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The cover says it all

Raju Korti
In 2010, Newsweek named Tehelka's Managing Editor Shoma Chaudhury as "150 women who shake the world." That honour, I am afraid, has been pinched right from under her nose by the man who has so sanctimoniously claimed to have pioneered new precedents in journalism.
Let me say this upfront and it is not in hindsight. I was never charmed by the name Tehelka. It seemed to promise the kind of sensationalism that the Media of today euphemistically terms as "investigative journalism". The high profile Tarun Tejpal lived up to that reputation but while making a promising start, he eventually succumbed to the guiles of public titillation. From the awkward spot of bother that he finds himself in at the moment, he also seems to have caved in to the indiscretion that he thought was in private domain.
Instant deification and instant denigration come easily in a country with a usually mercurial mindset. Heroes fall by the wayside within no time of their stardom. The temptation to sit on judgment on someone's moral character may perhaps be the easiest thing to do, but Tejpal has not allowed this luxury to his critics. In a much expansive statement befitting the stature of a noble man, he has passed a verdict on his own culpability as "bad lapse of judgment". It also speaks volumes of the delusions of grandeur he suffers from the hallowed -- now hollowed -- portals he sermonizes from.
After his abortive adventure in an elevator, Tejpal predictably got holier than though.
"The last few days have been most testing, and I squarely take the blame for this... A bad lapse of judgment, an awful misreading of the situation, have led to an unfortunate incident that rails against all we believe in and fight for. I have already unconditionally apologized for my misconduct to the concerned journalist, but I feel impelled to atone further."
"I feel atonement cannot be just words. I must do the penance that lacerates me. I am therefore offering to recuse myself from the editorship of Tehelka, and from the Tehelka office, for the next six months."
These lines, coming from an assertive man, are befuddling to say the least. Lapse of a judgment might be an aberration allowed to all human beings but when Tejpal calls it an "unfortunate" incident, one gets the unmistakable feeling that he is giving a clean chit to himself when the job should have been left to the Law. Sexual harassment does not happen unfortunately. It is a willful and deliberate act committed by an individual harboring notions of unconquerable supremacy. Given the clout that he wielded from his vantage point, the argument of a "bad lapse of judgment" leading to an "unfortunate" incident is not tenable by any stretch of human compassion.
There is an element of inadvertent humor in Tejpal's claim that he "misread" the situation. It is almost as if he is trying to justify the act as -- at best or worst -- ill timed. But then, sensitivity is not in the scheme of things when "Tehelka" is the leit motif. The name seemed to give the institution a license to expose wrongdoings with any available stick to beat. It plumbed new depths by providing prostitutes to army officers to expose the black sheep in uniform with a specious "ends justify the means". Bolstered by those subscribing to this Robinhood-ish philosophy, it probably did not occur to its overzealous, over-patriotic minds that the modus operandi was not in sync with healthy journalism.
In an obvious attempt to throw a blanket on his guilt, he speaks of the need to “do the penance that lacerates me.” In those tempered words lies a message: It was just an aberration and not a crime. My  relinquishing the office for six months should be an atonement enough.
In his unbounded wisdom, Tejpal has forgotten the Indian Penal Code that hands down punishment for sexual misconduct. Much, in a manner of speaking, "I am my own judge because I am Tarun Tejpal. I set my own standards at redemption."
The timing of the lid blown off this scandal is even more appalling. It comes at a time when Tejpal makes an international toast of himself with his purported authority in raising issues involving moral turpitude.
At the moment it is not clear how the young woman is coping with the lacerations inflicted by Tejpal and now sought to be mollified with words couched in reparation. It is besides the point how she responds to Tejpal's grandiose penance but the law certainly has a duty to do even if it concerns the high an mighty founder of a magazine embroidered in lurid and pulp.
 

Retired but not tired!

Raju Korti

Sketch courtesy my DNA colleague Bhagvan Das

"When Sachin Tendulkar travelled to Pakistan to face one of the finest bowling attacks ever assembled in cricket, Michael Schumaker was yet to race a F1 car, Lance Armstrong had never  been to the Tour de France, Diego Maradona was still the captain of a world champion Argentina team and Pete Sampras had never won a Grand Slam. When Tendulkar embarked on a glorious career taming Imran and Company, Roger Federer was a name unheard of, Lionel Messi was in his nappies, Usain Bolt was an unknown kid in the Jamaican backwaters. The Berlin Wall was still intact, USSR was one big, big country, Dr Manmohan Singh was yet to "open the Nehruvian economy. It seems while Time was having toll on every individual on the face of this planet, it excused one man. Time stands frozen in front of Sachin Tendulkar. We have had champions, we have had legends, but we have never had another Sachin Tendulkar and we never will."
Time magazine

It was end 1989 when I was about to lose my cherished bachelorhood at the altar of a martyrdom (read marriage) when the baby-faced, curly-haired Sachin Tendulkar walked into the Indian Test team facing a prospect -- which to use a mild word, was "daunting".
Immediately after, cricketing circles were abuzz -- and for right reasons -- that the young man's very first tour to the hostile and inimical Pakistan would be baptism by fire. No one gave the boy, barely out of his puffy teens, an outside chance to survive the onslaught of the likes of Imran Khan, Wasin Akram and Waqar Younis. A few weeks later, the famed fast bowling trio was eating out of its hands as the "sacrificial lamb" whacked them all over the park. The Phenomenon had arrived.
It is not my case to incommode you with all the tiresome statistics and records that the man tucked under his ebullient hat for 24 years and 200 Tests. But I have vivid memories of a crestfallen Wasim Akram sporting an apologetic smile each time his rocket-like bouncer was hooked with ferocity and ruthlessness and Waqar's helpless demeanour as his shoe-crushers were merrily crashed straight past him with the heavy bat that many thought the 16-year-old boy wouldn't be able to even lift. As my fellow journalist friend Mayank Chhaya says: "The straight drive defines the very aesthetics of cricket. Throughout his 24 years as a cricketer Sachin Tendulkar defined the very aesthetics of the straight drive. Tendulkar’s straight drive is a work of art and needs to be forever installed in a great museum."
Sachin presented a new face of Indian batting when most batsmen from the sub continent fought shy of standing up to the short-pitched stuff with the notable exception of Sunil Gavaskar and Mohinder Amarnath. Sachin didn't stonewall them to dig in. He smote them brutally and took the shine off the ball with an array of breath-taking copybook and unorthodox shots. After the first of his hundred hundreds, they just kept coming with spectacular regularity. So much so that counting those hundreds became a merely academic exercise. In fact, he gave the coveted landmark tinges of mediocrity. A century from his blade was a given and the man hardly missed his dates with them.
Comparisons, unfair though, hardly distracted Sachin for, he had everything else that his contemporaries didn't. While making life miserable for bowlers all over the world, he also didn't give a minute's respite to statisticians who had to fill their pens with ink to keep pace with the runs that he kept plundering. Every team was humbled in its own backyard, whatever the nature of pitch.
One does not occupy a space in people's hearts with just exploits. Even as accolades, money and awards kept falling in his kitty, Sachin exhibited one aspect of his character that many either lose or divorce when fame and recognition come their way.
On a few occasions that I caught up with the man, he had this uncanny ability -- off the field -- to underplay himself. He was, of course, difficult to get through to, but when one did, he was humble and genial to a fault. Never ever carrying the burden of the reputation he had to guard all the time. Having followed his enviably long career until today when a beholden Indian Government honoured him with the Bharat Ratna, I suspect that Sachin, apart from honing his batting skills, also practiced the fine art of displaying a self-effacing demeanour. You might have seen even a normally unruffled Rahul Dravid sporting a frown but never so with Sachin. He was stoic and took bad decisions and publicity with a face as straight as his bat. Recall the manner in which he conducted himself following the Monkeygate. While the other players in that controversy -- Matt Hayden and Ponting huffed and puffed, Sachin stood firm in rebutting them with a dignity that some of our new generation players like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma need to imbibe. The pangs of an unfair decision were dropped by the wayside during his nocturnal car rides on the streets of Bandra. Sign of a man who had his head firmly on his shoulders.
At the cost of sounding a little uncharitable, I dare say that this was a Sachin Tendulkar who marketed his humility exceedingly well, never wearing his achievements on his sleeves. It sent the right signals to a legion of fans who had already conferred the status of a demi-god on his durable shoulders. At the other end of the spectrum, there were also the discerning few who saw an unending greed in the fellow as his coffers kept swelling to make him the richest sportsperson in the country -- and maybe among the world.
True, in the last four years, Sachin was a mere shadow of himself that many of us were privileged to watch in his prime. His batting had become laboured and runs were grafted rather than being plundered as was his won't. Criticism was becoming increasingly strident that he stuck to his place in the team at the cost of languishing new talent and as someone who was believed to be too big for the BCCI's boots. No one had the guts to tell him that it was time for a "safe passage" unlike the legendary Sunil Gavaskar who hung up his boots in his prime. With Sachin there was no question of "Why not" instead of "why" because these were norms applicable to only lesser mortals. That, however, was a tactical blunder condoned  in lieu of all those majestic years that Sachin became an integral and inseparable part of the country's psyche. And although Sachin divided the country on the issue of his retirement, it was his charisma that ensured "all is well that ends well."
As a fitting tribute to the maestro, I suggest that his playing longevity be acknowledged by the benchmark of counting cricketing years in terms of "After Tendulkar (AT) and Before Tendulkar (BT). Just as they do for other mortals in terms of AD and BC.
What say?

Don of the Night!

Raju Korti
“Night falls. Or has fallen. Why is it that night falls, instead of rising, like the dawn? Yet if you look east, at sunset, you can see night rising, not falling; darkness lifting into the sky, up from the horizon, like a black sun behind cloud cover. Like smoke from an unseen fire, a line of fire just below the horizon, brushfire or a burning city. Maybe night falls because it’s heavy, a thick curtain pulled up over the eyes. Wool blanket.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale    

All that is dark is not bleak!
As Nature marches on relentlessly -- taking its own course -- and the fatigued day recedes and relapses into a quiescent night, idyll takes over. Its the time you can hear grass grow and flowers bloom, their heady fragrant blende permeating the ambience. Nocturnal bliss is fortified by the gentle zephyr that regains its lost chastity and Hope revives in the dreamless strut to another dawn.
Somewhere in the midst of this seamless advance, creativity takes over. Living daylights beaten, inventive finesse begins to grapple with meandering thoughts to give them a semblance of substance.
The silence is deafening but also lends itself to profundity for the Evil and Sinless. The line between sinister and benevolence gets shrouded enough to be seductive. For, nights are also made for torture, reflection and savouring solitude. A Dostoyevski comes up with "The darker the night, the brighter the stars." The eyes, closed or open, make the difference. The Bronte-ian reverie lights up with “I love the silent hour of night, for blissful dreams may then arise, revealing to my charmed sight what may not bless my waking eyes.” "If melancholy are the sounds on a winter night", it is the possibility of darkness that makes the day so bright. Nature is a great leveler. Isn't the sky is very much in place during the night as it is during the day?
Down on Earth, insomniacs scramble to make a virtue out of sleeplessness. For those retiring early, the night is a short, passing sojourn for yet another day of bedlam. The battle between Peace and Strife is also a game of hide and seek of a few hours of clockwork. But the periodic sounds of crickets and gnats set to the background music of the Dark make for a more harmonious sonata.
 And your enlightened soul realizes sleep is but a luxury that you cannot afford.
The Longfellow Effect:
“And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
and silently steal away.” 
stands out visible and stark in the blindness around.
Night might be a time of rigor, but it is also one of mercy. Many truths manifest in the Dark so what if the Moon gets coffined by the clouds. The world courts respite in the night. Trees, mountains, fields, and faces are released from the prison of shape and the burden of exposure. Each thing creeps back into its own nature within the shelter of the dark. Darkness is the ancient womb. Night-time is womb-time. The souls break free and come out to play. The darkness absolves everything; the struggle for identity and impression falls away.
Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day!

PS: Don't exercise too much over this gibberish. The allure of the esoteric can be irresistible at times.