Reality Check.At Last!

Indian cricket needs a major overhaul. The popularity ratings of the game have started to dip and so have the corporate sponsorships. This is a direct reflection of the discontent of the cricketing fans. How long can our cricketers expect the same obscenely high remuneration if they don’t perform? I hope Sharad Pawar becomes the BCCI President. While another politician running Indian cricket is not the greatest thing to happen it is likely to end the monopoly of Jagmohan Dalmiya who has been running Indian cricket like a feudal lord. There are a few positives, which has emerged out of Ganguly Vs Chappell as well. For starters there is a huge pressure on the captain and coach to do something about the abysmal slump over the last 2 years. Chappell has a huge role to play in how the team approaches India’s campaign to win the World Cup in 2007.While it is high time that Sourav is eased out of the Test team he is very much a part of the scheme of things in the one day set up. Just have a look at his overall one-day record. Though I have to grudgingly admit that Indian cricket needs a tough professional like Chappell he needs to rethink his approach big time if he wants to win the players trust and confidence. Chappell’s e-mail claims that Ganguly is “ affecting the mental state of other members of the squad”. When he says this is he simply referring to Laxman, who is disenchanted for not being a permanent fixture in the one day set up? I hope Chappell knows that Laxman’s record in the shorter version of the game proves that he is a liability. Chappell also needs to realize that he is not going to win the respect and confidence of the team by reprimanding them to the Board every time he has a problem with one of them, like he had with the skipper. Sacking Chappell will be a big mistake and if it is a question of Sourav or Chappell I think we might have to sacrifice the Prince of Calcutta in the long-term interest of Indian cricket. I don’t like Greg Chapell as he approaches cricket like a business and I think he has scant respect for the spirit of the game. But when there is huge money involved an out and out professional coach is needed. I think the current crises –both who will control BCCI and the Ganguly Vs Chappell fallout augers well for Indian cricket. The most important people in Indian cricket-us, the fans are disillusioned with the way our players don’t show the same enthusiasm in playing for India as they do in their corporate promotional campaigns. It’s high time a major revamp in how the game is played and administered takes place. In that context it’s good that both the Board and the team is under the microscope. Its great that this reality check is taking place before we lose another truck load of one-day finals.

Short Story/The Old Couple And The Touring Marriage Party

Installment 2 ...And then he saw them and what he saw made him wonder if he needed to check his vision. A crowd certainly more than a dozen was standing outside his gate, in the middle of which stood the newly weds. Apart from Baskar’s son Raju and his wife Mini there were-1. The groom’s mother Nirmala(ok she was expected to be there!)2.Another couple in their late middle age (the bride’s parents) 3.The bride’s brother’s wife with her two teenaged kids(the bride’s brother had been unable to make it)4.Nirmalas’s cousin Venki and his wife and eight year old daughter. After Poniah exchanged pleasantries with those he knew, Baskar introduced him and Susheela, who had joined him by now, to the bride’s family members. Poniah hoping only his brother, his wife and the young couple were staying with them inquired where the rest were staying. To which Baskar replied," We thought of booking a lodge for the rest of the party, but then realized you might feel insulted. So all of us are staying with you for the night."Susheela and Poniah looked at each other and the former simply said," Come in." And they all trotted in making a lot of noise like a bunch of school children on an excursion. The house had a medium sized living room, a tiny kitchen, one bedroom, and a guest cum pooja room. The guests settled into the hall and the driver of the mini van Parameshwaran started bringing in the luggage. Since they were on a “statewide tour” they had packed heavy and the luggage took up a substantial part of the guest room. The groom's mother Nirmala said, “Sushi, just prepare tea for the grown ups and Boost or Horlicks for the kids.” Since the couple drank neither Boost nor Horlicks these items were not stocked and Susheela prepared milk for the children and tea for the elders.Venki's daughter Lakshmi started yawning which set off a chain reaction of sleepiness. Now the question of where everyone would sleep arose, as did the issue of lack of mattresses and pillows. Baskar started getting creative. He ordered his son and daughter-in-law to sleep in the bedroom with the three kids. Mini’s parents and her brother's wife would sleep in the guest cum pooja room along with Venki and his wife. Those rooms had one bed each where everyone assigned to the room could cram in. Where there were no pillows each others laps or one’s own hands-for those who didn’t like using others laps-could be used. And turning to Poniah he said, “ Nimmi, Sushi and we two can sleep on the floor in the hall.” to be continued and concluded in instalement 3...

3 Cases Of Evangelism

Helping Hands of India is a charitable organization funded by European Protestants. For more than 20 years this group has been adopting Hindu orphans who are either dalits or from a backward community and converting them into protestants. Some of those converted have been relocated in Europe and some have been helped to settle down in India. When they decide to marry or reach the age when they can be independent they are given a fat sum to settle down. The condition-they MUST marry only someone belonging to the Christian faith. My mother along with her friend has been fighting for a girl who decided to marry a Hindu. Somehow they convinced Helping Hands of India to give the girl the money, which was rightfully her due. My classmate Karthik informs me that there is a rich American couple that stays in the Besant Nagar area in Madras. Their mission in life is to convert as many people into Christians as possible. Apparently they go looking around for people in a dire financial crisis and promise to solve all their woes. The price-the beneficiaries must convert, of course. One of my paternal aunt’s relatives, a young Brahmin woman fell in love with a Christian, married, got converted and totally disassociated herself from her family.One would think that her husband married her all for love right? No, this is far more sinister. Apprently the Church, Parish or whatever the girl’s husband is associated with pays something to the tune of RS.150000 for every Hindu whom a devotee of that Church has managed to convert. They consider it the ultimate victory if you convert a Brahmin. Evangelism disguised as charity has been occurring wherever missionaries have set foot. Aren’t these cases of manipulated and forced conversion? Just how does someone become a Hindu fundamentalist by simply questioning these and several other dubious activities? Early this month the homes of about 25 dalit families were torched down in Maharastra.Does anybody know or remember this? But we all still remember the Graham Staines story. Maybe persons like Bal Thackeray are a necessary evil.

Short Story/The Old Couple And The Touring Marriage Party

Installment 1 Ponaih and Susheela lived peacefully in Shivapuram.Their children Raman, Srini and Maneka were all married, and after a few years of performing the duties of grand parenting, the old couple decided to spend their last days in this small town known for its Siva temple. They won the hearts of their neighbors soon after they moved into their house. Susheela started singing Sai bajans and soon their house turned into a mini mandir for the neighbors, who participated in her morning bajans and arati. The children loved the sweet boondi Susheela gave them after offering it to the deity. Their days were eventful and they had visitors like wandering sadhu’s for instance who came and chatted. Their evenings were reserved for watching Tamil serials like Selvi and Manaivi.Except on the days when they had to see their doctor for various ailments which the old suffer from, they did not have to leave Dr.Anbu road where they stayed. One night in the Tamil month of Aavani they were invaded. Poniah’s brother’s son Raju had got married nearly a month before the event I am about to narrate took place. Since they were semiritired from a worldly life(at least officially) the old couple had sent their blessings through a telegram and excused themselves from attending the ceremony. Baskar, Poniah’s brother had called them and informed them that after the marriage they (he did not specify the number of persons this referred to) were on a post marriage tour of the state and might visit Shivapuram.Delighted Poniah and Susheela said that they were welcome anytime. On a pornami* night after dinner the couple had just settled and started watching a serial. The doorbell rang most unexpectedly around 10 PM. Not used to visitors at this late hour Poniah opened the door tentatively. There stood Baskar grinning sheepishly. Poniah was most happy to see his brother, even though it was such an odd hour. He thought that they must have decided to come in the last minute and inquired where his wife Sasi and the newlyweds were. Baskar still smiling sheepishly said," They are all in the mini bus." Confused Poniah asked," A mini bus for just four people! You could have just taken a Taxi!"Saying this he looked over the gate to see where the bride and groom were. And then he saw them and what he saw made him wonder if he needed to check his vision. A crowd certainly more than a dozen was standing outside his gate, in the middle of which stood the newly weds... *full moon To be Continued..

Guest Article/Is There Any Hope For The U.N?

By Christian Hofmann Do we need the United Nations Organisation at all? The UNO was established 60 years ago and by now should have undergone fundamental reforms. But the reforms are failing to go thru, because there is a lack of unity among the nations – and especially there is the ignorance from its most powerful member-state, the USA. But don´t we need an international political instrument against injustice and a counterbalance against economic globalisation? Histororically, the career of the UN can´t be seen as a straight success-story. Certainly there have also been successes – as during the Cuba-crisis of 1962, when secretary general U Thang prevented the outbreak of an atomic third world war. But often enough, single nations have ignored UN-resolutions. As we all know, in 2003, the United States of America disregarded the UN-decisions and attacked Iraq. Isn´t this a step back undermining the development following 1945? The USA has always cultivated a love-hate-relationship towards the UN. Inspired by the ideas of the enlightenment era, US-president Woodrow Wilson was probably the keenest founder of the League of Nations in 1919/20. Nevertheless, the USA as a nation never participated in the League ..Although since the foundation of the UN in San Francisco 1945 the UN-headquarters had been located in New York, the love-hate-relationship continued. In the 1980s, President Reagan made sure that the USA left the UNESCO and that fees were not paid completely (one has to admit that the US paid a large share of the UN-household. But if not the most affluent nations – who else should finance supranational politics: Ethiopia or Cambodia?).And the current US-ambassador in the UN, John Bolton, is not more than a bad joke: aid for developing countries, fair trade conditions for the "Third World", protection of the environment, an international criminal court? Not with us! The hopes of the decolonised countries that had encouraged them to make the UN an arena for their fight for a new (economic) world order in the 1970s were not fulfilled. Now it seems that unilateralism has gained acceptance and that the ideas of the UN – multilateralism and democratic relationships among the nations – have faded away. So, is there any chance to reform the UN in such a way that it might become a democratic institution with a just balance of power among its member-states? The reform of the Security Council could be a beginning. Just as the League of Nations had been dominated by the winning nations of world war I, the UN is dominated by the winning coalition of world war II. The allies USA, Soviet Union,France and Britain united with China (until 1971 Taiwan)–to become the only permanent members of the Security Council.Today it is the object of the most controversial debates. I think, India should be a permanent member – the voices of 1 billion people must not be ignored by this institution. In the case of Germany, I´m not so sure. Why should there be a third European state? (It would be better to have just one permanent seat for the European Union). And what about Brazil, Japan – and when will the African States take a stronger position in world politics? Also since the brave ideas of Kofi Annan has not became a reality now (he did not get the support of the USA, because he dared to criticise the war in Iraq) one starts raising these questions.Is there any hope for the UN? And what should be done? Christian lives in Bohn,Germany and can be contacted at christiansitar@gmail.com

Ten Years Since Mockingbird

Ten years ago, I had just joined The School-K.F.I, the place that has made me what I am today. Being a new student I was desperately trying to fit in to the place where I would go on to meet some of the most important people in my life. It was also the time when I was 1st exposed to serious literature in the form of a book called To Kill A Mockingbird. We did it together in class with Jayshree Akka our English teacher. We would take turns and read the book and then discuss it. Mockingbird made us wake up to the society around us. It threw up questions for us about things we were unaware of, or had at best a vague and confused knowledge of. For those of you who don’t know the book is about growing up in America in the 30s when there was still open discrimination between blacks and whites. It is about a white lawyer who fights for an Afro-American wrongly accused of raping a white girl. But most unforgettably it is about those two kids-Jem & Scout, and Boo Radley. Boo is the most enigmatic and haunting character I have come across in literature. This character, not seen until the final pages of the book is made a monster of by the town because of certain rumours. And the way Harper Lee (the author) describes him from the point of view of those kids made us all shudder. There is an incident when the kids are playing and their ball falls into the neighboring Radley house. They are terrified to get the ball fearing that Boo (who incidentally never comes out) will do something awful to them. And Jayshree Akka never once told us until we came to the climax, so to speak, that Boo Radley was such a hero!

It was the way we all read this book together which also made it so special. 12-13 years old at that time things like racial discrimination (read caste, in our country’s context), rape, etc were stuff we were blissfully unaware of .Ok, we had seen a few crude rape scenes from a few crude movies, but it was something which we probably did not fully comprehend. But reading through the book and our teacher putting things in perspective, gave some of us our first true insight into the real world. Even a small character like the Finch housemaid was so poignant. And those unforgettable lines after Boo rescues the kids, which Scout narrates in retrospect-

“ Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.”

They just make me cry & cry & cry & cry & cry.

Ten years have gone by since we did Mockingbird. Ten years of joy & sorrow; triumphs & disappointments; and inevitably- change. God only know what the next ten will bring. Some of us will be married and settled and all. But one thing I am a certain of –Mockingbird and so many other wonderful things that we shared and indeed still share will always give us comfort and reassurance. For some things are far more eternal than the ravages of time.

Idhu Oru Pon Maalaip Pozhudhu

By Vairamuthu This is the gold hued twilight time of late evening, The sky blushes as she changes her attire for the night ahead. A thousand colors weave their magic, Painting decorative designs at the doorstep of nighttime. As the sky builds a bridge to the night and the birds sing, The flower plants sway causing a gentle breeze, Oh! This lovely gold hued late evening! To me the sky seems like Buddha’s Bodhi tree*, Everyday she reassures me with glad tidings, That one-day we shall live in a fair world, And that day is not far away, Through my introspections and questioning, I do penance and wait for that day, On this lovely gold hued late evening, When the sky blushes as she, Changes her attire for the night ahead. *The Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment under a Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya. This is my translation of a poem by the Tamil poet Vairamuthu.It is one of his earliest poems and appeared in the movie Nizhalgal(Shadows).

Lost in Translation?

My Views on the English Translation of Kalki's Magnum Opus- Ponniyin Selvan I am in the middle of Book-4 of Ponniyin Selvan.It has taken me more than a year to reach this far. So many people esp. from my mother’s generation have praised this work so much that, I must admit I am a little disappointed, when I find that it has not lived up to the kind of praise that has been showered on it. But that is because I am reading the translated version, since I don’t know to read Tamil. To be fair to the translator, C.V.Karthik Narayanan, he has done a decent job. But it is impossible as he himself acknowledges, to capture the grandeur of the original. So many people have described events in the story and how Kalki describes them, and since Tamil is my mother tongue, I can imagine how beautiful it must be to read this work in its original form. My classmate and friend, Shankar, has been reading the original, after he decided that the translation was not satisfactory. Though his fluency in reading the Tamil script is much lesser than that in reading English, he feels that the effort is worth it. Now I am cursing myself for having taken Hindi instead of Tamil as my second language in school. How captivating it would be to read Kalki’s description of Nandini? How great it would be to see Poonkuzhali, one of my favorite characters, through Kalki’s words? I am still going to complete reading the book in English. And if it weren’t for the translation I might have never read Ponniyin Selvan.But I feel sad that I cannot read one of the great literary works of the 20th Century in the splendor of its writer's words. It is such a shame that Kalki to this date remains unknown to most readers who are not Tamil. And no translation can ever overcome the language barrier and familiarize non-Tamil’s with Kalki’s books. Because it would make a great work like Ponnyin Selvan seem like a mediocre one. And that’s such a pity.

Some Of This Season's Best

This season, there are a lot of fresh and pleasant songs on offer, from various composers in the Tamil music scene. To start off, Rehman is back after almost a one-year hiatus. The song Mayilirage (from Anbey Aruyire) is soothing, pleasant and is ARR at his melodious best. Disappointingly none of the other songs in this soundtrack live up to the dizzying expectations, which this song raises. But this soundtrack is worth a buy just for Mayilirage, which is a song in the style of Kanaalane and Snehidane. But the real treats of the season are from Harris Jeyraj and Yuvan Shankar Raja. Harris’s best song is Suttum Vizhi(Ghajini),which I hear is a Baradiyar song. Sriram Parthasarathy and Bombay Jayashree have done a great job with this song, which has the feel of songs from the MSV era. Oru Maalai from the same film is a nice, almost pop songish typical Harris number, which is very humable. With Uyire, En Uyire and Yaridamum (Thoti Jaya) and a few more good numbers Harris’s music this season is sure to win him a lot of fans . Yuvan Shankar Raja’s music in Kanda Naal Mudhal is an Isai Malzai. Pani Thuli and Merke Merke are cool, pleasant ballads, which are bound to become huge hits. Vibrant, sensitive, and rich in flavor they are bound to mesmerize the listeners. Of his songs in the just released Oru Kaluriyin Kadai my favorites are Kadhal Yenbadhu and Dalapa Kathuda(the 2nd will appeal to esp fan’s of his father).The nice thing about Yuvan is that slowly he has been rising as a notable composer with an identity of his own,which is not easy considering he is the son of the greatest exponent of music in this country. Ps-The above songs are just my favorites from the wide variety of music on offer this season. Some other songs like Rahatulla(Gajini) or the title song of Kanda Naal.. may appeal more to others.I have also consciously excluded the works of Raaja Sir on offer, as I think we are all agreed that he is on a league of his own. Regards my opinion on his music this season,it is the same as what I think of his music from any season-Kana Muditu Poi Vangenge!!