A joke and a conundrum called Pakistan Cricket Board

Raju Korti
If as an avid cricket administration follower you tend to believe that governing boards across cricket playing nations, including our own BCCI back home, are self-styled and run by whimsical people, look at what is happening in Pakistan. The Pakistan Cricket Control Board (PCCB) leaves no stone unturned to jealously guards its reputation as a  long-standing joke, its chairmen replaced with every change of government. The embers of the unseemly controversy refuse to die down even after a regime change and barbs keep flying thick and fast. The unceremonious chucking out of former player and commentator-turned Chairman Ramiz Raja is a case in point.

In Pakistan, nothing seems to go right in any sphere of life as murky politics creeps in at all junctures. Cricket is no exception. It is a virtual free-for-all with players, organisers, governing bodies and self-proclaimed experts constantly engaged in leg pull and rabid criticism of each other. It is as confusing as it is amusing to know who is with whom and who opposes who. The abysmal state of affairs has now taken on the hue of a civil war.

Ramiz Raja is pissed with the way he has been shown the gate and to an extent, one sympathises with him. That is no way to ask the board chairman to eff off especially when he has had a fairly decent stint in different capacities of the game. But Ramiz, normally a subdued man, has lost his cool and his intemperate outbursts have expectedly not gone down well with the board's new management committee which is now headed by journalist Najam Sethi. One wonders whether Sethi, who has had three brief stints in the past as the president/chairman, knows what he has walked into given the mercurial atmosphere that obtains in Pakistan cricket.

The 3-0 whitewash at home from the Englishmen in the recently concluded series signed the death knell for Ramiz although in all fairness, it is befuddling how a mere change in administration can turn teams into winning outfits. Sethi has been brought in by changing the Constitution which happens in Pakistan at the drop of a hat. As Ramiz let loose a verbal fusillade at Sethi on social media platforms and TV, the PCCB swung into action and decided to sue the sacked chief . "The PCCB believes former chairman Mr Raja's comments are aimed at tarnishing and damaging the impeccable reputation of present chairman Mr Sethi, adding it reserves its rights to pursue legal proceedings to protect and defend the image and credibility of its chairman and the institution", the board said in a statement.

That begs the question, what image and what credibility are they talking about when the history of the board is replete with bizarre and arbitrary functioning, its administrators chosen and thrown out for reasons anything but plausible. Right since the mid-50s the PCCB has been in a state of flux, turmoil and wrangling with a series of ad hoc committees named to run the administration.

Since its revamp in the 70s, PCCB has seen the domination of businessmen from Lahore and Karachi with a couple of army officers thrown in to tinker with its Constitution. Earlier, its military head Ayub Khan had made a record of sorts imposing three vice presidents, he himself being one of them, setting the trend to run the board by proxy much like the way the entire country is run by the army in the guise of elected representatives. The match-fixing allegations in 1999 turned the entire establishment topsy turvy. The wheel keeps turning a full circle and Sethi who was hand-picked by then prime minister Nawaz Sharif after dissolving the existing board, also exited. 

Random and irrational changes often made at the instances of vested interests in the powers that be have had debilitating consequences on the players at all levels of the game. The structure of domestic cricket in Pakistan has seen a non-stop roller coaster ride since the country found an independent identity on the world map in 1947. Historically, school and club cricket has also suffered as the top tiers bleed with inadequacies. The games hardly got the marketing boost, unlike in India (the other extreme end) and matches were/are rarely televised due to lack of quality cricket and lack of interest in departmental cricket. Like the proverbial question "egg first or the hen", it is debatable whether these shortcomings were because of lack of interest or it was the lack of interest that saw no efforts at promotion. The tiered structure of administration has never had the time to settle down and bring about any reforms which is a pity for a country that has produced some of the greatest talent in world cricket.

Ramiz's exit is the latest in the string of controversy-dogged Pakistan cricket. He was thrown out at 2 in the early morning by Sethi through a tweet and according to him, he was not even allowed time to take his belongings from the board office. "It was as if I had committed some crime and I would take some incriminating evidence from the office. What tamasha is this? They have come just to enjoy themselves. The new committee is not going to do do Pakistan cricket any good. This is nothing but political vendetta," he fumed, drawing parallels between his and Sethi's administration . While the words 'political vendetta' sum up the general state of affairs in Pakistan, at the roots of the bickering is also issues arising out of financial expenditures.

Since his ouster, Ramiz has been spitting fire at all and sundry including his own former team-mates Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, saying if he had his way, he would have bundled them out in the wake of the Justice Qayyum Committee report on match-fixing allegations in Pakistan. It is not difficult to put two and two together that Ramiz's provocative retaliation also comes from the uncharitable remarks Wasim Akram made against him in his book released recently.   

For good or bad, Ramiz no longer holds the reins. All his grandiose plans to rejuvenate Pakistan cricket have been effectively laid to rest. All he can do now, without any fear of reprisals, is to vent his frustration at India. While there will not be many tears shed for him, one can only wait and watch -- and perhaps guess -- where does Sethi go from here. In Pakistan, tables turn disconcertingly often to turn the sympathiser to sympathised and vice versa. Bring on Ramiz Raja or Wasim Raja, it doesn't matter, Apathy, caprice and high-handedness are the king in a country on whose chessboard the King gets reduced to Pawn and the Pawn catapulted to the King every now and then. The story continues.

Breathing uneasy in Mumbai's choke studio

Raju Korti
It probably might be the most understated exaggeration to say that in an underdeveloped country don't drink the water and in a developed country don't breathe the air. But when you live in a country whose recognition keeps swinging between developed and underdeveloped and more so in a grotesque urban behemoth like Mumbai, you are screwed anywhichways.

For the past few days, the quality of air in Mumbai, expressed in terms of Air Quality Index at over 300, has gone from "poor" to "very poor." Between 280-300 it is just a shade better than worst emergency. Put simply, the greater the level of air pollution the greater the health hazard. In the case of Mumbai, the natural advantages of a healthy environment are put paid to by sheer human apathy. 

As a city blessed with a coastal landscape one would perhaps argue that it is the recipient of a healthy Ozone layer. Insensitivity towards coastal regulations, growing particulate matter, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide have left this financial nerve centre gasping for breath. The deterioration in air quality during this time of the year is not a new phenomenon. In the thick of what Mumbai believes is a winter, a thick blanket of smog and haze play havoc with the citizenry, giving rise to ailments that are eventual death warrants. To attribute the downslide in the Air Quality Index to seasonal changes alone is a travesty of truth, to put it mildly. All other apprehensions in the wake of this hazardous climatic anomaly are conveniently brushed under the carpet with an assurance that the city will breathe easy once the situation eases in a few days.

The fact is Mumbai will reel from poor air quality till end February. The two months are enough to create more chronic patients of asthma, bronchitis, lung infections and many such attendant health risks. Covid was just a red alert that wearing masks was not just a passing phase but a grim reminder that they are now a compulsion.

An estimated 275-300 vehicles are added on to the congested streets of Mumbai every day. While some of these are emission compliant, most spew toxic fumes. Navigating through the city's expressways and arterial roads gives one a first-hand experience of the terrible quality of air they are forced to welcome into their lungs. At this rate Mumbai will tip Delhi with reasons to spare.

For someone like me, living in downmarket suburb of Borivali is a blessing in disguise since the Sanjay Gandhi National Park is close by and the advantages of fresh air far outweigh the dangers of leopards streaking in human habitation. Elsewhere in other pockets, the AQI keeps oscillating between 228 and 280 what with a spate of construction activity queering the pitch. Those who point out to the industries opting out to outskirts forget that vehicular emission and bio-fuel emissions from an uncontrolled and politically patronized slums are a much bigger threat. Climate jargons on weather disturbances are Latin and Greek to people who couldn't care less about the disservice and impairment of the environs they wantonly cause.

Maharashtra Pollution Control Board, the agency implementing environmental legislations believes that the onus of bringing down the AQI in Mumbai rests majorly with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai for whom the health of its coffers is far more important. The civic body seems to have paid little attention to the Mumbai Climate Action Plan which has both short-term and long-term initiatives to mitigate environmental degradation. There has been next to nothing efforts to reduce landfill waste, shifting to zero emission vehicles, boosting biodiversity and, little monitoring. They find solace in their complacency that Mumbai is much better than Delhi.

Someone in the civic body seems to know that unlike Delhi, which is landlocked, Mumbai has a seashore. The sea and land breeze are known to clear the city's pollutants. It also has the added advantage that sea water is CO2 absorbent and has a large tract of forest cover although it is neutralized by the concrete jungle that the city obtains through construction and infrastructure development activity round the year. 

The Maharashtra government tries a crooked trick to control vehicular pollution by allowing potholes to remain unattended but hardened Mumbaikars wouldn't be deterred. As long as Delhi and Kolkata hog centre-stage, everything is hunky dory. As more virgin lands and their greenery get outraged with an endless flurry of new developmental activity, the noose gets tighter. For most people protecting the environment is a luxury and a glorified fad but that is an outdated 20th-century worldview from a time when industrialization was thought of as an end goal, waste as growth and wealth a thick haze of air pollution.

You can choke on that!

(PS: Death by suicide has gained currency. How about Slow Death by Pollution?)

For IFFI jury head Nadav Lapid it was 'kahin pe nigaahen kahin pe nishaana'

Raju Korti
For the past few days I have been watching with a fair bit of amusement the controversy triggered by Israeli film-maker Nadav Lapid after he unequivocally described "The Kashmir Files" as a propaganda-driven and vulgar film. Lapid said this while being the head jury at the 53rd edition of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa.

Lapid pic courtesy Cannes fest 

"The Kashmir Files" written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri centres on the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in the wake of militancy in Kashmir in the early 1990s. The movie was screened at the IFFI on November 22 under the Indian Panorama section. The issue loaded with political overtones, expectedly snowballed into a controversy. As India's ally, the Israeli government was embarrassed that Lapid described the film a "series of cinematic manipulations". The backlash, coming as it did on the Indian soil, was understandably swift and strong. Among the first to condemn his remarks were Israeli ambassador to India Naor Gilon and its Consul General to Midwest India Kobbi Shoshani. The damage was however done.

The prologue to the unsavoury episode had its own twists with IFFI International jury member Sudipto Sen terming Lapid's comments as the latter's "personal opinion" and the former vehemently denying it. Stung to the quick, Agnihotri said he would quit film-making if intellectuals including Lapid were able to prove that events depicted in the film were false.

Lapid has since offered "total apology" if his remarks had been misinterpreted, claiming he had no intentions to insult the Kashmiri Pandits or those who had suffered. There may be some substance in his conclusion that the film was pushed into the IFFI with a political agenda but assessing a film from cinematic point of view and as a political activist are two different things. The 47-year-old film-maker has a fair reputation that precedes him. Without being prejudicial to his remarks and the rationale that he has given, it is surprising that Lapid, who lives in France, chose to say what he did when by his own admission he had little clue about the situation in the militancy-ridden state.

For the record, Lapid is entitled to his views both as a film-maker and an independent person. Apparently, which part of his psyche prompted him to say that is not clear but that is not the issue of my discourse here. What surprises me is how anyone with such a strong sense of conviction can apologise after making a categorical statement he knew would raise political hackles. It is not as if Lapid could not have judged the sensitivity of the issue that he was addressing from a prestigious global platform like the IFFI. To make matters worse, he also tempered his regrets by asserting that he stood by his view nevertheless.

The film-maker's assessment has to be understood from his own political affiliations. He was among the group of influential film-makers that protested against the launch of the Shomron (Samaria/West Bank) Film Fund. According to them Lapid's competition entry "Ahed's Knee" at the Cannes Film Festival had a singular goal of actively participating in whitewashing the Occupation in exchange for financial support and prizes. The Fund's official mandate is to distribute grants to Jewish settlers residing in the West Bank and to productions by Israeli citizens filmed in the West Bank. In one of his interviews, Lapid had said the Israeli collective soul is a sick soul.

I reproduce a paragraph from that interview. "Something in the deepest essence of the Israeli existence is false, is rotten, It's not just Benjamin Netanyahu (currently angling for the prime minister's chair). I think this Israeli sickness or nature is characterized by young Israeli men muscular, smiling, who don't raise any questions and don't have any doubts. They are extremely proud of being Israeli. They have a totally dichotomist vision of existence -- Us versus all the others."

Given this backdrop and his perception one wonders if Lapid wanted to embarrass his own government by speaking about an issue more than he wanted to rub the Indian political sentiment the wrong way. If that is the case, then clearly, the plot was lost and it backfired badly. I wonder feathers would have been ruffled if he were to express his views on some other platform purely in his capacity as a film-maker. The Kashmir Files was not the target. It was actually the shoulder to fire at the Israeli government.

It is difficult to believe that a person of his conviction would take a somersault and apologise and also when he had some charitable things to say about the other films screened during the festival. Few in India are aware of Lapid's anti-establishment stance (in his native country) and not pulling his punches when it comes to criticism. What has happened in his case is the recoil has been worse than the shot. 

Intended or not, even if one makes an allowance for his views, Lapid has not done justice to his reputation as a dedicated film-maker. More so when one of his own films has propagated and preached similar thought. Politics and propaganda are inseparable whether it is Agnihotri or Lapid. He would have had my thumbs up if he had stuck to his views -- whatever their political flavour -- without apologising. By expressing remorse in a couched manner, he has put his foot in the mouth. Badly enough for even the IFFI to take his name and pic off their website.

A breezy memory of the time spent with Vikram Gokhale

Raju Korti
People in the showbiz are by and large conceited, publicity-oriented and diplomatic. Whatever the undercurrents between them, they are never vocal about them and jealously guard their professional affiliations. 77-year-old Vikram Gokhale who left a stamp of his own on the Marathi theatre and cinema, was an exception. He was brutally honest and did not mince words even if it meant losing out on work that comes from maintaining good PR in the industry.

My meeting with the handsome and resolute actor happened perchance in 1991 in Nagpur. Rather it was Gokhale who bumped into me perchance. He was there along with his co-actor Swati Chitnis to perform as lead actors for a show of the three-act play 'Sanket Milanacha'. The show was slated for the next day but apparently the troupe ran into some issues with the theater that put a question mark on whether it would go ahead as scheduled. The tickets had already been sold out on the singular charisma of Gokhale.

A desperate and restive Gokhale was at his wit's ends and didn't know anyone who could thrash out the issue with the management of Dhanwate Rang Mandir, where the show was to be held. He decided to approach the Press, and as luck would have it, he saw me among a few others of my ilk. Dressed in a Salwar-Kurta, his hands folded in a theatrical Namaste, he said he wanted help. The first to catch onto his presence, I asked him to take a seat and also offered him the tapri chai which at that time of the night would smell of kerosene, mud and everything else except tea. 

He drank the tea without any fuss, thanked us and came to the point straight away. "My show is being staged tomorrow evening, the tickets have been sold out but there is some misunderstanding with the theater management. Can you please use your good offices and bail me out?" I stood up immediately and said I would give it a try. There were no cell phones then and I asked one of my colleagues to connect with the management of the theater on land line. With some discussion and cajoling, the issue was sorted out. "There!, I told him. You can go ahead with the show."

In the 15 minutes or so that he was there, I briefly spoke about 'Barrister' among his acknowledged plays and a teleserial 'Shwetambara' which I had watched in bits and pieces on Doordarshan in the late 70s and early 80s. His worried face creased into a smile and he thanked all of us for helping him in what then appeared to be a hopeless situation . As he started walking out, he abruptly turned and held my hand in a tight grip. "Be my guest tomorrow. Meet me backstage. I will ensure a front row seat for you". 

Although I took interest in Marathi theater, I wasn't a hardened buff. I went to the show casually with zero interest in watching the play just to see if he would keep his word. Keep he did and what's more, he had alerted the organisers to let me in and meet him backstage. "Thanks, you were a godsend. I have very little time to talk to you right now but let's catch up tomorrow," he said hurriedly and introduced me to Swati Chitnis. The two were put up at a family acquaintance. I assured him, I would, watched the play bored and walked out half way through.

The next afternoon, I was surprised to receive a message from the organisers that Gokhale wanted to meet me. I decided to go because my better half was/is his admirer and wanted to tag along. In any case that was not a professional assignment, so I conceded. Most of the talk centered around the current status of the Marathi theater. When he realized he was doing all the talking and I was just a listener, he sported an apologetic smile and asked me if I had any question. My knowledge of the Marathi theater wasn't in-depth. Not wanting to end up looking an ass with a silly question, I asked something that came to my mind in the spur of the moment.

"You are a consummate actor yourself. A live show in the theater leaves you with no margin of error unlike the cinema which enables cuts and retakes. How do you react when in the midst of a play some actor changes his/her dialogue and gesticulations in the name of improvisation?" He was so thrilled he stood up and said loudly for all of them around to hear: "That's a wonderful question." He then rattled off how this was becoming a new trend in the theater and unless an actor showed rare presence of mind, he/she was certain to falter as everything happens on cue. It is reasons like these that a good actor always finds theater much more challenging than cinema." He bluntly trashed the cinema in general and lamented that Marathi writers were running out of good ideas. "But why blame others? I did similar, acting in a lot of rotten movies for the sake of money."

"Since you have helped me thus far, I will shamelessly ask for some more. Swati wants to meet Mahesh Elkunchwar (renowned Marathi playwright), If you know him, will you escort her to his house? I agreed since I knew Elkunchwar from way back and later in the evening, dropped her off to Elkunchwar's place on a motor-cycle. Once again he thanked me profusely and insisted I must meet him in Mumbai.

I never met him thereafter. The last I saw him was three months back on Doordarshan when it aired an old show of an interview with fellow Marathi actor Pradeep Patwardhan on his chat show 'Dusri Bajoo' (the other side). Patwardhan was already a memory then. Gokhale is united with him in history.                  

Romancing the uncertainties of Quantum Physics

Raju Korti
As a student perpetually befuddled by the complexities of Quantum Mechanics in my college days, I marvel at how the Nobel Prize this year -- incidentally shared by three phycisists -- acknowledges efforts to take quantum weirdness out of philosophy discussions to place it on experimental display for all to see. The three; Alain Aspect of France, John Clauser of California and Anton Zeilinger of Vienna have shown what is now understood as mastery of entanglement -- a quantum corelation between particles that seemingly share information across large distances. But of course, that is not the object of my discourse here.

In my blog on the spookiness of Quantum Physics exactly around this time two years back, I had written: "A recent article at pains to establish how Quantum Physics and Consciousness can come together to help us understand the true nature of reality, has set me back by at least 47 years. That was the time when the likes of Max Planck and Albert Einstein had just begun to stir and torment my abstract imagination. Quantum Physics, true to its spirit, took me -- and I suspect many others of my ilk -- on a long journey of love-hate relationship with the subject. The apparent simplicity of the theories I had been grappling until then was getting shaken at its roots with th advent of these two gentlemen along with co-conspirators like Satyendra Nath Bose, Englert Brout and Peter Higgs. From the plain vanilla Newton's Law of Gravitational Forces to the multiple conundrums brought forth by Niels Bohr, Warner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodinger and others who took a sadistic delight in queering the pitch, my lowest common denominator was the inherent paradox with Quantum Mechanics. You love and hate it for the same reason. That is its USP."

Multiple quantum theories made it more interesting and esoteric at the same time. It took years to realize that these theories in their ramshackle condition were given a semblance of order through a "standard model" of particle Physics held together with a make-shift tape but giving a comparatively much accurate picture. The God particle emerged from this tumult to give all other particles their mass.

I am still tempted to linger in those days when the turn of the century saw Physics undergoing two major upheavels around the same time in Einstein's Theory of Relativity which dealt with the universal realm of Physics and the other, the Quantum Theory which proposed that energy exists as discrete packets (each called a quantum). In my limited understanding, the new branch of Physics described the interaction between energy and matter down through the subatomic realm.

Einstein saw Quantum Theory as a means to describe Nature on an atomic level but he had doubts if it held any uselful basis for the whole of Physics. His argument was describing reality called for firm predictions followed by direct observations. Apparently, Einstein drew a blank here as individual quantum interactions could not be observed directly. In other words, quantum physicists had to depend on predictions on the probability that events would occur. It was Bohr who made out case that quantum predictions based on probability accurately describe reality. What followed was a raging debate between the two physicists but from public accounts, Bohr had an edge. Much to my chagrin as my loyalties lay with Einstein.

Einstein and two others suggested that the theory of quantum mechanics was incomplete as their were "hidden variables" yet to be discovered that could resolve what they asserted was a paradox. Einstein ironically stated that quantum mechanics was implicitly hypothesising a "spooky action" at a distance, suggesting there was some supernatural force at play. The world of Physics was in some kind of turbulence as multiple debates and thories were put forward without any empirical evidence.

Richard Feynman once said, "It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, its wrong". In this case, however, theory was not the only problem. Physicists did not know which experiments could solve the issue. If you are laying addled eggs as I am and find the Quantum Theory hard to swallow, you are not alone. Schrodinger himself did not like it. He was in fact sorry he had anything to do with it. In a book gifted to me by a relative who worked with Dr C V Raman in his research on what is known as Raman Spectra and later went on to become a key figure at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Einstein has been quoted as saying "if the Quantum Theory is correct, it signifies the end of Physics as Science."

I would hate that. I would rather let Quantum Physics remain in the realms of relentless ferment. That is where its appeal lies. The book also quotes Max Planck, considered as the father of Quantum Physics: "I regard consciousness as fundamental. I look at matter as a derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness, Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as xisting, postulates consciousness. 

Little wonder, Plank remains a "constant". Everyting else can shake and tumble. The beauty of Science is sometimes more in the problems than solutions. I rest my case.

Spirit of the game, did you say? Stop trolling Deepa Sharma!

Raju Korti
A lot of bile is being let loose on the manner in which Indian woman cricketer Deepti Sharma ran England player Charlie Dean out yesterday. Self appointed custodians of the game are indignant that the Indian bowler took to a very "ungamely recourse" of running the rival batsman (batswoman if you like) out when Charlie had set off for a run and was well out of her crease. In other words, the player was "Mankaded" after that infamous episode when Vinoo Mankad ran Aussie Bill Brown out in the 1947-48 Sydney Test.

Mankad was at the receiving end of commentators and players for getting the batsman out this way as it was considered against the "spirit of the game". For the record, although the Mankad episode raised a lot of dust, that was not the first of such instances. More than a century before in 1835, George Baigent of Sussex was run out by Thomas Barker in a county match. Considering the stakes involved in both these cases, Mankad took more flak than Barker. Since then, there have been instances, far and few between of batsmen getting out this way and each time, it kicks up a row if that is strictly in the spirit of the game. Indian fans would particularly recall Ravichandran Ashwin doing it to Jos Butler of England during an IPL match.

This kind of run-out in now part of the Laws of Cricket. The unspoken rule is the bowler or team should warn a player first before attempting this attempt. The warning can be given verbally or the bowler can perform the run out before withdrawing the appeal. Such dismissals get controversial when no warning is given and often involve umpires in an animated discussions between themselves and the captain of the bowling side to confirm if the latter wishes to continue with the appeal. This even though these dismissals are easy to adjudicate.      

Now consider at this: The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), custodians of the Laws, has tweaked the Mankad episode and changed its wording over the years. The 2017 code said, "Bowler attempting to run out the non-striker before delivery" was replaced with "non-striker leaving the ground early". That clearly put the onus on the 'non-striker" to remain in their ground. Two years later, rephrased it slightly saying "the bowler is permitted to run [the non-striker] out" with "the non-striker is liable to be run out". Previously, the bowler was only permitted to run out a non-striker backing up before entering his delivery stride. It meant that as the bowler's back foot landed, the non-striker could move down the wicket a considerable way before the bowler actully delivered the ball. The ICC Match Officials  in their interpretation considered this "unfair". The new playing condition permitted the bowler to run the batsman out "any point before he releases the ball provided he has not completed his delivery swing. To cut the long story short, "Mankading" is nowe a thoroughly fair and legal act. It was endorsed by even Don Bradman who was skippering the Australian team in 1947.

It is generally accepted and believed that Cricket is a game that is by and large batsmen-centric. That includes even the average spectator who shells out money only to see the bowlers flogged all over the park. The argument against "Mankading" -- now perfectly licit -- that it is against the spirit of the game and unfair on the batsmen, holds little water. Admittedly, that might not be a very exemplary way of getting a batsman out and may not make a bowler feel proud but then it is not just a bowler versus a batsman but one country pitted against another in times when the stakes are very high. All arguments against "Mankading" should be given a decent burial now that is made a rule. The basic question is if it is not in the spirit of the game, why is it a rule in the first place phrased and rephrased in its present avtaar?

My first encounter with such a dismissal was in my school days in late 1960s  when our all rounder skipper got a rival batsman out. In fact, we all were thriled with it not because it got one of their best batters out but for the sharp presence of mind shown by the bowler. It was not as if people were naive or ill-informed but there was not a murmur of protest. Sometime in the mid-90s, I clearly remember watching Courtney Walsh stopping just short of delivering the ball to look askance at the batsman who had run far from the crease. Don't recall who was the batsman but I do recollect the sheepish smile on his face on getting a reprieve. My contention is if batsmen feel so upset at getting out this way, they should be careful before the set off for a run.

Rules, for whatever they are worth, should always be consistent. Those who believe that batsmen who set out of their crease when the bowler begins his run up should be considered from the point of view of gamesmanship should show similar consideration towards the bowler. The rule in that case is equally harsh on a  bowler when he oversteps even a inch. Our learned commentators never fail to mention ad nauseum that the umpires are very strict on the no ball and bowling down the leg side. Consideration for the batsman and strict for the bowler? What is the spirit of the game here? There can be no margin of error here or leniency shown on how much leeway a batsman or bowler should be shown when they transgress.

It is conveniently forgotten that batsmen often set out of their crease far enough and that puts them at an advantage when they are stealing runs, especially in the shorter and competitive matches. Isn't following rules not in the spirit of the game? Or is it some kind of a dichotomy that what is a rule is not necessarily in the spirit of the game? By that logic, people will complain that the wicket-keeper should warn the batsman before stumping him. In such cases, even a fraction of a second can turn the match on its head. Rules have to supercede the spirit and if they are inconsistent with each other, they should be suitably tweaked to be fair on both the teams and its players.

The lament against "Mankading" and the argument for "better ways of getting a batsman out" is mainly because the batsmen feel stupid getting out that way. It is a price they must pay for their indiscretion just as a bowler pays for his by overstepping. In the absence of such a strict rule, batsmen will find a specious excuse to step out half way down the pitch and will resent being "Mankaded." The spirit of the game is always in favour of the batting side.

This is, of course, not to run down gamesmanship. The spirit certainly counts when it comes to honest conduct on the field including that by the two gentlemen in Black and White. Now that the rule is in place after due thought, a batsman "Mankaded", howsoever it rankles, should walk back to the pavilion gracefully. That will be in the true spirit of the game. Not by cursing under the breath and banging his bat on the ground as show of anger and frustration.

PS: Just check out the picture and see how far Charlie Dean had stepped out of her crease. Deepa Sharma could have had a few sips of tea and still run her out. If that is unfair, Dean should have been allowed to run to the striker's end and come back to her crease laughing all the way. In the true spirit of the game! 

A conundrum called Congress President's election

Raju Korti

Shashi Tharoor and Ashok Gehlot (File grab)

Political pundits who believe that winds of change have finally started blowing in the country's oldest political outfit, the Congress, are probably jumping the gun.
The upcoming polls are being dubbed as "historic" with the new incumbent set to replace Sonia Gandhi, its longest serving party head since 1998 except when son Rahul presided over its continued disaster -- both as a party and its electoral debacles.

Party elections in the Congress have always been for people's formal consumption if history is any indication. It lost any democratic import when Indira Gandhi upstaged strong contenders like Morarji Desai and Yeshwantrao Chavan in deft political manoeuvres. After Indira's assasination, sympathy factor enabled elder son Rajiv to call the shots who made all the right noises about eliminating power brokers from its hierarchy. If it helped the party to re-establish its past credentials, it only did for a while before Rajiv too got sucked into its infamous coterie circuit.

Earlier, veteran Sitaram Kesri had pipped Sharad Pawar and Rajesh Pilot to the post with the choicest blessings of the Gandhi family. It was actually a no brainer as Pawar's track record was too wily and Pilot a little more than honest for the first family's comfort. Kesri's track record was nothing to rave about except that he parroted what his masters told him to.

It is not as if the party did not have leaders who were incapable of steering it. But years of sycophancy and a mindset brainwashed into believing that it was only the Gandhi charisma that could see the party through, the thought of challenging did not even occur to their servile minds. Year after year, even when the Congress started sliding downhill, party leaders still swore by Sonia, Rahul and an occasional entrant Priyanka. In all fairness, initially Sonia seemed reluctant to take the party president's mantle given her political imaturity and apparent lack of interest. Basically, she was never cut out for politics, and among other reasons, was never allowed to raise her head by Indira. She gave the impression of a disinterested bystander. All until Rajiv's tragic killing in the thick of the Sri Lankan ethnic crisis. She was pitch-forked into the party's front by the same termites who never thought that the party needed to be brought out of the morass it was stuck in.

If there were voices of dissent, they were either quietly smothered or brought up to put up a show of democracy. Remember, how Jitendra Prasad lost to Sonia who had just started picking up her moorings and was trying to gain a toehold in the party apparatus. She didn't have to sweat over it. The partymen thought it was sacrilege to think beyond her and despite a spate of crises, the last word was the reins sould be left to her and her alone.

The first murmurs for a change in leadership started six years after the party's electoral rout pushed it into a continuing downward spiral that 23 senior leaders in an unprecedented pushback wrote to Sonia calling for a complete overhaul of the party -- sweeping changes from top to bottom. This should have been warning enough since those demanding change included some former heavyweight ministers and a number of Congress Working Committee members. But Congress being Congress, these voices were muzzled. There can be no prizes for guessing what and who shut them up. The leaders had touched a raw nerve pointing out to the uncertainty over leadership and the drift in the party that had left its rank and file utterly demoralised. All petitions for change in leadership were chucked into the dust bin as canards against the family. In Congress, dissenting voices just do not have any longevity and this one too died a natural death. The occasional dissent was inconsequential.

Given the way the party has been run with its brand of ultra-loyal leaders and the long state of flux it finds itself in, it might be a little premature to say anything categorical about the president's poll the party is set to witness. It is almost after two decades that the Congress is staring at the prospect of watching a straight contest for the party chief's post with the polished Shashi Tharoor and Ashok Gehlot named as front-runners. Although no one else has thrown his hat in the ring so far, you never know if Rahul gets annointed at the helm despite his reluctance which is understandable. For whatever people, especially his rivals in the BJP would think about him, Rahul wouldn't want to be saddled with a responsibility that would lay blames at his doorstep. It makes politically expedient to remain on the sidelines before further damage is inflicted on the already battered party. I would still not say at this juncture that the party might see a first non-Gandhi as its president. If the party breaks that jinx, it should be a good augury since a rejuvenated outfit with fresh leadership and a transparent mindset alone can arrest the BJP juggernaut. That, of course, is a long haul.

Sonia's assertion that she would remain neutral in the elections and that there would be no "official candidate" implies it could be a keener contest than the one between her and Prasada in 2000. The problem here is not Sonia but "yes men" who will try their best to prevail upon her on the premise that they trust her alone to turn around the party's fortunes. In that case, you can draw your own conclusions whether Sonia accedes condescendingly to "respect" the so called majority view.

 It would be interesting to understand Tharoor and Gehlot as case studies in the context of party president's polls. Tharoor may have been indirectly bolstered by Sonia's declaration of staying neutral but the man known for his articulation though not a vocal dissenter, is not a sycophant either unlike Ashok Gehlot whose loyalty to Sonia has never been in question. The Congress' claim that it would be an open, democratic and transparent process should not be accepted on face value. At least until both officially announce their candidature and the contest appears fair till the end. I say this because in Congress, such fights have been known to be rigged where a boxer wins first few rounds and then goes down mysteriously in the later rounds.

The statement by party general secretary Jairam Ramesh that any member is welcome to contest for the top party post should be seen and understood from this perspective. Gehlot has added the predictable pepper and spice to his candidature by saying he would convince Rahul to contest. That would bring the situation back to Square One as; if the latter really accepts "to respect partymen's wishes", Tharoor either becomes a fall guy or gets eliminated automatically. In fact there would be no contest at all. For all the talk about transparency, nobody really knows what transpired during the meeting between Tharoor and Sonia.

Tharoor, incidentally, has been among the 23 bigwigs who had demanded party overhaul and sought constructive reforms, whatever that means for the Congress. He has found like-minded partymen who in the true traditions of the party, have supported him without being in-the-face. The Congressmen keen to see the party turning over a new, welcome leaf, would be seen as taking the party's Udaipur Declaration in May, 2022 well and truly forward.

In the Declaration, the party had announced wide-ranging organizational reforms so it could roll up sleeves for the 2024 elections. Among them is the emphasis on representation be given to those under 50 years of age and one-person-one-post and one-family-one-ticket norms. So far, neither Tharoor, Gehlot or anyone else remotely named with regards to the president's poll have spoken in elaborate details. That raises the predicatble spectre of the maxim there could be many a slip between the cup and the tea. A little more clarity will come when the process of filing nominations begins tomorrow (September 24, 2022).

Gehlot, on the other hand, is a dyed in the wool Gandhi family loyalist with a hefty political stint compared to Tharoor. It is pertinent to note that he has been "pressured" by the top leadership to contest and has a majority backing for reasons that are obvious. Gehlot also has a better public image when one considers that Tharoor has often been mired in controversies The pitch has been queered with many Pradesh Congress Committees issuing a one-line resolution that Rahul is made the party president. If the Rahul X-factor fizzles out, as it should, Gehlot emerges as the likely winner. 

One hopes for the sake the country's oldest party that it shakes off its complacency and the disillusionments of successive poll debacles to emerge as a strong alternative. The murmurs for change need to become strong voices if the party is not to hurtle into bigger mess, moves like Bharat Jodo notwithstanding. This is a now-or-never situation for the Congress and any backtracking would perhaps be is last chance at revival. Ignoring the clear writing on the wall would be catastrophic and put the party on the point of no return.

If the battle lines are drawn, they should be taken to their logical conclusion. One family has presided over it for decades, let others take over the reins now.  It has nothing more lose.

In praise of the maligned, reviled crow

Raju Korti

When you have precious little to do with a mind desperately seeking to go into an overdrive, your eyes look for something that you have been seeing ever since you can remember but never actually registered. It is better to have a fair intellect that is well used than a powerful one that is idle.

(Pic representational)

So in tune with my latest talent for discovering engaging pastimes that don't cost a dime, I have found one that consumes most part of my day wherever I may be. The object of my riveting attention these days are the much reviled, despised crows, especially the ones that flit around and perch themselves on the huge tree that faces my bedroom.

It is extremely rare that you get to look at a crow straight in the face, eye-to-eye. But having encountered its X-ray gaze on a numerous occasions, I have come to the unassailable conclusion that much of the revulsion people have for this condemned species of birds is misplaced and unfair. It is actually a sharp, intelligent and quick-on-the-uptake bird that has a canny knack for survival compared to the songbird variety that corners all the admiration.

I am pretty sure that those who look down on crows as intellectually-challenged birds have had a lost childhood and since my adulthood makes for no concession of my kid years, I will recommend crows like I am their hired attorney.

My respect for crows grew when as a growing kid I first read the meandering stories of Pandit Vishnu Sharma's celebrated work Panchatantra where he dedicates one full technique of existentialism and life to the philosophy and intelligence of the crows. In my prime stage of youth, I read writers who often compared the hair colour of beautiful women with that of a Raven.

Wittingly, I became more conscious of the ubiquitous presence of this bird with a petite 7-inch frame and it became a hobby of sorts to try and look at it straight in the eye. It was both knowledge and revelation that it had many feathers in its smooth pate visible only to the discerning like me.
Mark Twain took my esteem for crows to the next higher level although his famed eulogy has frills of derision to it. I will reproduce his words to allow you to draw your own conclusions:

"In the course of his evolutionary promotions, his sublime march toward ultimate perfection, he has been a gambler, a low comedian, a dissolute priest, a fussy woman, a blackguard, a scoffer, a liar, a thief, a spy, an informer, a trading politician, a swindler, a professional hypocrite, a patriot for cash, a reformer, a lecturer, a lawyer, a conspirator, a rebel, a loyalist, a democrat,, a practitioner and propagator of irreverence, a meddler, an intruder, a busybody, an infidel, and a wallower in sin for the mere love of it. He does not know what care is, he does not know what sorrow is, he does not know what remorse is, his life is one long thundering ecstasy of happiness, and will go to his death untroubled, knowing that he will soon turn up again as an author or something, and be even more intolerable capable and comfortable than he was ever before."

Quite a hefty package that! Twain has actually used "he" in place of "it", which to my understanding is an indirect admission of the crow's ability to stand heads and shoulders above the man with the love-hate traits that he so profoundly describes. And mind you, the icing on the cake comes when you realize that it is the Indian crow, not the American crow that Twain is at pains to labour over. You can decide finally which is the variety that eats the crow.

In my kindergarten days I learnt it through a simple but lasting legend of a thirsty crow who stumbles upon a pot of water at its bottom. Unable to draw water, "he" puts pebbles to make the water level rise and then quench his thirst. Crows have travelled beyond the cliques attributed to them to deserve their place under the Sun. In my flight of fancy, the crow emerges as an anti-hero who can seamlessly change his feathers as a hero or villain with all the trappings of intrigue, authority, brashness, dare-devilry, gate-crashing and conspiracy. Not for nothing I am told that a decade back almost 100 poets in US came together to create an anthology about crows and ravens to reiterate how the corvids have a strong grip on human imagination.

The crow needs to be deciphered beyond the antiquated belief that they they have no sense of shame -- that they caw at 6am, expect a response from windows reflecting the overcast skies and then cap it with a solitary call that croaks 'is anybody there?' and takes off before you can muster any answer. Nobody can individuate and leave you with an apologetic smile like the crows do. The raucous, impertinent caw packs a vocal punch enough to make you feel smaller than a crow -- in every sense.

In the midst of the political uncertainty in state when elected leaders quietly slinked away to the cooler climes of north-east a couple of months back, I had drawn a tangential connection with the crows as the most reachable beings in Mumbai, quite easily their most adopted host. With a scary reputation that accrues from the scriptures as living incarnations of your dead ancestors, they have adapted themselves to changing times without losing their sense of commandeering demeanour and disposition.

The Kawwa Chalisa that I have been promising myself to write is finally taking shape in Black. As an avid watcher, I have been witnessing the subtle yet noticeable appreciation of their chicanery that defines their dubious reputation. Crows in Mumbai are a league ahead of their counterparts in other parts of the world. They have almost stopped flying. They would rather conserve their energies travelling on top of four-wheelers. Being status conscious, high-end cars are preferred and lesser brands are looked at with disdain.

Since the very idea of flying is repugnant to their authoritative senses, flying if at all necessary, happens at just 5 to 6 feet which makes you a dangerous obstacle in their gradient. If you think they will change navigation to skirt you, perish the thought. They will not hesitate to dash you, their pointed beaks ready to drill a hole. You stay crow-hit because dare you not call it just a bird. In their considered wisdom and superiority, they are convinced they are 24x7 essential service. Do not be startled or put off by their collective caws in the hush between midnight and wee hours.

There is a unanimous opinion among Mumbaikars that there is no underestimating the collective force of crows in groups. You shoo off one or pelt a stone at them, they will attack you so violently that you will carry the fear each time you think of stirring out of your house, The crows neither forget not forgive. You won't remember which crow you tried to offend but the guy in black suit has a photographic memory to single you out from hordes. So stay out of their way, When you see them approaching, make way for them politely.

Sitting in my balcony, I watch them flitting by as if they own the title deed of the land they walk on or the airspace above. One crow looking at me from its perch seemed to tell me:

Mr Whoever you are,
You have a flawed view of my skin
Don't be hypocrite racist
Blacks, you said?
Its a question of degree.

We don't cause dark circles
under your eyes but you
pride on your raven black hair
Black is beautiful, we're sure
You are the ones who fuss

We don't abuse metaphors
Such as eating human
You are vile to eat crow
Stop this blatant drivel
We are as much His creation

My response:

When you come cascading 
Utterly black against the
Contrasting white skies
Your wings obscuring the Sun
Your caws drown other sounds

Again and again your lithe
figure shuttles between the
ground and trees around
Your gleaming feathers 
ready to blanket the celestial

When the mountains far away
With evening haze engulfing,
See you fly in ebony spread
Heading towards a secret roost
You become harbingers of night.

At the break of the dawn
Your caws are sharp prods
That I have duties to do;
And I concede in humility
You're a phenomenon in yourselves.

By the people, of the people, for the people; but no government

Raju Korti
War has many affiliations and stakeholders, poverty has none. After witnessing the worst ethnic turmoil all through the eighties and early part of the nineties on its soil, poor (!) Sri Lanka has discovered this the harder way. What began as is usually described as "economic crisis" has blown up to a complete bankruptcy. The horses ruling the country like their personal fiefdom have bolted without shutting the door when their stables became too hot for their posteriors.

Situation came to the boil on Saturday when large swarms of protesters descended on President Gotabaya Rajapaksa for a situation of the country's own making. With suspended repayments of $7 billion in foreign debt, foreign reserves almost wiped out and no import of food, fuel and medicine, Sri Lankans are faced with the prospect of not knowing from where their next meal ticket would be coming. While the Covid cut into its tourism-related economy, the dynastic Rajapakses played to the gallery with populist tax cuts,

At this juncture, it is not significant that the Rajapakse dynasty has ben evicted, A lot is being said that the President quit when it was difficult to dislodge him constitutionally. It is a question of survival of the entire country in dire straits. For those who are citing the family tree as the root cause of the crisis, forget that the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremsinghe also refused to vacate the chair for his own political agenda.

To me, it is obvious that the nation borrowing heavily to plug years of budget shortfalls and trade deficits squandered on ill-conceived white elephant projects, As Lanka's third largest creditor after Japan and Asian Development Bank, China has been blamed for exacerbating the crisis. Prime Minister Narendra Modi who never fails to refer to his philosophy of Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam, has extended a helping hand but given its nature, it remains doubtful how much of it will actually translate into genuine help.

The IMF bail-out package is nowhere in sight. In any case it comes with a rider Shylock would be embarrassed about -- that the government must raise interest rates and taxes as condition for the loan.  That is killing the country to bring it to life. Russia has little time to take time off from their military engagement in Ukraine. In short, a terrifying situation for the broke and broken Lankans. The scenes at the presidential palace were reminiscent of what happened in Afghanistan after the resurgent Taliban overturned the elected dispensation. It is a classic case of anarchy being worse than the government.

The Prime Minister has a remedy which is worse than the malaise. The cash-strapped government will print money to pay employee's salaries with zero thought for an inflation on a higher trajectory. He was just a gamble by Rajapakse that didn't pay off. However, in the midst of the raging crisis, the US Ambassador to Sri Lanka made a specious but hilarious statement. "Protests should be peaceful. Chaos and force will not fix the country's economy." She is not deprived and doesn't stand in queues.

Those who say that Covid-19 has sent the country's economy in a tailspin and is in free fall now are dreading the prospect of looking at a scenario in case international community does not unlock its wallet on humanitarian grounds.

In my blog on April 1 last, I wrote: "Gotabaya Rajapakse has a fair history of riding rough shod over country's democratic systems, Assuming the presidential office hasn't helped him get rid of the army uniform he wore in the past. He is not known to believe much in media freedom and has often threatened it of reprisals and has been accused of corruption in defence procurement. When I met his elder brother and (then) PM Mahinda Rajapakse in Mumbai in 2006, I recall how he had outlined his plans to get his younger brother in Lanka's political ma9instream.

With the security forces given a free hand to put down public protests, the Sri Lankan government is asking for bigger trouble as such measures of retribution never work in the longer run. It is difficult to believe the levels of stupidity government get to in crises of this magnitude." 
The irony is Sri Lanka has no government and therefore no governance today. It only has people by the people, of the people an for the people, Democracy of another kind!

Nitin Gadkari and Raju Korti, Warriors of '57

Raju Korti
As a professional journalist with 42 years of experience behind me, I have always and scrupulously avoided making friendship with politicians. I have always kept them at arm's length as very early on in my career I had seen some of my ilk using them as piggybacks and turning wheeler-dealers. Without sounding too pompous or holier than though, vested interests was never my cup of tea. The only exception to this professional credo of mine was Nitin Gadkari who is now a serving minister in the Narendra Modi-led government. Notice the past tense.

Nitin and I are almost same age, he being barely three months older. He opted for Commerce and Law  before becoming a political leader while I chose Engineering, Science, Management, Law and Mass Communication to finally end up being a professional mediaperson. He was sharp, witty, incisive and interactive. One of his features, which is still in evidence, is the perpetual sardonic smile creasing his face. From my experience with him, I know what exactly goes into the making of that smile.

When I started as a journalist, he was just finding his moorings in Politics as student leader of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidya Parishad and later the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. We used to cross paths often, me on my Honda motor-cycle and he on his Vespa. There was this rickety 'chai tapri' where we would cross and he would invariably beckon me with a wave of his hand. Our meeting would last around 15 minutes, sipping chai and sharing small talk and pleasantries.

Knowing, I would never entertain any political discussion that smacked of vested interests, he respected my bearing and I reciprocated by never asking for any favours. There was always a touch of humour to his talk punctuated with a grin and over a period of time I started understanding when it was sarcastic and when benign. 

What was absolutely genuine, however, was his love for food, especially snacks like Samosa, Aaloo Bonda, Kachori, Chakli and Chivda which he would freak out on any time of the day. I didn't have to be a dietitian to realize that this fond fascination for junk food had contributed largely to his portly structure. (Purely as pun) I never saw him throwing his weight around as is the won't of the modern-day leaders. Later, during a chance meeting in Mantralaya, he told me how he had to exercise restraint to shed those extra kilos and belly fat. Knowing his cravings, I knew it must have been too tough on him but diabetes and cholesterol don't exempt politicians.

Nitin matched this gluttony with an equal appetite for figures. All those who wonder how he reels out complicated financial and other figures of the projects that his ministry executes, ask me. He was remarkably good at those, a healthy commentary on his memory. You could/can never catch him on the wrong foot there. I suspect a lot of his rivals grudgingly respect his penchant to throw figures with an articulation that sometimes sounds a little glib.

When he sent me a personal invitation for his son's thread ceremony, I chose not to go for the reason I have already mentioned. Instead, I called him up and wished him formally. At Mantralaya, I avoided mingling with him too much. The conversation never went beyond formalities and we both knew we could have (had) much more deeper exchanges than the shallow ones. A couple of times I jokingly referred to him as "Sattawancha Senani" (Warrior of 1957, the title of a famous Marathi  book by Vasant Varkhedkar on Tatya Tope, the General of the 1857 mutiny) although we both were born almost a century later. He would respond with his trade-mark smile.

I am not surprised he has traveled thus far. I had seen the traits of a seasoned leader much before he had made it to the national consciousness. For the record, this piece has nothing to do with my political proclivities. This is as I have seen him as a person from close quarters. As he completes 65 years today, I extend my birthday greetings to him through this blog because I know if I call him, he will respond with "Ye bhetayla" (Come and meet).

And that is one thing I will not do. One, he is now busy up to his neck as union minister, and two, politicians do not have the same priorities as other mortals. Once a politician, always a politician. Maybe if and when he hangs his boots and to relive some nostalgia.

Ye kambakht Covid North Korea pahuncha kaise?

Raju Korti
By far the most bizarre thing about North Korea is its people who are actually oppressed don't even know they are oppressed. Irony has the dubious reputation of killing itself often in a country that pompously calls itself the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It has only accentuated after its dilly dallying state media finally admitted the presence of Covid outbreak on its sealed soils. And it has entrusted the job of controlling the outbreak to its Army after declaring  "Severe National Emergency"; whatever that means in that country. 

For many countries, Covid as news has taken a backseat but anything that happens in North Korea is news at all times. If reports are to be believed the Iron Curtain country which shares its borders with Russia and China to the north, hasn't been able to stop the onset of Covid-19 what with tens of thousands of people infected by the virus. True to its character, Pyongyang conceded the outbreak after being in denial mode with this new isolationism forced on its already isolated populace. Bizarre can't get more bizarre than this. How does a country define a lockdown that is internationally locked down?

The state controlled media has chosen to speak the couched language of calling the  outbreak as "unspecified fever like never seen before". What happens to its 25 million population due to lack of vaccination programmes and next-to-nothing healthcare is a matter of speculation. The country has turned down offers from the international community to supply Covid vaccines including its closest ally China. There is no mistaking the inadvertent humour in the story that North Korea found it safer to seal its borders than to hazard the use of Chinese-made jabs. 

While the virus runs amuck, a lockdown would be disaster in a country that in its obsession believes it is more prudent to spend on nuclear weapons than public welfare. By conceding about the presence of Covid on its soil, the pariah state seems to have dropped subtle hints that it my be willing to accept "outside" help. But will it? Your hunches about what will happen in that country invariably turn out to be wrong when your sanity tells you they should be right.

I am not sure if China's expedient ties with North Korea will help. Their alliance has been nominal with a history of tension and antagonism for decades. That said, it has somehow managed to forestall any attempt by Pyongyang to stray from its orbit. Keeping North Korea on a tight leash is a tight-rope that China will perennially have on its hands.  

Forget China, even North Korea finds it tough to handle itself. Sample this weird piece of governance. South Korea had stopped sending fertilizers to North Korea when the latter was facing an acute shortage of fertilizers. So like everything else, a new law was enacted that made it mandatory for the citizens to collect their poop and hand it over to the authorities to sustain the country' agriculture. How they managed this can only be imagined.  

If the country fails to control the Covid surge, North Koreans may find it doing it again. For their own life!

Divided and lost in the maze of languages!

Raju Korti
One cliche that gets bandied about in India is about the beauty of unity in diversity. It is a red herring that is often tinctured with "inclusivity" as an additive and euphemism. My pointed reference is to the needless heart burning on the issue of languages. A war of words has erupted -- as it does every now and then -- over what is/should be  the country's national language. As actor Ajay Devgn tweeted that Hindi was and will remain the country's national language, people from the world of politics and entertainment started weighing in to muddy the waters further.

The divide over language is flogging a dead horse. It is a man-made issue that finds its genesis in politics. The country's map has been redrawn on linguist lines following the States Reorganization Act (1956). Among other things, it promoted unwarranted regionalism and misplaced pride. Worse, the twenty plus languages the country proudly boasts of, now come with an emotional quotient that we can do without. The North-South divide has been particularly notorious on this count with a dubious history of self-serving political leaders exploiting the regional ethos.

I fail to understand the self-aggrandizing that bloats this balloon. The narrow politics of language has only thrived on sentimental naivete and defeats the very concept of inclusivity. Language is and should only be a means of communication and expression. All languages are prosperous and expressive in their own way and learning more languages should be encouraged instead of confining and constricting people on which language serves the best.

As a journalist with The Hindu, I recall my visits to (then) Madras several times in the mid-eighties and how severely hamstrung I was as a non-Tamilian because of the animosity Tamilians nursed towards people speaking Hindi. To be fair to them, the simmering discontent in the state was a result of the severe backlash of how some political leaders in Maharashtra had stoked regional and linguistic passions. Whenever I tried to convey in Hindi, I invited murderous looks. Somewhere in the midst of this linguistic ferment -- evident in some measure in other states as well -- English gradually began to make strides as a link language.

As a visiting faculty across colleges in Mumbai, I am seeing how speaking English is becoming common among the younger generation. To them, the issue is not of language but of style. Looking down upon other languages finds a variety of excuses. I have heard any number of times how some languages lack finnesse, not able to understand what it means beyond phonetics. The unvarnished truth is language has become a highly divisive force. All this in a country which proudly proclaims Sanskrit as the Mother of all Languages but has consigned it to the pages of history -- and to the chagrin of some -- lost its expertise to foreigners. 

Let people speak and express in the language of their choice. Meanings don't change with languages. If you can't communicate in the language that other people don't understand, bloody well have the chivalry to learn theirs and encourage them to do so in turn. Don't fall for the emotional blackmail of those trying to drive a wedge for vested interests.

Each language contains countless unique words, phrases and grammar peculiar to it. If you don't learn it, you don't understand it. Language is a double-edged weapon. It has the terrifying power to divide, it also has the power to unite. We need to celebrate and accept language and the diversity it encourages. Above all, language should be just that. A medium of communication and cognitive expression. 

There is no such thing as a national language. There are only link languages. Inclusivity is inherent in a link. If you think this is sermonizing, go get a life!

Two courts, one Becker and of 'serves' in both!

Raju Korti
For someone nicknamed "Boom Boom" in his heyday for his imperious serves, this is one serve that Boris Becker will not be proud of but will have to serve it anyway. The tennis sensation who strode the Wimbledon like a colossus at a time when current sensations Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were just toddlers, has been served with a two-and-half-year jail stretch by a UK court after being found guilty of violating the Insolvency Laws. The blonde who basked in the glory of kissing his golden Wimbledon trophy at just 17, declared bankruptcy while he owed his creditors Pounds 50 million. For a former Number One with six Grand Slam titles, this is a slam that is not grand by any stretch of imagination.

Becker's tennis career is stuff folklores are made of. I clearly recall watching on my Black and White TV the unseeded 17-year-old, hands raised, before an awe-struck crowd kissing the golden Wimbledon trophy as the youngest ever achiever. It was a dream beginning for any sportsman and Becker showed in the times to come that his rip-roaring success was not a flash in the pan as he went on to annex one Grand Slam after the another in his rising trajectory. But what went up also came down as the vagary of Murphy's Law caught up with him.

Becker is an interesting case study of how people who court blinding success in their career also get overshadowed by a turbulent private life and financial troubles. Having made a fortune out of his swashbuckling talent, his downfall was as protracted as his rise was rapid. And to think of it, becoming a tennis professional was the last thing on his mind. Destiny took a somersault for the charismatic man who hurtled to chaos from a grand standing that he enjoyed in the UK as one of its favourite citizens.

The legal code admits that Law is blind because it goes by the merits of the case and is essentially indiscriminate in nature. Its presumption that lawmakers are fair to all the people all the time is more hypothetical makes sense prima facie but reality often ignores the social upshots that often get relegated. I am aware that this is a highly subjective and therefore debatable issue but that only underscores the need for applying Law with due considerations. In Becker's case it is not just fall from the grace but hitting the abyss of public humiliation. 

From whatever I have gathered, there doesn't seem to be much outcry over Becker's sentence, something that would have made a subject of raging debate in India which erupts into frenzy when celebrities are mired in legal cases.  Conventionally, public sympathy goes with them purely on the emotional quotient as they are generally viewed as the "victims". In his home country of Germany, the media has reacted a little harshly to his punishment. That is understandable as Becker chose to become a British citizen on the premise that "he enjoyed no privacy in Germany and its citizens thought as if they were entitled to him." In the Indian mindset, this emotional crush would have seen a situation to the contrary where the celebrity would feel entitled to his country instead.

It is a paradox -- as remarkable as his career -- that Becker doesn't find much sympathy in a country who he chose to live in because people moved on with small pleasantries and were not overbearing. He now has to decided in his conventional wisdom whether that serves him right or maybe not. History is replete with examples where stars the sporting arena (among others), have had an extra run riding on public support and sympathy when they should have either been punished or faded away from the scene. Remember how Kapil Dev struggled to beat Richard Hadlee's (then) record of 431 wickets at the generosity of the cricketing board, how the likes of Hansie Cronje, Steve Smith and David Warner garnered huge public sympathy when the Law went against them for their acts of commisions and omissions to quote just a few instances. It is fascinating that the Law which owes its origin to social expediencies makes no concession for public beneficience. Some might believe the comparisons unwarranted but Law and Propriety are blind in every sense of the word.

If Becker has broken the Law, he deserves to be punished as matter of truth but a man who has brought so much glory to his foster country at the cost of his own doting countrymen of birth, also deserves some leniency. Law is blind, so it caught up with him. The British media should probe him whether he still stands by his old views about his citizenship when his meadowed presence in his chosen country  has invited more ignominy than the ardor of where he took his roots.

If I may exercise my quotabulary: Becker served one court, the other served him. Both served justice and ironically, Becker has served as a mascot of both.

Running with the hair and hunting with the scissors

Raju Korti
I am generally self-effacing but it is never too late to pat oneself on the back. It was more than four decades ago that I realized I had a special talent with the scissors. I am not talking of the one that I used so prodigiously as an editor in the four decades that followed. Cutting fluff and cholesterol from bloated news stories was worth its sadistic pleasure when I got murderous looks from the reporters the next day. But the one I am referring to here lay dormant in me as I discovered later.

Better than a barber!

Keeping manes was a fashion in my college days. I had acquired one more out of neglect than out of fashion. But laid low by an illness, my hair had decided that it would take its own course. My mother, always so old fashioned, tried all tricks in the book to drive me to the nearest saloon and get a decent hair cut. I dodged all of them until she started calling me a sloth bear.

Loathe to sit head bowed down while the barber sheared my hair mercilessly, I decided to use the scissors at home to crop and discipline my rampant hair. Since Maths and Physics happened to be my choice subjects, the knowledge about slopes, gradient, parabolas and curvature came in handy. I didn't know I had done a neat job of it until my friends asked me how I managed to go to a saloon when I was supposed to have been convalescing at home. Excited by the new found me, I would make it a point to tell my close relatives, especially the senior ones, that they could hire my services for free. They would laugh it off.

My first opportunity came sooner than expected when an old relative discharged after long hospitalization came home with hair strands obscenely sticking out of his nose and ears, face a wasteland of thatched hair and eyebrows looking like a sidewalk lined up on either side by tall grass. It took me almost two hours to trim his facial fuzz. More than him I was pleased with my own performance. Thereafter I did many such jobs, each one turning out better than the earlier. I had a gut feeling that there were many who were keen to use my sccisor-ean skills but inhibitions probably kept them back.

I sharpened those skills perforce in the last two years when the pandemic kept the "nhai" or hair stylist as some would prefer to call, out of business and drove people to self help. I cut down the burden over my friends in the neighbourhood. They all thanked me profusely but it didn't occur to any of them that I deserved some compensation in the light of the situation if not for the labour. And to think of it, professional barbers charge Rs 200 or much more. 

Last week, barbers in Mumbai jacked up their prices by Rs 50. For the first time my penurious condition didn't bring a scowl on my face. It looked clean in spite of them and their silly banter. In any case, you are only as good or as bad as your last hair cut. Mine was about a fortnight ago. The pic is proof that I have done it well and it didn't cost me a dime.

Jaanee, hum apni hajaamat khud karte hain!

A few thoughts about the crisis & emergency in Sri Lanka

Raju Korti
In 2009 the Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa who then was the Defence Secretary, had made out a case before the international media that everything is a legitimate target if it is not within the safe zone of the government. Now that he has imposed an internal emergency in the crisis-ridden island, his statement can be safely interpreted as the safe zone of the government actually means his personal comfort zone.

For some time now, the neighbouring island nation has been reeling under the worst ever economic crisis that has triggered a spate of violent protests. After the ethnic conflict between the Sinhalese and Tamils in the mid-eighties, the nation seems to have returned to anarchy. The present crisis hurtle it back to those days except that the nature of crisis is different.

Rajapaksa felt the heat when he found the violent public protests that demanded his immediate resignation, had gotten too close for comfort. Sri Lanka is currently experiencing its worst economic crisis in history. With long lines for fuel, cooking gas, essentials in short supply and long hours of power cuts people have reached their tether. Rajapaksa, finding his throne under threat, has taken the predictable route most politicians do when their asses are on fire. He has washed his hands off the crisis saying it was not of his making. The country's economic fortunes depend majorly on tourism revenue and inward remittances are plummeting by the day.

Rajapaksa has a fair history of riding rough shod over country's democratic systems. Assuming the presidential office hasn't helped him get rid of the army uniform he wore in the past. He is not known to believe much in media freedom and has often threatened it of reprisals and has also been accused of corruption in defence procurement. When I met his elder brother and Prime Minister Mahindra Rajapaksa in 2006 in Mumbai, I recall how he had outlined his plans to get the younger brother into Lanka's political mainstream.

The Sri Lankan President cannot deny his role in the crisis. His decision to introduce massive tax cuts in late 2019 led to a sharp drop in the government revenue further compounded by the Covid pandemic. I see some similarities between the modus operandi and thought process of late Indira Gandhi and the younger Rajapaksa. By imposing an emergency to perpetuate his rule, he has taken a leaf out of what Indira did in 1975. The Congress government in India in those times is known to have indulged in blatant currency printing to offset economic deficit. Rajapaksa has taken the same route and with unsustainable borrowings, has thrown the country into a debt crisis with a possibility of sovereign default.  

With the security forces given a free hand to put down public protests, the Sri Lankan government is asking for bigger trouble as such measures of retribution never work in the longer run. The crisis has its frills as the Lankan government has chosen to be magnanimous towards Ukrainian and Russian tourists by giving them free visa extensions. They are now stuck in the country, cut off from funds after American sanctions on international payment networks. It is difficult to believe the levels of stupidity governments get to in crises of this magnitude.

To me that's government inspite of the people.

Haunted by Phantom's ghost, hypnotized by Mandrake's magic

Raju Korti
The wise have always characterized old age as a period of second childhood and childish behavior. Fast approaching that age, I am showing symptoms of that relapse. For the past few weeks I have been possessed by the desire of revisiting what I consider as the most absorbing part of my childhood. Much before I entered the threshold of high school, it was about the days when our interests lay as much with reading as playing outdoors. And we were treated to the very best and creative.

As friends we pooled and shared story books and cartoons almost on a daily basis. From the likes of illustrated "Chandoba" to "Kumar" (both Marathi) and "Lotpot" (Hindi) to Shakespeare, Dickens, Bronte and Austen and a host of story-tellers, our interests epicentered on cartoon strips made immortal by two legendary characters that seemed very real despite being larger-than-life.

One was the Phantom -- the Ghost Who Walks and the other; Mandrake the Magician. These two occupied bulk of our mindscape and defined recreation and leisure in their truest sense. Published as Indrajaal Comics, these were beautifully illustrated cartoon books that took less than no time to catapult Phantom and Mandrake as more than superheroes in our juvenile minds. Paying for a regular subscription was economically not viable for most of us. We struck a deal where one of us would buy a copy of the month and share it with others. Those who subscribed and got it delivered at home were a case of neighbour's-envy-owner's-pride. I particularly recall how low I felt while begging a Phantom book from a classmate who would act pricey before giving it to us condescendingly. Occasionally, dad would buy for me and I preserved those more jealously than a woman does her jewellery.

The lasting value with Phantom and Mandrake was phenomenal. Having read the next few months issues, it was an abiding pleasure to revisit the old ones to be read and enjoyed anew. The tall athletic figure of Phantom, his googles, his ring that left his stamp on the villains and above all the mystic and intrigue around his persona was compelling and spell-binding. It was difficult to exorcise the Phantom  ghost so much so that even his wife with hour-glass figure, Diana Palmer appealed to our juvenile senses. In his faithful lackey Gurran, we all saw the Ramukaka of Hindi films.

Close on the heels came Mandrake the Magician and his Mr Rippling Muscles side-kick Lothar. Far removed from the arcane charm of Phantom, Mandrake was a parallel superhero whose entrancing charms not only swept off his rivals, it also charmed us like facts being stranger than the fiction. Mandrake's prowess as magician had an inventory in Lothar and I remember nursing desires to have those muscles of steel.

It wasn't until we had added a couple of more years to our puerile minds that our attention was cornered by the creators of these two imposing characters -- Lee Falk and Sy Barry. In my view both had an enormous competition from William Hanna and Joseph Barbera's Tom and Jerry, George Remi's Tin Tin and Rene Goscinny's Asterisk -- the common chord being all coming from the American stable. Lee Falk was the object of our worship because Phantom and Mandrake were the best gifts at that age. The intense urge to revisit those cartoon books and partake of that preoccupation is a testimony -- if it is needed -- that the magic spell cast by Phantom and Mandrake hasn't depreciated with the passage of decades. Lee Falk lapsed into history in 1999 but his creations come with an ageless appeal.

Falk's own life and works are stuff folklores are made of. You have to hand it to anyone whose imaginary characters could reach an estimated 200 million homes every day. Come to think of it, Falk himself a great artist, drew these characters from the influences at home. To catapult them to such heights needs sheer genius. When Falk began his comic strip and comic book writing and drawing career , his official biography claimed that he was a seasoned world traveler who was well versed with Eastern mystics. When we realized that Falk had simply made it up to seem more like the right kind of person to be writing about globe-trotting heroes like the Phantom and Mandrake, our admiration turned into reverence. His trip to New York city to pitch Mandrake the Magician for publication by the King Features Syndicate was at that time the farthest that he had traveled from home. It amused us no end that to avoid the embarrassment of his bluff being called, Falk traveled the world in the later half of his life.

I am of the firm belief that childhood influences come without an expiry date. Falk had a fascination for stage magicians ever since he was a boy. By his own admission, he sketched the first few Mandrake  comic strips himself. When asked why his mind-son magician looked so much like himself, he is reputed to have said "Well of course, he had to. I was alone in a room with mirror when I drew him."  

Soon we found out that Phantom was inspired by Falk's fascination for myths and legends, such as the ones about El Cid, King Arthur, Nordic and Greek folklore heroes and popular fictional characters like "Tarzan" and "Mowgli" from Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book". There was an Indian element as well as he was also drawn by the Thugs of India, and hence based his first Phantom comic on the "Singh Brotherhood". Falk originally considered the idea of calling his character "The Gray Ghost", but finally preferred "The Phantom". Falk must have been surprised that his comic strips that he thought would last a few weeks at best would eventually have the world in a thrall. He wrote them for more than six decades, until the last days of his life.

When Falk died this month in 1999, I remember we friends had observed a two-minute mourning and had watched a CD of "The Phantom" the movie that starred Billy Zane. With all those memories gushing forth, I am once again overtaken by that urge to lapse into those times again. For someone who always squeezes out time to scour old book shops including the sellers on Mumbai's pavements, I have found that Phantom and Mandrake have vanished from their shelf. Online sellers have limited editions and most of them in English. I was more into Marathi versions.

It would be well worthwhile for the times Group that brought out the Indrajaal Comics to rejuvenate them and bring them back to today's generation sold out on phone games and repetitive cartoon channels. I have little idea of the nitty gritty this would entail but the thought is worth the try. If not today's children, I -- like countless of my ilk -- would grab those legendary cartoon books in our second childhood. 

By the way, Lee Falk would have been 111 in April 2022. Falk is history but Phantom and Mandrake will remain contemporary. Ask Tom & Jerry, Tin Tin and Asterisk. Even they will vouch for them in their immortality.