Mind Games – How the Australians Play It And We Don’t!

Sourav Ganguly is known to dish out as hard as he gets

In 1993, when Graham Gooch led the English side for a three-Test series in India, in the only warm-up fixture before the first Test at Calcutta, two North Zone batsmen Navjyot Siddhu and Ajay Sharma went after the two frontline English spinners in the touring party, Phil Edmonds and John Emburey.

The experienced duo of Emburey and Edmonds were savagely taken apart by Siddhu and Sharma. The attack was so brutal that a nervous English management drafted into the squad at the last minute, Ian Salisbury, a rookie leg spinner who plied his trade in the county circuit.

The day before the first Test began in Calcutta’s hallowed Eden Gardens, was one of the most special days of my life. I was covering a Test match for the first time in my life. After I managed to file the curtain-raiser to the Test, as my somewhat jangled nerves were beginning to calm, I found two veteran English cricket writers approach Sunny Gavaskar and ask his comments on the inclusion of Salisbury.

Gavaskar sagely explained: “The move to include Salisbury is a brilliant one. It has taken the Indians completely by surprise. He is an unknown quantity for them, and by the time this series is over, he could well be their trump card.” As I heard those words, my heart sank. Just an hour before Gavaskar spoke those words, I had sent my first despatch from a cricket ground in which I had stated, rather unequivocally, that the move to include Salisbury betrayed the panic in the English camp.

I quickly visualised how the words spoken by Gavaskar would make headlines the next day across the cricketing world, even as the readers of my newspaper would be appalled by the observations of this newbie cricket writer. I had half a mind to call my editor and request him to stop the publication of my piece.

I nervously walked up to Gavaskar, a man with whom I had never spoken before that day, a man whose game I had worshipped since my childhood. Understandably nervous, I was at my inarticulate best as I explained to a most patient and very polite Gavaskar about what I had written and what I just heard him say.

He nodded a few times as I spoke, then suddenly his face broke into an impish grin. He put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me away out of the earshot of others in the press box. Then he whispered in my ears : “Apna Sachin us se (Salisbury) achha ball karta hai, yaar.” (Our Sachin bowls better than Salisbury, my friend.)

“But..but…but…you just told those two English journalists that Salisbury could well be their trump card”, I spluttered, now thoroughly confused.

The wicked grin was back on the great man’s face. And then seeing my nervous state, he explained : “What I said there, to the two journalists, was part of the mind games that go on during a series like this. Cricket, he went on, is played as much on the cricket ground, as off it.

Mental games aren’t new to cricket. Former Aussie skipper Steve Waugh, who always played his cricket hard but square, used to call it “mental disintegration”. You launch an assault against your opponents well before the first ball is bowled. Carefully made comments to the media by the side’s top players or even ex-players are all part of a cleverly-designed strategy to destabilise the opposition.

That is why, before the beginning of any series the great Glen McGrath would inevitably announce in the media, that he was targeting the opposition’s best batsman. That is why, Shane Warne, not exactly known for his restraint to get in a word or two against his opponents, told the Aussie media before the Indian tour to Australia in 2004, that the Indians should get ready to face some “chin music”.

Warne was referring to the known Indian weakness against the short ball. Specifically the then Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly was being targeted. It was not the most well kept secret in international cricket that the man once described by his team mate Rahul Dravid as the ‘God of offside’ didn’t exactly relish the short pitched stuff.

When it comes to mental games, Ganguly of course is no pilgrim himself and is known to dish out his own version of mental disintegration. He got under Steve Waugh’s skin when the Australians toured India in 2001 by making the Aussie skipper wait out in the middle during the toss. Ganguly knew Waugh didn’t like to be kept waiting, so he would inevitably show up late for the toss.

Also Warne’s “chin music” threat against Ganguly backfired spectacularly. In the opening Test of the series, on a lively Brisbane track Ganguly put the Aussie bowling attack to the sword. His swashbuckling knock set the tone for perhaps the finest Indian batting display in a series outside India. All the top Indian batsmen, Sehwag, Dravid, Laxman and Tendulkar, scored heavily and by the end of the series which was Steve Waugh’s swansong, the Australians were relieved to have escaped with a drawn series.

As far as this series is concerned though, the first round in the mental battle, it appears, has gone the Australians’ way.

They arrived in India a week before the scheduled start of the series to get a hang of the Indian conditions. To the chagrin of many, including a few officials of the Indian cricket board, world class facilities at the Rajasthan Cricket Academy were put at the service of the Australians. This, after the Indians in their last tour to Australia in more than one venue had struggled to find local bowlers to bowl to them at the nets.

What has galled the Indians even more was the sight of the Australians strutting around with Greg Chappell, India’s erstwhile coach. Chappell isn’t the most popular cricketing figure in this country, the pain he inflicted upon Indian cricket is still fresh in the minds of many. A number of cricket writers have commented how Chappell might pass on secrets about the Indian team to the Australians.

To be honest, though, I personally think it is not such a bad idea that Guru Greg is advising the Aussies. He is undoubtedly one of the best batsmen the game has ever seen, the same can’t be said about the man’s coaching abilities though. I would rather have Chappell coaching the Aussies, than be on the side of the Indians.

Far more than Chappell’s presence in the Australian camp, what might hurt Indians seriously is the choice of venues for this series, which has been somewhat baffling to say the least. Given the visitors’ known weakness against slow bowling, you would think the Indians would have opted for Test centres which are known to be spin-friendly. Instead, Indians kick off the series in Bangalore where they have a dismal record. The second Test is to be played in Mohali, which sports one of the more livelier tracks in India.

You mention Nagpur, the venue for the last Test of the series, to the Indians in general and Sourav Ganguly in particular, and you would get to hear some very interesting things, interspersed with several invectives. The last time the Australians toured India, the curator at Nagpur prepared a green top. Despite the request by the Indian team management to shave off the grass, the curator refused. An angry Sourav Ganguly walked off from the match in a huff, citing a non-existent injury. On what the curator claimed was a sporting wicket, the Australian pace battery demolished India and recorded a famous, and rare, Test series victory in India.

The official explanation for the choice of venues is the rotation policy followed by the Indian cricket board in choosing venues. It is a policy mired in board politics and devised to keep voting state units happy. It is a policy that has little cricketing logic.

India has lost six (two of them to Australia) of the last eight Test matches they have played in Bangalore. The last time India won a Test match in Bangalore was against New Zealand, way back in 1995 – that is, even before either Sourav Ganguly or Rahul Dravid had made their Test debuts. Dravid and VVS Laxman average in 20s on this ground. Yet this is the venue chosen by the mandarins of Indian cricket to take on the world’s best Test side for the first Test.

Off hand, it is difficult to think of a more generous way of squandering the home advantage.

A Little Bit of Diplomacy With A Lot of Style

An ingenious example of speech and politics occurred recently in a recent session of the United Nations General Assembly that made the world community smile.

A representative from India began: 'Before beginning my talk I want to tell you something about Rishi Kashyap of Kashmir, after whom Kashmir is named.

When he struck a rock and it brought forth water, he thought, "What a good opportunity to have a bath." He removed his clothes, put them aside on the rock and entered the water.

After a long, leisurely bath, when he got out of the water and looked around for his clothes, he found they had vanished.

At this point, the Indian delegate paused, for dramatic effect, and then as a rapt audience of international diplomats waited to hear what happened to the missing clothes, he added, straightfaced : "You see, a Pakistani had stolen the clothes."

Understandably furious at this allegation, the Pakistani representative jumped up and said angrily, "What are you talking about? The Pakistanis weren't there in Kashmir then."

The Indian representative smiled, almost grinned, and then said, "And now that we have made that clear, I will begin my speech."

The Khairlanji Verdict

The eagerly-awaited verdict on the Khairlanji case is out. The fast track court trying the most notorious case of caste violence in recent memory has sentenced six persons to death, and two have been given life sentence.

The verdict has been hailed as a landmark judgement on account of two things. First, in a nation not exactly known for speedy trials, the verdict has come less than two years after the crime was committed. Second, by awarding six death sentences among eight accussed, the judge has sent a tough message.

Having said that, a number of activists who have been following the Khairlanji case for a while now are deeply upset that the judge has not charged the accused under The Prevention of Atrocities Act.

In 1989, the Government of India passed the Prevention of Atrocities Act (POA), which delineates specific crimes against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as “atrocities,” and describes strategies and prescribes punishments to counter these acts. The Act attempts to curb and punish violence against Dalits through three broad means.

Firstly, it identifies what acts constitute “atrocities.” These include both particular incidents of harm and humiliation such as the forced consumption of noxious substances, as well as the systemic violence still faced by many Dalits, especially in rural areas. Such systemic violence includes forced labor, denial of access to water and other public amenities, and sexual abuse of Dalit women.

Secondly, the Act calls upon all the states to convert an existing sessions court in each district into a Special Court to try cases registered under the POA.

Thirdly, the Act creates provisions for states to declare areas with high levels of caste violence to be “atrocity-prone” and to appoint qualified officers to monitor and maintain law and order.

One reason why the Khairlanji case attracted such a lot of media attention was because all those killed were Dalits. Even the fast-track court was set up by the Maharashtra government to assuage the Dalits who were angry over the initial inaction by the authorities even three days after the Khairlanji massacre.

If ever there was a crime that should have been tried under the Prevention of Atrocities Act, then it should have been the Khairlanji case.

For those not familiar with the case, on September 29, 2006, a group of villagers in Khairlanji village in Bhandara district in the western Indian state of Maharashtra forcibly entered into the house of one of the residents, Bhaiya Lal Bhotmange. Bhotmange wasn't at home at that time. The crowd dragged Bhotmange's wife, his teenaged daughter and his two sons out of the house, beat them with stones, iron rods and anything else that they could get hold of.

The four members of the Bhotmange family were dragged into an open area about 50 yards from their house. Bhotmange's wife and daughter were stripped naked and gangraped by the villagers until they died. His two sons were beaten and stabbed, their bodies repeatedly thrown up in the air and, according to eyewitnesses, the lynch mob cheered as the bodies crashed on the hard ground. It went on until both the boys were dead.

The Bhotmanges were among four Dalit Buddhist families who lived in Khairlanji, a village dominated by OBC (Other Backward Classes) families. Unlike most Dalits in the area, the Bhtomange family was comparatively well off. The two sons worked with their parents on their land and daughter Priyanka was in her final year of school.

Over the years, there had been several run-ins between the upper caste members of the village and the Bhotmanges. Once the standing crop of the Bhotmanges was destroyed. On another occasion, an attempt was made to forcibly carve a road through the Bhotmange land. What upset the upper caste villagers most was the pride, and the lack of subservience, with which the Dalit family conducted their life.

Matters came to a head when a family friend of the Bhotmanges was beaten up by a group of villagers, and Bhotmange's wife and his daughter identified nine men as the culprits. Later, when they were released on bail, these men led the angry mob which attacked and brutally killed four members of the Bhotmange family.

Curiously, the judge trying the Khairlanji case has ignored the history of animosity that existed between the upper caste villagers of Khairlanji and the Bhotmange family. In his judgement, he described the incident as "revenge killings", thus absolving the accused of the caste violence charge.

A few NGOs are also upset that of the 48 people initially arrested and tried for the case, only eight were eventually found guilty by the judge. This, despite the fact that almost every eyewitness called to testify in the trial, deposed before the court that a mob of at least fifty people had attacked and killed the Bhotmanges.

An Interesting Take On The US Economy

Dr. Marc Faber, the celebrated contrary investment guru, concluded his monthly bulletin with the following observation:

''The federal government is sending each of us a $600 rebate. If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, the money goes to China. If we spend it on gasoline it goes to the Arabs. If we buy a computer it will go to India. If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. If we purchase a good car it will go to Germany. If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy.

The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it on prostitutes and beer, since these are the only products still produced in US. I've been doing my part ."

A Marriage Bureau for HIV Positive People

"I have come here because I want to get married. I am HIV positive," says Rasik Bhai, a 31-year-old diamond polisher.

"We are a marriage bureau. You have to give us some details about you, about your family background, about yourself, " replies Daksha Patel, with a pleasant smile.

It is a typical day at work for the woman who runs India's first marriage bureau for HIV positive people. art of an non-governmental organisation (NGO) working with HIV-positive people in the western Indian state of Gujarat, the bureau has so far helped seven couples to get married.

Among those looking for a bride is Rasik Bhai. He has to convince the bureau he is capable of taking care of his wife.

Daksha asks him how much he earns.

"My income is 3,000 rupees," he replies.

"You will have to look after yourself and your wife - you are both HIV positive, maybe you will have to spend on medicines," says a concerned Daksha.

"Will you be able to manage all this with your income?"

A steady stream of people move in and out of the modest one-room office of the marriage bureau. A prospective bride-seeker insists the bureau should find a match from his caste only. Another tall man looks aghast when told that no girl presently registered with the bureau wants to marry someone of his height.

I ask Daksha Patel what prompted her to start the bureau.

"The idea of starting a marriage bureau came when I began to work with the NGO here. "I came across a number of men who were HIV positive, also lot of women, some of them young widows. "They all had one question - should they get married?"

She adds: "Besides, there was a lot of social pressure on most of these people - pressure from their family to get married."

"I am married myself. A few months after my marriage I found out I was HIV positive. I have been living happily with my husband all these years - without problems, so why can't these people get married?"

Over the past few months, the number of people who have registered with the bureau has steadily increased. Not surprising in a town like Surat, where more than 2,500 people have tested positive for HIV. The city of 2.4m people is the headquarters of India's diamond cutting and polishing centre and has a large population of migrant workers.

Kamlesh Patel, a diamond polisher, got married last December after registering with Daksha's marriage bureau. "I was not very keen for marriage. There was pressure from home," he said. "I saw my wife on several occasions at the support group meetings. I never thought she would marry me," says Kamlesh.

"Daksha asked me if I wanted to marry - but I repeatedly refused. Then last November - during the festival of Navratri - we used to meet in the evenings. Then I decided to get married."

Now Kamlesh is a part-time counsellor with the bureau. He says his association with the NGO that runs the marriage bureau has been a life-changing experience for him.

"It seems a new life has begun for me after coming here. Earlier my weight had gone down considerably, now my health has improved," says an evidently-happy Kamlesh. "When I am under some stress I come here - a few meetings and I am fresh again."

Kamlesh's wife, Nimisha had been married previously. Her former husband abandoned her after she tested positive for HIV during her pregnancy. She says she had a harrowing time in her earlier marriage. She learnt about the marriage bureau from a doctor who had been treating her.

"I had read about this organization which worked with HIV positive people and ran a marriage bureau. I had come to find out more about the bureau - for the purpose of marriage only," says Nimisha.

"I did not want a very handsome person, or a very rich person. I just wanted a husband who can understand me - and who can provide for three square meals a day." From the broad smile on her face, it is not difficult to gauge Nimisha has found that man in Kamlesh.

The fledgling bureau has a problem though. The bride-seekers out-number bridegroom-seekers almost ten to one. Of the 70 people presently registered with the bureau, only eight are women.

In India, few women can afford to come in the open about their HIV status, because of the stigma attached to Aids. Daksha is full of praise for the women who have come forward and registered with the bureau.

Indian authorities draw solace from the fact that India is still behind South Africa as the country with the largest population of HIV positive people.

A lot of NGOs, however, see India as an Aids ticking time bomb.

As the authorities and NGOs quibble over Aids statistics, and the ways and means to combat the proliferation of the dreaded virus, both agree that initiatives such as the marriage bureau for people living with HIV are a step in the right direction.

What is so Hot about Lutyens' Delhi?

From Comrade Somnath Chatterjee to the messiah of the Muslims, Mulayam Singh Yadav. From our videshi icon, Sonia Gandhi to his swadeshi bete noire LK Advani. From the technocrat Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the rustic Laloo Yadav.They all reside in this cosy comfort zone of colonial bungalows with lush green manicured lawns and servant quarters bigger than the average Delhi apartment. I am talking about that oasis of tranquility, surrounded on all sides by a city bursting at the seams, which answers to the name of Lutyens Delhi.

Nowhere in the world, from Comrade Carat's beloved communist China to the imperialist United States of America, from the impoverished nations of sub-Saharan Africa to the prosperous Western Europe, is there such an exclusive residential district for the country's politicians and bureaucrats. The upkeep and maintenance of which is paid for by you and me.

As Delhi grows vertically (simply because there is no empty space any more to expand horizontally), any building activity remains prohibited in Lutyen's Delhi. Ostensibly to maintain the aesthetic nature of that area.

Dearly departed Rajiv Gandhi, another man with exemplary asthetic taste, actually got a law passed that decreed the sanctity of the Lutyens bungalow zone must be maintained. The poor fellow was cut down in his prime. Methinks if he had been around longer, he would have surely built a multiplex on Shahjahan Road. So much more convenient for Rahul baba to get his Hollywood fix. Even Vajpayeeji could have seen his favourite Hindi movies there, without stepping out of his comfort, oops I mean bungalow zone.

Hey, but what about us? The Chakravartys and Chaddhas who spent a small fortune to buy flats and houses in different parts of a Delhi in the 1970s and 1980s, a Delhi that was until then unspoilt by the mindless building boom that has overtaken it since? What about maintaining the asthetic sense of the place I live in? What about my private slice of sunlight whose entry into my bedroom window has been blocked by the monstrosity that has come up next door, simply because I happened to live in a house that wasn't located in Lutyen's Delhi?

Have you ever heard a squeak from any member of the Indian Left, the self appointed champion of India's toiling masses, about this den of inequity? You would think an anti-imperialist party like the CPI(M) would have nothing to do with something as steeped in colonial history as the Lutyens Bungalow Zone. The left parties protest about the docking of USS Nimitz in Chennai, they cry hoarse about atrocities in Nicaragua, and they shed tears for the hungry in Sudan. But nary a word about the prime piece of real estate on which the India's ruling elite reside.

And, honestly, why pick on just the Left? The Manmohan Singh government makes all the right noises about ushering in a market economy and doing away with subsidies. Most members of that government live off water and electricity supplied at highly subsidized rates in Lutyen's Delhi. Most importantly, the supply of both is uninterrupted , 24 x 7. Phone lines are never down in this land of plenty.

Despite that subsidy, unrealised water and electricity bills from India's political elite run into crores of rupees. The dubious list of defaulters reads like the Who's Who of Indian politics. And such is the love for life in this beautiful part of India's capital city, that several occupants of these colonial mansions simply refuse to vacate the premises even when they have lost in the elections and thereby lost the right to live there.

And now as if free water, electricity and telephones were not enough, to ease the miserable life of our country's first citizens, the New Delhi Municipal Council has decided to subsidize internet connectivity in the area. An NDMC team is visiting Bangalore to meet up with Infosys honchos and discuss ways to make Lutyens Delhi a wifi zone. I checked with a friend in the Delhi government if entire Delhi could be converted into a wifi zone. He gave me a look which suggested he was deeply concerned about my mental well being.

Lutyens Delhi is not by the far the only or even the worst den of inequity. But it is more in-your-face than others, you pass by it, you read about its residents in newspapers and watch them on TV preach and pontificate us ad nauseum about the life we should lead, and then lead the life they lead. You drive through Lutyens Delhi, look at those bungalows and idly wonder: "Tumhara ghar mere ghar se zyada safed kyon hai?" To me it is a bit like what Bastille was to the average Frenchman during the times of Luis XVIth, a constant reminder of a life beyond his reach.

I invite the socialist, secular democratic rulers of India to step out of that cocoon of comfort and see how the lesser mortals live. May be live in a flat in Rajouri Garden or a house in Lajpat Nagar. Face electricity shortages in South Delhi and deal with water shortages in west and north Delhi and have a nodding acquaintance with the unfortunate neighbour whose son or daughter became the latest victim of Blueline rage.

Many many years ago, an Indian prince stepped out of his royal palace and witnessed firsthand the lives of the common people. The experience proved to be life altering for him. May be modern India's rulers need to borrow a leaf out of that book.

And who knows, come election time next time round, when they don their starched khadis, fold their hands and oh-so-humbly tell us how they are one of us, I just might buy that story without choking on my food!

Kashmiri Right To Self Determination

I was more disturbed than I cared to admit when a close friend of mine recently took US citizenship. I had been cool with his decision to move to the United States some ten years ago. But the taking of US citizenship to me constituted an official abandonment of India. It was his private decision, but one that left me rather peeved.

I may not wear my patriotism on my sleeve and I am admittedly extremely wary of the jingoism that goes on in the name of nationalism these days, and you will not see me as part of candle-lit vigils at India Gate, be it for world peace or justice for Jessica Lal.

Make no mistake, though, I take the business of my being Indian most seriously. The blood that runs through my thin, diabetes-affected veins is as much Indian as it is B Positive.

So I was more than upset when I had to witness first hand a group of angry youth first trampling all over the Indian flag and then setting it afire. That, too, on Independence Day.

It is very difficult to remain oh-so-professional at moments like that and calmly film the goings-on. On our way back to the hotel that morning, and on many occasions since then, the flag-burning scene has played and re-played in my mind, forcing me to face the question where do I stand on the vexed issue of self determination of the Kashmiri people.

Like any answer to the complex Kashmir issue, this one isn’t simple either.

In Diglipur, in Andamans, there were no newspapers. My earliest memories of Diglipur are of my father fiddling with the old Murphy radio, trying to tune in to the BBC World Service, and on other occasions, to Binaca Geet Mala, broadcast those days by Radio Ceylon.

My first memories of a newspaper are in Delhi when every morning as I left for school I would see my grandmother reading the newspaper to my near-blind grandfather. As I would get ready for school I would hear stories of American B-52 bombers bombing the North Vietnamese countryside.

Methinks my first political thoughts were shaped by what I heard my grandmother read out to my grandfather. In my eight-year-old mind, I pictured North Vietnamese peasants with their bamboo hats, hiding with their children, amidst the tall grass of their lush green fields as B-52 bombers screamed overhead and dropped napalms. I was in no doubt that the Americans were the bad guys and my sympathies, as those of my grandparents, lay solidly with the Viet Cong.

Later on, in my teens, when I first read books like Exodus and Mila 18 by Leon Uris, and read more about the Holocaust, a part of me almost overnight became a Jew. I couldn’t quite fathom how the world could forgive a Germany that had gassed six million Jews during the Second World War.

Still later as I learnt about the Palestinian freedom movement, I had to re-examine my loyalty towards the Jews. I realised rather sadly that the victims of Germany had turned into oppressors of Palestine, and Yasser Arafat and the PLO became my new heroes.

Point is, I grew up supporting the underdog. Hell, I even rooted for Ivan Lendl to win the Wimbledon.

Under the circumstances, the unsavoury sight of the trampling of the Indian flag, notwithstanding, how does one not support the Kashmiri right for self-determination? A few months ago, I completely identified with the Tibetan cause. I can’t see what is good for Tibet, why can't it be good enough for Kashmir too?

And the demand for this right for self-determination is not being mouthed by AK-47 wielding militants, or Pakistan-backed terror groups, but by 13, 14, 15-year-old boys who aren’t armed with anything more sinister than stones and bricks. Worryingly for the Indian authorities, these school boys are also armed with a fierce determination that bullets wouldn’t be able to quell.

Significantly, during the agitation in the Kashmir valley over the past couple of months, not a single member of the security forces has been killed. The restraint is both a reflection of the maturity of the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination as well as a change of tactics by the Hurriyat leadership which now has come round to the view that an armed struggle against the might of the Indian military might not be the most prudent way to get azadi.

At the same time, on the streets of Srinagar, and in other towns across the Kashmir valley, there is a new determination among the common people – they want azadi. It is not just the old demand for what Pandit Nehru once promised and then reneged – the right to self determination of the Kashmiri people. There is fair a degree of unanimity among the people of the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley. They demand quite unequivocally azadi from India.

As far as I am concerned, this is not even an issue of right or wrong. For too long the whole Kashmir issue has remained a foreign policy debate, and different sides have played verbal ping pong with not just the emotions, but even lives of ordinary Kashmiris. It is not for us to debate whether Kashmiris should get independence, or whether it is in India’s strategic interests to grant even a degree of autonomy to Kashmir.

I simply think it is the birth right of every Kashmiri to exercise his or her right to self-determination. The rest of us should just respect the verdict of that referendum, whatever it happens to be, and ensure its honest implementation.

Anatomy of An Anarchist -- A Kashmiri Tragedy

On the first day I landed in Srinagar, I read in the flight about Tahir Wani, a 13-year-old boy who had been hit by a teargas shell in his abdomen and died. I wanted to meet his family, find out how he had become part of the agitation, how he had even been allowed by his family to venture out on the street when there was a curfew on.

Where I come from, 13-year-olds are usually preoccupied with Play Stations and are so sheltered that they would not be allowed to go to the nearby park to play if there was so much as even a hint of a thundershower.

I sought the help of a local journalist to locate the boy’s family and find out more about his background. I was told Tahir’s family lived in “downtown” Srinagar, where the situation was fairly “tense”.

Over the next couple of days, I found out that Tahir’s father had been picked up the security forces in 1996, ostensibly for “questioning”, and never returned home. Three years later, Tahir’s elder brother had crossed the Line Of Control and went to Pakistan-administered Kashmir to join the Mujahideen. The family has no information whether he is dead or alive.

Even before I had met the family, one question had been answered. With a background like that, it wasn’t difficult to fathom why Tahir was out on the street, braving the curfew.

Tahir is survived by his mother and two sisters. On the day I was supposed to meet Tahir’s family, we found out that his grandparents have thrown out his mother and two sisters from their home. Tahir’s grandparents said the mother and her two daughters were “ill omen for the family as they were responsible for the disappearance and death of the men folk in the family”. In Kashmir, as in any other conflict-zone, the women were the worst sufferers.

The three women had left for Baramullah, 60 km from Srinagar, where Tahir’s maternal uncle lived. Eventually logistical issues ensured that we couldn’t go to Baramullah to meet Tahir’s mother and his two sisters.

But in the ten days that I was in Kashmir I met number of young boys, boys like Tahir, who were at the centre of the agitation against the transfer of land over the Amarnath Yatra, and the subsequent economic blocade of the Kashmir valley.

In Srinagar’s SMRH Hospital, choc-a-bloc with bullet-injury patients (bullets that security forces claim they have never fired), we met another young boy, who had been shot in the leg. I don’t remember his name. Through clenched teeth (he said he was still in considerable pain), he assured us that as soon as he was back on his two feet, he would join the struggle for azadi (independence).

A majority of the agitators on the streeets of Srinagar and other towns of Kashmir valley are young teenagers, most of them born in the turbulent 90’s, when things first spiralled out of control in Kashmir. Young in age, they are surprisingly articulate, and rather disturbingly for Indian authorities, have a simple single-point agenda – they want azadi (independence), independence from India.

These boys haven’t seen normal life for as long as they have lived. “They have not known what a beautiful place Kashmir once used to be,” says a sad Shazia Sheikh, who works for an NGO which works with women and children who have been displaced because of violence in Kashmir.

She said: “Caught in the vortex of violence they have lost their innocence, their youth. You might think they are brave or fearless. In reality their life is an unmitigated tragedy.”

On a day when the curfew was eased and we finished early with our work, I went on a drive through Srinagar with a young, very bright Kashmiri journalist. He said : “Srinagar is like a war zone, like Palestine and Lebanon.” As we drove through a long street of closed shops, with groups of young men sitting at street corners, he said : “This is Gaza for us. On this street there have been many pitched battles between the local people and the security forces”. Little later as he took me on a tour of downtown Srinagar, he announced grandly, “Now you are in West Bank.”

Most observers in Kashmir draw a parallel between the separatist movement which grew in the valley in the early 90s with the current agitation. There is one significant difference though. In the 1990s, the movement was driven by the Hurriyat and militant elements in the valley.

There is a subtle but important shift in the ground situation now. Though the Huriyat leadership remains at the helm of the agitation, at the heart of the present unrest are thousands of young boys, angry determined teenagers who were born and have lived through most testing times. They are no strangers to night curfews, shoot-at-sight orders, or teargassing. They are fearless boys like Tahir Wani with a single-point agenda – azadi.

Thousands of miles away from the melting pot that is Kashmir, as political mandarins in New Delhi try to work out "a Kashmir solution”, few of them realise they have to contend with a changed demographic, a new, powerful phenomenon in the valley. The thirteen-year-old agitator, next door.

Strident Call for 'Azadi' in Kashmir

Huriyat rallies have witnessed large crowds

Srinagar, curfew-bound and politically tense at that, is an unusual place to observe India’s Independence Day. But then that is where I was this 15th of August.

Ever since my childhood one always read, and believed, Kashmir to be an integral part of India. It was a belief that wasn’t shaken, despite what I saw or heard during my several visits to Kashmir during the twenty years of unrest in the region.

More than once I felt uncomfortable about the highhandedness of the Indian security forces in Kashmir, I have been outraged by their excesses and shared the anger of the local people who regard the Indian army as an “occupation force”. I felt equally angry when grenades thrown by militants killed innocent tourists. I also thought much of the unrest in the valley was fomented by separatists, who were aided and abetted by Pakistan.

Crucially, I believed that a solution to the Kashmir problem lay within the framework of the Indian constitution. If the central government gave up its ham-handed approach in dealing with Kashmiri affairs and if the more sensible voices in the valley were allowed to have a say about how the valley should be governed, I always hoped the rather complex problem could be solved.

After my recent trip to the valley, I am no longer sure of that.

This time I detected a difference in the call for azadi or independence. For one thing, the call for azadi might have come from the Huriyat leadership, but it has found resonance among the masses. People on the street speak freely and without fear about their demand for azadi, about freedom from India.

On earlier occasions when I had visited the valley, the people talked about the right for self-determination. They spoke about the promise of plebiscite that Pandit Nehru had made in the United Nations and then reneged on it. In that right all the three options existed – Kashmiris could choose to remain with and in India or they could go with Pakistan, or they could choose to be independent either from India or Pakistan.

Now the demand is more strident, people quite categorically say that they do not want to be part of India. “It is not a question of good governance or bad governance. We just want the right to govern ourselves, we don’t India to do it any more”, says Sajid Lone, a young lawyer in Pampore where an impressive number of people, in hundreds of thousands, had gathered peacefully following a call by the Huriyat.

One couldn’t help but feel it would be foolish to ignore both the voice of the common people as well as the Huriyat’s ability to put so many people on the strret at such short notice. Their mobilisation, and the ability to keep such a large crowd peaceful, suggested that the Huriyat leadership enjoyed a popularity that the Indian authorities have always been unwilling to concede.

At one point of time, elements of the Huriyat were involved in the militancy in the valley. Common people were often coerced to take the streets, following calls for strike by the Huriyat leadership.

This time, though, following the land transfer controversy and the subsequent economic blocade, there has been a spontaneous outpouring of anger from the masses, and people have been more than willing to come out on the streets in support of the Huriyat.

It hasn’t helped matters that the common man in the Kashmir valley feels completely let down by the mainstream political parties (which have agreed in principle to work within the framework of the Indian Constitution) in the valley.

The Congress Party is still viewed with suspicion – as an “Indian party which first looks after India’s interests” and then the region’s. Gulam Nabi Azad, who recently resigned as chief minister, has no mass following in the valley, and is seen, not without good reason, as a pawn of the central government. No other Congress leader commands respect or following in the valley.

Nor does Mehbooba Mufti’s People’s Democratic Party have any credibility among the people in the valley. Kashmiris realise it was the PDP which first precipitated the current crisis over the issue of transfer of land to the Amarnath shrine board. First the PDP agreed to the transfer, and once it was formalised, it backed out of the deal and eventually withdrew support to the Congress-led government in the state.

As for the National Conference, Omar Abdullah doesn’t have either his grandfather Sheikh Abdullah’s legendary popularity or his father Farooq Abdullah’s charm. Most Kashmiris see the youngest Abdullah as a central stooge, as someone who has let down the valley’s interests at critical times.

In the absence of a credible political party in the region, the mantle of political leadership has been taken over by the multi-party Huriyat Conference. The hardline faction led by Syed Ali Shah Gilani and the moderates led by Mirwaiz Farooq have tried to forge an united front and present a common face to their followers in the valley. That unity is at best fragile, but both Gilani and Mirwaiz Farooq realise a common front is the need of the hour.

Governments in Delhi have on several occasions been loathe to do business with Huriyat leaders, sometimes not without reason. Several Huriyat leaders have had a chequered past, with allegations of involvement in militant activities. Besides, at one point of time, the Huriyat propagated a blatantly pro-Pakistan line.

Now there is a change of tack, a change of strategy, if not a change of heart among the Huriyat leadership. The controversy over the land transfer and the subsequent economic blocade of the Kashmir has handed the Huriyat an issue on a platter. As I sat in the office of Mirwaiz Farooq’s office, waiting to interview him, one of his aides confided : “This time the Indian authorities have done something which Pakistan’s ISI hasn’t been able to do all these years – given us an issue that has angered and united all the people in the valley.”

Over the years, Kashmir economy has traditionally been dependent on two things – tourism and apples. Years of unrest in the valley has drastically reduced the earnings through tourism, increasing the state’s reliance on the apple trade as the major source of income.

More than the land transfer controversy, the subsequent economic blocade has hit the Kashmiris where it hurts most. As the apple season is peaking, Kasmir’s bounty lies unplucked from trees, and rotting in Sopore and other markets.

Every August about 200 trucks loaded with apples leave the wholesale apple market in Sopore every day, heading for different destinations all over India. Until August 20, only a handful of trucks would everyday venture out on the highway and brave the blocade. I interviewed the driver of one such truck in a hospital in Srinagar where he was being treated for severe burns. As his apple-laden truck crossed over from Kashmir to Jammu, two men on a motorcycle threw a petrol bomb inside his vehicle.

About 80 perecent of apple growers in the valley are marginal farmers, working on small tracts of land. Most of them have borrowed money to plant their crop, and now have no clue how to return that money.

We went to the farm of Gulam Ahmed Wani, an apple orchard owner in Sopore. Apples remained unplucked on trees in Wani’s farm, others were rotting in the baskets in which they had been packed. “I am facing financial ruin”, said a bitter Wani. “My family would be finished if I can’t get my apples to the market soon,” said the apple orchard owner who has borrowed Rs. 10 lakhs (25,000 US$) from a local bank.

In the nearby market in Sopore, said to be the second largest apple market in Asia, many farmers like Wani look for trucks that would take their produce to the market. “Our drivers are getting beaten up across the border every day. It is difficult to get people to drive our trucks,” says an offcial of the Sopore Apple Market.

As the apple trade suffers, and anger mounts on the streets of Srinagar and other areas of the Kashmir valley, the Huriyat is pressing the Indian government to open up the road to Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. “We don’t want to be held to ransom again, if and when someone decides to block the National Highway, the only road link that connects the Kashmir valley with the rest of India,” says Mirwaiz Farooq.

Besides, Mirwaiz Farooq points out that Kashmir had been part of the old Silk Route and has had social and trade links for centuries with Pakistan. The opening of the road to Muzaffarabad would open trading opportunities for the Kashmiris, he said.

The Indian government’s response to this demand has been characteristically ambiguous. A spokesman for the ruling Congress party at the centre said: “We are open to the idea of opening of trade routes, but if someone thinks that one can hold a gun to our head and make us do this, then they are mistaken.” Which means what, someone please explain.

As of now, the land transfer controversy which sparked off the unrest is history, and the Indian government claims the economic blocade has been lifted. In the valley, though, the people remain angry and the air is thick with calls for azadi.

In the past, Indian authorities have been accused of political myopia regarding Kashmir. New Delhi can still carry on with its short-sighted Kashmir policy. This time though the price it might have to pay could be unusually heavy.

The Unbearables -- A Kashmir Diary

Last Man Boarding
Two days after I had come back from Srinagar, I was heading back to Kashmir. The provocation – a senior Huriyat Conference leader leading a group of demonstrators had been shot dead by the police. The next day in sporadic incidents of violence 15 people had been shot dead in different areas of the Kashmir valley. The administration had imposed curfew in Srinagar and a few other trouble spots in the valley. As news of the violence poured in, we planned to go to Srinagar the next day.

The Huriyat Conference has over the years led the separatist movement in the Kashmir valley. Despite claims to the contrary by the Indian government, the Huriyat leadership has a mass following in the valley. Just how much of a following I was going to find out first hand over the next ten days.

For me to do that though I had to first board my flight to Srinagar, which as I sat in my car in a long traffic jam looked increasingly improbable. My driver calmly informed me that right-wing Hindu activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad were preventing vehicles from entering Delhi. I tried another road to sneak into the city and quickly realised I had been out thought by the VHP.

After three hours in that jam, during which I had booked myself into a later flight to Srinagar, news came in that the hoods in saffron had relented. I duly informed Kingfisher Airlines staff that I was running seriously late, they in turn informed me the flight was delayed by 30 minutes. My colleagues had checked me in, the only problem was I could just take one hand baggage. I packed quickly in the car, trading off the laptop for four shirts. The only pair of trousers I had was the one I was wearing.

After a dash through the security, during which my name was announced twice on the public address system (“This is the last call for Mr. Rajan Chakravarty”), as I made it to the bus carrying the passengers, my colleagues, Todd Baer and Maruya Gautam clapped.

The Unbearables

Remember The Untouchables? Nooo, not Mayawati, silly. Remember the movie with Kevin Costner, Sean Connery and Andy Garcia? Like that, we were The Unbearables.

Behind every great story is a great television crew. Behind the stories that have now passed into the realms of television legend, was us, The Unbearables.

The name, The Unbearables, is inspired by the part American, part Lebanese (and who I now believe is for a large part a Martian), Todd Baer, correspondent extraordinaire. It also had more than a little to do with the beer drinking abilities of the trio – Todd, Maurya and yours truly.

In curfew-bound Srinagar, our lovely hotel which looked down on the Dal Lake had few occupants. On most evenings we three were the only ones in the hotel bar. But we drank enough beers and ate enough finger-licking Roganjosh and Yakhnis to leave a lasting impression. At least, so we thought…

I Accept!

Though it was my second trip to Srinagar in three days, this time round the tension was palpable. We were given our curfew passes at the airport. The driver was watchful as we drove into the city. He warned, despite the curfew and patrolling by security forces, angry mobs had been roaming the streets and over the last few days, some members of the media had been thrashed by mobs.

We progressed uneventfully for the first 20 minutes, and then Maruya, our ace cameraman spotted a slogan shouting crowd behind us. “I need a few shots, Rajan”, he said, as he asked the driver to stop. I eyed the flak jackets warily as the crowd came closer. They were on the other side of the road. Maruya took his shots, Todd scribbled notes, as the crowd raised anti Indian slogans. As the group passed us by, and we heaved a sigh of relief, another group came towards us from the other side. We quickly hopped inside our SUV.

Soon the mob had surrounded the car. Some of them angrily beat on the bonet of the vehicle, others said we should “go back to India”. We tried to explain we were from Al Jazeera, and that we had been covering the events in the valley since the recent unrest began over the Amarnath Yatra land transfer controversy. The crowd was unyielding, even as we argued our case, interspersing everything we were saying with “Al Jazeera”, hoping that enough of them had watched the channel in the valley, and would let us through.

And then one of the young men looked at us, broke into a smile, and roared, “I Accept”. Suddenly the mob made way for our vehicle to pass, many among the crowd shouted “Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera”, and smiled at us. “Get us out of here, fast”, I barked to the driver.

Later in the hotel over a glass of cold beer Todd, Maurya and me discussed the significance of the “I Accept” remark. In another world, it would have simply meant, “I let you live.”
Phew, weren’t we grateful!

That Summer of Kapil's Devilry

Shifting house can by all accounts be a chaotic and rather demanding experience. I have been so caught up in the process that I almost forgot what day it was.

June 25.

Turn back the clock by twenty five years, to this day. And if you still can't remember what I am referring to, you ought to be shot for treason. It is the definitive sepia-tinged moment of our cricketing lives, the day we won the World Cup of cricket.

Please note the "we". It is significant, for on this day, and from this day onwards, an entire nation appropriated the successes achieved by eleven good men. And from this day on, we have (don't know about you, but at least I surely have) lived and died by the achievements of our cricket team.

All of us have indulged in countless discussions about who is the greatest cricketer India has ever produced. We all have our favourites. In my mind there is no doubt that it is Kapil Dev. Anil Kumble may have already taken more wickets than Kapil, and batsmen like Sunil Gavaskar and Sachin Tendulkar would walk into most world elevens of any period, but there is only one Kapil Dev. As Gavaskar once said: "He (Kapil) has scored half as many runs as I have, but more significantly has taken a lot more wickets than I have".

More than the runs he scored or wickets he took, it was the way he played his game, even where he came from. He bowled quick, used his bat like a broadsword, whacking the ball with awesome power, and fielded magnificently. Before Kapil, the bigger players always came from cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata or Chennai.

The arrival of Kapil Dev Nikhanj from Haryana changed all that. He spoke English with an endearing accent, often spoke his mind with the sort of fearlessness he waded into the opposition bowling, and sat on Indian cricket's high table with as much confidence as some of the Maharajas for whom the game was first devised in this land. And in the process, he, more than anyone else, turned the gentleman's game into a national obsession.

By the time the 1983 World Cup was played, I had been watching international cricket for about ten years. My Dad had taken me to Delhi's Feroze Shah Kotla in 1974 when Clive Lloyd's West Indians were touring India. It was a good time to get initiated into cricket for that series proved to be one of the most engrossing Test series of all times.

Until then, that is the summer of 1983, most of the cricket that I had ever watched or followed through newspapers, had a single dominant side -- the all-conquering West Indians. Ever since Lloyd decided in 1975 on a four-pronged pace attack, the West Indians had swept all opposition before them. By 1983, when the third edition of the World Cup began, the West Indians were at the peak of their powers and appeared well-nigh invincible in both forms of the game, Tests as well as one-dayers.

Fearsome as their pace attack was, with Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner and Malcolm Marshall, four of the quickest and best fast bowlers to have ever played the game, the batsmen were no pushovers either. Gordon Grenidge and Desmond Haynes opened the batting, you could take your pick who was the more destructive of the two.

The middle order had Viv Richards and Clive Lloyd, two of the all-time greats, and in Jeff Dujon the West Indians had a wicket keeper-batsman whose twin capabilities were to be only bettered by the incomparable Adam Gilchrist. I use these names of the past, and their justifiable reputation, only to emphasize just how dominant the West Indian were at that point of time.

In the years that followed India's World Cup triumph in 1983, lot of people have used lot of words to describe that historical moment and what it meant for them.

For me, more than anything else, it meant the end of that aura of invincibility. It also meant we, we Indians, could do anything, it was a defiance of far greater odds than the 66:1 chance that London bookies had given the Indian side to win the World Cup.

As far as I am concerned, Kapil Dev and his men added a hint of a swagger to our steps, to the steps of an entire nation, me included. The magic wrought by eleven men in flannels had touched nearly a billion of us.

I was all of nineteen then, on June 25, 1983. Twenty five years on, pot bellied and bald, that swagger is still intact. All thanks to Kapil's Devils.

My Brother, My Friend!

Given the amount I usually put in relationships to make them work, I am amazed how easily, how without any effort, this one worked. Right from day one. I can't quite remember the first time we ever met or what we said to each other.

My earliest recollection of us is in Calcutta in our maternal grandpa's house, both of us lying on the bed, facing each other, with an open book in between. I couldn't have been more than eight, he was two years older. He was reading one page, and me another. The trick was we had to read at the same pace, so that one could turn the page without inconveniencing the other. The name of the book was 'Dubojahajer Urro Koyedi' (U Boat's Pilot Prisoner), a Bangla book, which was a translation from English.

It was a World War II story, about an Allied pilot who was a prisoner on a German U-boat. I have never been able to remember who was the author, or any other details about the book. But I remember very clearly, both of us read the book at a breathless pace, skipping baths, finishing meals quickly, not paying any attention to whatever was going around us, until we finished it.

From that day onwards, two things remained constant between us -- his bucktoothed smile and our passion for books. Both of us started out with Deb Sahitya Kutir's translations, and graduated to more exotic stuff. We were both voracious readers, and every summer vacation when I landed up in Calcutta, we would compare notes on what we had read over the year -- a habit that lasted both of us a lifetime.

When I was in Class XIth, I recommended him John Steinbeck's East of Eden. Next time when we met, we discussed the character of Cathy for hours. Until then she was quite the most fascinating woman character we had ever encountered, in fiction or in real life.

Next year, he introduced me to Drishti Prodip, Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay's classic tale of two brothers and a sister. During our college years and later, I became his window to English literature, and he was my guide to everything good in Bengali -- from books to theatre to food.

He was always a man of few words. A smile here, a gesture there, would be all that was forthcoming to show he cared. One day he showed up in my house in Calcutta with two tickets for Jogonnath, one of the most memorable plays I have ever seen. Another day, as I packed my bags for Delhi, he casually handed over a book to me. "Got this one for you, I know you will like this." It was Shesher Kobita (The Last Poem) by Tagore. Till today I can't turn a page of that book without remembering him.

In 1975, he came to Delhi to visit me. We both were seriously into table tennis then. World Cup Table Tennis had just got over and a Hungarian had won it. We played our own World Cup -- me, him and few of my friends. We even made a cardboard cup. He took the cup to Calcutta after he beat all of us. The highlight of the stay was watching Sholaay. We were both most distressed by Jai's death, and over the years discussed several alternative endings. Now I can't ever think of him, without thinking about alternative endings.

One summer afternoon in Calcutta, I was in Class XIIth and he was in his first year of Engineering, we browsed books on College Street, had the mandatory coffee in Coffee House, then saw a movie (can't remember the name), but both of us wanted something more. After we had checked we had enough money between us, we decided to have some beer. The only hitch was what if someone we knew saw us. We knew we were in an area which was frequented by the elders in the family.

So, drawing upon our considerable combined wisdom, we decided to don sunglasses and walk confidently into a pub. The plan was breathtakingly simple -- even if someone saw us, we would be unrecognizable because of our dark glasses. We were already so charged with the task on hand, the beer hardly hit us, and we came back home, thrilled to bits, mission accomplished.

About a week later, we had just finished our evening smoke, when our youngest maternal uncle, Tomal Mama, materialized out of nowhere, put his hands on our shoulders, looked into our eyes and said in his deep gravelly voice : "Ki re, kalo choshma porey beer khele kauke aar chena jayena na? (If you wear dark glasses and drink beer, you think no one will recognize you?)"

We stood speechless, our bad karma having finally caught up with us. Then Tomal Mama's face creased into a huge grin, and he said : "Theek aachhe, ghlabrash na, etai to boyesh beer teer khabar (Don't worry, after all this is the age to drink beer)," and then the frozen blood in my veins thawed again.

That was the first of several more memorable binges over the years. None more funnier than the time I had landed in Calcutta after getting my first job with The Statesman. I had to meet a friend at the National Library at 11 a.m. who eventually didn't show up, and on a working day I was left with nothing to do. I phoned him up (a year ago he had joined as a junior engineer with a private sector company in the city), asked him if he could meet me. There was a moment of hesitation at the other end, and then he said: "Give me 30 minutes".

I waited on the curb across the National Library, in front of the Calcutta Zoo. He showed up exactly after 30 minutes, with his bucktoothed grin in place : "Tor jonney mone hoi amar chakri ta jabe (Because of you I think I am going to lose my job)." I asked him what was the Plan of Action. He lit a cigarette, smiled at me enigmatically and said : "Just wait patiently."

He had barely finished speaking when a taxi came to a halt right where we were standing, and the eldest of our cousin brothers got down. Another brother had produced another enterprising excuse to get out of office on a working day. What followed was some serious daytime drinking, of all the places, in Calcutta Zoo. The zoo had a bar on its premises and my brothers were in no mood to waste any time, going to a pub which was some distance away. Not that I was opposed to the idea.

I realise the futility of trying to capture a relationship of a lifetime in few hundred or even a few thousand words. Which is what I had been trying to do until now. To share with you all, my memories of someone very special, very dear to me. They are good memories, great memories of growing up together.

They are my own Wonder Years. I horde these memories, when I am alone I often count them as if it were a currency, and check and re-check the tally againt the last such count. You become like that, a little obsessive, when all you are left of an association of four decades are just memories.

I have been like that, a little obsessive, the past six years. For six years ago, on this day, the man, who was not just my brother but as close a friend as one is ever likely to have, died.

This blog is about someone who made my life great by just being part of it, and left an aching hole in my heart that time can't even come close to healing. If there was Internet in the sky, I would like him to read this piece and know just how much that bucktoothed grin is missed.

A Midsummer Day's Dream

Life in a hospital's Intensive Care Unit (ICU) can be pretty exciting. The care IS very intensive -- nurses poke you with all kinds of needles at periodic intervals, thermometers are stuck up different orifices, medicines of different colours, shapes and sizes fed to you during, before and after meals and doctors with smiles as fake as Pamela Anderson's breasts tell you not to worry about a thing and then cheerfully reel off some very worrisome facts about your body.

Why am I rambling?

It is a pleasant 40 degrees in the shade. Brave (and, I thought, a bit foolish too) young men are playing cricket in this lovely weather. And yet I can't string together a coherent thought, let alone a sentence. Heat gets to me. Always has. Among my several serious reservations about self, the biggest one undoubtedly is my inability to relocate myself from a city that I have hated with some passion over three decades now. At one point of time I used to gripe about the people of this city, but for a long time, a very long time now, I haven't enjoyed living in this city because of its terrible weather. Not that life in the decidedly more humid Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai will be any cooler.

But this, the Delhi heat, is a different sort of beast. It works on you from the beginning of February, gets its claws into you in March and April, overwhelms you in May and June, saps your energy in July and August and by October end, you are so beat you think the coolness of November, December and January is just a figment of your meteorologically deluded mind. And then its February once again, the beginning of the nine-month summer season. More than anything else, it is the length of the Delhi summer that gets to you.

I once read somewhere how the author, a political prisoner in an Indian jail, would tell stories to young children, who were staying in the jail premises along with their prisoner mothers, about dogs and cats. And then she would notice the blank look on their faces and realise most of them had never set foot out of the four walls of the jail and had never seen a cat or a dog.

Similarly I fear Ritwik would never know spring or autumn, easily the two most beautiful seasons of my childhood and adolescence, if he grows up in Delhi. In this city, one day you go to the laundry and hand your sweaters and coats for dry cleaning and then come back and don your bermudas. In Delhi, the transition from winter to summer is terribly abrupt.

On top of it, this is a city without a major waterbody in and around it. You call Yamuna a waterbody and the river itself would rise from the mire of silt and from under the city's refuse and sue you for defamation. The water in Yamuna is as much of a chimera as the mythical Saraswati is. You knew there was water there once.

Damn, I am rambling again.

Point is, I am spoilt, both in terms of plentiful water and good weather. I grew up in Andamans, in the towns of Port Blair and Diglipur, when the population was sparse and the forest cover, at a conservative estimate, anything between 90 and 97 per cent, and anytime of the day and anytime of the year, you could feel the sea breeze on your back. In Port Blair, the front of our house faced the road. But the back of the house opened into sand and you could walk straight on to the beach and then to the water. From every room in my house, I could see the sea. And now from every room in my apartment in Delhi... ohh nevermind!

Long after I left Andamans, the islands became a refuge from my physical and emotional troubles. I would transport my mind to Port Blair or Diglipur and shut myself off from everything else. These days when I get depressed, I think a lot about the ten days I spent last year in the ICU. Both, I guess, are clumsy attempts at coping.

Right now, even as I write this, beer is emerging as a serious option. That is, as an attempt at coping.

In my mind's eye, as I wipe the dust off the years, I can see a big tub with chunks of ice, and countless bottles of beer buried in between the ice. The air conditioning on at full blast killing the afternoon heat. A bunch of old friends who can communicate even by passing a cigarette butt, an old seventies movie (could be Angoor or Golmaal or Chupke Chupke, take your pick) on the DVD in a semi-dark room with blinds drawn. Someone almost unobtrusively passing on plates of non vegetarian snacks at regular intervals. Mmmmmm.

Gosh, more rambling.

But I like the train of thought ...