, the mound of wet dark brown soil by the grave, the prayers in the mosque, the way I mimicked others beside me for not being found an ill-fit, the silence and the warmth of sighs.

In fact, Umma, Bobby and I had not wanted him to struggle any more. Such was the pain he had been going through. Such was the agony.

I still remember the afternoon at the Leskshmi Vihar Hospital when he breathed his last. How we all gathered around him, eagerly waiting for the exhale each time he dragged breath into his cancer-eaten lungs. We got used to the slow pace of his breathing--in and out, in and out, in and out.

And, in...we all waited, and there was nothing! He died. Shajikka (Dr Shaji) checked his pulse and pronounced him dead.

Even after 17 fierce summers and squidgy winters, I still miss him. He hadn't left much for me in terms of material, but what had impressed in my heart as a growing boy, has shaped my set of believes and convictions.

Though he 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 introduced to me the world of literature and writing and to Bobby that of ghazals. Both of us have stuck to them till today.

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 Bobby and I heard during our prolonged dinner. And, when Abda mama was around the dinner conversation would prolong further and end up with a brief recollection of family history after a Gandhi-Jinnah rundown.

His innate inability to 'make money' unlike others in the Gulf was often looked down upon with smirks and disdain. He was a plain man who put his family and convictions above all. He could be wrong, but that was he.

He was very much fallible, and that was the best part I loved in him. I may not agree with all that he had done, but then I adored him with all his shortcomings. He should have allowed Umma to work. Well, that's another story.

One of the best things about him as a father was that neither Bobby nor I had to lie to cover up our mistakes. We could boldly say whatever we did or felt like. We used to criticise him, fiercely. He encouraged us to express our thoughts.

His passion for Scrabble had made the game our 'family game'. Hardly a night would pass without we all four playing a round of Scrabble, and he was ruthless in beating us!

Zaheer was special to him, and he often missed him. Sometimes when the pain was intolerable, he would want to meet Zaheer.

Another person who was close to him was Nabeed. In the later days of life, Nabeed was his shadow. He used to blast him, apparently for no reason.

I have many times in the last 17 years wished if he were alive, especially when I was going through some of the worst phases in my life, and drawing flak from everyone. I knew if there was one person who could understand my compulsions and convictions it would be him. He may not agree with me,but I am sure, he'd respect my decision, still love me for who I am.

Memories are the cruellest friends--we need them, but they leave us hurt and sad. I miss him, badly, and Keziah, my daughter, often says that she wants to meet 'Iqbaluppuppa'. I'm sure he'd have been a wonderful grandfather to Keziah, Sean, Ansil and Saahil! Such was his heart!

2011-06-09T15:33:00.001+05:30

History, And Its Weird Habits

2011-04-04T19:21:00.002+05:30

They have lived up to the hype. The blue has bled all over the country.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni could not have picked another day to play the innings he played in the final against the Sri Lankans.

His last six tore up the skies, and brought the heavens down.

India exploded in joy. The Indians are the world champions, for the second time.

Nearly three decades have gone by and much water has flown under the London Bridge since Kapil Dev held aloft the Prudential Cup in a golden sunlit Lord’s balcony.

Over a billion Indians heaved a collective sigh of relief as MS Dhoni led from the front to beat a fighting Sri Lanka to win the World Cup at a jam-packed Wankhede Stadium adorned with stars and celebrities.

The Indians were not only chasing a steep target of 274 but history set by Kapil Dev’s team in 1983. They had come tantalizingly close in 2003 but the Australians outclassed them on a cruel March evening.

Then, the debacle in the Caribbeans four years later.

Somehow, this team under the commandments of a cool Dhoni and coach Gary Kirsten had been thrust upon with the mantle of winning the World Cup, which would in all probability be the last edition for Sachin Tendulkar.

Indian hopes did sink when the Sri Lankans cut loose in the batting power play in the last five overs of the innings—scoring over 60 runs—riding on the crest of Mahela’s magical innings. Chasing 274 against quality bowlers like Malinga and Murali in a World Cup final under lights is like climbing a mountain on one leg.
Mahela’s century knocked on the doors of history as all the centurions in World Cup finals have ended up on winning sides. Such was the wizardry and touch of the man that Nasser Hussain was right when he said Mahela didn’t play a shot in anger. There was only one person in the entire Wakhede Stadium who couldn’t watch his class act live, and that was his wife, who was too tensed to watch her husband play. She hid her eyes behind a sheet of paper and prayed for him.

It is a pity that it didn’t turn out to be a match-winning innings, nor was he adjudged the man of the match. But, then Dhoni could not keep his credibility at stake any longer, and had decided to play out of his skin.

With the ‘M Factor’ in play, 274 could have tricked the Indians into old habits.
The Indians have famously choked before—and their World Cup record against the Sri Lankans was nothing great to write home about. But, the team that has sent the Australians and Pakistanis packing is made of sterner stuff.

Malinga took a leaf out of Riaz’s book to trap Sehwag in front of the wicket. And, Sachin, who was in much sweeter touch than in his infamously scrappy knock against Pakistan, promised much before he nibbled at a slightly swinging delivery from his Mumbai Indians team-mate Malinga.

With its two match-winners back in the hut for 30-odd runs, India could have gone back to its old habit of folding like a pack of cards, which we all are familiar with. The Indians have on many occasions burnt huge holes in our swelling hearts.
But the times have changed.

Credit must be given to the two young men—Gambhir and Kohli—for shutting the Sri Lankans out of the game. One more early wicket, and the Sri Lankans would have been all over the Indians.

As the two went about their business of rebuilding and consolidating the innings with sensible cricket, the Sri Lankan body language went through a transformation. The spring in their stride disappeared, their shoulders drooped, heads hung. Their ground fielding began to lose the sharpness. The fielders fumbled and bowlers became pedestrian.

Interestingly, Murali, playing his last international game, was like a magician who had forgotten his trick. There was no hiss or bite from him, and Dhoni hardly let go an opportunity to pounce on him and cut or whack him for fours.
History has its own weird ways of making itself strange. Neither Sachin nor Murali could leave a mark in the match. They might never again play each other in an international match. Murali should have given a better farewell during the presentation ceremony.

What if Sachin scored the century of century in last night’s match? What if Murali spun the Indians into knots and won the Cup?

Somehow, history doesn’t want to be known too indifferent to the aspirations of the Little Master. Almost all the great players are part of a World Cup-winning. History couldn't deny Sachin this. If this Cup had slipped from his lips, he could have never kissed it.

The Indians have now joined the West Indians and the Australians by winning the World Cup more than once.

The Caribbeans won the Prudential Cup in 1975 and 1979 and were on the verge of taking it home for the third time when the Indians came from nowhere to humble them and create history and make the game a passion across the subcontinent.

The West Indians had ruled world cricket in true Calypso style, and the slide began once a number of champion players retired. The fast bowlers vanished, so did batsmen of stuff. The once breeding ground of champion bowlers and batsmen, the Red Stripes league failed to produce any real winners.

Towards the end of the 80s, the tears of Kim Hughes had dried away, and a staunch-looking Allan Border had taken a young Australian team under his wings and begun to turn it around.

The skipper’s slow turners created a momentary madness in Mike Gatting in the Reliance Cup final, and the English skipper’s top-edged reverse sweep set the rot in. Since winning that World Cup, the Aussies had been the undisputed champions till the fag end of last decade.

They won it three more times, two times denying Asian teams—the Indians in 2003 and Sri Lankans in 2007. Before that they had squashed the dreams of the South Africans—the perennial bride’s maid.

But, now it is all about Team India.

The win will bring about a second wave of cricket passion across the country. The game will once again be played in the dingy lanes and dried up paddy fields.

The win will also bring about new line of businesses, and the cricketers will become millionaires, and be envied by all. Hockey lovers will crib, footballers will kick in angst, boxers and wrestlers will flex their muscles, but the fact is that in India cricket is a national passion.

Dhoni and his boys have proved that it is all about ‘team’ India. We can’t single out a player as the architect of the Indian World Cup victory. Everyone in the team has chipped in one way or the other.

And, it was good that the Indians were made to sweat early in the tournament—it helped everyone get a hang of what’s it being out there in the middle and under pressure.

We know one thing. Team India created history last Saturday night. Only time will tell its implications.

My mother with rheumatic knees cooked chicken to celebrate. My five-year-old nephew cheered Dhoni till the winning runs.

The game runs in households across the country—in mansions and in the zero-watt houses and huts. Dhoni, Sachin and boys are the heroes who have proved that ‘impossible is nothing’.

For the time being, they will forget their pains and hardships. They will keep aside the many rejections and dejections. They will bury the hatchet with neighbours, and forget about party politics and forgive communal atrocities.

They will just ignore WikiLeaks, and the Maoists. The will look beyond the 2G scam and the creepy middlemen.

They will do just one thing: celebrate. For, India has won the World Cup.

Dhoni has walked up to Mr Kapil Dev, and sat next to the man on a summit built on the dreams of a billion people.

In Tana

2010-04-20T09:51:00.002+05:30

It’s cold this night in Tana,
the city of thousand homes.
Drums and guitars of a strange song
emanate from the quiet, wooden bar.
The air bites into the skin,
I order a white wine, and
grilled fish with white rice.

I know you are across the ocean,
a hop across, if I could.
You are sleeping, I know,
to get relief from headache and cold.

I wish you were with me tonight;
We could snuggle under the blanket,
feel the heat of our naked bodies,
rubbing each other,
kissing the tender spots,
feeling the tips of our fingers,
looking into each other’s eyes,
let’s make love, darling.

Here in Anantananarivo, city of thousand homes;
let’s lie close to one another for hours,
exploring the map of each other’s body
discovering secrets,
waking up hidden passions,
curling into each other’s arms,
feeling the heat and
the gentle waft of our breaths,
let’s lie awake into the night, late and lazy,
watching the diamond stars in a clear sky
through the window by the bed.
Let’s lie there like that,
consummating,
fulfilling, and
redefining
our ancient love.

From Tana To Tharoor

2010-04-20T07:08:00.004+05:30

I just came back from a week-long trip to Madagascar. Surprisingly, though most of my friends and colleagues have heard about the place, mainly thanks to the Spielberg's movie of the same name, few could place the country geographically.

A friend of mine, a CEO of a Technopark company, called me back and asked: “Hi Sabin, I'm a bit confused. Is it a South American country or a Southern African country?”

Before I give you some highlights about the trip, let me place the country. Madagascar is part of Africa but not on the main land. It is the world's fourth largest island near Mauritius in the Indian Ocean.

I flew out from Mumbai to Nairobi from where I flew down south to the capital city of Madagascar, Anantananarivo, or Tana. In my last column for Yentha I'd written about 'identity crisis' and a couple of my experiences at airports.

The immigration officer at the Mumbai international airport took a good look at my passport, and pronounced “Sabeen Mohammed Iqbal” with a stress on the middle name. He took a few minutes more, checking if the photograph was doctored. And, he just flicked the passport towards me in a way that could be interpreted as 'throwing'. I picked up the passport, feeling insulted. When we travel overseas this little blue book is our identity and our cultural anchor. Any dig at it is a stab at our whole identity. My friend and colleague felt more insulted than me. Prodded by him, I went back to the officer and told him that I could take this attitude in a foreign country. But sir, I said, I am an Indian citizen and if you don't respect an Indian passport, who would? He gazed at me for some time, and said he didn't mean it that way. I walked off after giving him my business card. As I was turning towards the security check area, I looked back and saw him still looking at my card.

Tana was a surprise package. I felt as if I was in a quaint little French town inhabited by Asians. Madagascar bears a French look, thanks to its French reign, and the people are mostly inter-racial and are descendants of Indonesians.

Though it is rich in untapped natural resources, the country is still poor, and receives a UN fund. It is kind of a free country with over 50 per cent of population under 20 years of age. So if you walk around the Tana town, you'd see mainly youth hanging out and fiddling with their many mobile phones. Their baby-faced president, Andrey Rejoelina, is younger than me, which means he is bubbling under the 40-mark.

Once again I took a firm decision to learn French, lest I miss out many opportunities for some interesting conversations. Tana was the fifth French-speaking city I'd been to and left wondering why I never paid a visit to the Alliance Francaise back in our city.

Never too late, I'm pretty bent on turning a Francophile.

Being in a French world means you forget about cricket. With the IPL nearing knockout stage, I had to be online to keep myself updated about cricket and non-cricket hot news emerging out of India.

Hmm, some hot news we have been having these days. The biggest wicket of this IPL is that of Mr Tharoor. And, the bowler is Modi.

It is a heady and ugly mix of politics and business, cricket being just a vehicle for their Machiavellian ways. It is good for media, and reporters chomping at the bit to take a peek at the underbelly of the business of cricket.

But then I have decided to get away from all these. Over the years, many idols have fallen. It is the tragedy of the common fan. The heroes keep falling from the pedestal. But it is, I reckon, human nature that we keep replacing them. It seems we need some figure to hero-worship.

On the way back, while checking in at the Tana airport, I overheard a security staff asking my friend for 'some gift', and I saw him tucking a 10,000 ariyari (local currency) note into his jacket which was being scanned. I moved on. I turned back only when a hand fell on my shoulders. It was security staff. He was all seriousness as he went ahead frisking me. He then asked me to follow him. He took me to a small curtained enclosure. He began checking me, and then in a minute, asked me, in a tone of request: “Please give me some gift.” I looked at him. He was sheepish, and I couldn't help smiling at him. “What do you want?” I asked. “Some gift.” I walked out giving him a crisp 10,000 ariyari note. He walked beside me, laughing and putting his hand on my shoulder. “Welcome back to Tana, my friend,” he said as he let me walk away.

Sure, I will come back to Tana, the city of thousand homes. I said in my mind. Though it was bribery or daylight robbery, I liked the way he did it. And I was smiling as I walked into the duty free shops.

I landed in Mumbai, into the quagmire of IPL, and raids at Modi's office and detailed reports about his high-profile staff. And, then came the Tharoor exit. No wonder he never replied to my mails asking for details of the Kochi team's owners. When I sent the mails three weeks ago, I didn't know I was trying to touch the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

(Read yentha.com)

Out In Tana City

2010-04-15T10:30:00.008+05:30

I explored some parts of the city last evening. It was not surprising to see a large number of youth out on the streets, walking, hanging out, jamming and laughing since over 50 per cent of the population here in Madagascar is below 20.

It makes one feel young--if one is feeling a bit jaded or worried over the occasional niggling pain in the knee.

I had gone out with my friend, Sheetal Nahar, a steel consultant from Mumbai. Though Sheetal has been to Africa on business many times over the years, this is his first trip to Madagascar, and he too, like me, has been in for a surprise by the country.

While my two of my other companions in this trip decided to cool their heels in the balcony of the French guest house we stay at, Sheetal and I decided to 'explore' the city.

Taking a cue from someone from the African mainland, we 'explored' only the non-living things! The place, let me admit, is good for 'exploration and mining!' Pun intended.

We had visited an Australian mining company a day before.

The city centre was bustling, with some weird energy. The evening sunlight was glittering golden on everything.

I wanted to try some sausages being fried by the wayside. Since Sheetal, a Jain and a strict vegetarian, was with me I kept myself away from the mouth-watering beef. But Sheetal said he had no qualms and I could go ahead with it. But then, somehow, I wanted to respect his cultural sensitivities by not eating something so crude.

The weather is good for walking as the temps are hovering around early 20s and there is a cool breeze wafting across. You don't feel tired till you lie down in your bed. Once you stretch your limbs in the bed, you won't realize dozing off. I did yesterday, and missed a few important calls.

I woke up only when Denise, my friend and colleague, thudded on the wooded door. Dinner was a grilled chunk of some fleshy fish. I didn't know its name, but taste was as good as any.

We couldn't escape the French feel however we tried--by playing old Hindi love songs and talking in Malayalam.

I am in a dilemma now. I had decided to go for a basic German course at the Goethe Zentrum when I am back in Trivandrum, but now am confused whether to do German or French.

Oui...

By the Breakfast Table

2010-04-14T10:30:00.005+05:30

I am sitting in my usual corner of the restaurant of Les 3 Metis, which is more of a French guest house than a hotel.

I feel homely sitting here, cutting my omelette, crunchy yet inspiriting, into tiny pieces and sipping hot chocolate.

It's warm inside, while it's a bit chilly outside even at 8.30.

We have no official programme, as of now, for today. And,I am planning for a walk in the city to get a feel of the people. Need to take some pictures of the people, places and shops.

But the uphill roads road a challenge to my stamina and fitness. But I have eaten some chunks of beef in the past two days, I need to walk, at least make myself happy.

It is a pity that tourism is not promoted in this country. And, during a dinner I asked the director of cabinet why it was so. He looked at me for a few moments, broke out into a smile and shook his head. He said: "I'm I have to give you a silly answer...we've never thought about it!"

"Or, we have never met someone to do it," he added, sipping his coffee. I told him you'd perhaps never come across a better person than the one sitting across him!

My cheeks!

In a cute little pink glass vase on my table, there are five yellow flowers. I don't know their name, but they make me happy, and miss my love.

I am through with my breakfast, and now I have go up and pack my bag for the walk into the city.

2010-04-13T10:49:00.004+05:30

Yesterday was a hectic day of visits to some high-end residential areas and meetings with government officials. Came back to hotel late after dinner of medium-done beef steak and red wine. Woke up late, and now have to run as we have a meeting with the energy minister and tourism minister.

Will post more soon.

Lonely In Madagascar

2010-04-12T09:26:00.007+05:30

Madagascar has been a revelation for me since we landed at Saturday noon. Maybe it’s because of my geographical or political ignorance that I was not aware of the ‘character’ of Madagascar.
It is a far cry from any African country in the continent. But if you ask me which I other African country I have visited, the answer will be in the negative. But being in mainstream media for some years, and that too having handled ‘Africa Pages’ for a newspaper for some time, I have a fair idea of the political and geographical features of many of the African countries.
But Madagascar is a surprise package. It starts with the climate. Now it is summer, and the temps yesterday were in early 20s, and in the night it was quite nippy. In winter, the day could be as low as 15 degrees and nights could be down to six or five!
I nearly froze in the bathroom yesterday. After a long day of walking--I walked six kilometres!--and crisscrossing the city and going up the highest spot in the city—it was a sight to behold—I came back to the room by 6pm tired. We agreed to meet at the restaurant at 7pm for dinner and a review of the day, and to plan today. All I remembered was sitting in the bed. I woke when my phone was ringing nonstop. It was quarter past eight. I ran into the shower and let the water fall on me.
I didn’t know what hit me. The water was ice cold and I thought even my heart was frozen. I had to limp out of the shower area after my quickest bath—I cannot call it bath; I just crawled out the reach of the needling water.
The hotel we are staying—Les 3 Metis—is a quiet, homely French structure with wooden flooring and wicker chairs and table in the expansive balcony. What I like the most about the hotel is the expansive bathroom. With distinct dry and wet areas, it is nearly as big as the bedroom itself. Sitting in the closet, I can see sun rising over the red roof tiles, clouds with crimson tint floating around. In the night, I sit there watching the stars.
The place turns one romantic, and being one, I keep missing my love. I wish if she was with me: to walk around these streets, around the lake and under the trees in the city centre, to perch on a stone bench by the narrow cobbled road that winds its way up to Top Ville—the highest point in the city—and to stand just behind her as we watch the stunning bird’s eye view of Anantananarivo, the capital city, which in Madagasi means “the city of thousand homes”.
For lunch and dinner, we go to Indian Palace down the street, run by Abdul, an enterprising guy from Hyderabad. Abdul was a Hindu when he came to Madagascar 10 years ago as a cook. According to our friend here, he became a Muslim to run a Hyderabadi/Indian restaurant. He married a Madagascar girl, who is a Christian, and they have a child, who is being brought up as a Hindu!
I had to shake my head to get the story right. Anyway, Abdul is a smart fellow. Always talking—in Hindi, Telugu, English, Madagasi and French—he is a one-stop helpline for all Indians here.
Last night, we decided to have dinner from Les 3 Metis itself. I had some rice and deep-fried slices of duck with some red wine. It was cool. After dinner we sat around the tables in the porch and watched the starry sky. I was hoping to get a call as I was beginning to get frustrated being ‘lonely’ in the middle of chats and business plans. One call, Lord, but it never came, and by midnight I walked up the wooden stairs, and hit the sack and slept off immediately.
Today we are planning to meet government officials and a couple of ministers. And, tomorrow will leave for Tamatau, about 350kms away from the city to visit a couple of properties, for two days.
I wish the telephone calls were cheaper! Or let the calls and messages come in…lest I will turn lonely and frustrated.

In Madagascar

2010-04-11T01:07:00.004+05:30

I have always wanted to be in Africa. The continent has fascinated me with its colours and noises. There were some opportunities in the past but I somehow couldn't make it. But today I am in Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar.

A brief stopover at the Jomo Kenyatta airport in Nairobi gave a taste of real Africa: big bosoms, boisterous laughter, weird combination of dress and the unmistakable vastness. But a three-hour flight down south, it's a different take.

Madagascar is not Africa in its salient features. It's quite different--from people to architecture to streets to climate. It gives one the impression of being in quaint little French small town.

We--my two friends/colleagues and I--were received at the airport by Mr German, who works for the telecom ministry. And, we were taken to our typically French hotel by Mr Saravanan, advisor to the President.

After a short break, we headed to an Indian restaurant for lunch. More about Abdullah, the owner of the restaurant, will be posted later.

Denise, my friend, and I had dum biriyani while Sheetal, our friend from Mumbai who is particular about his Jain food habits, chose chapattis with paneer.

After lunch, we bought mobile SIM cards and went to our rooms for a nap.

At five, we met down for tea and some discussion on the projects we are involved here. At 7.30, went for dinner, again, at Abdullah's place.

Tomorrow, that's later today as it's well past midnight now, we are planning to visit a hotel that's up for sale.

2010-04-05T21:29:00.003+05:30

EYE. PEE. YELL: IDENTITY CRISIS
By Sabin Iqbal
On Apr 05, 2010

Sometime in our life, we go through phases where our identity is challenged or faces a crisis. The 9/11 attacks have split the world in an unprecedented manner, and we keep running into situations where our cultural and personal identities are under scrutiny, especially if we live in a foreign country with multiracial, multicultural neighbours.

Our identity can be one of default (by birth) or by preference. Both could come under a cloud.

Come April 22, Belgium could be the first European country to make wearing burka (veil) in public places illegal.

It has opened a can of worms.

I don’t personally subscribe to the belief that all Muslim women should wear a veil. My mother doesn’t; neither does my sister. But if someone wants to wear it, it is up to them as long as it doesn’t put others’ life in danger or infringe on others’ freedom.

The Belgian committee has made the step citing national security, which I believe is valid since we increasingly read about burka-clad women exploding as suicide bombers. The recent suicide bombs in Chechnya are an example.

In France also there are attempts to ban burka in public, despite growing opposition.

A few people have voiced their concerns against the Belgian move, saying it is against personal freedom.

Talking of personal freedom, I have a few things to share. I have lived nearly 15 years in the Middle East. The expatriate populations in these countries are treated second-class citizens who don’t even think of personal freedoms or civil rights.

In one of these countries, every woman, irrespective of her faith or preference, has to wear a hijab. You and I know that there are thousands of women who don’t like it but have no choice if they want to live there. We have heard innumerable stories of the religious police and their crude ways.

What about personal freedom?

Go to any of these countries during Ramadan and eat something in public during the day. You will be picked up by police for flouting the rule that during Ramadan you are not allowed to eat anything in public whether you fast or not, whether you share the faith or not.

Where is the so-called personal freedom here?

For some time, Sharjah had introduced a ‘decency law’ by which anyone not ‘properly dressed’ could be arrested. Women wearing even saris were frowned upon! Men who wore shorts were under threat of being coated with black paint!

Where is this personal freedom?

I remember reading a small bit of news some years ago from one of the States in the US about a woman’s litigation against the authorities who had asked her to remove her burka while taking a photograph for identity card. How could she file litigation against the rule that photographs on identity cards must have facial details for security and identification purposes?

It is surprising that a country like Belgium, with its stark linguistic division between the Flemish-speaking Flanders and the French-speaking Wallonia, has unanimously backed the proposed ban on burka. It means there is a general feeling against the women wearing burka. The argument defending the Bill as it is to ‘liberate women’ is absurd as no one has given Brussels any responsibility to take up a moral cause. It is still a personal choice, but if wearing burka helps the militants in any way, it should be checked.

I spent the summer of 2001 in Belgium, and stayed at a Belgian friend’s apartment. One of their concerns that I found out from Mamma, my friend’s old mom, was the increasing population of North African immigrants. Once a few of them—from Algeria, Morocco or Tunisia—moved to an apartment, the Belgians would ease themselves out of the building. It was not about discrimination, but it was against a cultural invasion as the immigrants, from a different culture, played their music loud, laughed and shouted, giving scant respect to the Belgians, who in turn became uneasy of the newcomers.

My friend’s sister showed me a political refugee walking along the street, and told me that her child was studying in a better school than her own children’s school. I got strong vibes of resentment from the pleasant, friendly woman whose husband was a Lebanese.

Sometime in our life, we tend to ask in retrospection: “Who am I? And what am I doing here?”

My own little, insignificant identity was under some duress when I decided to marry a Christian girl 10 years ago. Everyone expected her to change her name, at least as a formality and to please some egos. But I was against it. There were some weak protests and attempts from the religious sect to put my mother under stress by saying that she wouldn’t be buried in the cemetery next to the family mosque. I had to put my foot down and say that I was an Indian citizen, and a journalist, and I had the right to marry anyone, and that if anyone threatened my mother because of it, I’d approach the court.

That settled it.

When I was working with a newspaper in Sharjah, one of my Muslim colleagues asked me why I was wearing a gold ring as it was against my default identity. I pointed to his expensive, golden wristwatch and asked for an explanation. That settled it, but he hardly spoke to me after that.

Sania Mirza and Shoaib Malik are in a pre-honeymoon soup. I believe no one has any right to dictate to Sania whom she should marry or not marry. She can very well marry a Pakistani since it is her life and she will not become an enemy to India by marrying a Pakistani. I have interviewed Sania when she came to Dubai as part of her endorsement with a jewellery brand, and she came across as an intelligent girl with quick, bold answers and opinions, though I don’t read much into the quality of her tennis. There are scores of Russian and Central and Eastern European teenagers who play much better tennis. But they are not Indians and not pretty, and they don’t have a media starving for comely heroines.

It’s not only people who are in identity crisis. Cricket too is undergoing a painful, stressful identity crisis since the invasion by the IPL.

Is the IPL cricket after all? Or, is it just tamasha cricket? Is cricket Modi’s toy or Boycott’s religion?

I don’t know.

But I admire the Pathans and the Tiwaris. And, the way Collingwood and Taylor swung the bat across last night and powered the ball into the second tier of the stands. It takes some talent whether in the IPL or in Tests.

At the same time I admire Dravid’s Wall and Boycott’s brick. I mean, BRICK. (Do you know that the Arabs pronouce P as B?)

Identity crisis. What else?

sabin
Sabin Iqbal
Editor, Yentha.com

No More A Goodie Guy

2010-03-29T09:25:00.003+05:30

I am a heap of shortcomings, complexes and prejudices.

Been trying hard to come clean of some of them. Been a moderate success. But still there are a few, like the dreg at the bottom of a long glass.
All my life, I’ve tried to be goodie-goodie.

It’s bequeathed, I suppose, along with the lines and rows of books I grew up with.
Humility was driven hard into my sister and me by our parents right in the tender ages.

‘Be obedient and humble.’ That’s rule number one.

All our life, we have tried to live by it.

But I have run the risk of being misunderstood as weak for my meekness.
Many a time I wanted to shout out, ‘Hey, I’m not that weak, but just being meek by choice.’

But I wouldn’t do it for the fear of hurting someone.

You know, it doesn’t help. I’ve realised it after four decades of existence. You’ll just be a choco boy even in your middle age.

Life has taught me many lessons: of pain, loss, tears, joy, hardship, loneliness, rejection, failure.

I have dumped some, without actually meaning it, and without knowing even a trace of the pain it caused. I still regret it.

People have rejected me. In workplace and in personal life. I have wept alone, and wiped off the tears and smiled again.

Life…it goes on.

Okay, about my complexes. I hate it when policemen stop me, hiding at a bend, and pull me up like a criminal for not using seatbelt. The look on the constable—a triumphant smirk as if he’s picked up Sukumara Kurup (do you know who he is?)—detonates something within me.

All my efforts to be humble come a cropper at that moment.

The way he commands me to get out of the car is the trigger point. I inform him, in politeness-wrapped arrogance, that I’m at fault and would pay the fine, but officer, you must behave.

The look on the constable’s face would only aggravate the itch in my ego. I would go to the Sub-Inspector, who’d be resting his potbelly on the bulge of his jeep’s bonnet. He’d just lift his brows to look at me with disdain. I’d make sure that he sees me noticing his nameplate. I’d never call him ‘saare. I’d address him only ‘officer’. I’d say, before he could ruffle my egoistic feathers, that I’m at fault and would pay the fine, but he must behave.

Uniforms give people a notion of superiority. Even to the gatekeepers at railway crossings.

A few years ago while at the immigration of the Charles De Gaul airport in Paris a similar righteous indignation came to a boil. It was just after the 9/11, and my passport has ‘Mohammed’ as my middle name. For the young immigration officer it was a dreaded word in the wake of the Twin Tower attacks. He kept looking at my photo, scraped it with his thumb, looked back at my face, then back on the photo in the passport, then back at me, then back…doesn’t this guy look like an Egyptian?
I’m not a terrorist, Mr Officer, I said. I’m here on holidays. I have a decent newspaper job back in Dubai. But he took the passport to his superior, and this guy, a tough-looking middle-aged man, came up to me, sized me up and asked if I truly was a journalist. I nodded, and told him that every Mohammed is not a terrorist. And, told him that I’m a fiercely patriotic Indian.
I was fuming with righteous indignation.

Having said that, I need to add this bit too. Once, a friend of mine and I were at the Montreal airport on our trip to meet the World Anti-Doping Agency officials. I had my fears of being frisked in public, and had put on my best-looking brief. But this officer took a good look at my passport, me, smiled, thundered down a stamp on my passport and returned it. All within five minutes.

Next was my friend, a Christian. He had this air of confidence about him since only those having Muslim names would be embarrassed, and that too in the American continent. He flicked across his passport, and stood there smiling with a don’t-you-know-I-am-Christian look on him. Man, he didn’t know what he was in for. The officer, I still don’t know why, dismantled him and assembled again—a neat overhaul. He hair-split each page of his passport and surveyed his photograph under microscope. By this time, my angelic, holy friend had become demonic and in the verge of tears!

Uniforms rub me on the wrong, I reckon.

Now back to what I was saying. To friends and relatives, I am so sweet. But to be frank, I am deceptive. How I want to tell them what I feel like? To be honest. To call a spade a spade, and have a conscience as clean as a whistle.

But I gulp down words, and bottle up my true feelings. I know, even though ‘no’ is a difficult answer, most of the time it would be the right one. I must learn to say ‘no’. But it is tough, mate.

Someone very dear to my heart is quite the opposite. She would speak out her mind. And, that’s it. No more grudge or gnashing of teeth or kicking the walls. She said she’s learnt it over the years. And, finds people love her for that.

But I, on the other hand, smile and swallow what I feel and say something sweet.
And, I groan in angst and anguish. I crib. I murmur. I water and nurture a poison tree in my heart. I watch it grow tall and its roots go deep.

I’ve realised that I am deceptive—to my friends and dear ones.

The other day I sat down and thought to find out why I do this. There are two reasons. One, of hurting the other person and subsequently losing him or her. Two, of painting myself in a bad picture.

Both are just fears. Lies that keep me submissive and timid.
But I have taken a couple of decades to realise that those who love me will still love me for being what I am.

We keep growing up, don’t we?

(Published in Yentha.com)

Of Heatstrokes, Watermelons And Summer Rains

2010-03-29T09:19:00.001+05:30

Vernal rains…and they couldn’t come any better than last night’s. A few droplets in the evening didn’t promise the harvest to come. But it was such a relief.

But when the slanting sheets of thick, lusty drops began to come down, from the bulge of blue-dark clouds pregnant with the promise of cooling down the heat of our many frustrations, one thanked the heavens.

It was such brooding, sweltering months. One has lived in countries where mercury rose higher, but the past few months have been intolerable in Kerala.

We’ve experienced sunstroke and heatstroke.

We’ve experienced fatigue and dizziness. We’ve sweated from all pores.

We’ve fought in our offices; we picked up fights with spouses; honked the horn, irritated; beaten up kids for apparently no reason.

We’e queued up to buy watermelons from Tamil Nadu. Kerala’s climate and soil are too luxurious for the watermelons to grow. One has checked it out with a Tamil fruit vendor on the street.

Yeah, we indulge in the coziness of nature. Watermelons are grown in lands where sun is acrimonious, as a divine intervention.

Watermelons, not coconuts, should be Kerala’s official fruit. Green outside and red inside.

Cool to the eyes, but ruddy red of politics inside.
But why do we need these bloody watermelons? Kerala is His Own Country. Blessed, indulged.

He has blanketed this strip of land with lush green, tucked it between a stretch of ocean and rolling hills.

We are known worldwide for our smartness, intelligence, hard work. We can outdo an American in his Yanki-ness, a Brit in his English-ness, an African in his African-ness, an Arab in his Arab-ness.

We are a smart bunch of people. Proud, prudent and political.

Political…well, we are masters. We have doctrines. We have ideologies. We look at people down our nose. We shout slogans to the heavens. Democracy runs thick in our blood. Protests and hartals are entwined in our DNA.

We are ferociously conscious of our political, human and civil rights, but only till we cross our borders.

In a foreign land, we are more loyal to the rules of the land than the natives. We are an obedient people. Timid and goodie-goodie.

We send Cuba Mukundas abroad to make him break a sweat. Back in our land, he is a leader who shouldn’t work, but lead his followers in strikes and hartals, like the piper of Hamelin.

But God is merciful. He sent down rains last night to cool us off.

March, April and May are hot. But, last night’s summer rains were special.

One saw a young man, dressed well, leaning on the gates of a pub in the city, late in the night, and he was soaking in rain—drenched to his bones. One kept looking at him. He was drunk, but he was enjoying the thick rain, turning and throwing his head and hands in the air. He was talking to the rains. He was happy. Rainwater splashed on his face and ran down. He opened his mouth and swallowed a gulp or two. Lightning shone on his temples. Thunder echoed in his ears.

He walked into the night, tottering away, throwing his hands in the air. Enjoying the summer rains.

No, no slogans. He hummed a tune, unknown to this observer.

Summer rains!

Seeing Saffron, Seeing Red

2010-03-22T09:22:00.003+05:30

One wonders if Mr Amitabh Bachchan had any idea of the twists in this script. But one is sure that the legend didn’t have any axe to grind when he expressed his willingness to be the face of Kerala Tourism.

And, the government had responded to the star’s wish, and written to him that discussions could follow.

Good, one thought. After all, Bachchan is Bachchan.
But reality always strikes late. And, it strikes hard at soft, vulnerable spots.

For a moment, all have forgotten that this State is not ruled by a people-elected government, but a bunch of people who still hold dear some of their doctrines and ideologies irrespective of the passage of time and fashion.

A bunch of people who smirk and spit at Capitalism even from the depths of deep sleep. A bunch of intellectuals who see America’s shadow even at midnight.

The sacrosanct politburo has its thump firmly on the State, it seems. No matter what the ministers think or do in tune with the people of the State, every decision, it appears, have to get the illustrious nod of the powers that be at the Politburo.

The pillars of Politburo don’t want to see Bachchan, who is a brand ambassador of BJP-ruled Gujarat, wearing the holy red robes of the southern State.
He has become a sacrilege. A taboo to those drunk on ideology.

When can we learn that Gujarat and Kerala are two beautiful States of this beautiful country, ruled by two beautiful parties guided by some beautiful leaders?
Gujarat and Kerala—BJP and CPM. Saffron and Red.
But, the star is not a personal ambassador of Mr Narendra Modi. Nor will he be one of Mr Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, the Kerala minister for tourism.

But any learning is selective, isn’t it? Who wants to touch Modi even with a barge pole? No matter what he does to bring in crores of investment to Gujarat, he is still Modi, the BJP man.

Who wants to antagonise the Muslims by shaking hands with someone who has shaken hands with such a man? Especially when we can hear the distant drums of elections.

“The Left-front government in Kerala will not have the same brand ambassador (who has already been appointed by the Narendra Modi government),” CPM politburo member Sitaram Yechury has said.

And, Mr Yechury is a wise man. He’s come to bury Caesar, not to praise Brutus.

The Kerala tourism minister has expressed his “surprise” at some stiff opposition from Delhi.

The upper lip is always stiff, Mr Minister!

Oh, the shenanigans of party politics! Haven’t we had enough of them?

But facts are facts, not the truth.

The fact is that the State is seeing a drop in international tourists, and is trying to woo domestic visitors to keep the income steady.

The fact is that tourism remains a cash cow for our industry-allergic State. The fact is that Kerala Tourism has been hunting for that face which could enchant and entice tourists to this strip of land.

But the truth is that saffron and red do not match. The truth is that Politburo dictates terms. The truth is that Mr Bachchan has seen the real red.

And, the truth is that it is a shame on all of us.

(Published in Yentha.com)

Eye. Pee. Yell.

2010-03-22T09:11:00.001+05:30

DC Save My D

Oho. I have to thank the Almighty. The DC has pulled it through. They have saved my goat. Err, something more precious, delicate and sensitive than a goat, to be precise.

I support DC, but that is not enough to save my life. A more ardent, more vociferous and a more militant DC fan has threatened to bobbitt me if the DC lose a game. Now, you know what bobbitt means? Look it up in dictionary.com
So every run that the Deccan dudes didn’t take or yielded or wicket they lost or failed to take against the Daredevils in their last outing, I felt a chill down my tummy, going into the area of execution of the threat.

I felt a numbing pain. Well, it is not urinary infection, but sheer pressure from the threat.

My heart was somewhere in my mouth when Warner was whacking the ball like possessed. He is such a clean hitter that there are no double measures about his business. I was beginning to sweat thinking what if Sehwag also got into the act.

I could only sympathise with the Gilly for his unenviable task of silencing two blazing guns. But then my situation wasn’t any better. I crossed my legs in a subconscious effort to protect the sensitive area facing extinction.

But then, double whammy is rare in life. It only happens in the Caribbean or South Pacific islands where hurricanes follow earthquakes. Or the other way around in order.

Sehwag, perhaps, a bit carried away by Warner’s bloody assault, tried to send Ojha into the stands but ended up straight in the throat of a Gibbs lurking dreamily somewhere on the long-off fence.

Gee, I sat proper in my sofa, cursing the carpenter who made it so narrow. I need more space to spread out while watching the IPL.

When AB was at the crease I was in a fix. I remembered some of my neighbours, way back in late 80s and early 90s, who wanted Pakistan to beat India but only after Azharuddin scored a fifty. No prizes for guessing where they went to pray.

I love to watch AB. He is so good, but then he happened to be in the wrong camp. I couldn’t afford myself to be bobbitted. I am too young to lay down weapons. AB made a mess off a delivery that landed on the base of his off-stump. His almighty-heave across the line gave me a breather, though somewhere in the corner of my heart there was some area of sadness seeing the South African walk back.

Dinesh Karthik, the stand-in captain, stood out with his late flourish. He threatened to sweep or sweep-pull anything fell at length into the crowds. But then Symmo had only lost his dreadlocks but catching skills. He stuck his massive right hand out as Karthik blasted one back. The ball got stuck in his hand. It reminded me of the mercurial Aussie off-spinner Greg Mathews catching a beefy Ian Botham off his own bowling when I was younger.

Symmo struck again with the next delivery. I felt relaxed; spread my legs in the sofa. Vintage like an aging wine, Vaas cleaned up the Daredevils in his last over. And, I celebrated.
* * *

Every man will have his moment in life—momentary or otherwise. Vinay Kumar had his against the Mumbai Indians when he claimed three wickets in one over giving his Bangalore team a grip over the marauding Mumbai.

I am an MI man. I’ve been an unabashed Sachin fan since I was 18. I have no qualms about admitting that I bunked classes in the late 80s, took leave from offices all through the 90s and the first decade of the new millennium, and even had the good fortune reports some of his classic innings.

There is a sweet ring to his batting now. He has peaked yet again. He is a like a bird singing out of its content heart. He is a master class to the Tiwarys and Rayidus.

To bowl him around his legs, Vinay Kumar must be a lucky guy on that night. A momentary lapse of concentration presented the Bangalore bowler with a momentous moment.

I’m happy to see Robin Uthappa back in crisp business. Sure, the young man is talented, but I reckon he had lost his focus last season after the success of the T20 World Cup and IPL dollars. He is exuberant and audacious. Only if he could keep his head down to watch the ball.

I have taken the MI defeat in its stride, only because I know a chubby boy who would cry if Bangalore lost. I’d rather take a long drive to clear my mind than see the little fan, my almost namesake, sad.
* * *

Super over, and what mindless batting!

Hayden’s mongoose didn’t help as Theron got one got past its swing. Stand-in skipper
Raina did well to loft one over the cover for two. He did even better by clouting a 91-metre six off the fourth delivery. Two more balls and only one wicket: even two singles would make life harder for Punjab. He went for another biggie to be caught by Jayawardane. There was one more ball left, with nine runs on the board.

In reply, Jayawardene began by clubbing Murali for a massive six. But he too didn’t learn any lesson from the Raina story. With only four more runs from five balls, he went after Murali in the next ball itself, only to be caught and to put Punjab under further pressure. Known for his susceptibility against quality spin, Yuvi missed the next ball. But, somehow, he connected a reverse sweep, and let out a Tarzan war cry.

Talking about Hayden’s bat, there is a mongoose which often appears on the wall next to my office. It runs along the wall, jumps out on to the road and noses through the shrub. On its return trip, it doesn’t fail to give a sympathetic glance at a moron sitting by his computer, scratching his head for story ideas!

(Read Yentha.com)

Time...stand still, and fast forward!

2010-03-17T09:32:00.005+05:30

I sit by the window in my study bleary-eyed and sleepy. I have no one to blame for my situation other than myself.

I squeeze my tummy and wish if I had been more prudent with my time. Ah, time, that’s what I am hard-pressed for these days. I have so many things to do each day. I have to file my stories to my magazine, edit all the stories for the portal whose beta version begins in two days, pull up reporters without hurting their delicate egos and yet tell them how a feature should be different from a news story; convince my friend-and-boss-rolled-into-one that I am actually working these days. And yet find time for the IPL, and for someone special.

In the past few days I have unlearnt a few things and learnt a few. One, it is not a sin to get charty and plan your week or day or to keep a tab on what each reporter is doing. I had fought tooth and nail against this when my boss suggested it in the beginning of our honeymoon a month ago. I had the cheeks and naivety to write to him that my style of working is different. One of the first improvisations I brought in to the system was that I removed “sir” from in any form of addressing me. I had a noble reason for it. I still believe that respect doesn’t begin and end by adding a suffix to someone’s name. It irks me.

When I first walked into the newsroom of Emirates News in Abu Dhabi which had a rich mix of international staff—Indians (from all zones), English, Scotts, Welsh, African, Pakistanis, Filipinos, Chinese and Bangladeshis—my editor, a pipe-smoking six-footer Brit with a walrus moustache, warned me, a junior on the desk, that there was no ‘sir business’ in the newsroom. But, even when we youngsters called him by his first name, the sight of him storming out of his cabin (den) and swaggering into the newsroom sent chills down our spine!

He never demanded that our knees should fellowship with each other at his sight, but I confess, every time he came and looked over my shoulders into the page I was doing or the copy I was editing I struggled to keep my knees apart from knocking each other! But in Thursday and Friday nights we knew he would be coming after some party or the other, and would be in a lighter mood. He’d walk up to the three of us—three young men who joined the team in the same month—and ask if we were doing okay, before chatting up the thick Scott girl whose accent was more difficult to follow than the Chinese proofreader’s occasional outbursts of frustration in his mother-tongue.

In my new office here, I made a public declaration in one of the team meetings that I don’t like it, and they lapped it up, and began screaming my name for anything and everything. I still had no issues with it.

But things were to change as we neared the launch date. My friend-boss, who had agreed to give me a long rope to have my way of managing the editorial bandwagon, slowly began to tighten the screws, and I felt it. Surprisingly, as days went by, I also realised the need to, first of all, to have screws (no pun, please) in place, and then to tighten it.

Relationship is hard work. You need to work on it. A colleague of mine says she won’t get married because she feels marriage will kill love. For me, as the editor of a thin team, it is not about to marry or to marry (too late though), but about managing relationships. Having given them the freedom to have fun in the office (I still believe in it), I am finding it difficult not to tighten the screws but not to hurt them when I do it.

One of my senior colleagues says that it should be mandatory that Mallus should address others with a “sir” suffix, just to keep that essential and healthy distance and to remind them of the rightful position of their proverbial ego.
I am still skeptical, but then having lived and worked in an international mix for most part of my career, I sometimes end up wondering what is the right stand. No shop in this beautiful State sells respect. But unfortunately no one is seen deserving it also. So, thrust itself on oneself. Make all those working with/under you call you ‘sir’. I rest my case here.

It is frustrating that I don’t get time to do what I like the most: writing. I have three book ideas. I have to start writing. But by the time I come back from office after all those hours hunching over my tiny keyboard, I wilt like a touch-me-not. I just can’t find time to watch the IPL. Or write my blog.
But a small voice inside keeps telling me that if I am a little more organized, things will fall into place.

Oh, that voice and its promise of hope! Now, I want time to fly!

If I can take a breather from work today I will write about the other things that I unlearnt and learnt. And, some transcontinental SMSes.

Eye. Pee.Yell: Reflections of IPL--2

2010-03-15T08:09:00.000+05:30

Where Is My Raffle Coupon?

I should have bought a Dubai Duty Free raffle ticket yesterday. I would have been laughing all the way to my bank by now.

It is a special feeling to see your predictions come true.

If you have read my piece on the first day of IPL, you’d know what I am trying to boast. In the end of the story, I made two remarks. One, my gut feeling about Ambati Rayidu coming good before a larger, more superior crowd.

And two, Yousuf Pathan was raring to go.

Talent is like a lit candle. It cannot be hidden in a bushel. It is like a lamp on a hillock. Someday everyone gets to see it.

First time I heard of Rayidu was from a friend and correspondent for the magazine I was editing in Dubai. He told me one day that he got to watch a boy who could be the next big thing in Indian cricket.

Nothing hurts more than wasted talent. Once while interviewing Laxman Sivararamakrishnan, I caught a tint of regret in his eyes. He recovered in no time, but those nano seconds were enough for me to feel the pain of wasted talent.

So would be the case of Sadananth Vishwanath. I don’t know the reasons that led to this richly talented wicketkeeper’s decline into oblivion. But he is gone. Remember the way he stumped none other than Javed Miandad during the Benson and Hedges mini World Cup in Australia? Siva tossed one up; it hung in the air for ages, taunting and tempting the batsman. Miandad, a master against quality spin, just left the crease sure to meet the ball on the bounce. But like a skillful ballerina, the ball eluded the groping master. It was a matter of seconds. But all that a shocked Miandad could see was an elated Vishy as he had whipped off the bails in flash.
We see Siva behind the microphone. But, where is Vishy?

Of recent Indian cricket history, none hurts us as Vinod Kambli. He is an integral part of Sachin Tendulkar’s story. Talent was never a question for this man, who scored a string of centuries at the top level. But then, where is he now? We all mention him with a tinge of regret, and a sigh.

Once by the turn of this millennium, I found him sitting in an Abu Dhabi restaurant. I walked up to him, and told him that I was a fan of him, and how badly people like me wanted to see him back in the team. He looked in my eyes for a few seconds, then looked long into the ocean nearby, and mumbled that he’d be back.

Remember David Hookes, the Aussie? Man, he was some batsman! But he could not translate his talent into runs.

If we go to the West Indies, we will see as many wasted talents as the sandy beaches.
I’m sure you too have your share of stories of these unsung, unfortunate talents.

One good thing about the IPL is that it gives a platform to the fringe players or whose talent is not given the opportunities it deserves.
How do we measure talent?

TS Eliot famously wrote in his love song of Prufrock about measuring life with coffee spoons. There are two ways of measuring a player’s worth. The most common is going by the number of runs or wickets. I don’t buy this method. But then I am not a selector or anyone who matters in cricket administration.

The other way could be going by mere talent. In the last couple of years we all have seen what Yousuf Pathan could do with the bat. Any selector with some sense of the game would know what a bundle of talent this man has. We have seen its glimpses. He is not a Pat Cash, the punk who meandered into the historic lawns of Wimbledon once and coolly walked away with the title while more illustrious champs like Evan Lendle had to throw in the towel without at least once kissing that coveted trophy.

But shouldn’t talents like Pathan be kept in the team? I would have kept him with the team if I were the man to decide. Sri Lankan batsman Jayawardene had gone through a prolonged dry phase, but it was because of the wisdom of the Lankan board that he was kept in the team. Look where he is now. If he was dropped because of no scores, he would have never done justice to his talent.

So, Rayidu has made full use of the opportunity he got. And, Pathan has proved that only selectors with no imagination would pencil him out of the team.

Runs in domestic competition don’t promise you a permanent place in the international scene. Lal Chand Rajput, if you remember, had made tonnes of runs in domestic matches—painstaking centuries after double and triple centuries, and he was correct in his technique—but he couldn’t do a thing at the highest level.
Talking of technique, Sanjay Manjrekar couldn’t do a thing wrong in batting, but his runs in international level were not proportionate to his talent.

Back to the matches.

The angry young man of Indian cricket, the southpaw from capital, Gautam Gambhir dared the devils with an innings marked more for its austerity than audacity. He showed us that T20 is not just bang-bang-and-back-home. He defined a captain’s knock last night against the Kings XI. What makes him tick is his ability to play spin effectively. Openers are not necessarily that comfortable with the secrets of turning balls. But this eligible bachelor courts both seam and spin with equal elegance.

The Mumbai Indians must still be shaking the Pathan-effect off them. It is a pity that he ended up in the wrong end of presentation table.
But take heart, the IPL has just started. Expect more cameos from Pathan and Rayidu.
A word on Piyush Chawla. When an Indian Under-21 team came to play in Abu Dhabi some years ago, the team manager, Mr Nair, called a boy to him and told me: “Watch out for him!”

We have seen a fair bit of Chawla’s imagination with the ball. His vocation of a leg-spinner is a risky but enchanting one. The youngster has talent, but I don’t know the equations of selections yet.

I can only wish that if Prufrock could measure his life with coffee spoons, it’d be good if the selectors pick the team for talent than success represented by numbers.
Numbers leave no room for imagination. But sadly, numbers represent reality in terms of profit, salary, success.

Life also needs a fair measure of imagination and romance. After all, cricket is still a game, and a game is entertainment.
Watch more games, and appreciate, criticize and scream—Eye. Pee. Yell.

(Read Yentha.com)

Eye. Pee. Yell: IPL Reflections

2010-03-13T09:50:00.004+05:30

Eye. Pee. Yell: We appreciate. We criticise. We scream.

Day One

KKR Does A Peter Who? Doohan

Who’s done it?
Dada?
Juhi?
Whatmore?

Whether it was the imaginative and spirited captaincy of Sourav Ganguly or the luck that Juhi Chawla had brought in with her or the silent tactics of Dave Whatmore, the victory of Kolkata Knight Riders over the defending champions Deccan Chargers has warmed the cockles of many KKR hearts.

The SRK boys had nearly lost the game. The DC had them on the mat.

But then it was the pull of Adam Gilchrist, the shot which has fetched buckets of runs for the Aussie, that began the pull-down. Gibbs followed the skipper with an equally thoughtless shot. Symmo found one from Ishant climbing on to him too quick for his comfort. The precocious talent of Rohit Sharma let down the DC chargers.

Before they realized, DC was in the dumps. Skipper Gilchrist said his team had the game in their pocket but chickened out when they should have just walked away with the game.

Though it isn’t an auspicious start for the champions, it is all too early to write something dull on the DC dashboard. They have the ammunition to fire back. After all, we all saw their turn-around in the last edition.

Heroism is contagious. One man’s monumental effort will inject some strange energy into others' veins. Their hearts begin to beat faster, their shoulders come up, heads rise, they pluck catches out of thin air, they dive with a Michael Phelps leap, they hit stumps with a darter’s precision, they run like Usain Bolt and hit the ball out of the park like Barry Bond.

Yes, it takes just one man to transform a whole team. Like one out-of-the-world innings from Kapil Dev at Trent Bridge Oval morphed an Indian team into world beaters some summers ago.
Ganguly hasn’t lost that little something that makes him tick as a players’ captain who can inspire a dull tail-ender to a Don Quixote.

He still can infuse some passion into the confused, labyrinthine veins of the Riders. He can marshal the team as a cohesive unit, especially with the significant absence of a towering, opinionated John Buchanan. Despite having an air of a snooty prince about him, Ganguly has that uncanny knack to take a game of cricket from the sophistication of Lord’s to dusty streets where the common man will own up the battle.

This is what Sourav can do to the team that has seen more ego clashes in the last two editions than accidents on the MG Road. Whether he can still heave his bat as effective as before or not, he can surely bring about a change in the team’s spirit to fight battles like the fights in school—no formulas of when and how to punch, but the crude spirit to fight—hit and hit back.

All that DC has to do is forget last night. But however they try, how they managed to let the match slip between their pocket and the ground will surely disturb them in these sultry days.

But if Gilchrist, Symmonds and Gibbs get cracking, no line of bowlers is good enough to bowl a dot ball. But then, three to explode in one match can be as rare as a blue moon. But if the DC batsmen continue to play such mindless strokes as they did against the Raiders, Gilchrist will have some serious issues to deal with.

Nothing substitutes application. Even in a game of T20 there will be little phases where one has to just keep his head down and pick up singles and twos. It is the beauty of the game, and it is where the dangers of the proverbial uncertainty of the game lie. If one fails to do what the situation demands, the elements of uncertainty take over.

The DC should have cantered home without hitting across the line. But then the ambience and aura of the opening ceremony might have warmed up the adrenalin and pushed them to attempt a Sehwag act. But Sehwags don’t happen just like that.

An upset is a good start for a tournament. Like the 1987 Wimbledon when two-time defending champion and the second-ranked player in the world Boris Becker was upset in the second round by a stranger named Peter Doohan, ranked 70. Such upsets create a flutter; an interest. Sadly, the Grand Slams don’t give a second chance to the players. One bad day, they are out of the fray. But tournaments like World Cups and leagues like IPL and EPL give the teams a few more chances to gather themselves from the shambles and fight back.

So unlike the sensational Becker who had to pack up his bag and leave the Wimbledon quietly, sinking his fans into despair, Gilchrist can forget the opening match and start the tournament afresh from the next game on.

Today’s first match, between Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals, will be an interesting contest. In Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne we have two of the game’s biggest stars who respect each other, and under them there are some exciting talents.

The Mumbai Indians will be looking up to their skipper who is fresh on heels of his record-setting double hundred in ODIs. Adding to the batting firepower is the veteran powerhouse, Sanath Jayasuriya.

But I would like to see their new purchase, Ambati Rayidu (from ICL) do well. He was described as an exciting talent some years ago, but for reasons strange and unknown, he is yet to make an impression on the selectors. Having been picked up by the Indians means he has caught the eye of the Little Master.

For the Royals, Yousuf Pathan will be raring to go with heaps of runs in the last domestic season—highlighted by a century in each innings of the Duleep Trophy final which helped the West Zone successfully chase a record target.

He must get going, as Tendulkar will be chomping at the bit.

(Read Yentha.com)

Intimate Feeling

2010-03-11T09:13:00.003+05:30

This feeling of accountability comes back to me quite often. A strong sense of a relationship with the Maker.

I am sure those who don't believe in God or in having a relationship with Him, it is difficult to understand me. Or worse, they would brand me as old-fashioned, moron, dumb, out-of-fad.

Fine. I run that risk.

But then, how can I ignore my most intimate feeling?

I feel connected to my Maker.

Wow! say who have the similar feeling.

Aagh! say those who don't.

I don't judge both. It is not my business.

But the Voice speaks to me. It loves, guides and, more importantly, understands me with all my weaknesses.

I marvel at my own body. What a wonderful work of art and engineering! What a unique work of craftsmanship, imagination and precision! I take a look at my mind--and wonder if man can ever come up with anything as brilliant, unique and inimitable as the making of human mind!

Did my parents give me that?

Did my ancestors and lineage bestow it on me?

Did my post-doctoral guru and guide and genius colleagues present it to me?

This morning, I deeply feel the presence of the Maker.

And, over the years I have experienced the wonderful work of His hand in my life. I cannot deny them. I only marvel at them.

And, I know what He has promised me. And, I trust in His promise.
I have personalised God, as I have personalised Google.

My Maker. My God. My Dad.

The Visitor From Capital

2010-03-10T09:39:00.002+05:30

The other day I had a call from Delhi. It was from an old friend. It’d been years since we last met.

He said he was coming to my city, which is his too. I said I’d pick him up from the airport at 10pm.

I had stayed with him in Delhi for a few days 15 years ago when he was a reporter with a national magazine.

It was his early days in mainstream journalism. His stories had just begun to get noticed. I still hadn’t got into the stream.

I had sold my bike, companion for some years, to go to Delhi in my pursuit to become a journalist of some standing.

But I didn’t want to struggle. So I booked myself in the then new and all-A/C Rajadhani Express and reached the capital with high hopes of becoming a cricket writer.

The friend was one of my contacts and persons to call out for in need. I met him in his office and waited till he finished his cover story on a plane crash.

He took me out of the office, and we walked along some dark streets catching up on our lost worlds. Then we got into a bus, and got down somewhere, then again we walked.

He asked me if I had any money on me. I had plenty in exchange of my Yamaha. He said he was starving and didn’t have money to eat. We had a reasonably good dinner. Resurrected, we walked further along lanes and by-lanes and reached where he stayed.
It was one of the smallest rooms I had slept in. All it had was a mattress, books, magazines and a growing pile of newspapers. We slept on the floor. The toilet was the dingiest I had ever used.

By the time I left him later that day, I had my doubts about my preparedness to go through the grind to become a cricket reporter.

A couple of days later, I had an appointment with a leading journalist and columnist from Kerala. He was staying somewhere near the AIIMS. I somehow found out his house. He was to become a powerful man later during the BJP reign. I told him the reference of a couple senior journalists in Kerala who were his friends.

He asked me a few questions which hastened my decision to book a ticket back home in Rajadhani itself.

“Have you read Cardus?” he asked, tucking his sleeveless, cotton pullover.

I said I hadn’t.

“John Arlott?”

No.

“Brian Johnston?”

No.

“Are you Sunil Gavaskar?”

I was offended. I looked at him.

“My boy, Mr Gavaskar is now reporting on cricket. And, you’d agree that none of us knows as much cricket as he knows. So do (Ravi) Shastri and (Bishen) Bedi. Who’d want to read what you write, you tell me?”

My heart cracked.

“You haven’t even read at least the biggest names in cricket writing. So how can you beat these former players and make people read what you write? You tell me.”

I had nothing to tell him. I had no intention to beat anyone.

My heart splintered.

I just wanted to get out of the house and ran into the street.

“Why don’t have something to eat?” I still don’t know whether the offer came from any largeness of his heart or from his obligation to his friends who sent me to him.

“You go back and read up all these writers and come back. I’ll place you somewhere.”

I just wanted to vanish.

I politely refused to eat from his house. I thought I’d never again have appetite in my life.

I hated Delhi. I hated the highhandedness of all the journalists. I took pity on my friend who was struggling, yet filing good stories.

Before I ran out of money, I booked myself on Rajadhani back to Trivandrum.

My friend has now made his mark as an investigative journalist and is high on the hunting list of all editors in the country. He has broken some of the noisiest stories that shook governments.

He has been shot at during the Kargil war; he has been to conflict areas where other journalists would dare to go only on well-guarded junkets; he has been handpicked by the best editors in the country, but he left each of them when more exciting doors showed up.

He was coming to the city to receive an award.

It was not difficult to pick him out from the crowd at the Arrival of the domestic terminal of Trivandrum Airport. He looked the same, except for a weather-hardened, hard-nosed look of a senior journalist. The slight stoop was there, the specs became more sophisticated, the down-to-earth approach still candid, and that uncanny knack of an investigative journalist to break the ice without much fuss still evident.

After his four vodkas and my three KFs, we drove up to the Thampanoor bus stand at one in the night. I had not been there so late in recent years. We piddled behind some hoardings, but with regret, repentance and a strong civic sense—there was no other way, and the bladder was threatening to burst like a bomb in a marketplace.
He wanted to go to his mother in Kollam, and got into a Super Fast that was going to Munnar. I drove back home high.

It was only when he called me from Delhi after a few days that I knew he hadn’t ended up in Munnar to dig something out for another sensational story.

And, I am back at my desk writing stories that’d interest no one and wouldn’t bring down any government.

Yes, I have read up Cardus, Arlott and other angels with same wings. I have chanced upon the Gavaskars and Shastris during my journey of no significance. I have shaken hands with the venerable old man of cricket, Richie Benaud. But they haven’t taken me anywhere. I am still by my desk, hoping to become a writer one day.

A writer who readers will read.

Keziah Turns Six

2010-03-09T02:37:00.005+05:30

I still remember the day six years ago. It was at Baraha Hospital in Dubai. A friend of mine and I took turns to sleep in my car as Jeena was in the delivery room.
All night, the baby didn't come. It was the second night since Jeena was brought in.
In the morning more friends dropped in on their way to office in Bur Dubai.
The baby was considered a public property as all our friends were eagerly waiting for its arrival.

I just wanted to see its face. Only prayer was for a healthy baby.

By 8am, someone suggested that I should go and have my breakfast as it looked the baby would take more time to appear. I drove up to Annapoorna and had some lovely idli and vada--my only veg favourites.

I must have taken half an hour.

By the time I came back, there was no one where we had been waiting. I panicked. I ran into the hospital, and saw Annie Ammamma holding what looked like a bundle of fluffy joy.

That's it: Keziah Miriam Sabin had come into the world.

What a blessing! What a gift!

Someone asked me how I felt to be a father. Honestly, I didn't feel anything extra, or special. There was a kind of numbness.

I didn't have any paternal goose pimples looking at my baby. I didn't feel like top of the world looking at her face.

I was kind of resigned.

But the feeling of a father was later. When she began to grow into a cuddly little baby, I felt something like being a parent.

When he hummed her reply to my "Kezu" calls, I felt happy. I took her to my favourite Chinese restaurant when she was just six-month old and she was completely at home and had a few spoons of sweet corn chicken soup.
It was her baptism by soup. Ever since Keziah has been my friend and companion to visit various malls and restaurants.

These days she comes upto me and asks if we could just go out and have something from the Subway or the food court at the Technopark. Or, she just wants to roam around or go for a drive.

Sometimes I regret getting her used to all this, but then she has been my friend in my loneliness till I got back my soul-mate. Well, that's another story.

Today Keziah turns six.
Six years of parenting? I can't believe. I am sure I have not been the best Papa, but then out of my insecurity I keep asking her if she loves me. She gets so bugged and comes and gives me a half-hearted kiss on my cheeks and goes back to watch Mr Bean.

Her brother, Sean, the cry boy, has of late picked up his sister's liking for malls and Subways. But the poor boy cannot have ice creams or anything cold.

The injured look on his face when Keziah slurps down vanilla ice cream is a sight to behold!

To YOU, thank you for being with me this time. It matters a lot. A lot.

The Meeting

2010-03-02T10:07:00.002+05:30

I could hear the pounding sounds of my own heart. It beat fast and hard. After all, it was all to do with the heart.

I drove on, took turns as I was instructed, and turned left. The atmosphere inside the car was thick with expectation.

Expectation? We last saw 18 years ago—over seven thousand days ago--when both of us were young and brittle. Full of laughter and colours.

And, we were meeting again that day.

Times have changed, people have changed, relationships have changed, seasons have changed, but our love…
No it hasn’t. It has only changed in form—it has only grown in intensity and maturity. Few of our old college mates and class mates could believe that we still love each other. Most of our friends had lost their love sometime somewhere on the way. And, no one complained. That’s the way life is.

But our love…
Our love is like a loose kite that has gone astray in a wild wind but has come back years later with the same colours and gusto to find both of us still standing under that big gulmohar, gazing at the brilliant blue expanse and depth of the sky—expecting.

It is like a boxer, knocked down but refusing to throw in the towel. Or like a cockroach that survives a series of ruthless kicks. Or like God’s grace—manifold and eternal.

I was to be blamed for our separation. I ran away from challenges and now I don’t know what else was there. But I walked away, without ever loving her less.

There were times in the past 18 years when I wondered where she would be—there was a longing to see her again. But then I was afraid of her reaction. I was sure she hated me for my callous way of treating her.

Even though I wanted to see her—meet her—I didn’t have the spleen (heart, yes) to face her. As David cries out to God in Psalm 51—my sin (wrong) is always against her, and I deserved any punishment that she’d call for.

At times my eyes searched for her in the colourful crowds of women and families coming out of a church on Sundays. Since I didn’t know where she was, she could be anywhere. When cars with drove past mine in city traffic, I kept an eye out. Perhaps, in one of them she could be laughing out her signature loud laughter, filling the air with joy and happiness.

But then do I deserve some loving looks or an acknowledgment from her? Even if she cut me dead or looked through me I couldn’t complain.

But when I realized that she is incapable of hating me, or, she cannot have any other feeling towards me than pure love, all I could was cry. Cry loud and long alone in my study upstairs.

Her love found me when I was about to be lost in life. Her love came searching for me before I could run away further from another set of challenges.

One call, and 18 years melted away. One word, the 18 years of silence and pain and loneliness broke.

We realized all we have for each other is love nothing but pure, unselfish, refined love.

No one would be able to understand. No one could relate.

But that doesn’t matter. All my life I’ve tried to be a good one—trying to impress and live by the code of conduct. But it doesn’t matter at all.

So we were meeting that day.

I drove past some thick foliage of leaves--that of rubber, teak and coffee.
She called up and said she could hear the sound of my car and that she was standing after the turn.

As I took the turn, my good Lord, I saw her—first time in nearly 20 years. She was standing there with the best smile I’d ever seen, and was gesturing for a lift. My hitch hiker! My girl! My love!

Before our hands could hold each others, our hearts jumped out of us and hugged right on the road.

It was the most magical moment in my life. I couldn’t believe neither my eyes nor the fact that we had met.

Nature around us changed. All of a sudden the place had become a garden—birds chirped melodies, plants bloomed colours, a dreamy breeze wafted fragrance.

We drove on, not knowing where to. We stopped in between to look into each other’s eyes. Tears rolled down our cheeks. We ran our fingers on each other’s face to make sure it was real.

There was so much love, so much caring and so much passion.
We held hands, we laughed, we kept looking at each other.

We drove on, not seeing the road, people and the places around. We floated around for two hours. We hummed songs, touched the fingertips, breathed in lungful of each other’s fragrance.

Oh, how I wished if time could stand still! Two hours went by in a flash. She said she had to go, though she wanted to stay forever.

How we wished if life could be this one journey and we could drive on till the very end—nothing to stop, nothing in between!

It was the best of all meetings; it was the most magical of all reunions.

It was my best dream come true, till I woke up and realised it was still a dream!

Lessons In Life

2010-02-26T08:36:00.004+05:30

Lessons in life are right in front of us every day, only if we could recognize and learn them.

I have decided to learn a few every day once I realized that there is a free tutorial on life.

I am listing some of them that I learnt the other day:

1: Love And Happiness

From HER. I learn unselfish love from her. The way she loves me and what I have given her back make me wonder at her unfailing strength to love. And, she has made me understand the importance of finding happiness even in a deluge of troubles.
She has taught me how important it is to be happy and smiling, because it is going to make the world around me a more pleasant one.

I cannot but agree with her.

2: Being Humble

The other day I watched Sachin Tendulkar score the first double hundred in the ODIs. I have watched him bat since I was 18. My profession of a sports journalist has given me opportunities to see and observe some other sports stars too. I am convinced that to be away from controversy and to be down-to-earth and to be humble in a career that has spanned over two decades are not easy.

If you are a sports buff you know how heady some stars can get. But here is a man who is with the stars far above us, but still is rooted firmly on earth.

Each time I feel like flaunting my little feats, I remember him, and shut up. Our talents may take us to dizzy heights but to stay there we have to be humble.

3. Being Organised

I am not organized, both at work and at home. I mess up things. I leave everything to the last minute. If I can push a deadline one more second, I will try to push it for two. Having spent all the days playfully, I sit through the last night to meet the deadline by the skin of my teeth.

But these days I am learning from my friend and CEO the virtues of being organized. He plans weeks ahead and puts his thoughts into Excel sheets.

I find it hard. I find it lacks the romance of life. I find it mechanical.
But then, I know it is important to organize and plan—maybe not to the letter, but them one needs to have an outline of things one is going to do. Some sketchy discipline at least.

4. Not Judgmental

We are quick to judge others. We look at other down our nose with a holier-than-thou sneer. We behave we are holy, sage, perfect and infallible. We are quick to gossip, and quicker to receive gossip.

We guffaw at Tiger Woods’ behaviour. We throw mud at him. We’ve enjoyed his public apology as if his wife was our sister.

But then, I stumble upon a few Biblical verses which warn me of judging others, throwing a stone only if I have never sinned and of the negative effects of gossips.
I know it is natural and easy to talk behind someone’s back, but it takes courage and a clean heart to look someone in the eye and speak out what I feel like.

I learn not to be judgemental. I learn not to gossip—active or passive.

5. Living Up

My editorial colleagues are young and raw, but talented. They look up to me for guidance, counsel and encouragement. But often I fail to live up to my present role.
But from their eagerness, I learn the importance of living up to others’ expectations of me, especially in my profession.

6. Giving

I have seen some Shylocks Scrooges in life. Parting with anything—not only material but even emotions—is a real challenge for some.

The other day my friend was recollecting a beggar’s soliloquy. When he was shooed away from one house after the other without being given not even a paisa, the beggar was wondering when the rich people would realize that they couldn’t take even a penny with them when they were to leave this world.

It is hard to give—not only money but also love.

But Christ has shown us that love means giving—selflessly—even life.

Give, just give.

Lesson

2010-02-25T09:31:00.002+05:30

Today you taught me
a lesson in happiness.

You talked to my heart
things it ought to know,
facts it ought to remember,
pain it has caused,
loneliness it has gifted,
tears it has brewed,
separation it has caused.

You talked to it,
with a surgeon’s precision,
a pilot’s surety,
And, with an artist’s freedom.

I knew I was at fault, always.
In one night, I learnt the pain
of rejection.

But it’s good that you did it.
Now I know how to find
the tiny islands of happiness
in the flood of troubles.

Now I know why it’s good
to make others happy
than seeking our own happiness.

Thank you.
You know why
I respect you,
as I love you, always!

Thank You, Sir!

2010-02-25T09:19:00.003+05:30

I knew I had to write this little piece. That’s all I can do.

I was out somewhere in Statue, waiting to pick up a colleague when the news trickled in about what this little man was doing to the South Africans.
There was no way I could either go back home or to office to watch him do the impossible.

I sneaked in to the Orbit bar, and sat there in a dark corner in front of the television. There were apparitions huddled around tables. I didn’t see them for any details.

All I saw was this man whom I had watched first during my college days—in his first trip to Pakistan. The way he butchered Abdul Qadir, making the leg-spin wizard drop his jaw along with his magic wrists.

This man whom I watched live beating the Desert Storm in Sharjah. I still remember the way Australian skipper Steve Waugh threw down his sweat-dried cap in frustration just before the post-match meet-the-press. And, how an Aussie cricket writer shook his head in disbelief, leaning on a pillar.

We have seen it all from him. Sachin Tendulkar is India’s public property. There are no secrets about his cricket. Even the man on the street can talk about the quality and class of his shots.

We have seen him grow up from a green-horn stripling to a callow gladiator, and now to an all-weather statesman.

We have seen him wowing the world with his array of bold, bewildering shots. We have seen him conquering hearts with classic strokes. We have seen him making pundits happy with wise and matured exhibition of his rare talent.

But for some time, to be honest, I was not happy. I was missing those early shots.

Those daring thunders down the strip—over the head, between the bowler and the umpire, inside-out lofted and kissing the blades of grass—which forced Dennis Lillee say that the bowlers must be wearing helmets while bowling at Sachin.

The disdain of genius, the nonchalance of the chosen, and the blissfulness of the ethereal.

But then life goes through phases. Joy, tears, silence, exuberance, elation and solitude. Sachin’s cricket has gone through all of these.

But the innings at Gwalior which has made him the first man to score a double hundred in ODIs was a compilation of all three facets of his batting.

There were shots from the early stage—those salad days in the sun. The way he lobbed Langeveldt over his head, blasted Steyn down the line and took Kallis on the up and over the head. I was happy. I saw the glimpses of the callow youth.

During the middle of the innings, the boy made way for the regal. Classic strokes were on display, toying with the bowlers. The drives through the cover, the cuts and the pulls. They came out with that unmistakable stamp of class and authority.

Then we saw the matured statesman. Bat whispered to the ball, and tickled her down fine-leg, leaving behind panting fielders in despair.

With the innings, Sachin has proved a few points. That he hasn’t deleted all those
bold shots. That he is still young enough to last 50 overs. That his fitness is any youngster’s envy. That at 37, he is a combination of all that any cricketer yearns for.

In a career not as old as Sachin’s, I have used almost all of my favourite adjectives to write about this man. I am left with nothing new.

It is only fitting that he has become the first man to touch 200 in the ODIs. History is not a place for flukes and fly-by-nights.It takes qualities and efforts beyond the mortals to etch someone on the coveted coat of history.
And, who other than this gem of a gentleman bestowed with a favoured stroke from the Creator deserves a special spot?

He has dedicated the double to the people of India.
Thank you, sir. We are privileged.

(From Yentha.com)

OUTSIDER

2010-02-24T08:16:00.000+05:30

In this era of communication
I cannot speak to you at will,
Nor can I message you half asleep
Nor can I mail you out of a whim.

I cannot take my life to yours
without a care, without thinking.

I cannot cross your path
without caution,
without wise steps.

Do you know how desperate
I get at times? Do you know
how frustrated is this outsider feeling?

I know I am in your heart,
the lone inhabitant in that beautiful,
conundrum of a heart.
I know it pretty well.

But, my love,
when will this irony of
the insider’s outsider
existence be over?

My eyes are tired, thirsting for you;
my hands desperate, stretching for you,
my ears go weary, waiting for your voice,

but my heart knows it’s with you,
wherever you are, no matter how many
oceans and tears away.

This outsider knows
he is inside you, but
at times…

Lukewarm Meeting

2010-02-22T09:25:00.000+05:30

So we met. The first meeting of the Trivandrum Writers’ Forum was a low-key, but high-calorie affair.
We thought of meeting at the Café Coffee Day at Kowdiar, but last minute changed to All Spice at Kuravankonam.
We were five of us present, and a few calls promising attendance next week.
I made a brief introductory speech. Tried to share the vision of creating a platform to meet weekly.
They clapped, and we ordered pizza, cold coffee with orange cloud, chocolate fudge, coffee, tea.
Each of us did a self-introduction—dwelt on a brief personal sketch and writing efforts. I believe there is some synergy. I’ve made it clear to them that it doesn’t belong to any individual, but to all of them.
It is a movement. It will gain in momentum and finds its leaders.
This weekend we expect to meet more writers in the city.

Who will despise a humble beginning?

Finally, Father Died...Kayaloram Revisited...Excerpts

2010-02-22T09:20:00.002+05:30

EXCERPTS

A group of relatives came into the room and stood there silent, watching two children sitting next to their Father’s deathbed. Somehow, there were no mushy expressions of melodrama. But everyone wore a look that said that it was coming. The long-awaited death was near.
By dusk, two nurses took away two bottles of discharge from his stomach. The hush-hush in the veranda and among the close relatives was that it stank. The cancer had reached his intestine.

He had begun to stink. His body, the father figure, had finally lost its charm. It had begun to make people nauseate. When Farook told Mother about the latest development in the night, she wept gently into a pillow.

The body that she loved so dearly had lost its romance, its charm. While she was weeping, Farook wondered why she was doing it. ‘Is it because his death was now imminent? Or, is it because she had remembered those innumerable hugs and kisses that the body had given her?’ She must have remembered those nights when he came home sex-starved on vacation from the Gulf. Those impatient unfastening of hooks and those fingers running over her flesh. Now that body had begun to decay.

Then Farook thought it was funny to think of such things when Father was on his deathbed. Death can sometimes be funny too. That night—the third night of waiting—no one went home as they were sure it would happen.

Groups of Farook’s cousins, uncles and aunts dragged their chappals along the cement corridors, often looking into other rooms. They drove away sleep with black tea from the canteen where a sleepy boy served them, and smoked beedis and cigarettes leaning on the walls of the garage.

With two of his friends Farook walked around the general wards where some snored loudly while the milky tube light that revealed cement patches on the walls kept some awake. An infant’s cry echoed somewhere as its mother tried to calm it down.
But Father slept uneventfully except for the intermittent bouts of clenching of teeth and smiling at invisible figures.

More relatives came on the fourth day.

And, death came after all of them, during siesta time.

When Father began to breathe what seemed to all of them his last, Uncle Aamir, cousins, uncles and brother-in-law stood around the bed, behind Dr Asif, who did nothing but watch him breathe. Farook kept looking at Father. His breathing was heavy and each exhale took longer than the previous one. And, each time he breathed in, everyone waited for the exhale. It came out slowly but the intervals grew longer.

Somehow, Farook was thinking of Father as his English teacher then. He was teaching him the tenses, from the book of Brighter Grammar and Essential English.
Present and past.
Die—died: Farook remembered Father making him write the two words in his workbook.
Present continuous: dying. He was acting it out for his son; practising what he had preached.
Dying.
“Uncle…” Farook’s cousins cried out as there was no exhale following a noisy inhale. They waited. No, there was…nothing.
Father died: simple past.

Father had shown Farook the difference between dying and died and what it meant.
He died on January 25 at 2.30 p. m., even before the golden light fell on the fronds and the homeward crows had a stopover above the canteen.
Farook’s cousins hugged each other and Uncle Aamir in grief. Dr Asif checked the pulse and confirmed the death. Some hugged Farook too. There rose a muffled weep from the adjacent room where Mother sat surrounded by relatives and Shabnam.

The English teacher had died. The father had died. The husband had died.
Died. Simple past.

Farook did not cry, nor did he think of losing Father. He was relieved that Father was relieved of pain. The waiting was over. Everyone got busy as there was a lot to be done. Each of the relatives moved here and there, arranging for ambulance, settling the bills, packing flasks, cups and other stuff. The scene resembled the day after a festival. Everyone was packing up. The show was over.

When they took the body on a stretcher—the hospital boys suddenly became reckless in carting it along—and carried it to the ambulance, everyone made way and looked sympathetically at Shabnam, Mother and Farook.
The two girls at the reception stood up in deference. The taxi and autorickshaw drivers whispered to one another.

The body was taken to Valley View, Uncle Younis’s house in Kayaloram village. More cousins went around in cars to inform relatives who did not have a phone, and to buy things for the funeral the next day.

His body was kept on the floor in the drawing room. Russell’s picture Father had drawn looked down from the wall. The room was fogged by incense smoke. Farook disliked the fragrance as it smelt of death.

Relatives swarmed in for the funeral, it being January 26, the Republic Day and a public holiday. It was the first day in Farook’s life that he was in focus. He was the centre of attention.

“This is Ibrahim’s son,” he was introduced to most of the relatives who smiled at him sympathetically, and asked after his studies. Even the wealthy relatives, who had on other occasions ignored him, stopped and spoke to him. Farook felt the recognition.
Clad in an off-white mundu and a cotton shirt, Farook leaned against the wall of the sit-out and watched each car-load of relatives arriving. There were pretty girls too. Farook had never seen them and had no idea who they were. But he exchanged glances with some of them over Father’s dead body. He basked in the glory of his father’s death. He had finally emerged out of the cocoon. Farook had now become a man who had to look after Mother.

Farook felt the weight of the casket on his shoulders while carrying it to the cemetery behind the mosque. The cousin, who was holding the other front end of the coffin, and Farook were of the same height. Those at the back were taller. With each step to the mosque, the cane-wound edge of the casket pressed on his right shoulder.

When the body was lowered into the dark, square pit after prayers in the mosque, Farook put a few handfuls of soil into it, on the white-shrouded body of Father. A handful of soil for his dead father. Then he watched the thud, thud of soil being filled into the grave, levelling it with the ground and finally a small mount was erected.

He looked at the nearby cashew tree. Its leaves were thick and still. On the ground, the touch-me-nots with their purple goblets went into a slumber under the stamp of sandals. The air smelt of lacerated earth. Gradually relatives walked away; some got into their cars and drove off. Farook walked back with cousins and uncles.

Finally, Father died. He heaved a long, relieving sigh.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Kayaloram so far is a letdown for Farook. The laidback charm is missing. Instead of the innocent green, the foliage is dusty brown. The village that he has nestled in his heart—where he had a wonderful, loving childhood under the shadow of a large-hearted grandmother and the shade of a patriarchal mango tree—is now a dusty stretch of land with cement everywhere. Grandmother had long gone, and the mango tree too has gone now.

Even the breeze is not as cool as the ancient waft; there is no cuckoo singing from the its secret bower; the comical frogs that taunt you from the stream have quit the game; no silken folds of paddy fields as few are into farming; no simmering cattle feed in dented, sticky aluminium vessels as few have domestic animals; no trace of the tall cotton trees and the colony of bats hanging head down; no fulsome banana clusters; no honeybees thrumming and humming from one wildflower to another; no gurgle of backwaters and sighs of mussels, no cows lowing mournfully and goats bleating sharply; no jackfruits pregnant with fruity smell; no coconuts and areca trees rubbing their palms in neighbourhood friendliness; and, no lethargy of time. The timelessness of a village too is lost.

Talent Spotting

2010-02-20T09:28:00.010+05:30

It is one thing to have talent, and quite another to spot it. While I doubt if I have the first quality, I know I have the second.
But only in two categories. Cricket and writing.
Cricket, well, I didn't make it to the higher levels in spite of my years-long dreams of fooling international batsmen with my floaters and turners. But one stroke or one ball, I can say if the guy has it in him.
While playing for clubs or for my college, I have come across many youngsters who had talent--raw--but no proper training or discipline.
We had a left-handed batsman in our club in Varkala, and boy, he was some batsman. He used to come to the ground in kayali and tee-shirt, and would get into a crumpled trousers--never washed.

But send him in, and the way he batted would make a certain David Gower proud. The nonchalant stance, the back-lift, the caress, the elegance and the ease with which he lofted some of the fastest bowlers around out of the school ground were unbelievable.
But no coach saw this precocious talent, neither was he serious about taking his game to another level. He just enjoyed the game to fullest--pure joy.
I am sure there will be thousands of such players across the country.

For some, talent will be less, but aspiration and perspiration more.

This applies to writing too. I have always believed that a cousin of mine is extremely talented and it was a matter of time before he broke into the big league. In the days before computers, he used to sit through nights typing out his novels. One day he showed me his swollen fingers. I knew he would make it.
I used to be the the first one to read his writing, and he wanted me to critically analyse him which I couldn't because I just love his writing.

I know someone who cannot critically anaylise my writing for the love for it. But that's not my claim to have talent.

This evening is the first meeting of Trivandrum Writers' Forum. I expect at least 10 people to turn up.

I want to thank that special person for bringing me back to the world of letters. I had quit on it for some years.

Sorry

2010-02-18T09:56:00.001+05:30

SORRY

Though my eyes continue
their search for you, and
my lips are parched, waiting
for yours, and fingers
feeling for yours,
I cannot look you in the eye.

Today I realized, again,
how badly I’ve hurt you,
wounded your heart:
like a thoughtless child
tearing away its colourful kite,
without waiting for the wind
to pick up, and see it soaring.

Grow Up!

2010-02-18T09:46:00.000+05:30

How old is old?
The very fact that these kinds of questions popping up in one’s frame of mind itself is a sure sign of aging. Or, is it?
I wonder.
My friends say I am childish. Do they mean ‘childlike’?
Childish. Childlike. Where is my Concise Oxford?
Many of my friends and peer are so grown up that they can laugh neither at themselves nor at others. Their faces hardly lit up. They either speak of millions in investment and the pulse of stock market—they don’t talk about Tom and Jerry, but bull and bear, obviously not the cuddly Teddy.
One of my friends has four houses—three in three cities in Kerala and one in Bangalore. He jets around, and once in a while takes a breather and meets me in some quaint restaurant here. We have known each other from college days. Well, that’s some donkeys years ago (I hate using this cliché, but thought since it has been about cat, mouse, bull and bear, why spare the monkeys). Whenever he comes, I take him to restaurants where we get the local cuisine—kappa, fish, that sort of stuff.
I help him unwind. He unwinds, laughs out. We remember the good old days when we used to travel by packed train to college—mostly sitting by the door. I make sure that he doesn’t dwell on the market realities as long as he is with me. I laugh at my own logic-defying belly and loss of hair or the silly mistakes I’ve made in my growing up in newsrooms.
But occasionally I notice the flashing worry in his eyes. He is a private banker. So I forgive his momentary detour to reality. But by the time we hug each other to bid farewell, helping our bellies rub their cheeks, he is a jolly fellow.
Part we have to. He, to his worries of wealth amassing. I, to my dreams of becoming a writer.
Another friend of mine—a fellow I met a decade ago in Dubai—has grown into a millionaire in front of my eyes. His primary business is transporting races horses. When he started out, I had gone with him to assist at airports. We carted boxes, filled out documents, hired grooms, checked out all arrangements. Once the horse or horses were gone, we high-fived and drove into the night singing.
Over the years, he branched out other businesses, grew in stature and in swollen bank accounts. The other day he came to see me in his swanky Merc. Sure, he turned many heads where I stay.
The youngster has matured into a businessman. His phone rang constantly. Calls came from China, Hong Kong, Dubai, Libya, etc. I kept looking at him. His laughed, remembering his early days and our adventures in putting horses in flights.
I felt good that he still remembered those days. Before he left, he asked me if I was okay. I didn’t fully understand the meaning of that ‘okay’. Whatever it was, I said I was.
He got into the backseat of the white Merc. A pilot car drove away in front of his pride possession. He was gone, waving.
Anyway, there are times I feel I need to grow up.
Last evening when I got angry at my colleagues for no fault of theirs, and then, late in the evening when I sobbed in the car before I got that one call.
I knew it was childish, or childlike. I wanted to grow up, and make others happy.
But the question pops up, again.
How old is old?

TWF: A Tribute To Your Love

2010-02-17T07:43:00.004+05:30

Every unpublished writer is a burden on his friends, family and colleagues. He or she is a pain to everyone around.

It's my experience, for the last few years.

Before my marriage, I was sharing a flat in Sharjah with two of my The Gulf Today colleagues, and good friends. We three shared a love for literature, music, girls, and what not. We used to meet in the drawing room for drinks, movies, talks, hosting common friends, etc. But we would withdraw into each one's rooms with our individual dreams. We hardly encroached into our personal space.

We had distinctive characteristics, and we respected each other's personality.

One day I took a printout of the new chapter of my book which I had been writing for a couple of years. I was so thrilled at it, thought it was okay writing. In the night, after the usual couple of drinks, and when the youngest one retired into his world of dreams, I approached the third one, who did book reviews for our magazine. I presented the pages of my manuscript and requested him to take a look. He took it, browsed through it and promised to give it a peaceful, mindful reading on the weekend, perhaps over a few shots of his favourite rum and soda.

He was a sweet fellow, and more than trusting in him, I had high hopes--that you see in any aspiring writer.

A couple of weeks went by. No mention of my manuscript or writing talent in any of our drawing room meetings. So many cans of beer and pints of rum after, nothing was coming. Each time he spoke of a new writer he was reviewing, I had expected him to mention my name as an after-thought.

It just didn't come. I waited for over a month. I was beginning to get impatient. It was beginning to hurt me. One day after making sure that he was in the bathroom, I tiptoed into his room, making sure that I was still hearing the sounds of the shower. I ran my eyes all over his study...in the piles of books...in his drawer...No my pages weren't there. I knew he had kept it somewhere safe. I walked back and when I was about to shut the door behind me I saw it. My pages! But it broke my heart. They were under his table. I went in in a flash and picked them up. They were all dusty and had tiny threads of cobwebs beginning cover them. It was evident, he hadn't even touched it.

I hurt me. I walked out with the pages.

This week we are planning to hold the first, and an informal, meeting of Trivandrum Writers' Forum (TWF) at the Cafe Coffee Day at Kowdiar. I don't know how many would turn up. But I want to set up a platform where those who write in English can read out what they have written, and the crowd will not be one of run-away readers. They can discuss writing, writers, blocks, blogs, and dreams.

The TWF is no great shake, but an evening to share dreams and encourage each other. Let our youngsters dream of colours and words, for I know some who have lost the magic of colours, the warmth of words and even their dreams. And, it has hurt me--personal, but it is true.

I am taking the initiative as a tribute to my love whom I am trying to bring back to the world of colours and words. Because, even when she has allowed that passion to leak out of her life, she has believed in me, and has always treated and loved me as a writer--published or not.

Thanks. You know it.

Closest

2010-02-17T01:21:00.001+05:30

Eighteen years melted between our eyes.
They snapped,
burst like
the bubbles that kept
us in our worlds.

The pain of lonely nights,
the silent sobs,
the piercing sighs…
all gone today as we held hands.

We looked at each other,
holding us in looks
that only lovers look.
The same magic in the eyes,
the same desire, the glimmer of hope.

We knew we’d be gone again.
into our worlds,
to lives life has presented.

We know we’ll be far away
from each other,
but,
no one will be closer to us
as we are to each other:
within each other like the heartbeat.

Wrapper

2010-02-16T09:38:00.002+05:30

If all the words I have written
so far haven’t told you this,
here, I want to tell you again:
One teardrop of yours
is a monsoon for me: it floods my heart,
washes away everything else,
and leaves me homeless,
lost, found, and lost again.

When you sound sad
my heart sinks,
when I hear your soft sobs,
my heart is torn up,
when I hear your sighs,
my breath stops, and
you know why…we are one:
strung together by His spirit,
designed for His pattern.

But,
one shard of your smile,
thin peals of your laughter,
make a whole spring in me.
it blooms colors, inspires
fragrance that wafts around.

Yes, I have the confirmation.
For our thoughts are not His,
nor our ways His.
My Valentine, you are not forgotten,
but I’m so wrapped up in you,
often I forget to wake up.

But, you and I…
the story is long, and
the storyteller loves us so dear
He often hugs us together.
Can’t you hear His soft whispers of promise,
of love unique and sublime?
Can’t you feel my hands around you,
nuzzling your neck,
the gentle rub of your cheeks?
Can’t you feel our love,
today, everyday?

An Evening On Haiti

2010-02-16T09:34:00.002+05:30

Malayalee presence in Haiti, India keeps help promise, Tharoor’s visit…and some questions

It was a decade ago that the 9/11 struck and changed the times and lives of all of us. Each one of us has been directly or indirectly affected by the worst terror strike so far. It split the world. It changed our habits and order of life.

Four years ago tsunami raged and swept away hundreds of thousands of lives. When waves were transformed into monstrous giants, man appeared helpless. Tsunami still lurks somewhere on the fringes of our mind—every time we drive by a beach or see the play of the waves on mossy rocks, we don’t fail to recollect the murderer in them.
Last month nature struck again—this time in the form of a vengeful earthquake. It is not anywhere near Trivandrum, nor is it going to change the pattern of daily life in this laidback city of ours. But the earthquake in Haiti that killed over 200,000 people and threw many more than that into the streets will surely disturb some of us.

If 9/11 attacks paved the way for debates and conferences to drive home the need for peace, tolerance and inter-religious dialogues and understanding, tsunamis and earthquakes ask questions of a different shade.

Are there any lessons that we have to learn from these expressions of nature’s fury? Are we encroaching into the nature? Or, how should we be prepared if such an earthquake splits the ground beneath our feet in this city?

Last week members of the Trivandrum-based foreign policy think tank Kerala International Centre (KIC) met at the YMCA Library Hall to discuss Haiti. It might appear an evening of no topical relevance. But it turned out to be quite the contrary.

Before we get into some sketchy thoughts about earthquakes and what we should be wary of, it would be of our clannish interest to know that there is a Malayalee presence in Haiti too. No, it is not just Dr Shashi Tharoor, the first Indian minister to visit this country, which is tucked in the fault line between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates.

There are Malayalees running grocery shops and cafeteria and two nuns with Mother
Teresa’s organization. It is said that when the quake splintered the tiny country and people were thrown into the streets, the cafeterias and grocery shops were a blessing. These shops remained opened all through the nights providing food and drinks to the victims.

There are about 100 Indians in Haiti, and only one of them—an IT staff—has so far been reported killed in the quake, said Tharoor, who shared the experience of his visit to the country to the KIC audience.

The minister, who landed in the country in a chopper, said India is one of the first countries to keep the promise of help. He said India has handed over a cheque of $5 million to the Haiti government, which has identified between 217,000 and 230,000 people as dead, an estimated 300,000 injured, and an estimated 1,000,000 homeless.

The death toll is expected to rise since we know the official numbers will always be only an indicator. They have also estimated that 250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial buildings have collapsed or are severely damaged.
The UN has lost its most number of staff in the Haiti disaster. Tharoor said he had lost four friends, two of them long-time ones.

It is when a disaster or a calamity strikes that we come to know how vulnerable we are. Recently, we have realised how ill-prepared we are when a building collapsed in Thampanoor. We have realized that there are miles to go for us in rescue operations. Those who warn of our shortcomings are not problem-preachers. The better prepared we are, the safer.

India is not a stranger to earthquakes—Lathur images still linger is many of us.
Geographical statistics of India show that almost 54 per cent of the land is vulnerable to earthquakes. The major reason for the high frequency and intensity of the earthquakes is that India is driving into Asia at a rate of approximately 47 mm/year.

Concerns that the members of the KIC raised are: how many of our buildings can withstand a strong quake? Do we have a national mission on this? In Kerala, we witness a boom in real estate development. But is there anyone who is cutting corners? Is there anyone ignoring the rules and regulations? Whether the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report linking natural disasters to global warming is a wee bit exaggerated or a goof-up or not, it is time we checked our greedy encroaches into nature.

Before winding up his heart-wrenching experience in the country, Tharoor explained how the president of the country was spared. When the Presidential Palace collapsed President Rene Preval was in his private home. That too collapsed, but the president was feeding his grandchild in the garden!

Independent think tank

KIC is an independent foreign affairs think tank, the first of its kind in Kerala. It seeks to build a centre of excellence in the state capital as a forum to provide inputs from Kerala to foreign policy formulation and implementation.

“People from Kerala have reached the farthest corners of the globe and made their mark. With major stakes in the success of Indian foreign policy, Kerala has taken the initial step to make a contribution to Indian foreign policy making and implementation by setting up the KIC as an independent foreign policy think tank," says Mr TP Sreenivasan, managing trustee and director general, KIC, and former Indian ambassador to the UN, in its website.
“We expect and hope that, in the years to come, it will be a centre of excellence. The objectives, activities and the structure of the Centre are outlined in the following pages.” The KIC expects more people to get involved in its activities and meetings.

Oh, My Valentine!

2010-02-15T10:24:00.001+05:30

An uneventful weekend, loaded with work.
I spent the Valentine’s Day at home. Married friends hardly went out (I checked out with a few), but the youngsters did. Some of them checked out Purple Patch, the city’s only pub/night club.
Oh, Trivandrum! I was wondering if we really wanted a night club in Trivandrum. Maybe we do.
But then, the old buddy in me would love a quieter place, with some soulful songs thrown in.
But anyway, as the city is progressing into a Tier III IT hub, I reckon it might need to cater to the needs of the younger crowd.
No complaints.
So back to the Valentine’s Day. I have never been a Valentine guy. Many Feb 14s have come and gone, without making much difference in my life.
But this time it was different. I didn’t have an action-thriller Valentine, but it was the best in recent years. For the first time, my Valentine bought me a gift. A precious one. A watch.
So I didn’t actually mind sitting at home, teaching kids, giving them dictation and slapping them with impositions, and snoring away while they were writing those impositions.
My daughter couldn’t believe her eyes as her Papa was snoring with her textbook in his hand! Oh, these siesta hours. You really a strong will to be at home after a good lunch and not to sleep.
Many years ago when I was in Ras Al Khaimah, a sleepy northern emirate in the UAE, I was in for a shock as everyone was sleeping so ‘seriously’ during lunch break. I was staying with my father’s friend. They used to switch off all the lights and draw curtains and get under thick comforters, and snore away. I too was given a fluffy blanket and asked to sleep. Fresh from Kerala with no acquired habits, I lay awake under the blanket all those hours. I felt bored, out of place and nostalgic. I wept under the blanket, silently. I missed home. I missed my friends. I missed someone precious.
It was miserable.
But after 15 years in the Middle East, I can say that I was not a regular siesta sleeper. I might fall off to sleep in the sofa watching a boring Test or documentary, but I was never a ‘serious’ sleeper.
So the Valentine’s Day passed by.
I am loaded with work as our city-based portal is about to be launched. I have always been an early bird—early to bed and early off. But these days I have been burning not only the midnight’s oil but early morning too.
But tonight onwards, I have decided, I will sleep early.

Not A Jingoistic

2010-02-12T11:42:00.000+05:30

I have to make a few things clear here otherwise I’d branded a narrow-minded patriot blinded by jingoistic fervor, which I am not.
Born an Indian, I have always supported the Indian cricketers, even in those days when they hardly won a match. Even when they were not millionaires or super models.
I grew up supporting them in the years before globalization and in those years when communication meant weak radio waves and a grainy Doordarshan.
We—my cousins, friends and myself—did not love them because they looked debonair and dashing, but they were fellow countrymen.
But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t like any other team. England was my favourite, and I adored Ian Botham and David Gower. There was something special about the Poms—a blue-blooded charm. I read up so much about the philosophical Mike Brearley and his legendary captaincy, about Gower’s genius and gullibility, about Botham’s heroics and friendship with Viv Richards, about the South African roots of Allan Lamb, and all those swing bowlers who came and went away like the English showers.
Then the West Indians. Who wouldn’t love their brand of passionate Calypso cricket? I loved all of them, and read up the classic “Beyond A Boundary” by Trinidadian CLR James. We grew up mugging up details about all those wonderful cricketers.
Then the Aussies. You can either love them or hate them, but cannot ignore them. Before they began their victorious journey under Allan Border in mid-80s, there was phase when they were at the nadir. Retirement of a few key players led to the one of the worst phases in Australian cricket history. Captain Kim Hughes left a press conference in tears. But then under Border they rebuilt the team and how!
My all-time favourite Aussie is Mark Waugh. Before I got into sports journalism, I once ran after Mark at the Sharjah stadium just to meet him. I spotted him on the ground on the eve of a match, and I went up to him and expressed my admiration. He smiled and shook my hands. How many times I relived that moment. After some years when he came back to Dubai to conduct a Mark Waugh Cricket Clinic, I was with the journos, talking to him across a table.
South Africans…well, they have a special place in my heart. Isolated from international sports for years, the South Africans are not behind anyone in terms of talent and technology. They brought in not only a ferocious brand of cricket but coaching methods using technology. The combination of Hansie Cronje and Bob Woolmer was proving to be a nemesis to all other teams.
I met Woolmer a few times in Dubai while he was conducting crash clinics at Insportz. I met him and did an hour-long interview a couple of months before he left for West Indies with Pakistan team for the World Cup. He spoke at length and seemed to have enjoyed the discussion. I was not writing down the points, but recorded the entire conversation on a micro-cassette recorder. That was one of my biggest blunders in my career. After a few days, I misplaced the tiny cassette and couldn’t write the story. Woolmer had asked me to show him the story next time he came to the city, and I promised him. But he never came, and I haven’t got the cassette yet.
A few words about Cronje. What a man! Not only was he a professional, competitive cricketer but a man of some standing. Yes, he had taken money from bookies, but he had the spleen or the conviction or the prick of conscience to confess it in public. It was not easy for a man of his stature and fan following. He was looked upon as the symbol of future in South Africa. I admired him more when he read out his confession. Mistakes we all make in life, but to stand up and admit it takes courage and conviction.
I still love the South Africans, and badly want them to win the World Cup, because they deserve it.
Having lived in the UAE for over a decade and having seen the blind bias against the Indians everywhere, I too had picked up a prejudice against the Pakistanis. But I have my individual favourties: Wasim, Waqar, Inzy, Aamir Sohail, etc.
I had a very brief friendship with Aamir Sohail. We got talking at the Sharjah stadium and used to mail each other for some time till I got a screen-saver forward from him. I wondered why he sent me a screen saver. I for a moment thought perhaps it could be some of his shots. And I clicked to open it, and my laptop never came to life after that!
It was not his fault. He didn’t send it. The virus that had crept into his computer had sent it to all addresses in his list!
I may still want to see the Indians win, but that doesn’t mean that I support all of their fancies and superstardom. I firmly believe that the BCCI should not be allowed to flex its monetary muscles.
Let cricket, not the buck, bring respect.

Rainbow Of Promise

2010-02-11T08:29:00.001+05:30

Sitting here by a tired milestone,
And looking back,
I see silhouettes of our past
In curls of vibrant colours.

Over a gust of sigh, I hear
the whispers of love,
rustling of youthful leaves,
the soft touch of fingertips,
casual curls of your tresses,
the rubbing of shoulders,
the tired anticipation in your eyes,
the future of our past,
the emotions in my raw poetry.

We’ve been running the race,
not to win, not to lose
but we keep running.

The road ahead wobbles
where it meets the horizon,
and, there clears up a rainbow
of the old covenant promise.

Goliath Is Around, Where Is Our David?

2010-02-11T07:28:00.004+05:30

Chairman of Indian cricket team selectors K Srikkanth says he is ready to place his neck on the chopper board for the team's massive defeat at the hands of the South Africans in the recent Nagpur Test.

Once a ferocious batsman who has stood up to the hostility of fast bowlers and met them on the up and dismissed them with contempt, Srikkanth is not the type to shy away from challenges.

With Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Rohit Sharma out with injuries, he could only pick players from what is left in the hat. Still one can ask question as why India walked into the field with one specialised bowler short.

But the point is, how did India play the game? Did they play as the No.1 team in the world?

Yes, Sehwag and Tendulkar slammed centuries in the first and second innings respectively, but then these tons did not do much to save the team from defeat. Captain Dhoni has finally tasted defeat in a Test match. Srikkanth says winning and losing are part of the game.

Sure, they are the two sides of the coin. But the bother is, how did they lose? Was it a cliff-hanger contest? Could they have avoided it by the skin of their teeth? Or was it a walk in the park for the Proteas?

The disturbing reality for an Indian fan is that it was a canter for the Africans. Steyn picked up 10 wickets, and Amla hit up a double ton to force India follow on.

Were there expectations of what happened when India followed on some years ago against the Australians? But then the architects of that epic U-turn, Dravid and Laxman, were not around this time.

It take more than talent to humble mighty teams. David did not kill Goliath by matching the giant man's strength and physique, but by using his skills and acting on a spirit which spurred him to stand up for his country. He stood up in the battlefield, looked the giant in his eyes and declared, much like a Muhammad Ali, that the day belonged to him.

When will the Indians play like David, and look the Aussies and South Africans in the eye and say cold-blooded that the day belonged to them?

What if in one fine morning we don't see the shadows of players like Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman on a Test match ground? Who will stand up for India, like David who actually came to the battlefield to bring food for his brothers, but couldn't tolerate the taunts of Goliath against his country?

Who will say, enough is enough, today you are destined to be killed?

I wish the Indian management would make the players read why David responded to Goliath's challenges and how. After all, India and Israel are good friends.

Rains

2010-02-11T07:21:00.002+05:30

(Some more excerpts from my debut novel)

June rains in Kerala—the monsoon—and Farook cannot but turn nostalgic. The raindrops are still the same—its colour, passion and vigour—even after so many years.

Farook has seen rains in Europe: he and Ruth have walked hand-in-hand along the quaint, cobbled streets in the medieval Ghent, letting the raindrops run down their body—Ruth clutching a bunch of begonias from an elderly vendor down the street, and the last layer of the vanilla-topped sweet melon ice cream still melting in their mouth.

He has walked the streets of Madrid—without Ruth this time—and watched how raindrops smudged the water-colours on an art student’s canvas. Sitting in the upper layer of a bullring, he has watched how rain sprinkled down from a column of dark clouds that hovered above the matador, the bull and the frenzied fans.

He has walked around the vineyards in Cyprus, and had a Mediterranean lunch under a canopy of vine branches when, out of nowhere, raindrops pattered on the leaves. In the distance, the sun still brightened up the mountaintops.

He has seen ferocious storms bring in fierce rains across America. He has seen the disheveling patterns of rains in Florida. He has shut himself up in his bureau office in New Orleans when a storm needled through the town, lifting roofs, ripping apart stores, kicking down booths and rolling away vehicles.

He has skied down the slalom in the Alps, clumsily, trusting the strength of the skis more than his skill. Ruth and he have heaped snowballs on snowballs and made an oversized snowman, with a sketch pen as nose, cola lids as eyes and a paper cone as hat.

But the tropical rains in Kerala—the original home—are something special to him. They sing in his soul. They fill the chambers of his heart.

Then Sings My Soul

2010-02-10T09:55:00.001+05:30

(Excerpts from my debut novel)

When Farook spilled the beans in Bombay Beats newsroom about his employment in an American magazine, everyone was surprised, some jaws dropped.
In fact, Farook himself was surprised to receive a call from Andrew Mitchell to inform him that he had been appointed to assist the features desk.
Farook had known Andrew Mitchell for a year by then, and had been in constant correspondence with him. They wrote on good writing, ethics and, faith. Interacting with Mr Mitchell had been a good learning process for Farook. He improved his journalistic skills in quick time.
Short, plump Mr Mitchell had two distinctive physical characteristics: a medium-size paunch that expanded around his hip, and the absence of a definitive neck.
Farook was drawing circles on a horizontal piece of paper when the office boy informed him that his editor wanted to meet him. It had been his way of preparing himself for a feature. He drew circles for each point to stress. After finishing the feature, he picked up the paper again and cross-checked if he had covered all the points.
A bald, middle-aged man who always stroked his earlobes as he spoke, Aroon Bhaweja was known as an imaginative editor who had taken Bombay Beats to be one of the most popular dailies in the city. The previous day he had assigned Farook to do a story on the people who were cheated by overseas recruitment agencies, and especially on that magical piece of paper called visa.
If it was two months ago, Farook would not have been assigned to do the job. There were a number of senior and more talented writers. But Farook’s last piece on street children and inmates in orphanages had generated such reader interest that the office mailbox was crammed with congratulatory letters and letters to the editor commending him on his insight to do such a story.
Bhaweja, who so far did not find Farook anything other than the another chip off the southern block, suddenly called him into his cabin and praised him in front of the news editor, who apparently did not like the sudden rise of the young man from Kerala.
“It was one of the best features I have read,” Bhaweja said, walking up to Farook.
“The way you conceived the story is brilliant. The choice of words makes your language refreshing and appealing to the readers. Excellent, and now you have to keep it up!”
Farook could feel the news editor turning in his chair. Restless and disapproving, he tapped on the table, removed his specs, fogged them with his exhale and cleaned them with the rough end of his kurta.
It had been less than a year since Farook joined Bombay Beats as a junior writer, a favour from an acquaintance who was a senior at the copy desk.
Farook would have never come to Bombay, he preferred call the city by its old name rather than the new Mumbai, but for that nasty, disturbing incident in that sultry March night.

After the intruders left, Farook found his mother totally devastated. She was crying all night. Only thing Farook checked occasionally was to make sure that she was physically steady. And, he left her to cry out her fear or grief.
She lay in the bed where she used to sleep with Farook’s father, facing the wall and sobbed, wept and cried in varying measures. She was desperate for her husband’s presence, which she rarely had in times of emotional low points even when he was alive. In the best and the worst of times for the 13 of 25 years of marriage, he was away in the Gulf, leaving her lonely with their two kids.
“Your son has grown up and taken a decision on his future all by himself. Now tell me, at least now, what should I do?” she asked her dead husband.
She knew her husband loved their son, and one of the last sentences he spoke before he died was, “Farook…Farook…What shall he do now?”
The relationship between Farook and his mother was the subject of all his friends’ envy. She was to him a friend, a guide and a window to the world and family history. They shared jokes and laughed out aloud. She followed her husband’s belief in secularism and did not give in to the imposing intrusion of religion in personal life.
They brought up their two children the same way. The celebrated Xmas and Onam, perhaps better than Eid.
As she was crying into the softness of her pillow, she was thinking of all this. She was thinking of their family pedigree—the long history of thinkers, teachers and writers—and those who went to the Far East and never came back.
She did not doubt the seriousness of the threat that her son would not see his mother if he repeated what he did on previous two Sundays.
After all, she did not understand why he attended a church service. Even on Fridays when the imam’s coarse and religious-tuned voice through the loudspeaker floated in with the breeze from the valley, exhorting the Muslims to understand the “world-wide persecutions” against them, neither Farook’s father nor himself felt the urge to join them in prayers. They either played another game of scrabble or watched India play a visiting team.
No imam dared to open the gate and ask Ibrahim and Farook to attend the prayers. No imam with a sense of history could be naïve enough to tell Ibrahim, the youngest son of the Moulavi Sahib, who gave everything he had in life—except his nine sons and a daughter—to uplift the community, the virtues of Islam or attending Friday prayers.
Only thing that Farook’s father wanted his son to become was a good human being, which his mother thought he was. Though he was never a topper in schools or colleges, he had never put his parents to shame by either badmouthing his teachers or by eve-teasing the coy girls in the neighbourhood or in his school. Neither was he involved in party politics. All he did was play cricket, and spend hours in front of the fissured mirror on the wooden almarah, which was one of the first things Farook’s mother bought when they moved out of their sprawling maternal house to the first of the four rented houses.
Farook spent long hours on perfecting his off-spin grip—getting his forefinger and middle finger spread around the seam—and getting his bend and balance right on a Sunil Gavaskar stance, and the way he should shuffle across at the time a bowler delivered the ball—not too much which would expose his leg-stump.
His efforts to play cricket or become a better cricketer did not bring any shame to the family but slightly took his focus away from his studies.

Farook remained in the front room, in front of the Scrabble board, staring at the unromantic but economical tube light under which two lizards stood still, both eyeing a velvet moth a hop away.
His mother turned in her weeping position and continued to shed tears into the pillow which by now had become wet in patches. The cotton inside the pillow had become hard after getting wet. She ran her fingers across the edge of the pillow as if she was running her fingers across the chest of her husband, which was her favourite unwinding exercise. She would stop by his nipples, and by that time the foreplay session would be hot and ready to take off.
The cotton inside the pillow had thick spots where the cotton was in knots. She tweaked them as if she was tweaking her husband’s nipples, and continued with her train of thoughts as if he was alive and lying next to her, eyes closed but listening.
One tear drop veered off the normal route along the bridge of her nose and seeped into her lips. She tasted her own sorrow. She pursed her lips, and continued to long for the presence of her husband to decide on Farook’s decision.
She knew what her husband’s stand would be. He would not impose anything on his son. By the way, how could he who had done in his life only what he wanted, all of a sudden dictate to his son what to do? Even if he was against Farook’s sweeping decision with far-reaching repercussions, he would not hit the roof with anger or throw the jobless son out of the house but be quiet.
He passionately believed in what his idol, Bertrand Russell, said—knowledge and love should guide your life. His reading was wide, and he was passionate in love.
Though Farook’s mother did not know much about his reading other than the titles, she knew what he wanted in bed. He explored every curl, heap and dip of her body with passion and taste. He had made it a point that they had no inhibitions in bed—and made sure she was naked. Undressing her was a ceremony for him. He did it layer by layer, part by part, with soft, considerate touches. Unlike most neighbourhood husbands who turned over and slept once they were through, he made sure she experienced what she wanted to experience.
He worshipped knowledge and practised passionate love. He celebrated humanism and proclaimed its values. So he would not disown his own son for taking a decision which was not an every-day decision but one which could get the entire family ostracized.
It was a year ago that they buried Farook’s father under a cashew tree, in the extreme corner of the cemetery at Kayaloram mosque. Though no one had visited the burial place or erected a memorial stone to remind others of whose remains were under that insignificant mound of soil, Farook’s mother knew if her son defied the men in veil and attended another Sunday service, her desire to be buried next to her husband would never be fulfilled.
She continued to cry, into the stroke of midnight when in the front yard a nishagandi blossomed with a waft of intoxicating fragrance.
She wept past the midnight into the wee hours of another hot morning. Sweat drops trickled down from her nape and channelled into her cleavage. She wiped them off with the hem of her sari.
She woke up at four in the morning with a sense of peace settling down on her. She rubbed her eyes, and got up from the bed with a decision—let Farook do what he wanted.
All that time, since his mother began her odyssey into her sorrow and thoughts till she got up at four in the morning with a sense of awakening, Farook was thinking of his state of no decisions.
He himself never wanted to attend a Sunday service till that Saturday evening when he stumbled upon the sleek edition of the New Testament which Fareeda gave him years ago while bidding him good-bye, which turned out to be their last meeting.
Farook was rummaging through a pile of old books as he had nothing else to do. He had not even opened the red-bound book, mainly out of lack of interest. But on that Saturday evening when yellow sunlight fell, through the window panes, on the bed he was lying, he opened the book and browsed through.
What was written in fine print did not make any sense to him. But his eyes stuck on one sentence. “God the Father…” Farook read the sentence again and again.
Again and again.
He stopped at each word. God. The. Father. Something was happening to him. He felt a brook of warm water breaking forth from the deepest point of his heart.
A sense of security wrapped him up. He was missing his father, who had died without leaving him anything to build his life on.
Farook couldn’t hold back his tears. That which brooked from his heart overwhelmed him. He sobbed uncontrollably. All the grief in his life was being churned to tears. He thought he was leaning on the shoulders of God, the Father. Ah, that security, that comfort!
Farook didn’t know how long he lay like that with the tiny book by his side and eyes wet. When he woke up he felt so light as if he was a feather floating around in the breeze. The weight of sorrow and grief was gone.
Farook felt good, and hopeful. Hopeful that there could be a Father. And, there could be someone who could lead him out of the cul de sac that he was in.
The decision to attend the Sunday service at New Life Church, where one of his friends attended prayers, was taken off the cuff. The next day he went to Trivandrum, his mother thought he might be meeting his friends.
Farook was hesitant to walk into the hall. When he walked in, a choir was singing Then Sings My Soul My Saviour God To Thee. Farook sat on the last pew as he did not want anyone to notice him. He closed his eyes, the lyrics gnawed at his heart. As the choir leader led the congregation from one soulful song to the other, Farook was sobbing, gentle and quiet.

WORSHIP

2010-02-10T09:50:00.000+05:30

In a faded denim and a royal blue tee,
and with a day-old stubble, a pair of dreamy eyes,
he looked a vintage lover.
And, how he worshipped today, strumming
his guitar, letting out his melancholic voice,
romancing the Lord…and how I wanted you
to be my side as I wept like a baby,
for His love and yours, with my heart overwhelming
with gratitude that you are back, and how!

I just wanted to hold your hands, in that
proprietorial confidence, and thank Him,
for preserving our love for each other,
in all the troubles and passages of time,
in all the strange ways we have journeyed alone,
in all the weird ways we have sorted our lives out,
in all the valleys of tears, and shadows of death,
in the days and nights of crowded loneliness.

As he strummed and hummed, tears flowing
and heart brimming with joy, I stood there,
eyes wet and closed, feeling His presence,
hearing the reassuring voice that
all is His doing, and again I heard that promise,
that soft voice inside, that we’ll hold hands,
one day, in His day.

Viral Fever

2010-02-10T09:46:00.001+05:30

By now my thin list of readers must be familiar with my pre-dawn time in the balcony. Watching the day unfold injects some refreshing energy into my veins. I love that tenderness in the sky—the soft, soothing canopy over us. Also, the play of colours when the sun comes up.
It is heartening to notice that both at the beginning and the end of the day, there are identical ambience—the light, the colours, the breeze.
If dawns refresh me, dusks turn me romantic. I feel like singing a lovelorn song—singing, I dare not.
Watching the sun turns ruddy and reddish, with some brilliant brush strokes across the Western horizon, I long for my love. Nothing compares to the moments of togetherness; just sitting side by side and watching the play of colours.
But this morning I was too sick to get up early. My whole body was hurting yesterday. When I said I might be running temperature, she scolded me, saying only children get fever. And, suggested that I must have some pints of rasam with a generous helping of pepper. Hmm, I didn’t take rasam, but had a sumptuous lunch, despite a sprained neck.
In the night as I was watching Jab We Met—oh I loved it—the body pain became a bother. I felt pin-pricks all over my back. I couldn’t sit or lie down.
The thermometer said I was running temperature. Eyes became heavy and hurting. Head was splitting with an ache.
Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up with a chill. I was shivering under the sheet. I curled into an “S”. Every inch of the body was hurting. I wanted someone to hold me, to calm down the shivers. There was none.
By the time the kids came to kiss and say bye before they went to school, I managed to sit up with a stoop. Stomach ache bordered onto cramps.
I texted my niece, who is a doctor, all my symptoms, and she sent back a list of medicines, and said it is viral fever! And, recommended two days of rest.
Years ago, one of my friends had rheumatic fever. But I normally get romantic fever!

Honeymoon In Abu Dhabi

2010-02-09T06:59:00.004+05:30

Roving Reporter from the DLF Cup in Abu Dhabi, April 18, 2006

Sabin Iqbal at the Zayed Stadium

When the miserly Mohammad Asif hurled down the first ball, under the fierce Middle-Eastern sun, international cricket came back to life in its desert outpost. The heat, literally, was on, with the temperature soaring over 40 degrees and the Zayed Stadium appeared to be a splash of green across the grey desert.

Despite the stifling heat and Tuesday being a working day here in Abu Dhabi, the crowd swelled gradually across the swanky stadium. That was no surprise. For six years, they have been nursing the hurt at the decline of cricket in Sharjah, once an oasis on the one-day cricket calendar. Now, the caravan has moved nearly 200 kilometres down south.

The passion, though, has not been left behind. Cricket, especially the India-Pakistan variety, is what the people want. The Abu Dhabi Cricket Council had made sure that all the trappings of the occasion were in place. Bollywood stars, politicians and businessmen played their roles to perfection. Parvez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, kept his promise to fly across. As did Salman Khan.

At 3.30, when umpire Rudi Koertzen called out "Play", someone in the northern stand held up a placard, "Third umpire, please give me some water". In the heat and dust of the open stands, the catcalls soon started and the vitriolic slogans echoed around.

Like a blushing bride, the new pitch was coy. Neither the batsmen nor the bowlers could get much out of her. Bounce, speed and deviation were at a premium, and the outfield stretched out pleasantly as the Pakistani bowlers strangled the Indians.

There was no gladiatorial surge. No blood-boiling stroke-play. Robin Uthappa's exuberance was short-lived as he slapped one straight to the fielder at short mid-on. So was Yuvraj's touch. After spanking a four, the regal Yuvraj tickled one straight to Kamran Akmal.

Once Rahul Dravid and Irfan Pathan were run out, the Indians fell silent. Shahid Afridi then triggered a flutter among the Pathans in the crowd when he picked up Suresh Raina. They have missed him in these parts.

Dhoni walked in to a roar, and soon walked back. No Indian soul moved. All of a sudden, the Indians looked a different side from the one that had been so belligerently crushing its opponents. The flourish was absent, and the energy looked sapped. Was Dravid taking anticipatory bail when he said that nothing - not even defeats in the two matches here - could take the sheen off the team's recent success?

There was noise, but not the deafening din we were used to in Sharjah. But the promise of drama, madness and frolic was there. The green flag was unfurled and it swayed across the grass banks as Indian batsmen holed out at regular intervals. Timidity was written all over the innings and four run-outs punctuated the downfall to 197 all out. The best part of the first innings came at the dinner break - pyrotechnics, a technicolour laser show and a traditional dance by local artistes.

The Emirates has embraced change rapidly, and that was especially evident in the media centre - on the fifth level, with reporters literally having a bird's eye view. The last time international cricket was played in the country, the press box did not have one Arab journalist. Now there were a handful of them, getting crash-courses from the Indian and Pakistani reporters. One pretty television anchor said that she held a masters degree in sports, but has never heard of this strange game. The ICC can take heart; the game, it seems, has jumped over the cultural fence.

Sabin Iqbal is editor of the Dubai-based Sports Today magazine
This story was published in Cricinfo

Irreplaceable

2010-02-09T06:40:00.000+05:30

I slept off early last night, not that I was sleepy but the pain of separation was too intense to handle.
There was no way I could know anything about you.
I tried to read, work and be engaged, but nothing helped. The longing to talk to you surged like high waves—rising with the wind and tossing over the boats.
I tried to watch the Test match highlights, but cricket too couldn’t help. And, I realized that nothing can replace you.
Nothing.
If anything could, it would have been done by now. But after all these years, the feelings are exclusive and intense. The longing to be together, just be next to you—perhaps, looking into your eyes long and still, listening to your stories and laughing over your endless jokes, admiring your wonderful sense of designs and colours, sharing your taste for fineries, just caressing your feet and those beautiful fingers, or just being with you, which in fact defines me.
But I was far, far away from you. Shut out from your vibrant world.
I’m sure you feel the same way, and I know how passionately you want to be with me—listening to my poems, urging me to write and write more.
If you think the tears that you’ve shed are in vain, let me tell you, you’re wrong. Such love cannot go unnoticed. God is not so stone-hearted that He wouldn’t care for our love.
But as He said, ‘In due season.’
Ah, yes, but this separation is painful, the fact that we are there for each other is comforting.
Like a drop of water in the middle of a desert, it cools down the inner being, and prolongs life.

* * * *

I had a very strange dream last night. I saw myself in Africa. I don’t know which country, but as in every African country, it had a forest.
I was riding a bike along the streets which all of a sudden detoured and now I was moving along a road which had tall trees on both sides. After some time the road took me to a smaller one and then into a grass land. All of a sudden I had two of my friends—not sure who—as my pillion riders. So we were three on a bike.
Then, in a flash, I saw an elephant running towards us. I turned to my right and rode the bike as fast as I can, but the elephant too was fast. It sprinted after the bike, stretching its trunk. I turned the accelerator to the full, but the elephant was nearing us. And, finally it plucked the last man off the bike, and I rode off.
When I woke up, I was relieved to find myself in my bed, but its linen was so crumpled that it looked as if someone had wrestled on it!

Where Are You?

2010-02-09T06:07:00.000+05:30

I can only ask the silence around me.

The night is unusually quiet,
a solitary owl stares at me from the dark,
the moon butters the balustrades,
the chair next to me in the balcony
is empty.

Where are you?

I sum up my life, and it’s
not tallying. I try to throw in
some truths from our past.

My failures stare at me still
and insensitive, like the owl.
Before I could give in,
you say it’s not over yet.

Hope, yes, I do hope in the only hope,
and I know one day you’d come,
from our past and from your present,
into our future.

But tonight, alone in this starry night,
I can only ask the silence around me:
Where are you?

DAWN

2010-02-08T06:06:00.000+05:30

The air is thin and fresh. There is a chillness that cuts through the skin. It sneaks through the slits in the Maine jacket and rubs against the soft skin.
Far away a koel is all angst, and tries to out-hum another. An owl too hums before the seminal brightness of morning would blind it.
A few bronzed stars are feeble over the Western horizon. Who is listening to the old Hindi songs so early in the morning? Chugging of a pre-dawn train sinks all other sounds. Before the train passes by, a booming plane thunders away, low in its flight with lights under its wings glowing.
I can hear the footfalls of the woman who brings milk. The rattle of steel jugs and containers rises. She is a busy woman, and moves from one villa to the other like an ant—so much involved and labour-oriented. Following her is the newspaper man. Bony and with a thin beard, he has covered his head and most of his face with a black woolen balaclava. He flits across the alley like an elf dropping at each doorstep newspapers smelling hot of printer’s ink.
A muezzin call, urging believers to pray. A worship song from the nearby temple. Pious peals of bells from the church some distance away.
The sky is a thick black liquid.
A rooster crows—a frustrated clarion call. It goes on crowing in its effort to wake up the hens in the pen.
I sit at the edge of the balcony, next to the balustrade, with my legs up on the rails. I breathe in the dawn. I sit still. Alone, like I am always in life—both in the crowd and away.
It is true that you can be alone right in the middle of a crowd. You shut the door and breathe in a different stream of air. You live like strangers under one roof. You live your life like roommates.
A very thin thought about someone in no time becomes a heart-ache. A strong feeling of longing takes over. Loneliness strikes hard.
Longing for someone.
There is an empty chair next to me in the balcony. It has always been empty.
I have always sat here alone, hoping someday the chair will be occupied.
Before I notice, there is brightness in the Eastern horizon. The stars pale into insignificance. Lights come on in the adjacent villas. Pressure cookers begin to hiss. Sounds of toilet flushes puncture the air.
The security guard with a skull cap switches off the lights in the alley. Aroma of breakfast and of fresh bread spreads in the air. I get up and walk into the house. Through the window I can see two empty chairs at the edge of the balcony.
Or, do I see them occupied?

In Due Season

2010-02-07T19:53:00.000+05:30

Nothing wears you down like waiting, especially for the most precious.
Eyes grow weary—they have searched almost every crowd, every corner of airports at stopovers, behind the stalks of garments at pompous malls, and in almost all walks of life.
Who wrote that expectation is a bad habit? It is not. It is not for sure. It is the lifeline.
What else makes sense?
What else will make you hang on?
What else would help you dream?
Faith is hoping in the unseen, and trusting the unseen.
Expectation is like faith: hoping and trusting.
The Bible says that there is a season for everything. A season for tears, a season for smiles.
In the first half of my life, I have wrapped my tears with my smiles, but the season was of tears.
It will change.
Leaves will change colours; trees will shed them in a hurry. But in due season, we’ll see tender tongues of new leaves. That’s the cycle. The roll of seasons.
But nothing wears you down like waiting…this expectation.
But you trust that soft whisper within you. You know the voice. You know who it is. You trust Him.
The world may be against, the system and society may mock, throw stones. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is the voice, and the speaker; the one who has promised.
He is faithful enough to fulfill his promise. His hands are not shortened that they cannot reach you. Nor his ears closed that they cannot hear your groans.
That’s it.
We read how Jacob toiled for Rachel—first seven years, only to be cheated and given her sister. Then another seven years for his beloved.
He worked for 14 years to marry his love.
There is a season for everything. For struggles, and for rewards in due season.

The Bigger Picture

2010-02-07T18:21:00.000+05:30

I don’t remember who wrote it and where, but it said growth is often tragic.
How many of us don’t want to return to our childhood with a gasp?
Only when we grow out of it do we cherish the childhood. When we were children we were desperate to grow up and meander into adolescence. Once in adolescence, we peeped into the adult life. How badly we wanted to step into those shoes!
And, in the heat and throes of adult life, we look back and sigh. We regret our growth and long to be a child again—to go back to those days when happiness had no sharp edges and laughter had no layers of dried up tears.
Love was not trapped in any conditional clauses. No ifs and buts. No masks, no pretension.
As a boy I used to dream a lot. Sitting by the window in my study at home, I used to gaze at a night sky unbelievably star-studded and glittering, feel the seductive cool breeze stroking my cheeks, and try and figure out the reason for the nightingale’s pain and pangs.
And, I used to cry. I wasn’t sure why I wept into my pillows almost every night. But I did when I felt a sense of imaginary loss and abandonment.
And, I wrote poems to my lover. I had none though.
But at the cusp of my teenage and adulthood, I met her. My love.
Perhaps, I can’t pick the precise moment I saw her, but she happened in my life—walked into it with her smiles, laughter and quick swings of mood.
If I close my eyes now, I can see the flashes of our life on the campus and feel the warmth of our love.
We loved each other in those under-privileged days of communication. No asking ‘where are you? or saying ‘I’m okay’ through missed calls, expressing intimate passion through coded SMSes which are all gibberish to others, and comforting each other through veiled e-mail forwards. Each day we went back home with beautiful memories of the day, and looked forward to the next day. We were content with our situation that off campus there was no way we could contact each other, and it gave us room and time to dream.
But we drifted away abruptly. We vanished without a trace. We had lost each other in the flow of life. We went with the stream, often slamming hard at embankments of unknown shores. And, we ended up on strange lands.
I had grown up, and have begun to grow old. But the boy didn’t grow up with the flesh. The lover didn’t stop dreaming. But the poet had died, he couldn’t exist without her.
Years, almost two decades, have gone by before we found each other again—even surprising ourselves, and realized that we missed each other in our lives. And, the love is as fresh as it was 18 years ago.
The poet has been resurrected.
People, situations, relations, times and places in our life have changed. But not our love for each other.
In a way, it too has changed. It has become more refined and purer. It has become more realistic that there is no way this love can die, no matter whatever efforts to kill it.
It defies reason, time, geography and circumstances.
Though we look back and sigh over our good old days on campus, and often consider growth as tragic, we thank the Lord for maturing our love under His care and in His purpose.
Many won’t understand—even we find it hard to stomach—but looking back and at where and how we are now, we can’t fail to imagine the bigger picture He has in His hand!

Of Love.

2009-12-26T01:27:00.000+05:30

It was a quiet day. Kids were away at their grandparents' house. Wife was busy with her morning routine of tea and newspapers.
I sat in the balcony under an orange-red star that would shine by dusk. The sky was a neat stretch of serene blue.
Most of the neighbours were away, and they would come back with ruddy memories of the holidays. The security guard looked at me from his lonely room by the gate. He smiled at me, as he usually does. I waved at him.
Christmas!
As I sat there with no preoccupation, the pain and loneliness of the 1989 Christmas returned.
On that Christmas eve I stood at a crowded railway station wondering where to go. College had closed and friends had all gone home. The evening was red, stars shimmered from different corners, and everyone had a spring in their stride. They were hurrying to somewhere.
I sat on the stone bench, fighting my tears. People and objects turned watery, smudged and wobbly.
For the first time I missed her. She had gone home, and I had no access to her in those days of no mobile phones. The looks that we shared, the laughter that echoed in the corridors, the careless play of her tresses in the breeze, her colourful shawls, her dimple, her eyes…
I was lonely.
No season reminds us of love and sacrifice as the Christmas does. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son to die on the cross…
God is love—one of the most abused sentences. Perfect love takes away all fear…another one. They paint those words on the back of trucks and ricks.
Nothing reminds us of love as Christmas, and I sat on the platform gazing at the passing trains and the passengers. I was in love.
Christmas reminds us of sacrifice. Of someone dying on the cross for others. He was bruised and battered, and He carried that huge piece of log uphill. He was as helpless as a butterfly pinned on a piece of wood. Beautiful but fragile. He died, and there was darkness at noon.
I stared at people dragging their sandals and cloth bags as they ran after slowing trains and jumped into coaches with a sense of momentary triumph. But I was feeling like a defeated. I knew she would come back when the college reopened, but I was missing her on the Christmas eve—the most romantic of all days when stars would witness the most amazing birth on earth; when the shepherds would see something unusual in the starry sky and be surprised by the voice from Heaven; when three wise men from the East would follow a star to that quaint manger.
My heart beat hard—it longed to be with her, singing those hymns, remembering the most unique birth, celebrating God’s love for all of us, scooping up the colours of the evening in my hands, splashing them all over us, holding her hand with a proprietorial assurance.
Eighteen years have passed. Nearly seven thousand days have gone since we last met. Was she angry, sad or dejected? I still don’t know, but I cannot forget the look in her eyes. And, still I wonder what made me turn the other way—running away from facing her.
Let your love go, and if it’s yours it’d come back. She let me go. For 18 years—didn’t try to trace me even once. She let me run away where I wanted to run away to. From dreams to realities; from fragrance to sweat drops. From songs to tears. I ran like a cross-country runner—passing streets, hedges and streams, without stopping and without looking at the onlookers.
I never checked on her either. I didn’t know where life had taken her. But I often thought about the love, with a tinge of sadness and regret.
Somewhere in the distance, from the coastal road, sounds of firecrackers lacerated the silence and broke my thoughts. They were celebrating Christmas.
I knew what I wanted to do.
I went inside, and wept. Out of joy and grief.
For God’s love, and mine.

Celebrate, anyway!

2009-12-07T09:58:00.000+05:30

There has been much noise about fans celebrating India’s climb to the top spot in Test cricket.
I find it a reason to uncork a champagne, if you can afford one in these days of pay cuts and job losses.
I may pull out a Jacob’s Creek from my cellar—not bought to bubble up the Indians’ moment in the sun, but gifted by an NRI nephew last month.
Am I wrong in celebrating the Indians becoming the number one Test side? Am I dumb enough not to see the hollowness of the ranking system?
Do you remember the covers of some of our national magazines when the Indians under Mohammed Azharuddin who made one of their worst tours to Australia over a decade ago? Some of it said that team was the worst Indian team, and some pundits suggested that the whole bunch should be thrown into the South Pacific.
When things go wrong, you’re thrown into the depths of ocean, I learnt that day.
But sadly, when things go right also, the cynics make sure they throw some cold water on you—they pick their nose to come up with some slimy facts to show that you don’t deserve the glory.
No one in the team claimed that the Indian team is the best in the world. Captain MS Dhoni has never bragged that his team could hang the Aussies to dry any day anywhere, nor has he beamed that his boys would make the South Africans eat humble pie every time.
But when the team beat the Sri Lankans 2-0 at home, a commendable task by any means, the system of the ICC, based on points, says now this Indian team is ranked the number one in the world.
Now, tell me, is that a moment for the captain to walk up to a Hollywood Ravi Shastri at the presentation ceremony and tell the whole word, “Sorry, we don’t deserve this, we are not number one, but a substandard team”.
We live in a world where awards are rejected for more publicity, and the media make the denier a celebrity than the one who accepts the honour and quietly walks into the realities of life, with a smile of satisfaction.
There is no doubt that there are areas where the Indians have to vastly improve. Their fielding still doesn’t stop your heartbeat—the way the Springboks or Kangaroos, or even the Kiwis do. The way some of the senior dive at the ball resembles a kid’s tentative steps in a swimming pool. Uninspired and gingerly.
They still have to sharpen their fangs. That knocking-out punch is still missing most of the times. They still have to display a steely resolution to hang one-handed on the cliff, to turn things around by the skin of their teeth. They still have to befriend the corridors of uncertainty on foreign soil. They still have to look the Oz in their eyes and say, “We’re the best.”
On certain days, the bowlers just can’t finish off the middle and the tail. They gasp desperately, they bowl with their heart in the dressing room, they walk with stooped shoulders and cold bellies—the fire is missing, the hunger lost.
The batsmen often show symptoms of a contagious flu. If one sneezes, all is shivering. Three wickets gone under a barrage of bouncers, others come with sweating palm and fluttering bellies and blink at the short-pitched ones. They fish with eyes closed and feet stuck firmly on the crease.
Yes, they have to improve.
But there is no denying that on their day, no one rules the park like the Indians. Look at the quality and variety of their batting: Sehwag—no words on him—and Gambhir, followed by Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman and Dhoni. I’d drive miles with no murmur to see them in full flow, where they destroy bowlers with their respective prowess. I’d still walk to see Zaheer, Ishant and Sreesanth spearheading the attack with seam and swing, and Harbhajan—though not a purist’s delight—outwitting the batsmen.
This Indian team, if not the best yet for the doubters and bashers, no doubt is an exciting one. They make you pull out the Jacob’s Creek from the cellar and go out to the balcony while the night falls quietly.

No hand on your chest…you’re in Kerala!

2009-04-11T16:11:00.000+05:30

All of a sudden, the intellectual lions in Kerala have a sumptuous prey thrown into their den. Hungry for meat, and more meat, they traditionally pounce on anything smelling blood.

Shashi Tharoor who not so long ago had kept some of us on our toes with his campaign at the UN has once again walked into a cauldron. This time, as part of the electoral process of the world’s largest democracy.

There has been much hullabaloo over his placing his hand on his chest while the national anthem was being sung. Grave mistake! One shouldn’t move when the national anthem is being sung, lest one is eternally damned!

Aren’t we being too legalistic? Give us a break. We should know the dangers of going by the letter rather than the spirit. Check out the motive. Did Mr Tharoor do it with a motive of disgracing the national anthem and thus bring shame on India? Answer it honestly.

Quick on the heels of the National Anthem Attack by a group of extra patriotic citizens, Mr Tharoor has been pitch-forked by a set of intellectuals who have discovered one article from a pile of so many by him to prove their point that he is a mouthpiece of Tel Aviv.

I don’t know how many have read Mr Tharoor’s story on the Haaretz. I have, and in my understanding of the English of the story, it is all about India rather than a praise of Israel.

The sentence which is oft quoted by many as sympathetic of Israel is this: “Israel is a small country living in a permanent state of siege, highly security-conscious and surrounded by forces hostile to it…”

Is there any factual error in it?

Isn’t it Israel a tiny country surrounded by its enemies? According to my geographical sense, it is. And, doesn’t it live a life in a permanent stage of siege? My political awareness as a journalist who has worked on ‘Middle East pages’ of a Gulf daily for some years tells me it does live a life in a permanent siege. Aren’t the Israelites highly security conscious? They definitely are since any time a suicide bomber can go off in a crowded public place. Now, aren’t they surrounded by forces hostile to them? If not hostile, what is Hamas? Haven’t we heard of the Iranian president’s desire to wipe out Israel from the globe? If that’s not hostility towards a country, then nothing else is!

The Economist, while writing about Israel’s entrepreneurial potential in its March 19, 2009 edition, says: “…Israel’s main qualification for entrepreneurialism is its status as an embattled Jewish state in a sea of Arab hostility. The Israeli army not only works hard to keep the country at the cutting edge of technology, it also trains young Israelis in the virtues of teamwork and improvisation…Add to that a high tolerance of risk, born of a long history and an ever-present danger of attack…”

So factually Mr Tharoor hasn’t committed any sin.

Now check the context. Read the rest of the sentence. “…India is a giant country whose borders are notoriously permeable, an open society known for its lax and easygoing ways.”

Anyone who understands good writing will agree that you compare to highlight the difference. Mr Tharoor has used ‘tiny’ against ‘giant’; ‘permanent state of siege’ against ‘an open society known for its lax and easygoing ways’; and, ‘highly security conscious’ against ‘borders are notoriously permeable’.

For me, it is good writing. Simple yet telling. But unfortunately it hasn’t gone down well with the political and religious intellectuals who, I am afraid, suffer from myopic vision, and are experts in extracting messages that suit their palate.

Read carefully and you will understand that the article was not intended to be about Palestine but was written in response to several suggestions made in India, when Israel commenced its assault on Gaza, that India should do the same in Pakistan in response to the Mumbai attacks. “The purpose of the article was to argue that India is NOT Israel and should NOT do what Israel did. To twist this argument into an anti-Palestine one is grossly unfair,” says Mr Tharoor.

One writer, who begins his article in a vernacular newspaper by flashing his feather of a Fullbright-sponsored travel to the US, has accused Mr Tharoor of being a Zionist stooge. He also accuses Mr Tharoor of ‘acting big and busy’ by not meeting the visiting person of ‘importance’. It seems that if Mr Tharoor had set aside all his official and protocol assignments for a meeting with the writer, he wouldn’t have haboured such an ire against him!

Personally, I find no reason for Mr Tharoor to take any pain to explain his position on Palestine. But since he has taken the plunge into politics, he may have to bring to people’s attention what he has done for peace in Middle East while he was at the UN. This is what he says: “I have strongly been in favour of a Palestinian state with clear and defensible borders, co-existing in peace with Israel.”

Mr Tharoor was part of several UN initiatives to see peace in the region. He adds: “I have been closely associated with various representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization and have several times met the late president of the Palestinian Authority, Yasir Arafat. I have convened and chaired several United Nations Conferences on Palestine around the world from 2001 to 2006, attended by Saeb Erakat, Yasser Abed Rabbo and many other Palestinian notables, for which I was bitterly attacked by several Zionist organizations (as any Internet search will confirm). I was closely associated with Ambassador Nasser Al Kidwa of Palestine, and the former ambassador of the Arab League in Delhi, Amb Clovis Maksoud, is a friend. Nowhere except in Kerala have I found it necessary to establish my credentials as a friend of the Palestinian people.”

Yes, nowhere other than in Kerala will you find people with such lofty thoughts and ideas with little touch with reality that you need to establish your credentials even if you are someone who was vetoed by the Bush Administration in race to succeed Kofi Annan as UN Secretary-General or a winner of the Zakir Husain Memorial ‘Pride of India’ award and the Hakim Khan Sur Award for National Integration.

It doesn’t matter. The higher you grow, the harder they come at you.
In Kerala, you don’t have to turn the other cheek. They will turn it for you, and smack!

In Kerala, you need to walk that extra mile, and perhaps give away your tunic along with the shirt, to appease the all-knowing, always-right intellectual giants!

Heat's On

2008-06-22T16:44:00.000+05:30

Word From God’s Own Country

I

The only thing that troubled us when we took the decision to relocate to Kerala was the heat. It was March when we realised, through a series of unforeseen events, that it was time up for our over-a-decade sojourn in the UAE.

Heat, and my wife, Jeena, would run for the duct of an AC. I remember how she came back home in Sharjah from Kerala after attending her co-brother’s funeral. Her upper back was a minefield of prickly heat. But, Gee, the moment she landed on the shores of the UAE, they disappeared like any other opportunist, and her skin was back to its smooth, ebony best.

In the year she spent in Kerala recovering from a massive stroke, her skin became dark and patchy as the monsoon clouds. She hated it as she hates my snoring. The itching was violent and led to bloody affairs that oft prompted a loud thinking if at all we were the right pair “to grow old together”.

April and May are seasonally the worst. I wonder if Mr TS Eliot had spent a month traveling in this beautiful land before he sat down to write those immortal lines:

“April is the cruelest month, breeding
lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
memory with desire, stirring
dull roots with spring rain.”

The great poet must have taken a good look at his smooth-turned-scratchy skin to realize lilacs were bred out of the dead land, and it had mixed the memory of the old skin with the desire to have it again. He longed for some spring rain under the tropical sun.

Before we set out from our Sharjah Corniche home, Jeena had a simple prayer, asking the Almighty to take care of the situation.

We landed on a land soaked in rain water. “Yes, it does rain in summer. But soon it goes away,” it was Daddy’s words out of years of experience. We hardly enjoyed the rain as we were worried about its imminent going away. We did not let the kids sing like Little Johnny asking the rains to go away.

We were not that rain-hungry this time because of the uncharacteristic week-long rain and floods in the UAE. We’ve got video shots of a flooded King Faisal Street in Sharjah to show off and convince family and friends that life in the UAE is not the same again!

Defying Daddy’s words of experience, the summer rains overstayed the welcome—the expatriates often do it here, much to the chagrin of the kith and kin. And, it rained on for days. Media headlines changed tone from enthusiasm to warning to lament as the unrelenting rains washed away paddy farmers’ harvest plans.

The farmers in Kuttanadu, the rice bowl of the state, suffered massive losses as they could not reap what they sowed. The rains had come “like a thief in the night” to steal and destroy. There were crises all around, but there was no itching as long as the rains stayed. There was no irritation on Jeena’s skin. Most of the days she slept well, letting me snore away to a crescendo.

Jeena was ever grateful that her prayer was heard.

Who says life in Kerala in summer is hellish? We enjoyed the verdant villages. We went for drives from one district to the other; stopped at country tea-shops to have vada and banana fry; we went shopping; we gazed at rain and slept under a humming ceiling fan. We wrote to friends praising the summer rains.

Life was all that till mid-April. Gradually, the rain clouds went away but not before wreaking havoc in Kuttanadu. As the showers disappeared, flowers appeared on Jeena’s skin. Slowly but steadily she began to scratch. The texture of the skin began to change. Lilacs were bred.

Nights became hotter than days. Not a leaf moved. Power supply was disrupted for most part of the night. We all were soaked in sweat. I called up the electricity office. The officer said he couldn’t give me a word on supply. He blamed it on 11 KV lines and rubber trees that fall on the lines.

Our little daughter, Keziah, came up to me one day, scratching and said: “When are we going back?” Our son, Sean, who has inherited Jeena's skin, pondered over the tiny lilacs on his atopic skin.

The nights lost their romance. We lay awake wet by sweat, staring at each other and the still foliage outside, wondering if we had meandered into an inferno.

Scratching. Scratching. Scratching. And, we made many trips to a famous dermatologist. She examined Jeena’s and Sean’s skin, and wrote out a long list of prescription. A few thousand bucks less, we still scratched.

Yet, the officer at the electricity officer is stoic. He couldn't put an end to our misery. After watching the action and dancing girls of the Indian Premier League, we go back to our own cameos of helping one another scratc.

The old hats say, the monsoon is still weeks away…sorry, the power is off again. My laptop has no cell.

In The Land Of Cedars

2008-06-04T17:28:00.000+05:30

Though going through the immigration process at the airport was a noisy, sweaty affair--people are coming back to Lebanon since the Doha agreement--the country is beautiful.

It is a pity that there has been no peace in the land of cedars. For the time being both fighting factions are smoking the pipes of peace reached in the Qatari capital--to accommodate all factions in the government.

Though some say now things are going to be better, some still doubt if the stillness is the calm before the storm. Hope it is not.

The relief is quite evident as you talk to hotel staff and cabbies. The five-star hotel I've been staying for a week had ten guests till the previous week and all of a sudden has 100 of them. There are smiles everywhere. The senior chef, an effable youngster who has worked in the UAE for some years, is all smiles. So are other staff.

For the first two days I just walked along the streets--beautiful and very French--just to get the hang of the place. The streets are punctuated everywhere by pretty girls and women. Stylish, elegant, and vivacious, they brighten up the dark corners. To put someone from the Arabian Gulf at ease, there are the familiar sights of Filipina and Sri Lankan housemaids. They are out mostly on Sundays--their holiday--in droves and hang around their usual streets and joints, said Hussain, a jovial taxi driver who took me around.

For two days Hussain wore the cloak of the Tempter and offered to take me to a massage centre. He had also tossed in his business card. Just in case I was tired!

I think by now I am quite familiar with French towns--I have been to Paris, French Polynasia (Tahiti) and Montreal. But my French stops at oui. Hmm, what a pity, and how many interesting conversations I have sacrificed for this linguistic incompetency. How many friendships I have missed!

Anyway, the going is still good. I am enjoying the weather though I miss home. Jeena would have really liked to walk around the place and shop at all these cosmetic stores.

Yesterday I lunched at Sultan Brahim, one of the best restaurants for fish in Beirut, I was told. We--two friends and me--just ate up a school of fish. The Italian food at the hotel I was staying in the first week was horrible (subjective opinion), except for the braised salmon. I went in to a Turkish restaurant and had a hearty Arabic bite.

Good, with a pinch of thoombh!

I want to visit the Drews' villages and mountains. That's in my next post.

Her Greatest Race

2007-10-28T23:16:00.000+05:30

First time I saw her I fell for her. The looks, the charming smile and the stride.

Marion Jones had won almost everyone’s heart with her great sprints in the late 90s and in the golden year of 2000.

Remember the TIME cover before the Sydney Olympics? That pretty face and elegant stride. The cover story talked about Jones’s determination to win five gold medals in the Games. She came close. She won three golds and two bronzes. And, how well she paraded them! You remember all those pictures.

She was the athlete.

The men around her had bad testimonies. The then husband JC Hunter, the discuss thrower, was banned for using banned substances. Her coach Trevor Graham was linked to the Balco case. Then Tim Montgomery, the once fastest man. He too was striped of his medal for using banned drugs.

Marion had been involved with flawed men. Her obvious links to them had dragged her name to doping circles. But how vehemently she had defended herself!

A communications graduate, she knew how to get her message across. We wanted to believe what she said even though there were some elements of doubt.

True, she was never tested positive (“the clear” must be effective). But the way she had denied the allegation and her inherent charm had made even most-seasoned journalists believe her.

New York Times columnist William C Rhoden, after Jones press meet during the 2004 US Track and Fields trials in Sacramento, confessed: “Frankly, I’m impressed.”

The track and field has lost its three champions to doping: Ben Johnson, Justin Gatlin and Marion Jones.

No other sport would recover from falls off such heights. Who will buy their “clean” stories now? Who will follow the sport with a religious fervour?

Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay have not tested positive, not even once. So was Jones. Who knows after some years, these guys may call a press conference and break down.

I watched Jones’s confession carefully. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. She broke down in between. She gathered courage to speak out. There was light in her eyes.

Why did she do it? Is this another of her skillful enactment?

One of her sentences was: “I ask the Almighty God for forgiveness.”

That could be the reason. Only if the Maker touches, will your heart change.

She has returned the medals. Reports say she is broke. But if Marion Jones has met her Maker, all this doesn’t matter. And, that’s her greatest race. The one she won without medals, the one the fans thought she lost. But, the only race that she won.

Black or White?

2007-10-26T10:21:00.000+05:30

It is time we admitted, and acted to make ourselves colour blind. Let’s make performance our inspiration to cheer or jeer. Football and cricket have caught our attention with their disgusting racial underbelly. More recently, Indian fans made racing gestures and monkey chants at Andrew Symmonds, the talented Australian cricketer. There are other sports too where we can, if we listen carefully, hear the whispers of racial abuse. It is sad that in the colourful world of sports, we see only black or white.

“I want respect…only respect.”
This is the cry of a humiliated young footballer.
Marc Zoro, a defender from Ivory Coast who plays for Messina in Italian league, is in tears as Inter Milan fans shout racial chants at him. Zoro, 21, was abused earlier in Sicily. He refuses to take it this time. Zoro picks up the ball, walks off to hand it over to the fourth referee. Inter players intervene, apologising for their foul-mouthed fans, to calm Zoro down.

An injured Makhaya Ntini, South Africa’s first black Test player, hobbles to the crease. Shane Warne shouts to his team-mates to “get this John Blackman out”. Ntini cannot get the pun. He is offended.

American multiple Grand Slam winner Serena Williams is jeered the moment she appears on court and is booed throughout during the Indian Wells tournament in 2001. Venus (Serena’s sister) and her father are walking down the stairs to their seats, when one guy shouts from the gallery, ‘I wish it was ’75 (referring to the Los Angeles race riots); we’d skin you alive.’”
In a riot of colours, we deal with black and white.

If sports were racially biased, Jesse Owens would not have embarrassed Adolf Hitler and his “Aryan theory” in 1936 Berlin Olympics; Brian Lara would have crossed Allan Border as the highest Test run getter; Tiger Woods would not have electrified the golf courses; Serena and Venus would not have stocked their home with Grand Slams; and Asafa Powell and a host of black sprinters would not have ruled the roost in 100 metres.

The pity is that we still go by the colour of our skin. Our dreams and fantasies are as heartening as the promise of a rainbow. But we let ourselves down with our petty sense of colour. We have reasons to blame ourselves.

Cancer on Football
All is not well with the “Beautiful Game”. The increasing incidents of racial abuse in football across Europe are a concern to all. From Spain to the UK, France to The Netherlands racism in football has taken a dangerous dimension.

Black footballers in Europe, especially in Spain and Italy, are easy targets of racial abuse. In recent years, even some of the best players like Thierry Henry – only a few players can hold a candle to him in football skills – have been subjected to the ugly chants of racist fans.

In November 2004 during a friendly between England and Spain at Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid, several black players in the England side were booed each time they touched the ball. The racial epithets that the Spanish fans shouted made the headline across the UK. Surprisingly, little did it reflect in the Spanish media.

Early 2003, when Barcelona came to Bernabeu to play archrival Real Madrid, Cameroon international and prolific scorer in Spanish Primera Liga Samuel Eto’o was the target. Every time he kicked the ball, the crowd mimicked monkey noises. Across Spain, black players have repeatedly been abused by the “vulgar mobs”.

It is shocking to know that the racial taunts come not just from the crowd but from the very helm of Spanish team. Luis Aragones, the national coach, was fined by the Fifa $3,500 for referring to Thierry Henry as “black shit” in his address to his team. The fine was equal to only a day’s salary the coach earned. Fifa should not make themselves a butt of ridicule with similar acts of “benevolence”.

Racism has long been a menace in Italian football as well. When Udinese were to sign Israeli striker Ronnie Rosenthal in 1990, the club’s right-wing fans staged massive protests. In the end, the club had to give in, and Rosenthal went to Liverpool.

Racial discrimination is an evil that blinds us. At times it defies all logic. Perugia’s dark-skinned midfielder, Fabio Liverani, was a target of racist abuse all over the country, despite being an Italian and has played for the national team. England’s Emile Heskey too bore the brunt of racial abuse when England played in Italy a couple of years ago.

During a Roma-Lazio match, the Lazio fans came up with a choreography of blue-and-white placards which spelt the word merda (shit). There were also banners which said, “squadra di negri (team of blacks). During the match, Roma’s black players Aldair, Cafu and Jonathan Zebina were booed and abused.

in February 2003 during a Getafe-Real Madrid match, Daniel Kome, the Cameroonian-born Getafe midfielder, was subjected to so much racial abuse by the crowd that the El Pais reporter Diego Torres commented: “Eight out of 10 people were monkey chanting. It was more or less the whole stadium. Even the VIP section was monkey chanting. Most of the crowd was middle class, even upper class.”
It’s not only the crowd who wear their emotions and beliefs on their sleeve. Players too contribute to stoke the racial flames.
End of last year, Lazio’s Di Canio, who won a Fifa Fair Play award in 2001, was banned for one match after performing a Nazi salute to fans for the second week in succession. The 39-year-old former Italian international was also fined €8 000. It was the third time last year that Di Canio had made the fascist gesture. In March, he was fined €10 000 for giving a similar Nazi salute. Crowd behaviour may be beyond a club’s control, but the players should show more responsibility in their public conduct.
This has to be rooted out of sports. But unfortunately both Spanish and Italian governments are relatively lethargic, unlike the British, in pulling up and punishing the racial abusers. Britain has tough legal measures to confront the racists in sports like in any other fabric of society.

It’s Not Cricket
Cricket is another sport where we have seen racial discrimination raking its ugly head now and then.

The West Indian cricketers of yore and the coloured players in South Africa during the apartheid were treated as second-class players and were not given the opportunity to represent their national teams.

The Caribbean Islands, once ruled by the British, have produced some of the best cricketers to play the game. But however good the native players were during the Saheb’s rule, they were looked down upon and were preferred only after the white players.

CLR James in his classic Beyond A Boundary has quoted Keith Miller on the issue. Miller writes: “…Another problem with West Indies cricket is that the captain has usually been chosen from among the European stock. Just think of the most famous West Indies cricketers…Learie Constantine, George Headley, Frank Worrell, Everton Weeks, Clyde Walcott…all are coloured, but none has led the country.

James gives more insights into the subject. “One evening in British Guiana we were talking about captaincy. Suddenly Clyde, who is always circumspect in his speech, blurted out: ‘You know who will be the captain in England in 1963? You see that Barbados boy, Bynoe, who went to India? He only has to make fifty in one innings and he will be the captain.’ Bynoe is white.”

Former England all-rounder Ian Botham, who is a good friend of his Somerset team-mate Viv Richards, once said the reason he did not want to tour South Africa (during the apartheid era) was that if he did, he could not look Richards in his eye. Colour of the skin, what else, is the matter here. Botham and Richard, two lion-hearted cricketers have shown us that it is possible to have friendship and respect across culture and colour.

South Africa during the apartheid was a sore thumb in world of sports. Their racist stand against the black and coloured players had snowballed into an international issue and had even threatened to sever their bilateral ties. The infamous Basil d’Oliviera Affair was a shameful incident. The South African-born all-rounder, who was given a new lease of playing life in England thanks to the efforts of commentator and writer John Arlott, was included in the England team that toured South Africa in 1968-69 But the then South African prime minister BJ Vorster wrote to his English counterpart saying “it was not an MCC team but an anti-apartheid team”. An international hue and cry followed, resulting in the cancellation of the tour. The incident led to South Africa’s isolation from international sports for two decades.

With the apartheid era is now history and the African National Congress in power, things have changed. Though there are rumours of “reverse racism” now, it is heartening to see black and coloured players joining hands with the white players to play for their country.

Interestingly, the coloured South African players touring Australia have complained about more than one incident of racial taunts from the spectators. This should not be allowed. It is a clear take on what is happening across Europe during football matches.

Lily-white sport

Until the Williams sisters emerged, the only black Grand Slam winners were Althea Gibson, Arthur Ashe and Yannick Noah. Tennis, it is often said, is a predominantly white middle-class sport.

We can argue that things have begun to change of late. But, overwhelmingly, a black champion is a rarity. Martin Jacques, in his article in the Guardian (Tennis is racist – it’s time we did something about it; dated June 27, 2003), writes on the bitter experiences Williams sisters have gone through. “The antipathy of a tennis crowd is hardly a new experience for Williams sisters. In the semi-finals of the US Open last year (2002), the American crowd supported Amelie Mauresmo of France rather than Venus: for the overwhelmingly white, middle-class crowd, the bond of colour clearly counted for more than the bond of nation.”

Jacques categorically argues that the sport is rife with racist innuendos. He goes on to say, “Race courses through the veins of tennis, people pretend it doesn’t exist”. He adds: “The Williams sisters, together with their father, are subjected to a steady stream of criticism, denigration, accusation and innuendo: their physique is somehow an unfair advantage (those of Afro descent are built differently), they are arrogant and aloof (they are proud and self-confident), they are not popular with the other players (they come from a very different culture and, let us not forget, there is plenty of evidence of racism among their colleagues: comments made by Martina Hingis spring to mind, not to mention the behaviour of Lleyton Hewitt towards a black linesman in 2002 US Open.”

Williams sisters, who come from a Los Angeles ghetto riven by drugs and guns, have shown enormous degree of determination, verve and skill to dominate the sport. Though there are disapproving remarks in the tennis fraternity and media about the attitude of Richard Williams, who called tennis “lily-white sport”, and his daughters, there is no dispute to the fact that the sisters had to fight off more than their rivals on the court to come up the ladder.

The American Story

The fabric of America has been woven with the delicate and dangerous threads of racial issues. It’s a country which has grappled with the monster of racial bias and unrest and has integrated itself into a “zero tolerant” to any kind of discrimination.

The history of black Americans, especially that of the players, is one of unenviable fight for representation and equality. “More than any other dimension of life, sports had projected black people into the white consciousness.”

Apart from the political leaders like Martin Luther Kind Jr, who personified the black cause, there were sports heroes like Jackie Robinson, the first black baseball player; Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who gave a Black Power Salute after winning the 200 metres in 1968 Olympics; and the inimitable Muhammad Ali who threw away his Olympic Gold Medal into the Ohio river in protest against racial discrimination.

The Civil Rights Acts in 1964 and 1968 and Voting Rights Acts of 1965 eliminated the last bastions of “segregation”. In the more recent years, black athletes and players have dominated the NBA, NFL and the track and field, and are some of the richest people in the country.

But some still feel if we look beyond the peripheral of political correctness, there are subtle themes of racism. To quote a participant in a discussion group: “Racism exists in American sports. It’s just much more covert. Political correctness and integration of the major sports have gone a long way towards cleaning up public behavior but it has not changed private attitudes. Sit in any stadium and you will hear racist remarks from the fans. Walk in any locker room and you will see black, white and Latino players segregate themselves. Listen under players’ breathe and you will hear racial and sexual slurs. The public face has changed, but the private one remains the same. And, it is scarier because it allows us to continue believing we have somehow overcome racism.”

The Outcry

Cricket legends like Sir Viv Richards have urged the International Cricket Council (ICC) and Fifa to do more to rid sports of racism. “This matter of black players being subjected to abuse must be urgently addressed by the people who are in charge of the footballing and cricketing bodies,” Richards said in the wake of the South African players’ experience at the hands of Australian crowd.

Richards, who once “grovelled” the English attack taking offence at a comment from England’s captain Tony Greig, said that there should be zero tolerance to racial remarks from the crowd He said: “There must be plain-clothed officers placed in the crowd, and when you hear that first remark an example must be made of the perpetrator and it must be done swift and quick. I believe the governing bodies have been sitting around for too long.”
ICC Chief Executive Malcolm Speed has said that there was no place for racism in cricket.
“Cricket is an international game which is played by a diverse range of cultures and communities. Respect for each other is a key component of the game and racist comments have no place in cricket,” he said.
“The fact that this is an isolated incident by a small number of people in one country does not lessen the game's resolve to address the issue. We have in place an international anti-racism policy which all of our Members have signed up to.”
The racial taunts at football venues worldwide have prompted Fifa President Sepp Blatter to threaten clubs with relegation, suspension, and expulsion if they fail to control racist fans.
Both fifa and Uefa have said they are determined to eradicate racism in the sport.
“We are prepared to implement the necessary sanctions, from fines and closure of stadiums, and even to not allow teams to participate in competitions,” Uefa vice-president Per Ravn Omdal has said. “Referees will be given the necessary power to abandon or cancel matches if necessary. We need referees and match officials to be tough on this issue. If they have been asleep then they need to wake up.”
There have been some talks about “reverse racism”. Cricketers in Zimbabwe have complained about racial discrimination at the hands of officials representing the Robert Mugabe government. Quota system in South African cricket has also come under flak from those who believe it is not the colour of the skin but talent which should be the criterion for team selection.
Agreed. If any white player in Zimbabwe is racially abused, it should not be condoned.
The world has shrunk into a global village, and boundaries have blurred. Immigrants across the globe have tilted demographic balance and triggered xenophobic responses.

Cultural and racial differences are standing out, despite our efforts to paint a rosy picture of a secular, peaceful world strung together by love. Sports is a fine slice of the society; it is a thermometer that shows our racial temperature.

Irrespective of stardom and high profile, black athletes have come across discrimination. Even the best of them have to live with it.

American tennis player, the late Arthur Ashe, respected during his day and even now as an icon of courtly, genteel sportsmanship, did not delude himself that fan adoration meant racial acceptance. After he disclosed in 1992 that he had AIDS, a reporter for People magazine asked him: “Mr. Ashe, I guess this (AIDS) must be the heaviest burden you have ever had to bear?”
Ashe replied: “Not at all. Being black is the greatest burden I’ve had to bear. Even now it continues to feel like an extra weight tied around me.”

Sports no longer is the stuff for back pages. It plays an important role in our society. Sports heroes are household names. Our kids adore them. They try to emulate them. Since it holds a major section in our social fabric, we should not pretend that it – be it any sport – is a race-free zone.

It is time we admitted, and acted to make ourselves colour blind. Let’s make performance our inspiration to cheer or jeer. Football and cricket have caught our attention with their disgusting racial underbelly. There are other sports too where we can, if we listen carefully, hear the whispers of racial abuse.

We have a tolerant, secular façade, but beneath the obvious there are layers of prejudice based on culture and colour.

It is sad that in the colourful world of sports, we see only black or white.

INTERVIEW--‘Gene doping is a strong possibility’

2007-10-26T10:00:00.001+05:30

Dr Theodore Friedmann, director of gene therapy programme at the University of California, San Diego, is one of the world’s foremost experts in gene genetic research. Friedmann also chairs World Anti-Doping Agency’s panel on gene doping. Sports Today’s Sabin Iqbal speaks to him on the threat of ‘super-athletes’.

How “good” will be a genetically-altered super-athlete?
There’s no way to know. In many sports, the advantage that an athlete needs to have may be very small - just a fraction of a second greater speed, just a very small increase in endurance, etc. can make all the difference needed victory and defeat.

What are the possibilities for an above-average athlete to be a super-athlete?
In principle, very small differences can produce great improvement in performance.

How risky, at the moment, is the process?
Not known. Gene transfer is in its earliest stages of development and we know even in therapeutic applications that there are adverse consequences, even deaths. The technologies are not yet fully understood and therefore should for now be used only for therapy, not enhancement.

What are the detection methods and where do we stand in researches?
These methods are being developed in research programs. They are intended to find molecular and cellular evidence for the presence and action of foreign genes. Very good progress is being made in this direction, and many new genetic detection methods are becoming available.

Can an athlete alter his/her gene for a specific sport?
The kind of change being imagined depends on the goals - increased strength, increased endurance, etc. Some genetic changes could increase muscle strength and more rapid repair of injury required in some sports (genes such as muscle growth factors), other genes could provide increased endurance (genes like erythropoietin). It all depends on what kind of function is important in a sport and what one is trying to improve.

If gene doping is a reality, how far are we from it?
It’s not a reality but probably a strong possibility. It would be possible to try some badly designed, poorly controlled, dangerous and unethical things even today. We know that sport does not always wait for technology to be proven effective and safe before trying something new.

Is Gene Doping A Reality?

2007-10-26T09:46:00.000+05:30

Gene therapy is a superb scientific advancement and could be a blessing to those suffering from genetic disorders or untreatable diseases. But it could lead to gene doping, which can ride piggyback on its exploits to create super athletes. We need to prevent gene doping even before it takes off.

It is good to live in a world without diseases or sickness. Or in a world where you can go to a doctor and be cured of many illnesses caused by genetic disorder with just one shot.

It is good, indeed. Thanks to the latest technology of gene therapy, which manipulates the human genome to prevent or cure diseases.

Gene therapy is so fast advancing that in the not-too-remote future we may not worry about some of the terrible diseases that have blighted us.

No Parkinson’s Disease. No cystic fibrosis. No muscular dystrophy. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

But there is a flip side to it.

Imagine, records are being rewritten left, right and centre at Beijing Olympics 2008 as a clutch of athletes defies all logic to clock some astonishing timings. The anti-doping agency has no clue to what has made these men and women ‘super-athletes’. All conventional dope tests show negative.

What is the matter?

Yes, it could be the arrival of super-athletes – the next-generation cheats.

Gene therapy which looks a blessing to get rid of genetic disorders and some deadly diseases can lead to gene doping to create these super-athletes.

Gene doping is the next step for an athlete who now uses erythropoietin (EPO) to enhance performance. Instead of injecting themselves with the EPO, they would inject with the gene that produces the EPO, allowing the body to naturally produce more red blood cells.

If gene doping can be a reality, there is no doubt that the cheats who now use the conventional methods to enhance performance will approach some unscrupulous scientists. For some of them the temptation to become faster, stronger and subsequently richer and more famous through tinkering with their genes will be too strong to resist.

But those who care about integrity and fair play in sport don’t have to worry. Someone is keeping a track of gene therapy advancement and its potential lead to gene doping. World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the Montreal-headquartered global body to fight against doping in sport, has vowed to do all it can to fight the next-generation cheats.

In 2002, WADA brought together leaders in sport and science for a conference at the Banbury Centre on Long Island. The aim of the conference was to place gene doping on the map.

In an exchange of knowledge and ideas, those in sport learned how far science has advanced in gene therapy and the scientists realised how far some athletes will go to be the best. To their shock, they heard from their colleagues who had already had calls from coaches and trainers to know how gene therapy can be used to enhance the performance of their wards.

Here is the danger. Gene therapy could be good news, but human greed can ride piggyback on its exploits.

Richard W Pound, chairman of WADA, says: “It (Banbury conference) was an eye-opening event for all of us, and led to the inclusion of gene doping as a prohibited method on the 2003 Prohibited List of Substances and Methods…Some disreputable labs would be willing to replicate the technology for performance enhancement – for the right price. As dangerous and wrong as traditional doping is, it is hard to conceive what the consequences could be of altering a person’s genetic makeup just to make him better in sports. This is a slippery slope we do not ever want to go down.”

However, gene therapy and gene doping are not as simple as they sound. It involves a profound technology. According to Dr Theodore Friedmann, director of gene therapy programme at the University of California, San Diego, and a foremost expert in genetic research, it is extremely difficult to transfer the underlying basic scientific technology into human beings, whether they are sick people or athletes.

“For humans, gene therapy remains very immature, experimental and highly risky. In the US, thousands of patients have been enrolled in clinical trials in the last decade and most of these studies have not shown any striking therapeutic benefit to patients. In fact, some serious adverse events, including deaths, have occurred. The bottom line is that everything gets complicated when you move from the laboratory into a human being. We don’t have the technology yet in hand to ensure a predictable and adequate level of safety to feel comfortable to using gene transfer technology in anyone other than in a patient with a serious or untreatable disease,” he says.

What Is Gene Therapy?
Before we go deeper into the clinical and moral implications of gene doping, let’s understand what gene therapy is all about.

We are, mostly, what our genes are. From the way we look to how good we are at athletics or studies, to what disease we might develop depend largely on our genes. Most of our predominant traits are determined by our genes, with a minor contribution from our environment.

Genes, which are composed of segments of our DNA, are the instruction sheets for the proteins they produce. It is these proteins that build our cells and instruct them how to function.

When a particular gene is missing or defective either through inheritance or by exposure to chemical products or radiation, production of proteins is affected and the result is disease.

Scientists are studying ways in which gene therapy can work.

A normal gene may be inserted into cells of patients or directly into the patient’s genome to replace or repair a gene that does not work properly. When inserting a new, normal gene, scientists use a gene transport method, known as vector, to deliver the gene into the genome. The most common way is to use a disable virus that has been altered to not be harmful in itself but just to act as a moving van to deliver normal DNA to the cell.

Dr Friedmann, who also chairs WADA’s panel on gene doping, adds: “The viruses are like Trojan horses. They carry the genes into the targeted cells and unload the normal genes, which can then begin to function and produce the necessary proteins and enzymes.”

Though it may sound a simple as loading and unloading some stuff, it is an extremely difficult process, with no evidence of therapeutic effect in many hundreds of attempts.

Is Gene Doping A Reality?

The question is, if gene therapy itself is such a complicated and high-end technology with little scope, as of yet, of success, why should we lose sleep over gene doping?

The answer is, it could be a reality, especially when we consider the rate at which science is advancing in this field.

Mr Pound in one of his editorials in WADA’s official magazine Play true writes: “As the Olympic Games in Athens wrapped up last summer, I was frequently asked one question by journalists who were already thinking ahead to the Beijing Games: Could there be genetic doping by 2008? The idea that genetically-altered athletes could be competing at the Olympics in Beijing is disturbing but not out of the realm of possibility.”

Dr Oliver Rabin, WADA’s science director, says: “Most doping is the misuse and abuse of medicines normally used for therapeutic purposes. Many of the substances used for doping actually represent great steps forward in the fields of science and medicine. But they are being wrongly used to enhance athletic performance. The same may become true of gene doping.”

Mr Pound adds: “We know the threat of gene doping is very real. We need to start fighting this now, before it becomes a reality. It is easier to prevent a problem than it is to solve it.”

However, Dr Friedmann says there is no proof that gene doping has happened. “We don’t know for sure. We have no proof that it has happened, but we think it is likely to happen.”

He however says that gene doping won’t replace traditional drug doping because gene-based approaches will be more difficult. “But as technology advances, there will be those with means and motivation who will be willing to try.”

However, Thomas H Murray, president of The Hastings Centre and a bioethics expert, argues that gene doping is not an imminent threat to sport, but “it has the potential to dramatically affect the Olympic Games many years hence unless steps are taken now.”

That is the threat. We cannot rein in man’s craving for fame and money. It is his lust and pride that drive him to many unethical acts. And, that’s the danger. Experts have already predicted that rogue labs will pop up, in the US and around the world, which will be ready to experiment with gene doping, and will make the “facility” available to athletes, no matter how dangerous it could be, for the right price.

Dr Friedmann is worried that these unregulated laboratories will not be concerned about safety and, sadly, not about informed consent from athletes.

In that case, can genetically-altered athletes be detected? Is it possible to make out whether an athlete has a “foreign gene”? After all, when a gene is inserted into the body, it becomes part of the genome. It should be giving the athlete and his accomplices a sense of security.

But WADA’s director general Mr David Howman says it is a false security. “Those who think they can cheat using gene transfer technology will be in for a rude surprise.” He underlines that it is the priority for “WADA and our partners to make sure gene doping is as detectable as any form of traditional doping.”

The agency is funding five projects in different parts of the world. They are:

 Manipulation of muscle mass via the growth hormone (GH)/insulin-like growth factor (GF-1) axis (UK)
 Application of microarray technology for the detection of changes in gene expression after doping with recombinant human growth hormone (hGH) (Austria)
 Microarray detection methods for growth hormone and insulin-like IGF-1 (USA)
 IMAGENE: non-invasive molecular imaging of gene expression useful for doping control, pilot study in animals after erythropoietin gene transfer. (Spain)
 The application of cellular chemistry and proteomic approaches to the detection of gene doping (UK)

These projects will help scientists detect the effects of a new or foreign gene in an athlete’s body. Researchers are looking at ways in which changes to the genome can be detected through blood testing. Another unique idea being looked at is imaging, where a process similar to magnetic resonance imaging would be used to scan the body and search for unusual location of gene expression.

So, the super cheats cannot be complacent after all. Dr Friedmann is aggressive in his warning to the potential frauds. “I would like to send a shot across the bow of those who think we will not be able to detect gene doping. My advice to them is: Don’t be so sure – this is a very dangerous road to proceed on, and we will be ready to halt the traffic.”

- With inputs from Play true article on gene doping.

T20 Is Here To Stay

2007-10-10T10:59:00.000+05:30

On South Africa’s Heritage Day a newborn won the hearts of the millions of cricket fans. It was another story who won the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup.

For the record, India beat Pakistan by five runs—playing out of their skin under a skipper whose presence is as refreshing as a cool breeze.

When we first heard of the arrival of this flashy dasher of the shortest version of a game long known for its sunbathing opportunities, we held on to our dear tradition. We pooh-poohed the upstart and sang praises of pedigree.

Ah, how often we arrive at wrong conclusions! Pakistani legend Wasim Akram, in an interview some months ago, told me that Twenty20 was just an evening, family affair. How soon have we to change our opinion! The other day he said Twenty20 could be a threat to One-day internationals.

Yes, indeed it can—with apologies to the incorrigibles.

Three and half hours of skill, imagination, power, stamina and heart-in-the-mouth excitement. If it brings back the waning crowd to swell the galleries, why whine about silly reasons?

Brevity is the nucleus of this game. Even its name T20 sounds like an explosive device. Bowlers bowl four-over spells, and by the time you drive from Dubai to Sharjah in peak traffic hours, more than half of the match would be over.

Bravery is the heart of T20. It was a brave move from Indian skipper MS Dhoni to toss the ball to a little-known medium pacer from nowhere, Joginder Sharma, to bowl the final over against the Australians. Five good whacks—we have seen that it is possible—and you’re out of the fray.
Dhoni gambled again with Joginder in the final. Twelve runs in six balls, with Misbah-ul-Haq, who had hit some of lusty sixes in the tournament, twirling his bat, and Dhoni was as courageous as any Rajput. Fortune favours the brave, the old say.

Brilliance is the crowning glory of the game. What else other than brilliance was the root of Yuvraj’s onslaught against young Stuart Board? All through the England-India One-day series a few weeks ago, the young fast bowler, son of former England opener Chris Board, impressed us with some meticulous bowling. And here in Durban, he could only look up to the Heavens for righteousness. He was not at fault—other than not saying no to his skipper to bowl the penultimate over—and Yuvraj showcased his brilliance by playing six proper cricketing strokes for six sixes. Brilliance, what else!
To bowl four miserly overs to some of the rollicking batsmen in a World Cup final, you need abundance of natural brilliance. The way Umar Gul broke the middle of Indian batting line up by snapping up Yuvraj and Dhoni showed brilliance in T20 is not a synonym for batting heroics. Or look at India’s RP Sing or New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori. RP is one of the most improved young fast bowlers whose slant, swing and seam tie the batsmen in knots. Vettori’s success points to the fact that all T20 offers to spinners is not a Titanic fate. Harbhajan’s record till the final supports Vettori’s cause for spinners in the bang-bang game.

One has to play like a rebel against the copybook in T20. There are new strokes that would make a copybook-worm churn. The scoop over fine leg exposes the nakedness of the stumps and displays the spleen of the batsman. The reverse-sweep has been elevated to reverse-pull. The pickup-and-drop shot—remember the way Yuvraj deposited Brett Lee somewhere in the square-leg stands?—is bread-and-butter shot. The cardinal sin of hitting across the line is the lifeline of Twenty20.

The atmosphere at T20 is carnival. There are flags—of all sizes—fluttering. There are dancers who cheer every boundary and wicket. There is noise, there is action—you can’t afford to get a drink from the refrigerator without running the risk of missing out six sixes in an over, hit without any provocation. Don’t venture to change your baby’s napkin, you could miss out a 12-ball fifty.

There are no reasons for Ashraful to spoon a short of good length deliver over the fine-leg for a six other than the mindset. Stuart Board’s boyish face turning a white rose as the fifth six sailed over the ropes from Yuvraj’s furious bat sums up T20.

T20 is not for the feeble-hearted. It has brought excitement back to cricket—the same excitement that we had experienced when India and Pakistan played in Sharjah. We have begun to sit at the edge of the seat or stand up. We have begun to bite our nails.

T20 is not for the chickening-out types. You need to take the bowlers by the scruff off their neck. You need to hurl in toe-crunchers or nippy bouncers. And, you have to field consistently on your toes.

Reputation doesn’t scare anyone. The Australians can be beaten—we saw it three times in this tournament.

T20 is here to stay. On South Africa’s Heritage Day we realised the newborn has a long future.

Pondering Pedigree

2007-07-24T08:10:00.000+05:30

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

2007-07-24T07:37:00.000+05:30

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

2007-07-10T09:22:00.000+05:30

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

2007-07-10T09:14:00.000+05:30

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.

Once again, back in the seat

2007-04-02T12:00:00.000+05:30

It's been nearly two months since I last posted something. It's been a few weeks of writer's block. I tried to write--first for my magazine, then for a website I'm planning to set up, then for the blog--but not a word came out. I met Geroge Foreman, but couldn't write the story. I met a promising young athletic who dreams and trains to become a top-class athlete. Till now, not a word of him has come out of me.
Been invted to many events, and the World Cup is in and India are out. Still the drought continues.

I have left my manuscript untouched for two months, which is a crime for an aspiring writer. My protagonist has gone out of my bosom.

Today I am sitting before my system to type out these words, hoping this is it--the connection that I need to take off again.

To those who read me, let me tell you, there is a brilliant writer who is unpubished but is better than many of the published Indo-Anglian writers. He is my cousin, Anees Salim. Wait for his masterpiece. I have had the privilege of being the very first person to read his manuscript fresh from his creative zone. It is my prayer that either an agent or a publisher is imaginative enough to try him out.

The feeble winter here is giving way to acrimonious summer. The heat is on! Let's see how far it inspires us to write.

Detour

2007-02-07T02:33:00.000+05:30

July 2, 2005. Half past seven in the morning. That's when our life took a wild detour.

I got up hearing a soft but definitive voice asking me to check if Jeena, my wife who had given birth to our second baby a week ago, was alright. Normally I dash into the toilet as soon as I get up and won't be out for the next half an hour. It's been my habit for years. My mother and sister had lost patience on me. So has Jeena.

I walked down the stairs and into the bedroom where Jeena was with baby Sean and our new maid. I was not troubled by what I saw as I entered the room. Jeena was lying across the bed, and mummy was rubbing her forehead. The maid was carrying Sean, who was fast asleep.

Jeena was snoring. Mummy was applying Tiger balm on her forehead, and said: "She has severe headache." Jeena had been complaining of splitting headache since the previous evening. As she was supposed to go to her gynecologist to remove the cesarean stitches the next day, we had decided to wait.

I called Jeena. There was no response. I called again. No response. I called her again, shaking her up. There was only a mild hmm. I thought she was sound asleep, and wondered how could she sleep like that leaving the baby with a new maid who was getting familiar with our ways. I called again. Only a muffled response. I grew anxious. I called out, asking her to get ready to go to hospital. There was no response. She was sleeping.

Fear gripped me. I froze, and then began to weep. Mummy hugged me and asked me to be strong. Strong? For what? I called Nabeed, my cousin and our constant companion. He came down. I said: "Deedi is not waking up. See if you can wake her up." D-e-e-d-i...he called out. Yet no response.

"Let's take her to the hospital." But how? Nabeed brought in a chair. Once again, I asked Jeena to get up. She snored loudly. Nabeed and I somehow dragged her into the chair and we pushed the chair out, past the next room where our one-and-half-year-old daughter Keziah was sleeping.

Nabeed switched on the headlights and the car was out on the road with a screach. It took 45 minutes to reach Century Hospital in Chengannor. All along the way, I kept on calling out her name, and she responded occasionally.

Doctors at the Emergency panicked and they called the neurosurgeon, Dr Ramnarayanan. He came and took her away immediately for an MRI scan. Somewhere I heard the word "stroke". I had heard it before but it was the first time I understood its meaning. But it was only the beginning.

Farook's growing up

2007-02-02T21:39:00.000+05:30

Genesis

“You must write…a novel.”

Till the completion and full understanding of that sentence, Farook hadn’t even dreamt of being a writer.

But Fareeda, his 30-year-old Cambridge-educated second-cousin, stirred up an unknown desire in him.

The setting was perfect for a writer to wake up or be born.

She sat on the half wall in the first storey of the old, half-tiled library building, looked at the fiery blooms of gulmohar and prophesied the birth of a writer. The leafy foliage of jackfruits and acacias witnessed the moment.

Fareeda touched an inner chord in Farook’s heart. He felt a rush of a weird desire flooding his heart.

His heart began to crave, his thoughts had broken the leash.

It was eleven in the morning. December sun was mild and the breeze had a lethargic chill. Crisp white clouds floated in the blue sky. A cuckoo sang against some coarse crowing of crows.

Fareeda and Farook had come into the library not to pick up any books, but to sit on the half wall. The old library was right in the heart of the city, under a canopy of gulmohars, jackfruit trees and acacias, tucked away in a serene corner of the vice-chancellor’s office premises.

Leaning on the pillar with continents of peeled-off paint, she kept looking at the leaves fluttering in the breeze. Farook stood behind her pretending to look at the girls on the road below but was breathing in her heady European fragrance and looking at the line of golden hair climbing up on her nape.

Over her shoulders, Farook could see the soft beginning of her breasts. He wanted to look beyond the boundary of decency, but something within him said no.

That was his problem. He could feel a chip within himself that beeped when he meandered into flesh.

It happened the previous night too. Fareeda had invited him over to her house in Garden Colony. He lied to his hostel-mate that he was out to meet a journalist for his project on Indian writing in English, and rode his red 100cc Yamaha straight into Garden Colony, 15 kilometres away from the soul of the city.

Fareeda came out to the gate to welcome him. As he swung his leg over the bike, she smiled and said: “Oh, I forgot to ask you to bring one or two cassettes. We are home alone today. Mummy’s gone to her brother’s place.”

“What cassettes?”

“Anything interesting,” she said and winked at him. Farook felt a blade of fire splitting his heart. The chip warmed up. She closed the gate.

Fareeda had come down to India from Cambridge for two months. She was doing her field study in Sociological Interpretation of Cricket in Commonwealth Countries. She would be leaving Trivandrum in a week’s time for Delhi and Calcutta.

Since there were no interesting cassettes to watch after dinner, both of them settled down with their books, in her bed. Lying on his belly, Farook read through an AK Ramanujan poem. Fareeda lay opposite direction and thumbed through an old issue of Maxim.

Farook was restless. He missed the whole point Ramanujan was trying to make in a poem addressed to his wife. Here he was, all alone with a short, fair and beautiful unmarried woman with big breasts, voluptuous lips and a heartening laughter.

Fareeda bent over the magazine. Brownish-black locks of hair fell carelessly over her face. She was five years older to Farook. Often he had wondered why she was not married. She must have boyfriends at Cambridge. They must be living together. Then, she must have had sex.

Ramanujan did not come back into Farook’s thoughts that night.

Fareeda had never told him about her boyfriends. Whenever she was in town – mostly for a week or 10 days – she would come straight to the YMCA men’s hostel where he stayed.

Farook knew she liked him. But he didn’t know why. He didn’t speak fluent English, nor had he shown any academic brilliance that she might find his company worthy.

But she confided in him. She had told him that she liked rum (shock number one for him) and she liked Indian cigarettes (shock number two).

Late that evening, when darkness fell a couple of long hours after the sun had completely disappeared, she pulled out a pint of Old Monk from a bag under her bed.

“No one should know about this, understand?” Fareeda sounded like an elder sister. Farook looked at the bottle. He was not a teetotaler. But he had never drunk with a woman before that day.

She poured the rum into two glasses, flicked two ice-cubes into them, and said: “Cheers!”

She rubbed her glass against his, and sank into the sofa in the corner of the room. “I’ve been waiting for mummy to go. It’s been a while since I had a good drink.”

It was a cultural shock for Farook. He knew Fareeda must be up to no good. Born and brought up in Europe, she must know and do all these things.

The rum tasted bitter. It burned down his throat. The thought of drinking with a woman alone in a house at night dizzied him more than the Old Monk.

After finishing her drink, Fareeda lit a Wills, and dragged in a deep pull. Thick smoke curled out of her mouth. He did not smoke. He had been having a bad cough for a few days.

“Cricket is an interesting game, isn’t it? I know you play. But I’m looking at it from a whole different perspective.” She began to speak about her study, without any provocation.

Farook was an uninspiring conversationalist, but an encouraging listener. He was too gentle to tell off a bore, even if he was a button-holing one.

His thoughts were flagged off. They bobbed on the sea of his imagination. Sure, the Old Monk was not effective. But the intoxicating thought of spending a night alone with a sexy woman sparked a revolution in him.

Farook stole a glance at her. She was reading an article on premarital sex. There was a two-column, tightly cropped picture of a boy and a girl locked in a passionate kiss. Two broad columns of nine-point Times ran around them in sober seriousness.

Fareeda was wearing a tie-and-dye wraparound. Farook could see her legs – creamy soft. His heart pounded. No. The chip in him screamed. He could hear his own heartbeats.

“What do you think of premarital sex?” Fareeda suddenly turned and asked Farook. She had almost caught him staring holes on her legs. He was not sure if she had realised that Ramanujan had gone for ever with his poem.

“I don’t know,” he managed to cough out a few words. Fareeda changed her position, and looked at him. Desire shone in her eyes.

Farook feared the next move from her. She could pull him closer and kiss him hard which would no doubt lead to a steamy session of premarital sex.

Her breasts were full under the T-shirt which said, “God’s Own Country”.

“Come on, Farook. Don’t be a dumb.”

“What? I think it’s wrong…sin,” he said, against the tide of passion surging through his veins.

Fareeda laughed. Under the dim, yellow light she was beautiful. “What if we have sex now? No one will come to know, and I like you,” Fareeda’s words exploded like a bomb in Farook’s heart.

He knew him the best. He had never had sex in his life. The lust for sex was strong, and he had often wondered whether to set out on an uncharted journey.

But a powerful string had always pulled him back.

Fareeda moved closer to him, and said: “Come, kiss me Farook.”

Farook felt a river of heat in his nerves. It spread across his body, and his pelvic muscles arched, and he throbbed.

Farook wanted to kiss her, take her in his arms and make love to her. But the struggle was within. The tug-of-war in him, which no one saw, was too animated. When his flesh and blood pulled him towards her, something else pulled him away.

He did not understand anything, but the inner struggle was as real as a bout of wrestling.

Sweat drops beaded on his forehead. He breathed fast, and his chest moved up and down.

Fareeda laughed again. “Relax Farook. If you don’t want to do it, let’s forget it. You’re my favourite cousin. Now, take it easy,” she put her arm around him and kissed him on his forehead.

“Goodnight,” she said, and the lights were off. The soulful fragrance of her body enveloped Farook, as he drifted into a sea of fantasies.

They both liked the old library building, especially sitting on the half wall.

“I like this place for its mustiness. It takes me back to a childhood I never had,” she said. Farook had always envied Fareeda and her siblings. Their father, Farook’s mother’s cousin, was a senior official at the UN.

They were in Geneva before Fareeda moved to England for her studies. He elder brother and sister – with whom Farook had only courtesy relationship, a brief chat on his studies when they make their annual visit to Kerala – were working in prestigious organisations England and France.

“Farook, you can become a writer. I feel it in my bones,” she said, again setting her eyes high on the swaying petals of gulmohar. “A good one among those who write in English here in India.”

Next to the gulmohar, there was a huge tamarind tree. Tiny tamarind leaflets shivered in pleasant breeze. A few pods were on the ground, and when the girls who came to the library stepped on them, they cracked with a crisp sound that mostly surprised the girls and made them smile sheepishly.

Farook, with the smell of Fareeda’s sun-block cream flooded in his lungs, felt an uneasy tribulation.

Writer…he had never thought of becoming a writer apart from writing some poems in Malayalam, and once or twice venturing into a few lines in English.

But, honestly, he had envied the fame and the stylised sluggishness of writers whose photos appear on the jacket leaf, and, the brief bio beneath where the writer is glorified into a rare specimen with a tint of romance.

But Farook had never dared to think that he can take up a project of such an immense scale to become an Indo-Anglian writer. It is by default that he studied Indian writing in English, the writers’ many challenges of cross-cultural communication, their so-called parochialism, their many tricks of the trade and their instant success in international market by package-selling India.

But being an average student all through his school and college years, Farook had never had the brilliance to write a novel. He had never topped his university, college, school or class. But his teachers thought he had it in him to bring laurels to their institution.

Often he pitied their poor judgment. Their absolute lack of insight.

Farook knew himself better than anyone else. He was not bright, forget about being brilliant.

He had always been an average in everything – be it cricket, his burning passion, the subjects he had studied…or to be intimate, he even had an average-size penis.

But his neitherbours liked him for he had always been a good, well-mannered boy. His teachers liked him for he had always respected them and never got into any trouble. His friends liked him for he was a warm person. Girls liked him for he was a chubby boy with whom their virginity had never been threatened.

But Farook had laughed at his neighbours on the sly. Only he knew how he disliked some of them, or even hated. How stealthily his eyes had fallen on the cleavage of his friend’s mother across the street. How many times he had had momentary romance – some called it crush – with the girls in his neighbourhood. How many time his parents, sister and himself had gossiped about others.

In fact, he hadn’t found enough qualities in his teachers to respect them. Their English – his favourite yardstick – was poor and pronunciation horrible. He had seen his social studies teacher and physical education teacher in a tight hug in an empty classroom. Or in the college classes, the professor’s stare falling lustfully on the girl in the front row.

He knew how badly he often wanted to dumb some of his friends. He just couldn’t like them. Their coarse jokes made him sick, their passion for political parties, especially the Communist, made him throw up. Their constant company made him believe “familiarity breeds contempt”.

The security that girls had felt with Farook – he knew – was because of their innate inability to see what was in a person’s heart. Farook, unabashedly, had fantasised about almost all of his female friends. He had imagined their physiological details.

But all these currents and deluge of passions were beneath his charming smile. What the world saw of Farook was a well-mannered young man of values. His parents were proud of their first-born, his sister wore her brother on her salvar sleeves.

The cuckoo, which hid herself in the thick foliage of gulmohar, had lost patience with the unruly crows and flew away with an abrupt note. The unharmonious crows were unmindful of the loss of music in their surrounding, and continued to carp on their black issues.

The students inside the library picked and chose from the old books. The bespectacled librarian – a woman in her 40s – clinically entered the titles on a dog-eared ledger. She kept an eye on her watch to decide on her lunch break.

“Are you joking?” Farook asked. His English was stiff. He spent time on each sentence, formed it in his head, rechecked if the grammar was correct and carefully spoke it out.

“No. Not all. Why should I make fun of you? I have a gut feeling that you can come up with a novel set in Kerala.” Fareeda looked into his eyes.

He laughed. “I have never written a line of prose in my life,” he said, and felt shy.

“No one does until the first sentence,” Fareeda said. Her accent was correct – RP – Received Pronunciation – which he had learnt in his language classes. The intonation fell so perfectly correct that it was music to an English-lover’s ears.

She got down from the half wall and stood facing Farook. She was a few inches shorter than him. He looked into her eyes.

She was pretty. Her brown eyes were shining in the bright light. Farook felt an urge to kiss her. But a sudden flutter in the belly reminded him of his boundaries. He knew he couldn’t do it. He was sure Fareeda had understood his struggle – the tug-of-war in his heart.

Farook remembered a sentence he had read somewhere…”to say no is the hardest thing though most of the time it is the right answer…”

He had to say no to his flesh to calm down the ocean within him. He knew it’s the right thing to do even though he may look stupid to his friends – at times to himself.

But the unseen, unconfirmed chip in him seldom failed to sound an alarm.

Fareeda moved closer to him, looked deeper into his eyes and her fingers touched the tip of Farook’s fingers. She looked a gorgeous woman to make love with. She was waiting for one small move from him. Farook badly wanted to do just that.

But someone…someone…there was someone who was stopping him. “It’s not right.”

He knew his father would understand him even if he took Fareeda to bed. He was a liberal, a former teacher of English literature and a hard-core fan of Bertrand Russell. Love and knowledge were, for him, the mainstays in life.

He was not sure of his mother’s views, but he was sure that she would forgive him. But Farook’s stumbling block was the unseen guardian, who spoke to him in soft voice. The gentle tap on his inner man, a comforting stroke of an invisible hand.

Farook breathed heavily. His curly locks fluttered in the breeze. There was a look of disappointment in Fareeda’s face, though she laughed out aloud.

“Farook, relax. You look so tensed.”

Words failed to inspire any voice in his vocal chord.

“See, I have to go to Cochin tomorrow. I heard I could meet some oldies who formed one of the very first cricket clubs in Kerala. Do you want to come along?”

Farook badly wanted to go with her, breathing in her fragrance all the way. But he said: “No. I have something to do here. A writer is in town, and he’ll be speaking on Indian writing in English tomorrow at the VJT Hall.”

A sad, white lie.

“Well, that’s good. But more importantly, you better start writing,” Fareeda tapped on his shoulders. “You’ll make it.”

Farook wanted to laugh. What’s she saying? Does she have any idea of my writing skills? A writer is born – with a God-given talent – not made out of compulsions or encouragement.

A writer should be able to make love to a girl, after all. If he cannot pursue his basic instincts and enjoy unbridled love and sex, he cannot write. He must lead a loose life to write about the morality of the society.

Fareeda came still closer, thrust her hand on his chest and said: “There is a writer in here. Bring him out."

Fareeda took the first train next day morning to Cochin. Farook was in his hostel room, lying in his bed, thinking about becoming a writer.

Augustine Alex, his room-mate and post-graduation class-mate whom friends called Yeye – short for Augustine Alex – had been sitting up from eight in the morning with a PG Wodehouse book. For the last two hours he was completely lost in the book that he didn’t care if Farook wanted to have his breakfast before the mess was closed.

When Farook first heard of PG Wodehouse, he thought of a wooden house. Often Yeye pulled his leg for his innocent ignorance. Yeye was a third-generation Anglo-Indian from Thankasseri in Quilon, about 80 kilometres from Trivandrum.

Farook couldn’t understand the distinction. All of the Yeye clan – his cousins and friends in the family and picnic pictures – were just as plain as any other Keralite: the same tropical dark skin and unimpressive hair, trademark moustache that begs for significance.

On the other hand, Farook was fair and hailed from a family of English teachers who discussed and dissected English literature for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. Yet, they were not Anglo-Indian, but this un-English Yeye was.

Ridiculous.

Farook turned to the other side and stared at the wall. It was ten, and surely he wouldn’t get the cold bread and the colder omlette. Even the tea was uninspiring – a lukewarm liquid with a hint of milk and tea.

Farook thought of Fareeda. Yeye would even break off his friendship with Farook if he told him about the squandered opportunities. He might call him a wimp in public.

“Give her to me, and I’ll see that she doesn’t go after another man,” he would boast, tugging at the dark strands of his moustache.

“It always happens like this in this part of the world,” he would curse the Third World Destiny as if he was born in the cradle of Europe. He had never travelled out of Kerala.

Farook lay there still till Yeye finished Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves.

Soul-searching for any chance of becoming a writer, as Fareeda had boldly prophesied, Farook thought of his father.

Can he be of any help to make his son a writer? He had had streaks of creativity, but he quit his teaching job in the early 70s to go to the Arabian Gulf. With the profession he had quit the world of literature too, to become an insurance clerk in a dusty Gulf state.

Could he have become a writer? He was a voracious reader of English classics and philosophy – one who did a portrait of Bertrand Russell in charcoal and hung it in the drawing room of their house. Farook grew up seeing the white hair and narrow lips in the black-and-white picture.

His family had been a happy unit till three months ago when an insignificant doctor raised a suspicion over an x-ray of his father’s chest.

Farook remembered the evening and how his parents came out of the doctor’s house at dusk, a couple of months after his father had come back from the United Arab Emirates. He had left the Gulf country for good after a two-phase span of 13 years. His reason to quit the job was a recurring and often intolerable pain and numbness in his right hand. He could no longer draft any letters nor type reports, which his job at the insurance firm was mainly about. The pain was so intense that he did not consider the reality that he had not succeeded in saving enough money to see the family through the rest of the years.

“A small blob near the lungs,” his father told him and his sister. Before any of them could relate the word “blob” to a malignant growth, he said: “It’s not anything to worry about. Just a small operation and it will be gone forever.”

His father lit a beedi, and puffed out the thin smoke. The all-too familiar reek of hand-rolled tobacco leaves spread in the air. Relieved, Farook and his sister, Shabnam, looked at each other. She was five years younger to him, but their mother said she was more mature and stronger than him. Maybe.

As they were getting into the taxi, his mother said: “Oh, what a relief! I just wanted to know what it is. The doctor has shown us on the screen that little blob. A small one – as small as my thumb.” Farook sneaked a look at her plumb thumb.

His father was thoughtful, and remained silent for long.

* * *

It is Monday, and Farook hadn’t heard of Fareeda for the last three days since she left for Cochin.

It’s like that. She was not in constant touch with him. She came to Kerala once a year, with many short trips across the state stitched together. She would be at home hardly for a week.

At home, she was left with her mother. Her father died five years ago of a heart-attack while delivering a keynote speech in a Leaders’ Summit in New Delhi.

Since then she had made it a point to visit her mother every year. “Sometimes I feel like leaving everything behind and settling down in Kerala,” she once told Farook. “But I’m not sure if that’s what I want. I don’t want to regret. I’m afraid I may end up in a cul de sac, a point of no escape.”

Most of the time, Farook did not understand her. His relationship with her was his efforts to understand her world, her views and her plans.

Farook knew that she liked him. She herself has told him that. “You’re so handsome. You’re tall, and I like your curly, unkempt hair,” she once said, sitting on top of a black rock at Kovalam beach.

She sat close to him. The locks of his hair danced in the strong breeze from the evening sea. Fareeda’s hair went crazy in the wind. The sea was neither calm nor rough. Blue waves ebbed and flowed. They slammed against the slimy belly of the rock they sat on.

Fareeda had never said that she loved Farook. She always used, though sparingly, the word “like”. He too couldn’t love Fareeda, but he liked her.

They used to go to Kovalam occasionally, mostly to satisfy her love for rides. She liked to ride on his Yamaha. Farook was apprehensive. What if mother came to know? The chip within him did not approve the trip. He knew – it was not right. But he cherished the ride with her sitting behind him, wearing a helmet with a tinted visor. No one could make out it was her. Her breasts were pressed hard against his back as they zipped past the traffic light in front of the Secretariat Building. The policeman on the traffic island stared at them. His eyes were glued to her shapely bottom. Farook revved up the bike at that thought. The policeman lost Fareeda’s butt in thick nimbus.

When they were perched on the rock, Farook had an urge to ask Fareeda about her love life in England. He was sure she must have a boyfriend there. A Brit? An Indian? Or a Paki?

No idea.

Fareeda enjoyed the salty breeze. She squinted her brown eyes and looked long into the horizon. Was she mourning the love in her life? Was she longing for him?

Farook’s mind was crowded with thoughts. Often he was fed up with Fareeda. “Why I’m stuck with her? What’s my gain?” he asked himself. He could have sex with her any time if he wanted. He could be more intimate with her, perhaps, taking the relationship one step closer to an affair.

But he did not want it. The voice deep within was soft but he could hear it clearly. “No. It’s not. She is not your girl.”

And, when he heard that voice, mostly in the night when he lay awake staring out of the window at the thick, liquid darkness, he had peace. He felt security and comfort.

In the opposite side of the room, Yeye would be fast asleep dreaming of Jeeve and his many girlfriends. Farook often wondered if Yeye had ever had any trouble in his life. He was always happy. He either played ping pong – he was a state player – or smoked beedis over a few books. Yeye believed in bedding any girl. “That’s what they want,” he boasted, mostly to ridicule Farook.
“Do you really have a dick?” he once asked Farook. The point of reference was Fareeda. Yeye saw them riding past the hostel towards Kovalam in the afternoon.
And when he came back in the night, Yeye said: “So tell me, you Casanova. What did you do to her? Tell me in graphic details. My ears are all yours.”

When Farook said nothing had happened except they drank three cups of Nescafe and ate two sandwiches each, Yeye was furious. “Tell me, son,” he put his arm over Farook’s shoulder, “do you really have something down there?”

Farook smiled, and said: “You may have nuke weapons but you can’t use them without discernment.”

“Ha ha ha,” Yeye laughed out. “This nuke will explode within you. I’m telling you,” he said and walked out of the room. Farook searched for the voice within. Though he could not hear the soft whisper, Farook felt good that he had obeyed his bosom friend.

It was true that any other man in his place would have by now had many steamy sessions with Fareeda, and she richly deserved them. But he was happy to fall in line with the unknown friend of his solitude.

It was drizzling. Farook got out of the hostel building, and walked into the thin rain. Raindrops pinched his face. A few fell on his lips, sending a refreshing sensation into his heart. A few fell on his cheeks, and a few on his hair.

He walked past the Corporation Stadium, under the line of ancient mahagonys, ignoring the beggars who scan the pedestrians for tourists, across the Mahatma Gandhi Street, and ambled into the British Council Library.

Farook took his eyes off his favourties lines in Jane Kenyon’s Let Evening Come as someone tapped his shoulder.

It was the thin, bespectacled librarian. His father’s friend. “So, Farook. It’s been a few days since you came in last. Were you in Kamana?” he asked. Kamana was Farook’s home town, 45 kilometres north of the city.

“I was around but was busy with some visiting writers from Delhi,” he said, sliding back the thin collection into the shelf.

“How’s he?” The librarian – Kumaraswamy – and his father had been friends since his father was a student in the University College.

“Can’t say he is getting better. The pain is still there. The doctor said he can remove the growth through an operation.”

“He’ll make it. You don’t worry,” Kumaraswamy said, but his face betrayed his thoughts.

The growth was malignant. That’s the latest news.

It had shattered the family. Farook’s mother broke down, sobbing in a hush, when she revealed the biopsy results to her children.

“Now you don’t cry. Pa says his children should not worry,” she told Farook and Shabnam. Farook felt a cold numbness creeping up his body. Shabnam held her brother’s hands and looked at him.

Poor girl, Farook thought. “How can I console her?” She had been a brilliant student till her Pre-degree but now she had willfully dropped out of the college to be with her mother while she nursed their father.

Farook was against the decision. “She must go back to her college. We cannot spoil her future,” he had argued. But Shabnam was adamant. “Please, it’s my decision. I’m not going to stop my studies. I’m doing a distant-education course. That’s good enough for me,” she said.

“Come on, Shabnam. How can you do that? Ma will be alright here. Pa will definitely get better after some time,” Farook told her.

“No. I can’t leave Ma alone here. I’m fine with the decision.” That’s it.

The primary biopsy was inconclusive as the growth was tucked somewhere between his lungs and vertebrae. Like the tiny tourist cottages tucked between the hillocks in Ponmudi. Doctors at the Regional Cancer Centre prescribed painkillers. Farook was silent for a while when he read “morphine” on the case file. Tears welled up in his eyes, but he did not cry.
“Pa, it’ll be alright,” he said as he held his father’s left hand. The right hand was almost numb by now.

His father looked at him through his specs and raised brows. He pursed his lips, and smiled. “How’s your project shaping up?”

Fareeda came back from Cochin after a week. She called up next day morning at the hostel.

“Hi Farook, how are you?” she sounded chirpy. “How was the trip? Did you meet the oldies?” he asked.
“Yes, I did. Some octogenarians. So, where, when in the afternoon?” she asked. Farook looked around. There was only a lonely administrative clerk in the room. The warden’s room was locked. There was an unusual quietness in the office room.
“I really want to see you,” Fareeda said. It was like that every time. She had so many things to tell him, and Farook had so little.

He enjoyed playing the role of a puppet to her strings. There were two facts that attract him to her – she was sexy and she lived in the UK.

“At the library,” Farook said. He had to go to the library to return some books and meet a professor who had done some research on Indo-Anglian writing.

The library building too was an old construction, a remnant from the colonial past of the city. The wooden doors were large, and widows wide. It had an air of spaciousness and old-world charm.

Farook didn’t quite like the old library as much as the neat, new British Library where he could find a good collection of modern English poetry, the only literature he read with some gusto. The pick of his writers was Jane Kenyon, a New Hampshire poet whom he met a few years ago when she and her poet husband, Mr Hall, came to the city.

Farook hit it off with Kenyon during the evening reading session. He liked her refined elegance and more refined lines. He had her collection “Let Evening Come” autographed in her shaking handwriting. Farook read Let Evening Come late into the night and then the next day early morning and imagined the pen-pictures that the poet presented…Young Kenyon lying on the grass, walking the dog, the arbour, her love, women sweeping away leaves at Kremlin station in a tribute to Akhmatova.

Reading Kenyon had always inspired a small poet in Farook, and he scribbled down the first poem in his life one ruddy December evening poignant with memories. He wrote about his first love, a lost cause.

Transforming pain

Have you seen a forest exploding in riotous
colours of autumn with the deciduous trees
letting leaves flutter away with light breeze?
Have you seen a lonely road, stretching away,
narrowing and wobbling at infinity?
Then, remember and realise,
my pain is like them.
At times, cyclic, at times linear,
at times habitual, at times accidental.

Perhaps, you will never know the chemistry
of my sorrow, the piercing pain of my pangs.

I cannot blame you either.
We have been revolving in unknown orbits,
revolving burnt-away suns, and adoring
far-away stars, comfortable in the cosmic chill
and finding ways in its expansive darkness.

But today,
as you are comforted by words of friends around,
hardly finding a moment’s hideaway to
express your love,
I become a monsoon night,
whimpering, murmuring, and
disturbing like an insomniac.

Farook thought many times of showing the poem to Fareeda. But he was, each time, ruled by a numbing fear of criticism and letting himself down. He thought the poem was mushy and a bit yellow in quality. But there were lines which he liked…but no…he didn’t have the courage to show it to Fareeda who, he was sure, had read much better first lines and may really look down upon him.

He didn’t mind losing Fareeda as a friend if it had to happen. But he didn’t want to lose her because of his poem.

Fareeda was in her usual vivacious self. The old library building and the timid students mugging up the ancient text in reverence could not hold her beaming personality. The moment she walked in, enveloped in her enchanting CD fragrance, the boys struggled to take their eyes off her. The girls often stole a glance at her style.

Farook was, as usual, seemingly passive. But his heart erupted at the sight of her or by even the gentle waft of her fragrance.
But his saintly façade had convinced himself that he hadn’t fallen head-over-heels for the woman.

“Farook, I’m afraid I’m winding up my stuff here. I have to leave day after tomorrow for Calcutta where I’m supposed to meet a historian-cum-cricket writer. Have you heard of Gautam Das?”

Farook had heard of him, but found his writing boring and style stilted.
“Yes, I’ve read a couple of his articles. He seemed to be good.”
Fareeda looked into his eyes. “Farook, my friend at Cambridge is a friend of Mr Das, and has arranged the meeting. I think he can give me some good stuff.”

Farook wanted to ask her of the “friend at Cambridge”. He or she. Boyfriend? Lover? For a moment, Farook’s mind flitted across many oceans and reached Cambridge where the “friend” was a lover of Fareeda and had kissed her hard on her lips.

“Why I wanted to meet you today is to give you this,” Fareeda pushed a brown A4-size envelop across the desk.
“What is this?” Farook asked.
“Open it and see it for yourself.”
Farook peeled off the flap. There are three copies of The Writer magazine. Farook hadn’t even heard of them.
“I’m sorry I haven’t heard of this magazine,” he said.
“You silly, country pumpkin, this is one of the best magazines in the world to help young and beginner writers. They will definitely help you in mastering the art of fiction.”
Farook wanted to laugh aloud. What is she doing? She seemed to be serious about making him a writer.

“I thought you’re joking?”
“You dumb, why should I? I’m serious… you must try to write a novel set in Kerala. It will sell,” Fareeda said.
She the pulled out the magazines and showed him the articles and tips on how to become a good writer.
“In the West, Indo-Anglian writers sell like hot cakes. You should give it a shot. You’ll never know, it might click.”

“There is another gift for you,” she said, and pulled out a small red book from her vanity bag. She put it on the desk.
“A Bible?” he asked.
“Yes, but I don’t know why I’m giving you this. It was in my box – I think a friend in Delhi gave to me last week. I don’t want to throw it nor do I want to take it back to Cambridge. So, you keep it.”

Farook didn’t want to throw it either. He slid it into his jeans pocket.

“So when are we meeting next?” She asked. “Whenever you come to the town next,” he replied, passive as ever.

A gush of wind peeped in through the window and the strands that fell over Fareeda’s forehead flickered.

Fareeda looked into Farook’s eyes. She expected him to be more romantic. But Farook was preoccupied with not being one. He knew he could not love her nor could he bed her. But whenever she came next, and if he was around here, he was happy to meet her, take her around on his bike and sip coffee and munch sandwiches with her.

“Farook, let me reiterate. You must write…a novel set here. Write about your own lineage.”

He smiled.

“So, I’ll see you next year…and hopefully to read some of your manuscript,” Fareeda said, and got up from the chair.

Farook shook hands with her, and saw her off getting into her white ambassador. Her driver nodded at him, and drove into the evening traffic.

Farook walked back to the hostel along the busy Mahatma Gandhi Road. The evening crowd was in its unmindful rush-back-home ritual. He loved walking in the city in evenings.
As usual, there would be some cultural function or the other at the VJT Hall. A few cars, mostly Maruti, were parked in the white-sanded front yard. The who’s who of the city’s cultural cream would greet one another, once again.

The bus-stop in front of the University College was usually crowded with NGOs and college students who at regular intervals ran after the buses and got rammed into one of them for their journey back home to call it a day.

As he walked past them, he sharpened his ears to catch the funny Trivandrum slang from the women. The slang had an illogical use of plural nouns. It was always buses, rices, teas, etc. even if they meant singular.

The state election was held the previous month and the faded flags had lost their relevance but they still fluttered in the breeze. Candidates on the posters had lost sheen and their electoral promises had lost their charm.

The Left had won the elections and formed a cabinet for another term. Irrespective of the change of government life seemed to be the same for everyone.

Farook hated the invasion of private buses in the city. Till five years ago, there were only the red-and-yellow City Service buses, giving the state capital an elite status. Now the city was flooded with blaring, speeding and indecent private buses.

He walked down the road in front of the University College and ambled along under the nine patriarchal mahagonys in a row.

He was not sad that Fareeda was gone. In fact, he was relieved that she had left the town. He liked her company, but somewhere there was an uneasiness in being with her. His unseen friend, the chip in him, did not approve of the relationship. He felt constant flutter of butterflies in his belly.

At times he did not understand his own dilemmas. He couldn’t understand why he didn’t make a move to make love with her. He could place his heart on a table and dissect it into two halves. One would be throbbing with passion to make love with Fareeda but the other half would reject it outright.

Farook didn’t know if his one half was spiritual or religious. Farook, for that matter, his family, was not pronounced in its religious practices. He had never seen his father or mother pray, forget five times, at least once. While his father had more faith in humanist values and socialism, his mother believed goodness begets goodness. Secularism was the cornerstone of the family’s thinking. Churches and temples had equal importance as mosques, perhaps more.

Farook was in front of the old Secretariat which was the symbol of political power for many years till the Assembly was relocated to a new, expansive building a few years ago. He walked up to the square where the busy newspaper and magazine agent spread out his stock on the floor. Farook normally picked up a Sunday Observer or Outlook from there.

He bought the latest edition of Outlook which yet again had Indian women’s approach and outlook to sex as cover story. Farook thought it was one too many for the magazine. He had read with interest when the weekly broached the subject for the first time, even though it was evident that it was a marketing ploy. And, there is no better subject than sex, especially if Indian women were talking about it, to promote a publication.

Farook had no opinion on the issue. He didn’t have any proactive take on anything except cricket.

He was surprised to hear that Fareeda was doing her research on the social impact of cricket in Commonwealth countries. Fareeda and cricket? No way. She didn’t follow the game at all. But her brother did. In fact, he would tell Farook and Aamir, his cousin, stories about his visit to Lord’s to watch an England-India match.

Azharudeen scored a brilliant hundred off 80-odd balls. Sachin was superb as ever. Chris Lewis fielded splendidly at cover and Darren Gough swung in dangerously.

“It was pure magic from Azhar, you know,” Fareeda’s brother, an astrophysicist, would say of his hero. There was a Hyderabad connection to him. His second wife – the first one left him in two months – was from Hyderabad.

“When he is in form, even Sachin cannot match him,” he would make a statement.

Farook, a tall middle order who loved to flick off his pads, believed the Mumbai batsman was sacrosanct. But he held opinion close to his heart.

Thoughts about Fareeda brought back her bold prediction of a writer living in him. Farook looked around. A dark, thick-set prostitute with big lips and curls of brown fat on either side smiled at him. The statue of Mahatma Gandhi looked leaner and lonely at the crossroad of day and night. The evening light that fell on everything made the city look surreal. Farook began to observe people who walked across him or stand at the bus-stop.

A writer? He looked into him. Was there another man in him who could write of other people. A writer who can live by writing. He was not convinced but when he reached the hostel he felt more like a writer.

He decided to give it a shot.

Another peep into Farook's world

2007-02-02T21:36:00.000+05:30

Din of rain in Kayaloram

When Farook opened his eyes he heard the din of rain. It fell lustily on the roof tiles. It was thick and rhythmical.
The green blanket was warm enough to make him comfortable. For years, the old blanket was his grandmother’s. On his sixth birthday the previous month, she gifted it to him. For Farook, its smell was the smell of her snoring sleep.

He turned under the blanket, rolled his eyes around. It wasn’t morning yet. The darkness of dawn cluttered here and there. He looked to his left – his father was snoring. He leaned across him and looked at the floor. His mother was there, among the big wrinkles of the mattress, asleep. His sister was in the clothe cradle that hung still from the metal hook on the ceiling.

Farook liked to breath in his father’s warmth. But at times he could not find him next to him. He would wonder where he had gone. Soon he would find him sleeping with his mother on the floor. It unsettled him. He would turn and groan and be restless till his mother woke up and made his father sleep on the bed with him. Through the corner of his eye, he had seen her adjusting her blouse before pulling a sheet all over herself and going back to sleep.

The pale light of the morning seeped through the sill and the carvings in the ventilators. Someone was talking in the backyard. Farook knew it was the Vedas, the tribals. They came early, no matter rain or shine. They came and waited in the shed in the backyard till Grandmother woke up and segregated their duties for the day. The vedas were tribals, living in huts either at the foothills or, like Nallan’s family, at the outer border of his master’s land.

The rain began to pound down half past eight last night and continued its steady course. Abdullah, Farook’s mother’s cousin, came running into the house from the darkness. He was on his way back home from the mosque after Isha prayers.
“The monsoon has started. It was raining heavily in Thiruvantharam yesterday,” he said, while washing his legs with the water from a bronze jug kept on the steps. He wiped his feet on the ‘welcome’ mat.
“You went to Thiruvantharam?” Farook’s mother asked. Though every one knew the name of Kerala’s capital was ‘Thiruvananthapuram’, they all said ‘Thiruvantharam’.

He nodded and went into the house, in search of Grandmother to share some family gossip.

Monsoon!
Farook jumped out of the bed, across his father. He was happy to welcome the wet days! The whole place around Kayaloram House was flooded, and every small pit a puddle with its own ecosystem. Tiny, shiny frogs floated and dipped imitating the grown-ups.

Rainwater ran down from the roof, somersaulted and ran merrily into the dark interiors of the creaks and fissures. Farook thought about the snakes and toads living in them. They must be all wet, he thought.

It was still raining hard. The vedas kept coming in dribs and drabs. They wore palm hats. Raindrops thudded on them and splashed around. The eldest of the vedas, Nallan, came in with a soil-coloured thorthu draped around him and a palm hat tucked low.
“Nallan, is it raining on the hills too?” Farook asked him. He smiled at him showing his betel-stained teeth.
“Yes, it is, appi. The canal is full,” he said with respect. He must have been above 60 but not a single strand of his curly hair was grey.

Thick drops of rain fell in the puddles and splashed around. The clogged, muddy water simmered with enthusiastic ripples. Farook walked along the veranda, feeling the droplets on his face, and watched the rain falling on the banana leaves and the wet ground beneath.

The vedas could not go out to work. They all sat in the veranda next to the kitchen and chewed betel leaves with areca nuts. No one went out of the house. It was, according to Farook’s mother, the heaviest rain for some years.

That rain lasted for a week. The river and the backwaters overflowed. The joy of the farmers and others in the village was transformed into unforeseen misery and tragedy. Roads were washed off, paddy fields turned into backwaters, and the villagers had to resort to rowing small boats from one house to the other.

It was on the third day that the big tamarind tree behind the kitchen fell in a strong wind from the west. The joint family of storks in the tree, where they had been living for many years, was scattered. The nests were destroyed and the cumbersome legs of the chicks broken. Though Farook had fancied pelting them down with stones, he could not bear to look at them now – the spot of the accident was visible from the kitchen window through the smoked, dark wooden bars.

Suhail and Ibrahim watched the birds wriggling in pain and, finally, die. Ibrahim even described the scene aloud for Grandmother, who was sitting at her usual spot in the open veranda next to the kitchen.

“Al Hamdulillah!” Grandmother heaved a sigh of relief. “Allah saved us,” she said aloud.
She had a reason to feel relieved. If the tamarind had fallen a few metres to the north, the kitchen, her usual sitting place, and, perhaps, even she would have been no more.

The rain did not stop for a week. It just wavered between drizzles, and then came back with vengeance and determination.

“This is the end of the world,” Grandmother said. “It has never rained like this before,” she looked out and spat out red betel juice; the red saliva was carried away by the arrogance of the rainwater, leaving no trace.

The bridge that connected the village to the nearby Kamana town collapsed. No one knew when it did. But on the fourth morning, the villagers found the bridge broken into two. And the river was furious. It took away four shops. The pandanus that had dominated the riverbanks were gone. People said they had been washed away.

The backwaters behind Farook’s grand old maternal house had also begun to swell. Water rose to knee level, reached the backyard and waited. Grandmother said it was because of the virtues of the ancestors that the water did not wash away the house.

But, the house was not in the best of health. There were cracks in the roof and two rooms next to the central hall were in a mess. Water dripped from the ceiling and an unbearable stink spread around from the rotten mangoes kept in a sack.

* * * *

Many things floated in with the water. A sewing machine, an old wooden box with some soaked currency and a few coins, a disfigured velvet doll and an iron knife.
Rumours too floated in.
Some said dead body of an old woman was tangled up in a mesh of roots, some distance off. They said her skin was loose and decayed and that she was short and frail. She was drowned when her hut, in which she had been living alone after her only son was taken away by the police for gambling, was washed off.
But no one even claimed to have seen the dead body. But somehow, the news spread.

The sewing machine was an old one but Kabeera aunty worked on it and later stitched beautiful frocks for Shabnam. Farook kept the velvet doll near the chimney for two days to dry. One of its thin hands was twisted and its nose smashed back. He thought of the little girl who had played with it. She must be missing it now. He felt sad for her.

Grandmother looked at the knife and said it was tempered well and was still good for use. But she was not sure she could use it, because she thought it was the end of the world. And she prepared to die, remembering relatives, friends and the people of the village. Nevertheless, she dried the currency notes and kept them along with the coins in her box and locked it.

The plantains and drumsticks in the backyard were wrenched by the persistent winds. In the evening the day the bridge collapsed, there were only drizzles, and Farook’s father left for Trichy, where he was teaching English literature in a college. People went out to their fields and took stock of the damage. The paddy fields were completely flooded.

The night was again stormy and it rained with purpose.

A terrible truth broke out the next morning. Saif was drowned. And the body was not yet found. The whole village shuddered and was deadly silent.

Saif was a few years older to Farook. Though they were not playmates, they knew each other as their houses were on opposite sides of the road. He was a spoilt child as his parents’ idea of how to bring up their son as a role model backfired.
Saif’s father was in Singapore for many years, like most men from the village, and made a lot of money. Saif was the only son and his parents did not let him play with the boys in the neighbourhood. He grew up to be an introvert.

He was sent to a boarding school in Kollam, a town north of Kamana, and he came back with the habit of smoking beedi. His mother was possessive about him and wanted him always around her. But by the time he was out of his teens, he began to go out in the evenings, either to the remote coconut groves by the backwaters or to the hills where the vedas lived. No one knew what he was doing or who his friends were for a very long time.

It was Saif who taught Farook how to catch frogs from the small canal in front of their houses, using the hangman’s noose. He would knot the noose at the tip of a long, flexible stick (preferably a part of the palm frond) and dangle it near a frog. And the moment it darted its head into it, he would flick his wrist and there, the frog would be dancing, stretching all its limbs, suspended midair. He had caught quite a number of them this way and was considered a master frog-catcher.

All the frogs in the river must have celebrated the fall of their common enemy, Farook thought. And he was sure that Saif’s body was not found because the frogs had tied him in a big noose and dragged it away. But Farook did not tell this even to Rabiya.

Saif jumped into the river and never came back, people said. He had two friends with him who said they had warned him of the unpredictable undercurrent. He might have seen colourful flowers on the riverbed, and the fish dancing and inviting, Farook continued to imagine.

“He was high,” said one of his friends. Farook did not understand what he meant. Of late, there had been whispers about his visiting veda huts at dusk. And truly, veda girls and women were beautiful: dark, chubby and shapely. Many people in the village had nightly contacts with them. There were brown babies crying out from the makeshift cradles while their veda mothers worked in the nearby paddy fields.

It was only two days later that the body was found. The place where the river joined the backwaters was turbulent with furious whirlpools of undercurrent. There were twigs, sticks and stumps, and one such stump blocked the body. Otherwise, Saif’s mother would not have got a chance to see the apple of her eye; his father with a walrus moustache and bloodshot eyes would not have kissed the coffin; and his sister, who came in time for the funeral from abroad, would not have touched the edges of the coffin and turned back heavy and broken.

The body had decayed and was stinking. The doctor from the government hospital seemed to be inhuman with his clinical approach to the dead body. He was not touched by the grief of the parents. The post-mortem was carried out near the backwaters – the spot was visible from Farook’s house – at the edge of a long strip.

Many people attended the funeral, apart from the whole village. They came in taxis, and the drivers took back the news and spread it in the town among the many other things they had heard and seen while on hire.

The mosque, near which Saif was buried, was a two-minute walk away from his house. His mother could see the mud hump and the tombstone from her kitchen window. The coffin was shrouded in white cloth and a green velvet sheet with holy inscriptions was draped over it. Saif’s cousins from distant towns and his jet-lagged brother-in-law carried the coffin on their shoulders to the cemetery with a train of people following them, whispering their prayers in Arabic. After funeral prayers in the mosque, all of them threw in their share of wet, red soil into the square pit of the grave, dispersed and lived as they had been living before.

No one could remember when the rains had stopped. The tragedy had erased everything else from the village’s memory. When did the paddies dry up? When did the backwaters withdraw from the waterfront? No one seemed to remember these things.

But Farook remembered how Kariman had barked continuously, staring at the spot where Saif was cut open by the doctor from the government hospital. And he remembered how fast Rabiya and he had run back to the house. They never went to that spot alone again. That was where Saif lived, they thought.

Though the rain had lost relevance after Saif’s death, the relevance of the bridge continued to be significant for it connected Kayaloram village to Kamana town. Now, with the bridge broken down, the buses from the town plied till the other end and people had to use a makeshift bridge made with a few planks of a coconut tree to get to the other side. It was like rope walking. The planks were narrow, and one had to be sure of one’s steps because the river beneath was still frenzied and murderous.

Yet people went to the town every morning like a ritual. They went to collect letters from the post office, not waiting for the postman to come to their houses in the evening. They went to buy fish, to see people and for nothing in particular. The majority of the men went to the town because they had nowhere else to go. No one from the village had an office job, except Farook’s father and one of his maternal uncles, Javad. Most of the villagers were farmers and if one could not become a good farmer, he was sent to the Arabian Gulf.

When the waters receded, Rabiya and Farook along with their three cousins – children of Jameela aunty, Farook’s third maternal aunt - went for sightseeing rounds near the backwaters. There were many curious creatures in the swamp. Insects of all forms and sizes stared at them in their misery and from their refuge. Under every piece of log there was a wide variety of them.

Farook was sad; not because Saif was dead, not because the rains had stopped or the insects were hapless. But since the rains had receded, the three cousins – Ramiya, Shanavas and Shakkir, who had come to Kayaloram with their mother for summer holidays – had to go back. Monsoon marked the end of summer holidays and beginning of a new academic year.

Farook did not want them to go back as it was fun to have all of them together. But they had to go, his mother said. “They will leave tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” he asked her, curling the hem of her sari.
“Hmm.” She was reading a magazine by the window. The air was still moist, the breeze thin and cool. He looked up at the sky, through the foliage of the big mango tree in the front yard. The sky showed signs of brightening.
“Tomorrow,” he said to himself, walking into the dark, central room.

* * * *

The next day, his cousins and Jameela aunty carefully crossed the makeshift bridge and waved their hands from the other side. They were going to their distant village to collect more stories to tell Farook and Rabiya during the next vacation. That’s what his mother told Farook when she found him sad.

While walking back along the slippery paddy fields, Farook recollected the good times they had during the vacation. He also noticed the sleek little frogs diving into the mud-pool, keeping their triangular heads and bulbous eyes above the water. They seemed to be ridiculing him. He tried to kick them from the edge of the narrow mud track but they dipped into the water.

Back home he was left with Rabiya and Ibrahim. Suhail was too old for them. Ibrahim preferred to play only with the boys of his age. And that left him with Rabiya, who was two years older than him.

They made paper boats and sailed them in mud-pools.

By evening the sky began to rumble. Farook was always scared of lightning and thunder. It was a fear he picked up very early in life from his mother. But most of all, he picked it from the old woman who sold fish in the village, a friend of Grandmother. They called her kudukudu for her peculiar way of whispering and chanting prayers in Arabic. She had many tricks up her sleeve – like a magic thread against possession and secret prayers for various illnesses – but nothing against lightning and thunder.

Whenever the sky rumbled she hid below the kitchen table, closing her eyes and ears. It was said her friend had died struck by lightning when both of them were talking, right in front of her. It was a kind of strange pride for Farook to know somebody who had seen someone dying at such close quarters. After selling fish she came back to Kayaloram House in the evening to spend the night. She was from a distant village and went home only twice a month. She and Grandmother talked about other women and their secrets. Though Grandmother smoked heavily, her friend did not.

There was a peculiar kind of fragrance about her. The scent of genie, Farook used to believe. Whenever he was down with a mild cold or high temperature, she whispered her strange prayers into his ears and he loved to feel the tickling scent of her breath. But he was not allowed to be playful, a look from his mother would bring him back to seriousness.
“My little darling will be all right tomorrow,” she would tell him, running her thin, bony right palm through his hair.

Somehow, she cared about only the youngest among the children. Farook’s cousins were already out of the age group and he too was when Shabnam was born five years later. But by that time she had become very thin, weak and old. She had stopped selling fish and the white spots of leucoderma had spread to her limbs and face making her a frail elf, wafting along with the breeze. She had become intolerably silent.

By seven in the evening, the lightning and thunder reached a terrifying high. Farook’s mother, sister and himself were in the portico. Grandmother was in her room, praying aloud, Kabeera auntie was in the kitchen, Rabiya and Ibrahim were in the central room and Suhail was not yet home. Kabeera auntie did not hear the claps of thunder as she was completely deaf.

Each time the thunder made the windows and sills vibrate Farook, somehow, imagined the night to be a big tree, shivering with electricity. He anticipated death every other moment and tried to visualise his burnt body and wailing Mother. It seemed, though Grandmother was prepared to succumb to the floods, she was pleading with Allah not to die struck by lightning.

The lightning was so close that the flash squinted Farook’s eyes and he could see Saif’s house glowing, still silent with memories of its dead inmate.
“Farook...” his mother called out when lightning and thunder exploded together with a clang and when he turned back he saw his mother collapsing. He screamed in the unintelligible language of shock. The house buzzed with commotion and no one knew what had really happened to her. A few minutes later she regained consciousness and told them that she saw a ball of fire coming towards her. That was all she could recollect.

In fact, many things happened in the house with that lightning and thunder. The supporting wooden stick of an old easy chair was twisted and thrown a good few metres away. A yellow, plastic comb melted and stuck to a bookshelf in a new shape. The pregnant cow, Sundari, gave birth to two calves and Kariman stopped barking for six months.

But they came to know of all these things only the next morning, which was still and silent. Two coconut trees were struck and one of them had its top completely burnt.

“It was the best yielding one,” Grandmother told her friends with an air that suggested the family was wealthy enough to do without its best yielding coconut tree. “My great grandfather had a buffalo and when it died he buried it near this tree and ever since it has been giving us the biggest coconuts in the village,” she said. “Tell Panu to come and clear this off tomorrow,” she said to her constant companion and aide Kochira, a veda woman.

Panu’s name was Bhanu, and he was the bravest of all coconut climbers. He was the only one who could climb the highest coconut tree in the village, which stood at the extreme corner of Kayaloram House’s compound, next to the backwaters. “Listen, I can see Thiruvantharam from the top,” Bhanu often told the children every time he got down from the tree.

He even said he could see the Kovalam beach and the colourful umbrellas spread out there. For some time, Farook dreamt of the day he could climb all the way up the tree. He had even imagined the tourists in red and blue bikinis out on the beach and about how dizzy he would feel at such a height.

During the monsoon rains and winds, the coconut tree arched and swayed as if it was being physically tortured. Farook used to look at it through the slanting rain from the porch at the back of the house. He could never see its top in the rain.

Bhanu was short in stature but muscular. Well-shaped muscles rippled on his hands with every movement. His broad, sharp knife was so much a part of him that it was considered to be part of body. Farook feared the day Bhanu would turn violent because he could easily chop down a few men in no time.

But on the contrary, when he lost control over his senses all he did was laugh. And he laughed from the top of every tree in the village. He smiled at everything and everyone.

He had been smoking ganja for many years. Farook met him only once after Grandmother had stopped taking him for work. Farook looked at him and he laughed, “hi, hi,” which he continued for minutes. Bhanu climbed every coconut tree in the village except the biggest. And people began to keep vigil to shoo him away from climbing trees in their compounds. Within three months what they feared happened. Bhanu fell down from a slanting jackfruit tree and died. He had no injuries, but he had wounds inside his head, Farook’s mother said. Farook thought it was a good way to die, if one had to die at all.

Bracken's Blow

2006-11-08T10:22:00.000+05:30

That one delivery from Nathan Bracken came from the other world. Chris Gayle was hanging out the Aussies to dry by Mumbai bay.

Gayle, who has an irregular heat-beat, was making the Australians miss a beat or two. He struck battle-hard Glen McGrath with brute power; tore him into pieces. He strode into Brett Lee with a mission.

Shiv Chanderpaul, his partner with the most unorthodox stance, was in a hurry too. He pulled, slashed and drove like a greedy neighbour.

But that Bracken ball shaped up good enough to draw the opener forward. As the leftie prodded for the ball, it left him so perfectly narrow as to miss the bat but not the stumps.
The moment he missed the ball, Gayle was at the mercy of the Almighty. But the Australians are such destined professionals that the ball had to push the stumps on it way.

And, the peach of a delivery pushed the Champions Trophy away from the defending champions West Indies.

It is remarkable the way the Australians bounce back in a game through a chink. We all thought Lara and his boys would give the Australians a tough time, and the way they batted made us wring our palms for an engrossing tussle.

The Caribbeans were cruising with Gayle supplying more than just wind to their sail. But then Bracken varied his pace brilliantly and forced Chanderpaul to drag one back into his stumps.

Bracken, I reckon, should have been the man of the match. If not for his incisive bowling that sent back Gayle, Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan—who played a shade early to get a leading edge—the Caribbeans would have defended the title, and denied the Aussies the one title that had eluded them.

But these guys from the southern hemisphere are cricketing marauders. They bat, bowl and field like such zealots that we tend to think their cricket fan Prime Minister John Howard has briefed them to invade and rule the Commonwealth countries.

From the mid-80s, days when skipper Kim Hughes left a press conference in tears mourning the nadir of defeats, till now the journey has been one of riveting professionalism. They call it Australianism.
We saw the passage from Allan Border’s days through Mark Taylor’s and Steve Waugh’s till these days of Ricky Ponting. They have gone from strength to strength. The bowlers are precise as machines. They bowl to their field. One foothold, one lapse of concentration from the batsman, they are back and all over you. That’s what makes a team champions.

Look at their bowling attack now. McGrath, Lee, Bracken and Mitchel Johnson in the pace attack, while chinaman Hogg heads the spin department. For a batsman who wants to whack the ball away it is high risk to go ahead against these bowlers. Their quality is such that they perform nine out of 10 times.

McGrath, nearing the end of his career, bowls with less pace but with trade-mark precision. He reigns the corridor of uncertainty. He hits a perfect length and keeps the batsman guessing with his variation. The way he dismissed Sachin Tendulkar (league match) and Brian Lara in the final (thanks to a low catch by Adam Gilchrist) is testimony to the legend’s class.

Lee, the spearhead, is sharp as ever. Bruce Reed-mould Bracken, who skipper Ponting terms as a fantastic One-Day bowler, is improving with each outing. He has an uncanny ability to dismiss left-handers. We saw it in the final as he bowled Chanderpaul and Gayle to pull the West Indians back.

Their batting strength goes down to the tail. With class acts like Gilchrist, Damien Martin, Ponting and Michael Clarke and dynamos like Andrew Symonds and Shane Watson, the Australians can mess up any bowling attack. Ponting is batting at his best. They way the skipper takes on the fast bowlers is a lesson to the youngsters.

Now that the Aussies have won the trophy that their cupboard didn’t have so fat, England will have a hard time protecting the little urn they won 14 months ago by happenstance.

The way the Australians play their cricket, even a World XI is not good enough to beat them. This month’s Ashes Down Under will be interesting to watch. Let’s see how the wounded kangaroo faces a priding Lion.

There may be a hullabaloo over Cricket Australia’s decision to make their team known as “Commonwealth Bank One-day international team”, but whatever name they play under, they will remain the team to beat in world cricket.

After all, what’s in a name?

Woes In Transit

2006-11-08T09:55:00.000+05:30

There was anticipation. There was excitement. It was the match we all were waiting: India versus Australia in the Champions Trophy. The pre-match talks hinged on the mouth-watering prospect of the Indian batsmen sorting out the Aussie bowlers.

Sachin was there. Sehwag was there, but Yuvraj wasn’t there. But then you had Dravid, Raina, Kaif, Dhoni…It should be a good one.

It is time the Aussies were beaten, you know.

I was at the Colombo airport waiting for my flight to Dubai, and could watch only a few overs. I had an Aussie friend with me. We kept silent when the umpire called out “play”. He sat in a wicker chair in front the TV in the Palm Strip lounge. I sat back into a sofa. He munched on chicken drumsticks. I dipped into Indian curry.

My heart leaped on to my mouth when Sehwag slashed at the first ball. His feet were as laden as the pillars of Stonehenge. But then, he continued to do the same. Whenever he connected, there were two sounds in seconds: one off his bat and the other off the boundary hoarding.

I looked at my friend and gulped down a smile along with some rice. He shook his head.

Sachin was circumspect. He was playing out the script of his new role of a mentor. He stretched hard to let the ball go. McGrath warmed up as Sachin was beaten on the defensive push.

I thought the Indian master would stroll down the strip, as he did in Malaysia recently, to greet the ball on the up. After all, he had a point or two to prove to his Australian nemesis. Ha, then came the moment. As our flight was announced and the airline staff asked us to be at the boarding gate, McGrath bowled that beauty. It looked an innocuous one till it reached Sachin’s bat. Suddenly it drifted into the corridor of (un)certainty. Sachin offered the full face of his bat. There were outbursts of celebration behind the wicket. McGrath had done it again.

My friend turned back and punched the air. I sulked.

Alright, you get out to good balls. But what about those 30-odd balls you pushed and prodded? You should have played your natural game, right?

Talking of natural game, I have to talk about my cousin, my childhood cricket adversary. Named after a famous Pakistani batsman—a danger of having a cricket-loving father—he was a natural fast bowler. He was short but quick.
Sadly, he was too good in imitating his heroes though he was a good bowler. Variety was his forte, and his curse. He bowled six different balls in one over. He bowled a perfect leg-cutter with a Hadlee action, an in-dipper with Imran action, an outswinger with a Kapil Dev action and a nasty snorter with a Marshall action. But in the course of all this, he forgot his own action, and was hammered around the ground.

As we dragged our feet to the boarding gate, I wondered why Sachin couldn’t play his natural game as Ponting does. We saw in the Champions Trophy final what happened to Lara when he tried to curb his instincts to play shots. Again, McGrath got him pushing outside the off-stump.

By the way, I had my first golf stint in Nuwera Eliya, the beautiful hill station in Sri Lanka. The swing wasn’t a bad one. Only glitch was it turned out to be a copy-book cover drive!