For whom my heart beats!

Heart of the matter: Yours Truly with Dr Mukund Deshpande

Raju Korti
I learned long time ago that some people would rather die than forgive. It is a strange truth but forgiveness is a difficult process that doesn't happen overnight. Its an evolution of the heart. I, however, have a more distressing affliction. That of a sentimental heart and a skeptical mind. Usually in the race to supremacy the former wins and that is what brings me to my doctor friends who have contributed -- literally and figuratively -- to my fragile heart beating as normally as it should.
I didn't have a weak heart. I developed one with my supreme negligence and procrastination. Finally, when the pumping station in my chest started protesting severely through unstable beats and labored breathing, I knocked the doors of my brilliant cardiologist friend Dr Mukund Deshpande. One look at my erratic ECG and he told me that there would have to be an angiography the next day. Within minutes of that small process, he announced, "there are far too many blockages. Angioplasty won't do, a coronary bypass is called for." He was kind enough not to tell me that I was on the brink but used measured words to say as much. So there I was in the Intensive Care Unit wondering what fate would befall me. But I wasn't dealing with a friend. I was dealing with someone, who in hindsight, was God's own emissary. I was in a safe pair of hands that had presided over thousands of angioplasties. A few days later, I lay supine as they carried me to the operation theatre for the surgery of my life(time). A bypass is no big deal these days but in my case, I was on tenterhooks with my condition not particularly good.
Convinced, I wouldn't open eyes post-surgery, there was this usual melodrama where my kith and kin shed copious tears and me not showing how scared I was. I even told my family that they must look after my wife in case "anything happened to me". So it was nothing short of a miracle when my eyes opened to survive a "follow on" so generously granted by my friend.
Eight days later I was discharged from the hospital, but I hadn't counted on the roller coaster ride that lay ahead. A few more complications later, I had to be re-hospitalized, confronted by the possibility of a dialysis since the kidney had shut down. Two other doctor friends of mine Dr Suhas Deshpande and Dr Ravindra Bhonsule monitored me almost round the clock. The first miracle didn't turn out to be a fluke and I survived another grueling spell to be hurtled into another. This time, it was breathlessness worse than my pre-surgery period. However, a good head and a good heart make for a formidable combination. I went through another surgical process through which they extracted a jar full of fluid from my debilitated lungs. At that point, providence decided that it had put me through enough tests and I started my way to recovery, albeit slowly. Of course, I am not still fully fit but I am optimistic enough to stare at the prospects of a me sprinting like Dev Anand did while singing "khoya khoya chand" in a few months from now.
You don't really thank your friends for what all that they do for you but I have decided to throw all informality to the winds and thank them profusely for giving me a new lease of life. I know they won't be happy with my proposing a vote of thanks like this on a public forum but as I have borne earlier, I had a weak heart, now I have a weaker one. And tears come from the heart and not the head.
My doctor friends have their head firmly planted on the shoulders. So it was perfectly in tune when one of them messaged me this today, the World Heart Day. "You walk for me one hour everyday and I will run for you forever: Your Heart."
I cannot and don't want to even imagine where I would be today were it not for these childhood pals who have given a heart that beats with joy and gratitude. I am saying this from the bottom of my heart.

Romancing with Dev Anand

Phoolon ke rang se:Dev Anand with Kishore Kumar

Raju Korti
I had my first dekko of the magnetic Dev Anand way back in 1982 when he was at a local theatre for the screening of his film Swami Dada. The owner of the theatre Jawaharlal Munot was his huge fan and made it sure all his films were first released in his theatre. The film, of course bombed at the box office, as it happened with all Dev Anand films in the post Hare Rama Hare Krishna period. But that was of least consequence to this Adonis-like man because people came to watch him first and last, story and direction be damned.
If he was conscious of his iconic status, Dev Anand never showed it but what was always in evidence was he wore his trademark chivalry and charm on his sleeve. Add to those a devastating toothy smile riding on a confident swagger and you had a package you would rarely see in your mundane world. Therefore it wasn't altogether surprising when he found time out from throwing his charisma around and agreed for a hearty tete-a-tete. In the course of that conversation, I realized that he never stalled any of my questions and answered them with a candor refreshingly different from those of his ilk. At the end of it, he smilingly granted his autograph on a picture of his I had kept in my possession for years as a smitten fan. It took some time for me to come to terms with the fact that he had drawn liberally from his irresistible charm to make me feel I was more important than him. A decade later, I found out he did that to everyone fortunate to cross his path.
God knows what he liked about me but he would call me now and then to his milestone Navketan Studios in Mumbai's posh suburban Bandra to spend time talking about this and that over a "sukha bhel" which seemed to be his favourite snack. I would find him smothered and surrounded by a maze of newspapers and magazines, yet his handsome, smiling face would pop out of them and he would get up from his chair to shake hands that seemed to be softer than butter.
Whenever I veered my discussion to his pre-eminent status as one of the trinity along with Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand would dismiss it with his brand stylish nod. He knew generations were in his awe and he didn't have to make a big deal about his suave and urbane looks or demeanor. So the discussion would be about Politics and other social, cultural events. Just how well informed he was came through sharply in his incisive comments draped with a language that seemed to be a fascinating fusion between literature and colloquial. Never personal or prejudiced in his views, he had this unique trait of being frank without hurting anyone. With Dev Anand, diplomacy stood no chance before his charm.
I suspect that he had carefully cultivated the image of a man who never looked behind. Nostalgia got to him as well although he spoke with a sense of detachment. There was regret but no hurt when he spoke of his failures -- as a film-maker or about his love life. (The only exceptions were his disappointment with the failure of English version of Guide made by Tad Daniewlsky and Zeenat Aman). That must have been quite an ask since one yesteryear actress Shakila (of CID-1956) told me that it was impossible to believe that all his leading actresses had not fallen in love with him at some point of time or the other. Obviously, he broke many a heart when he married Kalpana Kartik in a simple and hush hush marriage on the sets of Taxi Driver (1954). Married or not, he kept swooning men and women for decades with a charisma that almost bordered on witchery. Remember that popular fable about how he was asked not to wear a Black suit because women would fall off from their chairs watching him. He was God's chosen one for whom Time had shown the unusual courtesy of standing still.
The only person I found him in awe of was composer SD Burman. More often than not our chats were centered around his music majorly made by Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar. I mention Rafi first since he delivered better compared to Kishore. But Dev Anand was convinced that Kishore went on his lips better and this Burman Dada knew well. On his part, Dada knew how to serve both the aces which prompted Dev Anand to believe that Rafi was good for Ghazals and Kishore better for the lighter ones. Given his conviction, I saw the futility of saying anything otherwise. But on several occasions, I heard him say that "Abhi na jao chhodkar" (Hum Dono-1961) as the last word in romanticism. After all, wasn't he the one who had some stake to knowledge about music because he belted out KL Saigal in company with Sahir Ludhianvi and some others on the Shivaji park "katta" in the early fifties? He once told me in his slightly nasal drawl "I admire two people -- one Paul Muni and the other Dada Muni" (Ashok Kumar).
Among his more notable characteristic was his razor-sharp memory. He surprised everyone by calling people by their first names even when he had met them decades back. He would also remember the dress one wore during his first meeting with him. He never lost his famed reflexes till the end.
For someone who ate very frugally, Dev Anand packed a lot of punch in his speech and verve in his action. "I can survive on one plain sandwich for a couple of days. When you eat less, you think more" he once told me. It was this Spartan eating as also a very disciplined lifestyle that saw him becoming weak towards the end. The flesh failed but never the spirit. At airports, he would lug his suitcases and felt it an affront to use a wheelchair when asked to take one during his last visit to UK from where he never returned. True to his character, he never wanted anyone to see him dead. He took his youthful elixir to his grave.
If you are wondering why I took four years to write a blog on him, the simple answer is I never ever believed he has died. You don't write the obituary of a person who remains alive in your memory.
Today I miss his dry bhel and youthful exuberance like hell. My most enduring memory would be his addressing me as Raju Guide, the character he essayed in Guide (1965).
A non conformist of sorts, Dev Anand knew the terms and conditions of growing old but never agreed with them. He was drunk in love and romance and high on life. A true God of Happiness.
 

The last refuge of the hapless

Aylan Kurdi washed ashore, a wake up call

Raju Korti
It took the death of a three-year-old toddler Aylan Kurdi to shake the collective conscience of the world. The boy with Kurdish ethnic background drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in the thick of the Syrian refugee crisis. It has rightly triggered a debate on how humanity should deal with a crisis of plenty unleashed by wars and ethnic strife.
The situation across Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey is no different with people crossing borders and travelling many kilometers within their own country to find respite from war. As things go, the magnitude of the problem is now truly global as thousands have crossed continents and have ended up in Europe seeking the same respite. By and large it's taken Europe by surprise. Opinions vary on how to deal with the crisis. Some say Europe and the US should step up. Others say the rich Gulf states should use their enormous wealth to help. But international diplomacy and politics are not necessarily guided by compunctions or human conscience.
The trouble is the word "refugee crisis" can be understood in many convenient ways but one can comprehend its true magnitude and seriousness only when one sees the pictures of the Aylan Kurdi kind. Frenzied families swarming a Hungarian train station, their children sleeping on floors and sidewalks, fearing Hungary will intern them in sinister-sounding "camps," Greek tourism towns filling with tents and with humanitarian workers, to accommodate the rickety boats of refugees that arrive daily at the shores have made for disturbing pictures in the Western Media.
If statistics are to be believed, more than 19 million people have been forced to flee their home countries because of war, persecution, and oppression, and everyday an estimated 40,000 plus more join them. Majority of these head for Europe, which is why the crisis there appears most severe.
It appears that there are a couple of laminations to this aggravating situation. The first is more obvious: Overlapping web of wars and crises that has forced millions of people from their homes in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere. By default and perforce, it has bridged their gap  with Europe. And the European nations are at their wit's ends on how the crisis should be looked at.
In the second, there is something more than meets the eye. Western countries with all their wealth, are averse to take a sympathetic view of the situation. In fact, there is a growing anti-refugee politics as peoples of these countries feel insecure over the effects of immigration. So despite well equipped to handle such a crisis, these nations remain preoccupied with vague but long-held ideas about national identity, are driving nativist, populist politics, and thus policies that contribute to the crisis. The biggest driver of the crisis is Syria. Reports say nearly a fifth of Syria's population has fled the country since the war began in 2011. The Bashar al-Assad's regime there has targeted civilians ruthlessly, including with chemical weapons and barrel bombs while the ISIS has subjected Syrians to murder, torture, crucifixion, sexual slavery, and other appalling atrocities. Although majority Syrian refugees have ended up in shoddy camps in neighboring countries, there seems to be a growing realization that they may never get to return to their homeland. That has forced them on a hazardous and unsafe journey to flee to Europe. Syria is not the only one. The crisis in Somalia and Afghanistan is similar though not as acute. Political, sectarian oppression and economic migration have forced the hands of people in a dire situation fraught with deathly consequences.
The Arab Spring was perhaps the biggest spark of the global refugee crisis. The turmoil against Col Gaddafi saw the country erupt into chaos. But refugees and economic migrants didn't hesitate to use the African country as a conduit for cross-Mediterranean journey to Europe. It had a cascading effect as only expected. It led to war in Syria, conflict in Yemen, and eventually, to the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Within Europe, countries like Hungary and Austria have introduced stiff checks to deter the refugees.
As the crisis threatens to spill out of control, it appears the European Union (EU) is either unable or reluctant to deal with it though it must be conceded that there are some technical issues that tie the EU's hands. So far, the only countries to take a moral high ground are Germany, Belgium and Denmark by allowing asylum to the refugees. It conclusively proves that it is not the money factor but the anti-immigration policies that the western countries are more bothered about. With the exception of Germany, each country is trying to push the burden on somebody else, which means nobody is actually trying to handle the crisis, which means the crisis is getting worse all the time.
Circa 1971 during the liberation of Bangladesh when lakhs of refugees spilled over to India to escape the tyranny let loose by Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and India true to its policy of Atithi Devo Bhava (guest is God), accommodated them all in a humanitarian gesture.
So is the refugee crisis a humanitarian one or one that concerns national security? Each country may look at it from its own vantage point but the bottom line remains that it is the last refuge of the hapless.

Some thoughts on cricketers' retirement

The face says it all. Michael Clarke

Raju Korti
While tongues have been wagging aplenty -- for justified reasons -- about the new-found and undue aggression exhibited by the Indian cricketers with the man at helm Virat Kohli leading the brigade from the front, a series of events seems to have gone quietly unnoticed.
Australian wicket-keeper Brad Haddin is the latest to hang up his boots following similar announcements made by erstwhile captain Michael Clarke, Shane Watson and Chris Rogers after their team's dismal showing in the recently concluded Ashes.
If the long-standing Australian view that "they play their cricket the hard way" is taken on face value, it deserves the merit it calls for. More so when you know these are all pugnacious players who wear their cricketing spirit on their sleeve. So it is not altogether surprising they quit when the going is not good before it becomes an unpleasant task for the Australian Cricket Board to axe them. Mind you Chris Rogers has announced retirement despite having a very profitable Ashes series and he could have easily stuck around on that factor alone, his age notwithstanding. But cricketers elsewhere in the world, with the honorable exception of Indians, go without fuss and sometimes even unsung. No benefit matches and no endorsements or perks. In India, the retirement of a player -- if he has had a good record -- is accompanied by a high emotional quotient, mostly anguish and resentment. With the Board of Control for Cricket (BCCI) in India flush with moneybags, cricketers fight shy of  retiring until there is a huge outcry from people who ardently believe that a player's place in the team should not be taken for granted and on past merit alone.
There is a specious concession in the argument that great players should be allowed the liberty to hang around and not pressured until they quit on their own. The Indian cricketers know this very well. So they keep playing until they can extract their last Pound. The fact that Sunil Gavaskar (arguably the world's best opening batsman) and Rahul Dravid quit in their prime are exceptions that only prove the rule. Even Sachin Tendulkar, who was not a shadow of himself in the twilight of his career, was a subject of heated debate whether cricketers like him should be allowed the freedom to go of their own volition.
In a nation where the public frenzy for a cricketer far exceeds the excitement generated by the game, the BCCI with all its power and might, does not have the guts to ask a player to resign for the fear of rubbing people the wrong way. It is typically Indian to make a cricketer larger than life who should go on his own terms. This thinking has more negatives than positives. Remember in the past, there were instances of "No Durrani, no Test, No Bedi, no Test" down to "No Dhoni, no Test". While age was fast catching up with a cavalier Salim Durrani, the otherwise wily Bedi had lost his sting as proved from the hiding he got from the then Pakistani team which had Zaheer Abbas, Javed Miandad, Asif Iqbal, Majid Khan and Mushtaq Mohammed. Bedi was retired more by the Pakistani players than the Indian Board. In contrast, the dour grafter Geoff Boycott was dropped for "crawling to a double century" against India at Leeds in 1967 while the elegant Ken Barrington was booted out for the torturous Century against New Zealand in 1965. You couldn't have lost the irony that two years later Boycott and Barrington had dominated the Headingley Test with a century partnership remembered more for its eminently forgettable nature. In its wisdom the English Cricket Board (ECB) felt that the game could "not afford to put in the shop window a joyless effort of this sort". Scoring a Test hundred is the highlight of many players' careers; a double-century is an even more cherished landmark. But there are occasions when the score itself is less important than the way the runs are grafted. That the ECB brought in one-feet-in-grave Colin Cowdrey to counter the resurgent Australian team in 1974 was probably an aberration but Cowdrey realized quickly that his reflexes were no longer equipped to tackle the likes of Lillee and Thomson and bowed out. Weigh this against the Kapil Dev case where the selectors helped him to get past then Test record holder Richard Hadlee. Towards the end, the Haryana Hurricane was at best a mild breeze and had to labor hard for the record.
The truth is many cricketers cannot come to terms with life after retirement  having courted huge public adulation and made their riches. I would particularly like to mention the Englishman David Bairstow who committed suicide out of sheer depression, not knowing how he would cope with life after retirement. When more than 800 people attended his funeral, former skipper Ray Illingworth said "If David had known he had so many friends, he wouldn't have done what he did."
Renowned writer David Frith with a research of over thirty years makes a pertinent observation in his compelling book Silence of the Heart: "Is it because cricketers are less capable than footballers or boxers of coming to terms with the void of early middle-age retirement from the thrill of the arena and the close camaraderie of the game?" In the Indian context, the answer is "yes".
Coming back to Haddin, he had to wait until Adam Gilchrist quit but he was already thirty then. It is remarkable how he takes retirement in his stride. ""Once you've lost that will to get up and do the things you need to do to play for Australia, it's time to walk away. I've had a great run and I couldn't be happier with the way I'm leaving the game."
I can't for my life fathom why cricketers dread post-retirement blues when there are other avenues that can still connect them with the game. Many have made as much a name as commentators or administrators as they did as players. The comment by a friend sums it up all: "Finally, it is a sport. It is what the cricketers do to themselves that causes turmoil."

An endless frustration called Whatsapp

Raju Korti
Some people come in your life as blessings, some as lessons! This profound quote  is not a produce from my fertile imagination but a default truth I learnt from my harrowing experiences on Whatsapp. In a nation deep fried in communication advances it is becoming appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. The real problem is not whether technology thinks but whether men do.
The object of my latest vexation is not Whatsapp per se but the blatant, brazen and unabashed use of the medium by and large. Like any other application, it is a double-edged weapon. You either use it or abuse it but as it usually goes, abuse takes precedence.
As someone who was brought into the relentlessly taxing world of Whatsapp with marked reluctance, I qualify myself to be its foremost critic. Having joined any number of groups -- by choice or by compulsion -- I am finding it to my chagrin that the medium is fast becoming a spectacular heap of garbage piled on by a community that seems to be blessed with more than 24 hours a day and patience that deserves a left-handed compliment.
Each time I get a Whatsapp beep on my hapless cell phone, I shudder at the prospect of seeing videos, images, sundry quotes and hearsay stories that do precious little service to my sense of Education, Entertainment and Information. That, despite conceding that all three are open to individual definition in an era where humans are so close and yet so far.
Your headache uploads once you have downloaded the application. It is an open challenge to your sensitivity depending on whether or how much of it you own. It is almost akin to smokers ruining their lives and shortchanging that of the passive smokers whose only fault is to be present at the wrong place, wrong time.
Your day begins with "Good Mornings" and prospers with an assorted images, videos, unsubstantiated "forwards" and a host of quotes that no one apparently seems to be interested in. I have been in active Media for well over 38 years but I am yet to come to terms with the huge amount of communication congestion that suffocates my Whatsapp. You have to open it each time you receive a message because you never know when you would be messaged something important even in the midst of a mindless shindig that bombards you almost round the clock. I have woken up at unearthly hours to find out videos, images or jokes sent by one person to another and your only fault is you happen to be a part of that group. Talk of collateral damage!
The sender is blissfully unaware of the long videos or pictures that test the patience of the receiver. They take ages to download and if you have succeeded at all, your frustration comes out like the hiss of a punctured tyre because you wonder how they concerned you in the first place.In all probability, the jokes transmitted are doing rounds since ages and the blind "forwards" without any authenticity. Sometimes I wonder whether these are the work of a sadistic mind. The biggest joke is people who do this are often seen complaining about the senseless and irrelevant stuff they get on their phone. So they just make sure that they are not the lone sufferers.
I do not want to paint everyone with the same brush. There is a miniscule number that uses the application judiciously and sensibly, desisting from circulating inconsequential and sometimes panic-spreading material. Of course, it needs application and time to produce and generate so much output that comes free of cost anyway and can become public consumption at the press of a button. Technology is so much fun but we have the capacity to drown in our own technology. The fog of information can also drive out the fog of knowledge. Have we become the tools of our tools?
And to rub it in, we have the standard status that says "Hey there, I am using Whatsapp."