Gentleman's Game Ki Maa Ki ...

The dust has finally settled on what has been known in the cricket world as "Monkeygate". The terrible misunderstanding that brought the cricketing relations between India and Australia to the brink of breakdown has been cleared.

Oh, I would have given my left hand to be a fly on the wall when Harbhajan Singh cleared the air with Andrew Symonds. But since I couldn't (that is, be a fly on the wall), I did the next best thing. I found out from my ever reliable sources what had actually happened.

And now I have on good authority that Bhajji, with his conscience clear that he had never used the Monkey word, simply walked up to Symonds and explained things man-to-man.

Harbhajan told Symonds, "Hey, mate, I never called you monkey. You know us Indians. We won't -- we can't-- make racial remarks. I just made some polite comments about your Mother's private parts. Hope that's OK with you."

It apparently was. Not just with Symonds, but with Cricket Australia, too. Apart from general good sense prevailing, money played an important role in sorting out the misunderstanding. Once the financial implications of the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) asking the Indian team to abandon the Australian tour hit Cricket Australia (CA), the rest was easy.

In case the tour had been aborted, CA would have to had to pay huge amount of money as damages to the sponsors. Besides, they ran the risk of being sued by the company which had bought the TV rights for telecasting the last edition of three-country one-day series hosted by Australia, featuring India, Australia and Sri Lanka.

Money can be such a persuasive thing. Just how persuasive it is, can be gauged from the fact that Symonds and Harbhajan are now likely to feature in an ad for an Indian chewing gum company.

Harbhajan's understanding of what constitutes a racial remark and what doesn't in the Australian context is clearly flawed, and Symonds hasn't picked up the finer nuances of Punjabi to understand that he wasn't being called a monkey, that it was just his mother's private parts that were being referred to. But both are more than aware that it is money and not love and fresh air that makes this world go around. A fact that was no doubt impressed upon both the players by their respective boards.

So, a compromise was reached, an agreement was hammered out, a joint statement stated Harbhajan had never called Symonds a monkey. All he had used was a swear word which is pretty common in the land he comes from. Everyone, from the BBCI boss, Sharad Pawar to Sachin Tendulkar to Anil Kumble to the Australians, were so happy when it emerged that nothing racial was said. There was just the little matter of some unsavoury remarks about Symonds' mother.

Once the racial charge didn't stick, it appeared to be acceptable to everyone around that an international cricketer had used abusive language about a fellow cricketer's mother. I can't quite remember the last occasion when so many people were so relived and so happy about an international sports person using such foul language in public.

It is odd that no one found what Harbhajan really said as far more offensive than what he was originally alleged to have said. May be it is some misplaced macho sports ethics where it is ok to say something so distasteful about a fellow player's mother, yet get away with nothing more than a light slap on the wrist. May be I am too old fashioned.

Wonder if someone's checked with Mrs. Symonds about what she makes of the whole thing.

Harbhajan should consider himself extremely lucky that the man at the receiving end of his verbal volley was a cricketer called Symonds and not a footballer answering to the name of Zindine Zidane.

France's most celebrated footballer, Zidane is as famous for leading his country to World Cup glory in 1998 as he is for headbutting Italian defender, Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup finals after the latter made allegedly abusive comments about Zidane's mother and sister. In a post-match interview Zidane said he didn't regret what he had done. He said anyone who insulted his mother or sister had it coming to him.

Zidane is obviously such a bad sport. Lucky he plays soccer, not cricket. That kind of defiant talk is not taken lightly by international cricket administrators, who are forever drafting new laws to curb proliferation of bad behaviour and unsportsmanlike conduct in the game of cricket.

After all cricket is not a contact sport like soccer and is still very much a gentleman's game.

As for you lot who might have thought otherwise in the wake of the Sydney Test, I hope you do remember what Harbhajan said to Symonds. You wouldn't want me to repeat it, would you?

Of Lives Less Ordinary

In 1988, as a rookie reporter in The Statesman, an English newspaper published from Delhi, I was sent on an assignment to cover a gangrape of a girl in Naraina in west Delhi. It was a "crime" story, not part of my beat, but I was the only one around, besides the bosses thought I needed to be "blooded".

So I found myself a pen and notebook in hand, a diffident expression on my face, outside the house of the victim. Her mother wailed loudly as relatives tried to console her. Some of my more distinguished colleagues from other newspapers blithely asked questions that seemed rather intrusive to me. I tried to be as unobtrusive as possible, stood in one corner, spoke briefly and in a low voice to a cop, found the when's and where's of the case, and headed back to the office.

I was agitated about what I had just seen and a bit excited too about my first visit to a crime scene. Sitting in the car on my way back, I composed my thoughts, pondered about the opening line of my copy, and went to meet the News Editor.

He had a phone cradled in the crook of his neck, and was busily editing a copy in front of him and shouting instructions on the phone. He asked me about the story. I told him it was a gangrape, and he barked on the phone: "Front page". I added that the victim was a minor, and he said on the phone, "front page, three columns, box item", and then he smiled at me and said, "Good job, Rajan".

Then he asked me about the girl's family. I said her father was a rickshawpuller and she was a Dalit. The smile froze, he said on the phone, "Two paras, page 4, she is a nobody", and then waved me away dismissively. I felt like a nobody too.

Twenty years on, as I scan newspapers, looking for stories covering crimes against Dalits, I find little has changed in the way the Indian media reports issues related to the country's marginalised classes.

By the placement of the story, in page 8 or page 13, we denigerate its importance, and by limiting the number of words to tell the story, we ensure poor visibility. And then, we blame the coverage or the lack of it on what the reader wants to read, thereby absolving ourselves of any guilt.

In an increasingly insular world, the mainstream media does its bit and more, by distancing the reader from the sort of news that a certain set of journalists are loathe to cover. And then by dubbing the effect as the cause, some of us flaunt the Bollywood gossip section of the paper and claim this is what the reader wants. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

I cannot recollect if any Indian newspaper has ever carried out a reader survey in which readers, in overwhelming numbers or even otherwise, have said they would like to read about men who are closet readers of Mills and Boons (that one did make Page 1 of a national daily recently), rather than read about the eight-year-old Dalit girl in Bihar whose five fingers were chopped off by the same sickle with which she had gone to get some spinach from her field and by mistake had strayed on to the field that belonged to a member of the upper caste.

Or, perhaps more importantly, why does it have to be an 'either', 'or' issue? Why can't the reader read both the stories?

By no means is the Indian media alone in this askewed coverage of the marginalised classes. If the Indian media is guilty of ignoring certain issues, the Western media is surely guilty of exaggerating the same issues.

The past seven years I have worked with the best media houses in the West. Their (very deliberate) dumbing down of India -- both the new India of the soaring sensex and software outsourcing fame, and the old India of starving masses and snake charmers -- leaves me equally incensed.

I was once asked in a party how I found stories that sell in the western media. I had had a drink too many and didn't quite realize I was in the company of my present employers and a few with whom I hoped to work in the future. Before I could stop myself, I found myself saying, "It is simple. You go to google, type "India" and then type "weird", and then laugh your way to the bank."

Oh I could go on and on. Just substitute "weird" with "starvation", "witchcraft", "ghosts", "sati", "Kashmir", "religious riots", "outsourcing" and "BPO", and you would have covered most issues that interest western journalists in India.

In a year when General Musharraf met Prime Minister Vajepayee in Agra and the world press had a field day speculating on the imminence of a nuclear conflict, the "Monkey Man" story (a 12 feet apparition that looked half human and half monkey, and merrily jumped over 20 feet high roofs, and was seen by residents of east Delhi, or so they claimed) caught the imagination of the western media like no other story from the region did.

I even worked with a documentary team, interviewing people about what they had seen. We spoke to experts on simian behaviour, took measurements of windows from which the monkey man came in. It was all very serious stuff, I must say. The most difficult part of the shoot was keeping a straight face when the correspondent, seriousness personified, asked a terrified victim if he had ever heard the monkey man speak. The victim took a moment to think, and then said, "Yes, in Hindi."

I am serious about the google bit, about finding stories. Type "Muslim", "India" and "short skirts". You are likely to find the Muslim tennis sensation Sania Mirza, and boy, do you have a story or what! Fatwa (ooohhh mmmm, that sexy sexy word, the fatwa) issued against Sania, Sania defies the clerics... the headlines just keep coming.

Poor Dalits though neither jump over 20 foot roofs nor wear short skirts and hit mean forehands. Not surprisingly editors struggle to allocate print space to such non-newsmakers.

Actually that's not entirely true. Everytime they get raped, erm... well... ok... everytime they get gangraped, or paraded naked in front of a whole village, or a youth gets stoned to death because he stole bananas, the conscience-keepers ensure the stories find some print space.

It would, of course, be absurd to think that stories of violence against Dalits would get more print space and better display than, say, the shocking, shocking incident of Richard Gere smooching the Bollywood starlet Shilpa Shetty.

Last year while working on a Channel Four documentary on the changing face of Dalits in India, I met Dalits from all corners of life, talking to them on phone, reading about them, researching stories.

I heard the debate over Mayawati's election win in Uttar Pradesh. Some described it as an act of social engineering that got the socially marginalised Dalits shaking hands with the politically marginalised Brahmins to forge a new vote bank. Others simply described it as a one-off phenomennon which was a function of the political exigiency of that time.

I have had a former CPI(ML) cadre and currently a Dalit activist, Arun Khote, explain to me how Dalits end up as victims of even those crimes that are not necessarily targetted against them. According to Khote, in two completely diverse issues, first the serial killings in Nithari, near NOIDA, and then the uproar over land acquistion in Singur in the Left-ruled West Bengal, most victims were the Dalits. Of the 22 people killed in Singur, 17 are Dalits and in Nithari over 80 per cent of the girls killed were Dalits. Khote explains: "A serial killer selects his victims with care. In this case he selected victims from the most sociallly disenfranchised class, those whose families are least likely to be in a position to fight for justice."

As part of the documentary, I met the Dalit millionaire, Hari Pippal who proudly showed me around his super-speciality hospital in Agra.

Later on, while working on another story, I met three sisters (the youngest of them, Rani, just eight years old) who every day carry human excreta on their heads.

Rani's eldest sister told me Rani can't sleep at night without a cloth tied around her nose. "Even in her sleep, she can smell the shit", she explained.

I think I am getting to be like that. Everytime I open a newspaper to read, or switch on the telly and watch a news channel, everytime I see reams of newsprint spent on the India Fashion Week, everytime I see the media giving more space to Harry Potter than farmer suicides in Maharashtra or Andhra Pradesh, I get a stinking feeling too.

One of these days I might tie a cloth, too, over my nose when I go to work.

Adios Adam!

Another of the golden greats has called it a day.

Adam Gilchrist, arguably the best wicketkeeper-batsman to have ever played the game, has announced his retirement from international cricket.

Last year it was the turn of Shane Warne, Brian Lara, Glen McGrath and Inzamam ul Haq, some of the finest players to have ever graced the game, to hang up their boots.

Now, Gilchrist, at the end of the day he created a world record for highest dismissals by a wicket keeper in Test matches, has said the ongoing India-Australia Test at Adelaide is going to be his last and at the end of the forthcoming one-day tri-series involving Australia, Sri Lanka and India, he is going to retire from all forms of the game.

One can quibble over the finer differences between “among the best” and “the best ever”, but when it comes to Gilchrist few would argue that he is indeed “the best ever” wicket keeper batsman the game has ever seen.

When you sit down to select the game’s all-time great playing eleven, among the first names you have to pencil in is Gilchrist at the number seven slot. He is not just the best ever wicket keeper batsman to have played the game, he is quite easily the most destructive batsman to have played Test cricket at the number seven position.

Statistics rarely tell the whole story. But in Gilchrist’s case, over 5500 Test runs at an average close to 50 and 17 magnificent hundreds in 96 Tests tell the story of a batsman who at his best decimated the best bowling attacks and put the fear of God in opposition bowlers. Save one, all his Test hundreds featured, and were often instrumental, in Australian victories.

It is not just the runs he has scored but the manner in which he has scored them sets him apart from others. He scored his Test runs at a faster clip than most accomplished batsmen scored in one-day cricket. Gilchrist's Test strike rate of 81.97 is not just the fastest (by a long way, at that) among all his contemporaries, but is faster than the one-day strike rate of such acknowledged masters as Ricky Ponting or Brian Lara.

Another thing that set him apart from other members of the Australian side was his “gentlemanly conduct”. No one ever said Gilchrist didn't play his cricket hard, but he always played it fair too. One of the genuine "walkers" in the game, Gilchrist was known to walk without bothering to wait for the umpire's reaction, when he thought he had nicked one. At a time when Australian cricketers have been under intense media and public scrutiny for their on and off-field behaviour, Gilchrist has been a shining exception.

He could have walked into any international side, Test or one-day, purely as a specialist batsman.or a wicket keeper. That he performed both the roles with such distinction made him such a standout player in an Australian side that is acknowledged as one of the greatest Test and one-day sides to have ever taken the field.

In a team that has contained some of cricket's all-time greats, opening bat Matt Hayden, the combative Steve Waugh, his stylish twin Mark, the inimitable Ricky Ponting, the legendary Shane Warne and the incomparable Glen McGrath, Gilchrist walked as tall as the tallest of them and held more than his own in that elite company.

Savage with his cutting and driving, Gilchrist's signature shot was, however, the pickup from the leg stump that would be nonchalantly deposited in the square leg region or beyond. Blessed with a phenomenal batspeed, and hand-eye co-ordination, Gilchrist's shot making was a combination of immaculate timing allied with brute power.

It is difficult to recollect, offhand, a forward defensive shot from Gilchrist. The man simply has no defensive bone in his cricketing body. He has been, from the outset, part of a very powerful Aussie side, and played a significant role both behind and in front of the stumps to ensure the continuance of Australian dominance.

Given his naturally attacking style of batting, it is hardly surprising that Gilchrist broke into the Australian one day team before he made it to the Test side. With an astonishing career one-day strike rate of 96, he has made a reputation as one of the game’s hardest hitters. Not surprisingly, he was once voted as “the scariest batsman in one-day cricket”.

Realising his penchant for big-hitting, the Australian team management quickly promoted him to the opening slot in one-dayers where he formed a rather durable and, I dare say, very destructive partnership with the more classically inclined Mark Waugh.

Gilchrist’s entry into Test cricket was delayed because of the presence of the classy Ian Healy in the Australian side. Most purists conceded Healy was the better gloveman of the two. But the plucky Healy was simply no match as a batsman for the devastating Gilchrist. Thus it was only a matter of time before Gilchrist replaced Healy in the Australian Test side.

When he finally broke into the Australian Test squad, he was quick to make an impact. While his glove work was neat, it was his spectacular batting that caught the eye and the imagination of the cricketing public.

In only his second Test, against Pakistan in Hobart in 1999-2000, Gilchrist came in to bat when Australia was precariously placed at 126 for five, chasing an improbable 369 to win. Only Justin Langer remained among the recognised batsmen, and the Pakistan bowling attack boasted of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Shoaib Akhtar. No one gave the Australians a ghost of a chance when Gilchrist walked in with his broadsword of a bat.

Over the next 59 overs, he combined with Langer for 238 runs. At the end of an astonishing run chase, Gilchrist remained undefeated on 149, off just 163 deliveries. It was the first of many times that Gilchrist would turn a game on its head

Last year at Perth, he scored a 57-ball Test hundred against the hapless Englishmen. Only Viv Richards has scored a quicker century (in 56 deliveries) in the 128-year-old history of Test cricket. Ever the gentleman, Gilchrist was to later say: "I am glad that the record is still Viv's. He deserves it more than I do."

In a glittering career, Gilchrist's only notable lack of success was in a World Cup final. He had missed out both in 1999 and 2003. Last year against the Sri Lankans, he wasn't to be denied. In a match curtailed because of rain to just 38 overs, Gilchrist scored at a rate that many thought he would get to a double hundred. Eventually he finished with 149, off just 129 deliveries, reducing the final to a completely one-sided contest.

Paying tribute to Gilchrist, Peter Roebuck wrote : "He changed the role of the wicketkeeper, changed the way batting orders were constructed. Previously keepers had been little, cheeky fellows built along the lines of jockeys who advanced their tallies with with idiosyncratic strokes sent into improbable places. By and large they did not alter the course of an innings. Gilchrist was having none of that. Instead he became two cricketers, a dashing and dangerous batsman and a polished gloveman. Throughout his career Australia has been playing with 12 men."

Spare a thought for the man who will be asked to fill Gilly's giant-sized shoes!

This Republic Day, Light A Candle for Machang Lalung

I woke up this morning to the noise of rumbling tanks and armoured vehicles. An excited Ritwik had enthusiastically put the telly on high volume. "It's Republic Day, Rajan" he announced grandly, as I tried to focus my half-opened eyes on him.

Behind him, I could see on the television screen, a huge artillery piece mounted on the back of an open truck, chugging along Rajpath. It was a long-range cannon that could auto-select targets and hurl its lethal shells with devastating effect and unerring accuracy, a commentator informed gleefully. Looking at the long and ugly snout, I was left in no doubt about its reach and ability to cause damage.

Over the years, there has been a fierce debate on whether there is any need of such pomp and pageantry to mark the country's Republic Day and if the money and preparation that goes behind holding such an event can be spent in the welfare of poor people of the society. The argument has certain merit in a country where a third of its people still can't afford two square meals a day.

I have had an ambivalent stand on the issue. As a school kid, I remember I used to be very excited about the Republic Day. In the early seventies, choice of entertainment was limited. So it was both fun and a matter of prestige that my Dad, as a bureaucrat, would often get an invite to attend the Republic Day parade and would take me with him to see the parade.

So, as I lay on bed and watched and heard Ritwik go on animatedly about the Republic Day parade, I could completely understand his excitement. My mind, though, lay elsewhere. I re-read the SMS from my brother in Guwahati. "Machang Lalung is dead. He died on December 26."

That is, exactly a month ago. I wonder what Machang Lalung would have made of the Republic Day parade. Would he have made anything of it at all? In all likelihood, no. I remembered when I had first met him it was difficult to get a word out of him, let alone an opinion.

When I met Machang Lalung in August 2005, he had been just released from prison after spending 54 years in wrongful confinement. In 1951, Machang Lalung had been arrested on the charge of attacking another villager. The case never came to trial, the charge was never proved. Despite his pleas of innocence he remained behind bars. For 54 long years.

I had been commissioned by BBC World Service Radio for a story on Machang Lalung. As part of my brief, I was asked to find out the extent of Mr. Lalung's grief and anger over his illegal detention for over half a century.

It was one of the first questions I asked him. He gave me a blank look, as if he didn't understand the question. I repeated my query. This time, he said haltingly : "They used to give me vegetables and chicken to eat at the lunatic asylum." During the four hours that I was there, that's all I got out of him. To most other questions, he didn't offer any answer. His relatives crowded around him. They said, he was heard of hearing, and possibly mentally not quite there as well.

I wonder if I should tell my four-year-old son how this great republic of ours treats its citizens. Well, at least some of its citizens. It was a travesty of justice that saw Machang Lalung spend 54 years behind bars for a crime that he wasn't even tried for. What was worse, when he was finally released, no one from the government offered a word of apology. No one ever visited him in his village to find out how he was, or if he needed any medical attention. There wasn't even a cursory attempt to fix responsibility for the abject failure of the justice delivery system.

To add a lot of insult to considerable injury, a sum of Rs.300,000 was awarded as compensation by the Indian Supreme Court. Given that the man spent 54 years in prison, that works out to a neat Rs.20 for each day that Lalung spent behind bars. If the question "what price freedom?" ever bothers you, you can dwell upon that figure. That's the amount India's highest court fixed for over half a century of illegal incarceration.

We would like to believe Machang Lalung is an exception in an otherwise efficient system. Not quite.

In January 2006, Shankar Dayal, a resident of Unnao district near Varanasi in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh was released from Unnao district jail after 45 years. In 1961, Dayal had been sentenced to three years of rigorous imprisonment. He suffered from mental illness and was shifted for a while to a hospital specialising in psychiatric disorders. A magistrate cited Dayal's failure to furnish his bail bonds as reason to extend his incarceration. It got extended to 45 long years.

Even human rights groups can't give an accurate figure about the number of people languishing in Indian jails while still awaiting trial. It is feared the number runs into thousands.

About ten years ago I read a very disturbing book, called Honnomaan (Dignity Robbed) written by the noted Bengali poet Joya Mitra. It is a collection of Mitra's experiences when she spent five years in different jails of Bengal for her leftwing activities. The book is not about Mitra, though. Rather, it is a horrific account of the plight of common women prisoners whom she came to know during her stay in prison. The terrible living conditions inside the prisons and the often flimsy grounds on the basis of which a large number of these women found themselves in jail made most disturbing reading.

Subsequently, I came across several Bangla books which are part of what is known as Kaara Sahitya (Prison Literature). Most of these books carry graphic details of horror stories inside Bengal jails.

Over the years, as a journalist, I have traveled to different parts of the country where I have heard tales of people spending years in prison without trial, others who have died behind bars because of the inhuman conditions inside the jails.

Once, while shooting for a TV story inside Delhi's Tihar Jail, supposedly Asia's most populated jail, me and the rest of the crew were approached by a bespectacled young man who said he had been held in jail without trial for four years and if we could help him. Before we could find out more, he was whisked away by the guards. Despite repeated queries to jail officials, we couldn't get any information about the young man. I can still see his face, a terrified, helpless look on his face, but I don't even know his name.

On January 26, 1950, "We, the People of India", in the Preamble to the Constitution of India, made a solemn resolve to constitute India into a Sovereign Socialist Democratic Republic, and secure to all its citizens social, economic and political justice, liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship, and equality of status and opportunity.

India has come a long way since. We have opened several centres of academic excellence, Indian doctors, engineers and scientists have made a name for themselves worldwide, we have sent satellites to space and scientific teams to Antarctica, defended ourselves from external aggression.

There are enough reasons to be very proud of being an Indian, and celebrate this cherished landmark in the history of our country. While we are at it, perhaps we can spare a thought, observe a minute's silence, or even light a candle for Machang Lalung and thousands like him who continue to rot in our jails, denied the justice and liberty that we had so solemnly resolved to give ourselves exactly 58 years ago, to this day.

Jai Hind.

Bollywood Rewind 2007

In a year bookended by two excellent films -- Guru in the beginning and the year's last release, Taare Zameen Par -- Bollywood had a mixed 2007, with few hits and a number of flops. Shahrukh Khan broke new ground as producer and Aamir Khan as director.

Shahrukh Khan's production house, Red Chillies Productions produced Om Shanti Om (directed by Farah Khan), the year's top grosser at the box office. Aamir Khan showed he was just as accomplished behind the camera as he was in front of it, with what many regarded as the year's best film, Taare Zameen Par.

For the first time, since the 1970s, during the heydays of Amitabh Bachchan, one actor came up with four successive hits in a single calendar year. Akshay Kumar hit the jackpot every time he appeared on the silver screen in 2007. He began the year with Namaste London, then came up with Hey Baby, wowed audiences with Bhool Bhulaiya and finished the year in style with Welcome.

It was a great year for children's films and films about children. Taare ... had competition from Blue Umbrella, Nanhe Jaisalmer and the not-too-bad Chain Khuli Ki Main Khuli Ki Chain. Based on a short story by Ruskin Bond, Blue Umbrella is directed by Vishal Bharadwaj and stars Pankaj Kapur in a pivotal role.

If you add to these movies the success of animated films like Hanumaan and Bal Ganesha, one could see that Bollywood had finally woken up to the tremendous potential of wooing young audiences. Already in the pipeline are several children's films and a slew of animation projects.

The otherwise dependable Yash Raj films had an ordinary year. Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukherjee-starrer Tara Ram Pum didn't exactly set the box office on fire. Neither Madhuri Dixit's comeback vehicle, Aaja Nachle nor the Pradeep Sircar directed Laaga Chunari Mey Daag made much of an impression on the viewers, though i must confess I quite liked Aja Nachle.

Chak De, a stirring sports story directed by the talented Shimit Amin, saved Yash Raj's blushes in a year in which the studio's premier offering, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom sank without a trace at the box office. Starring Abhishek Bachchan and Preity Zinta, along with Bobby Deol and Lara Datta and the Big B himself. The law of averages appeared to have caught up with director Shaad Ali who had earlier given Saathiya and Bunty Aur Babli.

But the biggest dud of the year undoubtedly was Ram Gopal Verma ki Aag. Verma's version of Sholaay was a tragic combination of miscasting, terrible acting and poor direction -- it was so irredeemably bad that it gave bad a bad name.

Verma had earlier in the year directed another flop, Nishabd, in which Amitabh Bachhan wows 18-year-old Jia Khan. The audience couldn't quite stomach an affair between the Big B and a girl who looked young enough to be his grand daughter.

A few months after Nishabd, we saw Bachchan in a similar, but far more credible, role in Cheeni Kum as a suave, pony-tailed restaurant owner, opposite the delectable Tabu. Fine direction, witty lines and some great chemistry between the two main leads made Cheeni Kum one of the most watchable films of 2007.

Following is the list of my TEN FAVOURITE MOVIES OF 2007. Because the list is restricted to ten, four very watchable movies -- Bheja Fry, Jab We Met, Aaja Nachle and Khoya Khoya Chand -- couldn't make it to the list.

01. TAARE ZAMEEN PAR : Aamir Khan's directorial debut combines rare sensitivity with cinematic panache to tell the story of a dyslexic child, played brilliantly, nay perfectly, by young Darsheel Sifary, in what must surely rank as the performance of the year.

02. CHAK DE : It is perhaps the best sports movie to come out of Bollywood. Shahrukh Khan comes up with a fine, understated performance (his best since Swades) as the coach of the Indian women's hockey team. All the hockey players were non-actors, selected as much for their skills with the hockey stick as for their histrionic potential.Director Shimit Amin who had served notice of his potential with Ab Tak Chhappan earns both box office success and critical acclaim with Chak De.

03. GURU: Mani Ratnam's controversial biopic on the life and times of Dhirubhai Ambani features a towering performance by Abhishek Bachchan, a superb cameo by veteran Mithun Chakraborty, and some great music by AR Rahman.

04. YATRA :Nana Patekar plays Dasrath Joglekar, a renowned writer on his way to Delhi to receive a prestigious literary award. In the train, he meets one of his ardent fans, who is a filmmaker by profession. They chat about his writings and the conversation drifts to one of his famous novels Janaaza, based on the life of a small town courtesan, played by Rekha. As director Goutam Ghose weaves an intricate tale, Patekar is simply brilliant as the sometime-moody, sometime-cheerful writer.

05. GANDHI MY FATHER : Theatre man Feroze Khan, director of the unforgettable Tumhari Amrita, turns film maker and Anil Kapoor dons the producer's role. Between them, they come up with a memorable movie about a side of Mahatma Gandhi's life one hadn't heard much about. Akshaye Khanna gives a powerful performance as Hari Lal Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi's estranged son.

06. MANORAMA SIX FEET UNDER : A film, set in the rare noir tradition, has superb performances from the entire cast, but most notably from Abhay Deol, Raima Sen and Vinay Pathak. Director Navdeep Singh, in a most impressive debut, takes care of minutest details and builds the story slowly, even languidly. The dark, almost foreboding Rajasthan landscape is very different from the customary one awash in bright colours, and adds to the film's moody look.

07. LIFE IN A METRO: Director Anurag Basu comes up trumps as he combines a terrific ensemble cast with the year's best music album to produce an eminently watchable film. Irfan Khan and Konkona Sen are stand out, but the rest of the cast -- Kay Kay Menon, Sherman Joshi, Shilpa Shetty, Shiney Ahuja and Kangana Raut are very good too.

08. CHEENI KUM : Along with Taare Zameen Par, Cheeni Kum was my favourite movie for the year. Superb direction, excellent script and two top actors, Big B and the effervescent Tabu made Cheeni Kum a stylish, even sexy film -- an altogether different sort of cinematic experience than what we usually get to see from Bollywood. If the director hadn't lost the plot a bit in the second half, then Cheeni Kum would have been even more watchable.

09. SHOOTOUT AT LOKHANDWALA : Lot of bullets, lot of action, lot of style in this dramatisation of a real life shootout between Mumbai police and a bunch of gangsters. Sunjay Dutt plays the cool cop and Vivek Oberoi is brilliant as the brash, tough as nails leader of the gangsters. Amrita Singh is very impressive in a small but key role. Directed by Apoorv Lakhia, the movie bears the unmistakable stamp of its producer Sanjay Gupta.

10. BLACK FRIDAY: Anurag Kashyap's labour of love was well worth the wait. Delayed interminably for years by nation's courts, the-almost documentary style of telling the story of the 1993 Bombay blasts is rather impressive. The film examines in detail the role of the Memon clan in executing the serial blasts that struck at the heart of India's commerce captial and left close to 300 people dead. The film features great music by Indian Ocean.

Granta completes a classy hundred

I have never made any claims to being particularly well-read, knowing very well that the same claims would never survive the test of public scrutiny. But I have read a fair bit of everything that I came across, only I was never discriminating about what I read.

In my adolescence, I started with Bengali translations of English classics, thanks to Deb Sahitya Kutir, and then graduated to Alistair Maclean and Louis L'Amour. I remain an unabashed fan of both till this day. Then there was the Leon Uris phase. My early knowledge of, and self-proclaimed expertise on, Arab-Israeli conflict stemmed entirely from my reading of Uris' runaway bestseller, Exodus.

During my school, even college, days I devoured Bangla fiction. I read anything I could lay my hands on -- from the more classic Rabindranath Tagore and Bankim and Sarat Chandra to the more contemporary Shankar and Shirshendu.

In my final year of college, I became friends with three of my seniors -- Partiosh, Madhulika and Ujwal. Paritosh and Madhulika would gently nudge me towards the direction of interesting, even exciting books. Ujwal, who had the uncanny ability to call a spade a bloody spade, wouldn't mince his words : "Bhai, Ye tum kya parte rahte ho (Bro, what is this stuff that you read)". He appeared deeply affected by my evidently poor taste in reading. All the three, in their differing styles, guided me to some of the most interesting books I was to ever read.

It was in Paritosh's cosy apartment, one rum-drenched evening in the summer of 1987, I first came face to face with Granta. We both were young. I was 23, and -- I distinctly remember -- it was Granta's 21st issue. Called The Storyteller. The name caught my attention. Some of the names I saw on the writers' index were then completely unknown to me. Bruce Chatwin, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Oliver Sacks, Richard Ford, Primo Levi. I borrowed the book (I don't know of any other magazine that is so often referred to as a book) from Paritosh.

I stayed up the night reading Chatwin's fascinating account of the Australian outback. Chatwin wrote of a simple uncomplicated world in which the Australian aborigines believed that their ancestors had actually sung the world into existence. That the entire world was in fact physically divided into songlines. I had no clue about the Australian aborogines' theory of evolution, but I so wanted to believe Chatwin. The concept was so beautiful. By next morning I was hooked to both Chatwin and Granta.

Twenty years on, the fascination has endured. Sadly, Chatwin, featured in several later issues of Granta, is dead. But Granta is alive and kicking, and over the past two decades has had a profound impact on my reading, as it has on thousands who have been fortunate to read Granta.

Perhaps the finest literary magazine of our times and definitely my favourite, Granta has come out with a smashing hundredth issue. Thanks to Granta, all those unfamiliar names I came across that evening at Paritosh's house, today occupy pride of place on my bookshelf.

During these twenty years, Granta has come up with its unique mix of essays, articles, photo features on subjects that have been topical as well as issues of universal interest. The quality of English has been consistently very good and the subjects the magazine has dwelled upon have often provoked lively discussions.

I remember one Sunday many years ago when I was sitting at home and reading the latest Granta. My mother sat not too far away with a distinctly unhappy look. She finally pointed to what I was reading and said a little testily: "I don't think this Granta which you rate so highly is actually all that good." I immediately launched into an elaborate defense, until I took one look at the cover of the issue I was reading. Suddenly, the reason of my mother's ire dawned upon me.

It was Granta's 37th issue. The subject was Family. The cover simply said : "They Fuck You Up". No wonder my Ma was so upset.

Not just the stuff inside the magazine, even the back covers of Granta often make compelling reading. One of my personal favourites is the issue devoted to Children. Its back cover read :

"Research and development period : nine months. Most common product faults : noise, mess, puking and mewling, irregular sleeping and eating patterns, amorality and irresponsibility. Economic productivity : almost zero in the developed world. Leading economic beneficiary of their desires : Walt Disney Inc. Chief virtues according to their owners : joy, innocence, love, the perpetuation of the gene pool. Chief demerits according to non-owners : lawlessness, refusal to obey adult commands, their growing global numbers.

"Ah, the darling little ones. According to UN estimates there are now 1.7 billion of them under the age of sixteen, nearly a third of the world's population. In thirty years there will be 2.1 billion. We will go on making them. This issue of Granta describes the rearing, loving, loathing and fearing of them, and evokes what it was like to be that lost personality in a vanished time, a child."

Inside, there were two particularly memorable pieces, one by Adam Mar-Jones and another by Blake Morrison.

Personally I have been most fascinated, and influenced, by the travel writing I have come across in Granta. The Granta Book of Travel Writing is a collectors' item.

James Fenton's piece on the fall of Saigon is among my favourites. I would never have heard of the mad but brilliant Redmond O' Hanlon, had it not been for Granta. O'Hanlon is a bit like USS Enterprise from Star Trek, with a penchant for going to places where no man has ever gone before. From Borneo to Amazon to Congo, he has become known for his journeys into some of the most remote and desolate jungles of the world.

Another brilliant writer I met thanks to Granta is Jonathan Raban. Though he is primarily regarded as a travel writer, Raban’s accounts often blend the story of a journey with rich discussion of the history of the water through which he travels and the land around it. Having spent the first ten years of my life next to the sea, I find it easy to identify with and admire Raban's writing.

I don't possess the earlier issues of Granta, though through no lack of effort on my part. In India they are simply not available, though sporadically I have managed to pick a few from second hand bookshops. The earliest Granta I possess is the 5th issue, A Literature for Politics. I picked it up in the Jewish quarters of Old Cochin from a bookseller dealing in second hand books.

Today as I leaf through the 100th issue of Granta, I feel a bit confident about facing Ujwal some day. Next time, he says , "Bhai , ye tum kya parte rahte ho", I can wave a Granta at him.

Aussie Ki Taisi!

Since the India-Australia cricket series started, Indian television channels have been running an ad called "Aussie ki Taisi (To hell with the Aussies)". As part of the ad, Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar says, "Humko Australia mey Australia chahiye (We want Australia in Australia)".

Tell you what Akshay. You have got your wish. As have a billion-odd Indians. We have got Australia, in Australia.

The lions have been bearded in their den. The world champions have been tamed in their own stronghold. Even more importantly, the famous Indian victory at Perth has only driven home the fact that they were denied unfairly at Sydney.

The comeuppance, after the Sydney drama, has been of almost Biblical proportions. In a matter of two weeks, the victors have become the vanquished, and the victims have redeemed themselves in one of the most rousing sporting spectacles of recent times. Over the past five days, more than once, I have thanked the torn knee ligament for the pleasure of allowing me to lie on my bed and watch the drama unfold, ball by enthralling ball.

Indians appear bullish going into Adelaide, venue of another stirring Indian victory four years ago for the last Test. Not only is the momentum with them, the side has been bolstered by the return of Virender Sehwag and Irfan Pathan, both proven matchwinners.

Sehwag can be explosive at the top of the order and is handy with the ball. He gave decent starts in both innings at Perth and delivered a knockout punch to the Australians when he bowled the dangerous Adam Gichrist round his legs at a critical juncture of the match.

Pathan was rightly adjudged the man of the match following an excellent all round performance with both the bat and the ball. He swung the new ball to account for both the Australian openers in both innings. With the bat he was rock solid. He added important runs with Dhoni in the first essay, and in the second innings, sent in as nightwatchman, he was most impressive. He kept the scoreboard ticking and held one end up as Aussie quickies ran through the famed Indian middle order.

The presence of Sehwag and Pathan allows skipper Anil Kumble more options in both batting and bowling. With the duo in the side, it is already being suggested Kumble should go into the Adelaide Test with five specialist bowlers, including Pathan. The idea is not without its merits. But Adelaide is still five days away. For now, though, let us savour the sweet sweet taste of the Perth success.

Yesterday, on the fourth -- and what turned out to be the final -- morning, the match was evenly poised. Australia needed 348 runs, and India needed eight wickets. Though history backed India ( only once in the 128 years of Test cricket had a team scored more in the fourth innings to win a match), no one was writing off the Australians yet. Ricky Ponting, perhaps the world's best fourth innings batsman and Mike Hussey, the man with an Bradmanesque average, were at the crease. As long as they were around, Indians knew victory was still some distance away.

And then happened a passage of play which makes Test cricket what it is -- the purest form of the game. As both teams wrestled to seize the initiative, India's 19-year-old rookie fast bowler Ishant Sharma took on Ricky Ponting, arguably the world's best batsman. If ever there was a David versus Goliath contest, then this was it.

After the Indian cricketing orchestra had played in perfect symphony for the first three days in Perth, on the fourth and critical morning, it was the turn of young Ishant Sharma to provide Ponting with an hour of most compelling chin music.

The lanky Sharma used his height to get disconcerting bounce on the helpful Perth track and swung the ball at appreciable pace, making Ponting duck and weave. An inswinger cut him in half, another one pitched a fraction outside the off stump and held its line, missing the bat by the proverbial whisker. Two close LBW decisions were turned down.

Ponting played and missed more than he would care to remember. After seven probing overs on trot, Sharma was about to complete his spell. In an inspiring move, Kumble threw the ball for one last over to Sharma. His second delivery found the edge of Ponting's bat and ended the Australian skipper's agony.

With Ponting gone, the Australians were on the back foot. And then RP Singh got Mike Hussey. Hussey could have felt aggrieved by the manner of his dismissal. Though he was hit on the back leg when well within his crease, there was doubt about the height. Those familiar with the bouncy Perth pitch would tell you that short of length deliveries usually sail over the stumps. In Hussey's case, Hawkeye too concurred with that view.

There was, however, consistency in Hussey's dismissal. Under similar circumstances, Pakistani umpire Asad Rauf had twice before in the match ruled against Sachin Tendulkar and Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

The icing on the cake for me was the Symonds dismissal. In perhaps the most delicious irony of the match, Symonds, the most significant beneficiary of umpiring largese in Sydney, was done in at Perth at a key moment of the match by an umpiring error.

One of his quicker deliveries, the ball fizzed out of Anil Kumble's hand at over 100 kmph, and hit Symonds below the knee roll in line with the off stump. To the naked eye, and more importantly to umpire Billy Bowden it looked very out. The slow mo replay showed an inside edge -- a big edge from the bat, at that. A disconsolate Symonds departed, pointing to his bat.

Revenge, served piping hot, had rarely tasted better.

Mama, Where is My Chhatrella?

The moment of truth, the hour of reckoning, is here.

Ever since his birth, from the time he fixed us with a toothless grin, a grin that transcended with effortless ease every other joy that we had ever singly or collectively experienced, to the first tentative steps he took after several tumbles on the carpeted floor, to the first garbled word that he uttered -- everything that had happened in his four year old existence was leading up to this big moment.

You see, folks, my son, Ritwik, is all set to go to school.

I am told by my parents that the first language I picked up as a child was Hindi. Growing up in the very cosmopolitan Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, we lived in a neighbourhood which was populated almost in equal numbers by Bengalis, Tamils, and Keralites. The prevailing lingua franca was a gender-bending Hindi that I have never heard spoken anywhere else.

My parents never fussed very much about the first school I went to because in Diglipur (North Andamans), my father’s next posting after Port Blair, one wasn’t exactly spoilt for choices. One day a man had walked up to my father, seeking permission to start a primary school in the island. My father wasn’t very impressed by the academic credentials of the man who had come up with the idea, for he carried with him documents which to my father’s untrained eye looked forged. But he relented, because at that time the island didn’t have any primary school.

Dad was no crystal ball gazer. So, he had no clue that one day his own son would be a student of that hallowed institution he had helped start under somewhat dubious circumstances. Among my few memories of that school is the headmaster walking with a bamboo stalk as tall as me, which he used with fair degree of regularity on the backs of several of my classmates but never once on the son of his benefactor.

I have no complaints about my first school. The medium of instruction was Bengali. Thank God for that! I can read and write in Bangla, my mother tongue. Though English was taught only from the fourth grade, my mother taught me at home, which kept me in good stead in later years.

I have often asked my parents why they ever left the beautiful Andamans and moved to this godforsaken city of nine months of summer. Their answer? Better schooling for me.

So, you see, it is in my genes -- this quest for better schooling. And now my parents and the other parent of my son have joined forces to ensure the best possible education is not denied to the youngest Chakravarty.

The Great Debate in the Chakravarty household for sometime now has raged around which school should Ritwik go to. The three major participants in this debate are clear that they want to have a significant say in Ritwik’s schooling and with good reason too. My father has always seen himself as the patriarch of the Charavartys and in most matters (including this one) he is quietly confident that he knows what is best. My mother was a school teacher for thirty years and is of the opinion that she has an inside track on how school admissions work. My wife... well, she’s the mother of Ritwik and who else can know what is best for the child?

As the relative merits of Springdales (“it is not too far from where we live”) are weighed against that of Delhi Public School ("oh it is a nice school, but do we really want our child to grow up and send dirty MMS of his classmates?”) in heated discussions on the dinner table, there is a general unanimity on two counts.

First, that the best school is easily St. Columbus. “Arun Jaitley is from there”, says my BJP-very friendly dad, and my wife adds happily: “Shah Rukh Khan is from Columbus too.” (Now, to me, they are two reasons as good as any why Ritwik should NOT go to Columbus.)

And, second, Ritwik needs to be proficent in English. Konwledge of the language is an absolute must, if one has to study in Columbus or any of the other sainted institutions.

I don’t remember a lot of my life in Diglipur. One of the few things I do remember, was a pleasant Sunday morning when my mother was busy packing our stuff. A month before that, my father had received transfer orders to Delhi. As soon as the orders arrived, my mother immediately started on my English lessons, worried that my lack of proficiency in the language could hold me back during admission. Since she left for work early in the morning, the task fell upon my Dad to give me a crash course in English.

On this morning , as my Ma guided the team of packers, she smiled at me and asked how were my English lessons with my father going. I said they were going just fine. She asked me what all I had picked up. I stood up, walked to the middle of the room, and beckoned my mother to join me. She was slightly surprised, then came and stood next to me. I smiled at her and said “I go.” And then moved to the door, where I told her, “You go.”

She clapped her hands and said “very good… now what else have you learnt?”. I looked a bit lost, and said “But this is all Dad has been teaching me over the past month.” She looked at me incredulously and said, “You expect me to believe that? That for one month your Dad has just done this.. this ‘I go, you go’ routine and nothing else?”

It became suddenly crystal clear to me that Dad’s teaching efforts had fallen way short of my mother’s expectations. I stood there and shrugged helplessly, feeling vaguely defensive about my Dad’s English teaching skills.

As I filled in my mother about my recently-acquired knowledge of English, my father quietly sat in the verandah and sipped another cup of tea, blissfully unaware of the woes that were about to visit him. I watched from the window, he took the tongue-lashing that followed rather manfully. He sipped the last of his tea, folded the newspaper neatly and kept it on the table before him, looked at my mother with a dead pan expression and said “I go”, as he walked out of the house.

A few hours later I could hear his jaunty footsteps return. I looked out of the window of my room. He stood there on the porch, looking at peace with himself, secure in the knowledge that the storm had blown over. At that moment, I felt immensely happy that this man was my father and I was his son.

Almost four decades later, history is about to be repeated in the Chakravarty household. Another mother is spending sleepless nights about her son’s proficiency in English and how that could be central to his admission in a school of our choice. I am Bengali, my wife is Sindhi. To Ritwik’s credit he has picked up a bit of both the languages. But he feels most comfortable in Hindi. He understands English, but other than occasional monosyllabic responses, prefers to speak only in Hindi – a situation that my family is desperately trying to remedy.

As he is bombarded with English words, poems, lyrics and songs, poor Ritwik is very confused. For, most words, immediately after they have been spoken, are almost immediately translated in triplicate, and often at a pace that is bewildering for a four year old mind. Thus, a chhaata (Bengali) becomes chhatri (Hindi) and then quickly is described as umbrella (English). The level of Ritwik’s confusion is evident in his response.

So, the other day when it rained, and my son wanted to go to the nearby park, Ritwik almost stepped out into the rain, then backed off and somewhat breathlessly asked his mother : “Mama, where is my Chhatrella?”

My parents looked devastated, my wife looked stricken, the dreams of a St. Columbus school admission melting away quickly.

As for me, I tried my best to imitate the calm look on my father’s face on that balmy Sunday Diglipur afternoon many many years ago.

The Ligament Lament

I am not the resolute sort, so new year resolutions are not for me. With that confession out of the way, I must confess that both as a journalist and a history buff, I am often guided by dates. And while resolutions are not quite my style, the first day of the first month of the year is as good a time as any to take stock of things, personal and otherwise.

A checklist of things to do, some of which have rather alarmingly figured year after year. For as long as I can remember, losing weight has been part of the new year wish list.

A logical corollary is cutting down alcohol consumption. The massive hangover I usually nurse on the first day of the year serves as a painful reminder of what needs to be done. Unfortunately good sense prevails only till the next binge. But then, when did reason stand a fair chance against Smirnoff?

In recent times, another wish has made its presence felt -- to write a book. Going by the spectacular lack of progress on this front, this wish appears to be going the same way as the weight loss one.

So on the first day of this year, I sat in the park with my four-year-old son and shared a rare honest moment with myself. As I absentmindedly watched Ritwik conjure new ways to hurt himself, my mind dwelt on the year ahead, on the to-do list. I thought of Ritwik's school admission, about finally moving into a new house, about how India was going to fare in cricket (at that point the Sydney Test hadn't been played yet). I thought how I needed to right a wrong -- a promise made to a friend had to be kept and a contract signed with his partner to be honoured. That was top on the list of my priorities.

And then there was the little matter of a new blog. When I first started blogging, at least two friends -- one in the US and the other one in Dilli, him a philosopher-scientist masquerading as a software programmer-turned-entrepreneur and her a journalist doing a splendid impersonation of an accountant -- were seriously sceptical about how long I would continue to blog. It took about two months to silence the doubters and six more to prove that their original misgivings were not entirely unfounded.

After a break of couple of months, I thought I would start the new year with a new blog. Nothing dramatically different than last year. But one that would hopefully feature more stories of my travels, a blog with more pictures and a blog that would feature writings from friends and like-minded people. A more interactive, a more inclusive blog.

That was ten days -- and a lifetime -- ago. Since then I contrived to make the simple task of stepping out of my car appear rather difficult by landing on the side of my foot and tearing the ligament behind my right knee. So much for the first day of the first month of the year.

I am in good company. I am told the Indian fast bowler Zaheer Khan has a similar injury. The friendly neighbourhood orthopedic has my right leg wrapped in a contraption that is rather unimaginatively described as a knee immobiliser. A leg paralyzer would be a more apt description. Once you wear the knee immobiliser, you feel so much pain in your entire leg that you quickly forget the painful ligament.

I can't honestly make up my mind what is more painful -- the torn ligament or the prospect of wearing this contraption, which would have surely found pride of place in Sade's dungeon, for six more weeks.