Of Dadu, Thakuma and B-52 bombers

One winter afternoon sometime in the early 90's, my then boss and only guru in journalism, John Dayal asked me to accompany him to a funeral. An uncle of his had passed away. As the congregation broke up after the funeral and we headed back to our car, John had his hand on my shoulder and said : "Rajan, when you are in your thirties and forties one of the worst things you have to come to terms with is the deaths of people you have grown up with."

I was all of twenty six then, full of life, and didn't quite grasp the full import of what the man was saying. Over the past decade and a half, many things that John ever told me have come true. At funerals, at cremation grounds, at mortuaries, as people whose presence in my life I had always taken for granted left, there have been many occasions -- far too many for my liking, if you ask me -- when John's words echoed in my ears.

As a journalist I have learnt to report deaths with a detachment I am not terribly proud of. Yet there have been moments in my personal life when I have been glad that I have had that training (that is, if you can ever be trained for such a thing), for it has helped me to cope.

Today, sitting in my writing den, as I randomly flipped through my diary of memories, a date looked back at me. September 29th. No, no one close to me died on this day. In fact, it happens to be my grandfather's (my dad's dad) birthday. One of the first losses in life I had to cope with was that of my grandfather's.

Had been around today, he would have been 107 years old. He was born in 1900, my grandmother used to tell me. She said it in a manner as if it somehow made him special. Born a century later, he could have been a millenium baby, and Barkha Dut would have possibly interviewed my great grandparents on NDTV.

A bit special he was though, say those who knew him. He was a towering figure not just physically -- he was close to six foot tall (every generation we have been losing four inches). He was a poet, he was a writer, he was a playwright, he was a journalist and from what I have heard from my Dad and my uncles he was a great cook (I am told, he cooked a mean mutton).

He spent more than five years in jail in three different stints during India's freedom struggle. He was a senior functionary of the Congress party when Bengal was still undivided and even included Assam in its fold. The Britishers charged just two journalists under the Sedition Act. One was Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who published Swaraj. And the other was my grandfather, Binod Bihari Chakraborty, who edited Janashakti. Oldtimers still talk about the tough line that Janashakti took against the British.

My first ten years of life coincided with his last ten. By then Partition, penury and Parkinson's Disease -- in that order -- had shrunk the once tall frame. His voice trembled when he spoke, his hands shook when he tried to hold something, he spoke slowly as if weighing his words carefully. But as I listened to him, even as an eight year old I realised I was on to a special thing.

He was the first, and until now one of the finest, storytellers I ever met. He told me stories of our native place, Sylhet. Of his childhood there, of the fresh air and plentiful fish in Surma river. He told me about books and food and politics. He told me about the time Gandhi and Nehru visited Sylhet. There was a twinkle in his eyes as he described Subhash Chandra Bose's visit to our native home in Sylhet. On other occasions, he would tell me stories of my father and my uncles, how precocious they were.

He rarely spoke about his life in Calcutta. But I remember, quite distinctly, 'Ami Boro Hobo' and 'Dakinir Chawr', two books that he mentioned and even bought for me. Speaking haltingly he told me how he had written the scripts for both the novels, but they were eventually published under the names of more famous authors. He never told me how that came about.

But even now I can sense the injustice he must have felt. He had written the scripts at a time when he was financially down. The books would have helped him and his family financially, but more than all that he had the look of a man who had been swindled. After all those years, the hurt was still there. And after all these years, it still bothers me.

One of these days, I would dearly love to sort out all his work and publish an anthalogy.

Great though my grandfather was-- as a storyteller and as a human being, he wasn't my first hero. That was my grandmother, my thakuma. As short as he was tall, she was every bit as tough as him and more. As a teenage sister to two brothers who were armed revolutionaries, my thakuma proved her toughness (and her loyalty to their cause) by spending a night alone in the local cremation ground.

"My brothers and their friends often hid their weapons at the cremation ground and me and a few other friends of mine were asked to look after the cache", she would tell me nonchalantly. I sat there, all of nine years old and wide-eyed, picturing my thakuma in the dead of the night , in a cremation ground, holding a revolver in her hand. I felt so excited as if I was the one who was holding the pistol.

After her marraige to my grandfather, she converted to the cause of Gandhi and non-violence. She took part in the non-co-operation movement against the British and was jailed for over six months. First in Sylhet, when my grandfather was incarcerated and then in post-partition Calcutta, she showed a lot of guts and held her nerve in very tough times to keep her flock of young children together.

If you ask me what is the most remarkably romantic thing I have ever seen in my life, it has to be my thakuma learning English in her later years so that she could read out loud the newspaper to my grandfather, whose failing eyesight deprived him of his biggest pleasure, reading. I remember going to school in the early seventies, as my grandparents sat on the verandah in the morning sun, my grandmother reading out stories of American B-52 bombers bombing Vietnam.

Those days there were fewer newspapers around, but somehow their worldview appeared far broader than what it is today. The front page of Hindustan Times often had the Vietnam War as the lead story. Happily, those were days when the importance of the story prevailed over its geographical location.

Those were some of the best years of my childhood, when my grandfather told me ghost stories and my grandmother made the yummiest most lipsmacking chholar daal with a dash of coconut. During those days had I been a journalist, I would not have had to be defensive, explaining to someone why the killing of a South Delhi couple was necessarily front page news, and the story of 15 people hacked to death by Ranbir Sena near Gaya deserved just three paragraphs on page 13.

I guess the world, and not just newspapers, was a lot less insular. And I was a nine year old without care in the world. I had not met John Dayal yet, and the loss that tormented me most was Jai's death in Sholaay.

Some fairytales Just Continue...

If the one-day cricket World Cup was a sponsors' nightmare, then the inuagural Twenty20 World Cup was surely dreamt up in the heaven for cricket fans. A fortnight of exciting matches later, an India Pakistan summit clash. Cricket's version of Brazil versus Germany or Federer versus Nadal.

Does it get any better? Can it possibly get any better?

But it does. The fairytale continues. Brazil, oops, India wins. In the final over the tournament. With just three balls to go. And one scoring stroke separating the winner from the loser. On second thoughts, this one was possibly dreamt up in a bookies' heaven.

And what a fairytale it has been for India, twice on the brink of elimination. Done in by the weather against Scotland, then a tie against Pakistan. And then after a narrow loss against New Zealand, once again faced with early exit. Then four wins, including back to back ones against South Africa and Australia, ending in the title triumph against Pakistan. Add to that mix Dhoni's captaincy and his coolness, Yuvraj's six hitting, Pathan's comeback, RP Singh's bowling, Rohit Sharma's debut, and you are tempted to look for a stronger word than fairytale.

Purists, eat your heart out. Twenty20 is not just here to stay, but for ICC bosses, worried over dwinding revenues from the game save for the Indian sub-continent, it is a blessing from the Gods. And as the packed stadia in South Africa showed, the viwers simply love the newest and zanniest form of the game.

From the first ball, which the irrepressible Chris Gayle smashed to the fence, to the last which went up into the sky, and then was willed by a billion prayers into the hands of a gleeful Sreesanth, this tournament has had success written all over it.

The ads have kept coming and ESPN is laughing all the way to the bank. At Durban, at Johannesburg and Cape Town, the crowds kept coming in, music blared, cheer girls danced, beer flowed and sixes rained. Even after the home team crashed out, you couldn't wipe the smiles off the faces of the South African cricket officials -- they knew they were on to a good thing here.

Thirty years after what one day cricket did to Test cricket, the game's shorterst format is all set to do the same to cricket's shorter version. Contrary to the fears of many purists then, one-day cricket has, over the years, given the viewers a more exciting brand of the game. It has not killed Test cricket, in fact it has had a salutory effect on the most traditional form of cricket. Fielding has inmproved out of sight, as have scoring rates, in Test matches, and dreary draws have gone out of the window, reviving spectator interest.

And now Twenty20 is likely to do a similar favour to one-day cricket and even Test matches. Over the past two weeks, we have seen some great fielding, canny bowling in a format that so obviously favours batsmen, and of course clean and spectacular hitting.

Throughout the tournament, India has been electrifying in the field -- plucking catches out of thin air, effecting run outs with direct hits. It bears little resemblance to the side that less than a month ago appeared to be writing a coaching manual on how to grass sitters.

Look at Pakistan. The game's most temperamental side has been oh-so-cool. Shoaib Malik's young side has added considerable purpose to their innate panache. The result has been spectacular. Though Pakistan may mourn that they were just one scoring stroke away from the World Cup, they have already done enough to exorcise the demons that have haunted Pakistan cricket for almost a year now.

Some, if not a lot, of these skills that have been on display in South Africa are bound to be carried over to the other formats of the game as well.

The inaugural Twenty20 World Cup has already added to the game's lexicon a new cricketing term, the Ashraful, the scoop behind the wicket that the Bangladesh skipper, Mohammad Ashraful seems to have perfected. In fact, the Ashraful turned out to the tournament's last -- and possibly the most decisive -- shot, as Pakistan's Misbah-ul-Haq, who had done little wrong until then, attempted to play it but failed to clear fine leg, posted within the 30 yard circle.

Haq, Pakistan's find for the tournament, might rue the moment he chose to play that shot. But you can bet that in the days and months to come, in the galis and bylanes of Rawalpindi and Baroda, in cricket academies in Perth and Colombo, young men will try hard to perfect the Ashraful.

Simply because that is the way of this game. And there in lies the beauty of cricket.

Once India's Grain Basket, now a Basket Case

"You stand on the highway here... and stop the next fifty young men who are travelling on that road. Ask them what do they want to do in life, and they'll all tell you : 'Hamara visa lagwa do' (please get us a visa)," says the village headman in Chhauni, on the outskirts of Hoshiarpur.

Punjab is losing its young men at an alarming rate. After one generation was wiped out by violence, another generation has packed its bags and is queuing up outside the visa offices. Canada is the preferred destination. The US and UK will do too. Thousands have applied to go to Australia and New Zealand as well.

The joke goes, when Neil Armstrong took his first tentative steps on Moon, he was a happy man. He was after all the first human being to reach Moon. And then he met Banta Singh. A surprised Armstrong asked : "When did you come here, Banta?" Banta, who was a cabbie, calmly replied : "Mai to partition de baad hi aa gaya si (I came here right after Partition)"

Point is, the Sikhs have been always known as enterprising travellers. But now they have been afflicted by a serious travel bug. As you go from cities to towns to mofussils to villages, one can witness this desire to move, to get out of India.

In the Doaba region, in Ludhiana, in Jalandhar, in Hoshiarpur, in town after town after town in Punjab, people are spending small fortunes to get out India. They want to leave India any which way they can. Travel agencies have mushroomed like a cottage industry in these towns, and there are numerous instances of gullible immigrants taken for a ride by fly-by-night operators.

In Punjab villages, most afternoons you see the strange sight of young men and women practising singing and dancing in open fields. They are members of the local bhangra (popular dance form) club, whose sole objective of existence is to garner an invite to perform in a foreign land.

There have been several instances of Bhangra clubs travelling to some cultural festival in Canada and England, and then some members of the troupe never come back. As the Punjab police investigate what is believed to be a rather elaborate network which is involved in human trafficking, many such Bhangra clubs are being investigated too.

Then few years ago there was the case of Jassi, a rather enterprising Sikh lady based in England, who would come to Punjab every few months and get married to a Sikh boy who was keen to settle outside. By the time she was caught, she had duped fourteen such men. A journalist friend who was covering the story later told me, most of the fourteen husbands were more concerned about their missed opportunity to live in England, than having their hearts broken by their much married spouse.

Ten years after the Malta boat tragedy, when a boat carrying hundreds of South Asian immigrants (almost half of them young men from Punjab) sank off the coast of Malta, peeple are still willing to risk life and limb to get out of the state. What worries you are the reasons why these people are so desperate to leave.

No big industry is coming up in the state. Unemployment rate is alarmingly high. School dropouts have gone up over the years. And what is not good news for the society at large is that a large number of the youth is on drugs.

From drugs sold across the counter to the more serious stuff perocured illegally, drug consumption is rather high in Punjab. "For some, availability of easy money (through foreign remittances from family members) is diriving them to drugs. Others are battling with stagnation and reaching out for drugs," explains a health worker in a de-addiction centre in Chandigarh.

The drug problem in Punjab is so serious that a few years ago the state juidiciary ordered that all heroin and other drugs confiscated by the Punjab police and kept in police warehouses as evidence should, in fact, be burnt. It is believed that the court feared some of the drugs stored in police warehouses were being sold in the open market.

"No one wants to stay here and farm and till his land," laments my farmer-turned-journalist friend. The brutal truth in the home of Green Revolution is that agriculture is not the most sought-after means of earning livelihood. Though many farmers benefitted financially from the Green Revolution, the prosperity affected the next generation in a different way.

The rich children of the hardworking farmers who ushered in a revolution in agriculture don't want to break their back, tilling the land. You can see the Green Revolution's Gen Next, dressed in Levi's and Reeboks and driving SUVs. It is evident they find agriculture unsexy. So, hired labour has moved into the state in lakhs over the past couple of decades to work in the fields.

The disease profile in this state has changed. Punjab now has diseases which were not there in the state even thirty years ago, says a senior doctor in Chandigarh. The exodus from the state has been matched by the influx of agricultural labour into the state from Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa. These people have brought with them diseases that were not heard of in Punjab earlier.

"Quality of life here (in Punjab) has declined over the years," explains my friend Khushwant, over drinks in the evening. "Though less than what it should be, money is still coming from agriculture, and the high volume of remittances from the state's large NRI population presents a picture of affluence. Truth is, the situation is rather dismal," he adds.

I ask him to elaborate. "Punjab has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country," he goes on. Over the past couple of decades, industrial development in the state never kept pace with agriculture. And now with agriculture in the decline, and the industry in doldrums, things are not looking good.

As successive state governments, both Congress and Akali, have played footsie with the masses, you can see why the state once known as India's grain basket has slowly and sadly been transformed into a basket case.

Dravid quits as Indian captain

Rahul Dravid has resigned as the Indian cricket captain. He has communicated to the Indian cricket board that he would like to be relieved, with immediate effect, from his responsibilities as the captain of both the Indian Test and one-day side. If he has cited any reasons for his resignation, neither him nor the cricket board has so far shared that information with the media.

For the past months without a cricket coach, the Indian team is now without a captain too. Thus Indian cricket is a bit, to borrow the recent controversial phrase of Ronen Sen, the Indian ambassador to the United States, like "a headless chicken".

For a man known for his impeccable timing, the timing of Dravid's latest decision has raised more than a few eyebrows. Less than three weeks from now, the world's best cricket team arrives in India for a seven-match one-day tour, which kicks off one of India's busiest cricketing seasons. Over the next few months , India host traditional rivals Pakistan for a Test series and a series of one-day matches, then leave for Australia for a full tour.

There were rumours after the early exit from the World Cup, and after Greg Chappell resigned, that Dravid may quit. But he stuck it out at a time when cricketer-bashing, with active encouragement from a frenzied Indian television media, had turned into a national pastime. He gutsed it out and led India to a rare Test series victory in England.

Dravid is percieved in certain quarters as "too soft". It is percieved that he allowed Greg Chappell to run roughshod over his team members. That he failed to carry the rest of his team with him, or even back them against Chappell. It is a perception that is bound to grow, given his sudden decision to quit.

Mind you though, the man has shown in the past he is unafraid of taking tough decisions. He calmly decided to declare the innings in Pakistan when Sachin Tendulkar was just six short of a memorable double hundred-- not an act you would associate with faint-hearted mortals. Luckily Indians went on to win the match, and not much was heard of the matter.

He also stuck by the beleagured Virender Sehwag through a troubled tour of South Africa. A lot of ex-players, a few selectors and even the chairman of the Indian selection committee Dilip Vengsarkar openly favoured Sehwag should be dropped from the Indian side. Dravid insisted oherwise, and persisted with the out-of-form Sehwag in all the matches.

Those who know Dravid say he is no softie. You don't get a nickname like "The Wall" by being soft, either as player or as a man.

But now The Wall says he has had enough and wants to concentrate on what he does best -- his batting. By his own lofty standards he has had two poor Test series, first against South Africa and now against England. Many say after three eminently successful seasons, this lean trot is how the law of averages catches up with you. Others insist, Dravid's captaincy worries are taking a toll on his batting.

As Dravid remains quiet about his reasons for quitting, speculation is rife. Those in the know of things claim that the methodical Dravid has been disillusioned by the lack of method in India cricket. In coach Greg Chappell, a man who believed as much in putting processes in place as Dravid, the latter had found an ally who shared his vision. But by the time India made an early exit from the World Cup and that much talked about vision for the future of Indian cricket lay in tatters, amidst allegations and counter- allegations between coach Chappell and a section of the Indian cricket team, Dravid is understood to have confided in the BCCI president Sharad Pawar that he wanted to quit.

He was persuaded otherwise by a very public endorsement of his captaincy. Clearly not for long, as his latest decision indicates.

More than the busy season ahead, what would worry the Indian cricket establishment is that there is no apparent sucessor to Dravid. No one you can immediately think of who can take up the high pressure job. For that reason alone, Sanjay Manjrekar, former Indian cricketer and now a commentator, has urged the chairman of selectors Dilip Vengsarkar to have a word with Dravid and ask him to reconsider his decision.

Though Dravid's letter hasn't yet been officially accepted by the Board, sources in the Indian cricket establishment indicated that Dravid is unlikely to change his mind. And the best option lay in looking for a new person or persons (in case of a split captaincy for Test and one-dayers) for the job.

There are the usual suspects, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly.

Elevated to vice-captaincy before the World Cup amidst speculations that he was once again eyeing the top job in Indian cricket, Tendulkar might be the person the Indian cricket board turns to, to at least lead the Indian Test side. Tendulkar has been captain twice before, but neither times he appeared entirely comfortable in his role as skipper. Who knows, a more mature Tendulkar, in the autumn of his career, might surprise us pleasantly if given a chance.

One doubts though if he would be interested in captaining the one-day side. In an intervew to The Times, London, Tendulkar recently said that one-dayers were taking a toll on his body. An interview that quickly sparked off rumours that the great man might be contemplating retuirement from one-day cricket to prolong his Test career. Though in close to his best form in the one-day series against England, Tendulkar, now 34, appears unlikely to be around when the next World Cup takes place in 2011.

Ditto for his long time one-day opening partner Sourav Ganguly. Though in fine form in Tests as well as one-dayers, Ganguly, also 34, appears unlikely to be around when India play the next World Cup. Having said that, few would argue his credentials as captain. He is after all India's most successful Test captain ever. recent poll by a leading Indian television channel found 57 percent of the respondents voting for Ganguly as the next Indian skipper.

Despite a rather controversial end to his tenure as skipper, Ganguly in his early days showed both flair and spirit to extricate Indian cricket out of the matchfixing quagmire it had found itself in. He beat Australia at home in 2001 in one of the most memorable Test series in modern times, then for the first time led India to victory against Pakistan in Pakistan. He backed a bunch of young players, like Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh and turned them into match-winners. His bold gambits paid off as he turned Sehwag, until then a middle order batsman, into one of the most destructive opening batsmen in international cricket. Persuading Dravid to don the wicket keeping gloves in one dayers was another inspirational move. Suddenly India had a world class batsman at the crucial number seven slot.

But as his own batting form dipped, Ganguly struggled with his captaincy too. An ugly, very public spat with coach Greg Chappell led to his ouster from the side.

Since he fashioned a most memorable comeback last year against South Africa, he has been in fine form in both Tests as well as one-dayers. Now that Indian cricket again finds itself at crossroads, the Indian cricket board might turn to its most successful captain. But at 34, like Tendulkar, his best cricketing days are behind Ganguly.Many feel it will be a retrograde step to turn back to him for captaincy.

Two other players, touted as potential skippers in recent times, find themselves currently out of favour. Yuvraj Singh has found it difficult to command a place in the Indian middle order in Tests. And Virender Sehwag, on a comeback trail in the ongoing Twenty20 World Cup, is presently out of both the Indian Test and one-day sides.

Which leaves -- or, should we say, leads us to -- Mahendra Singh Dhoni. He has already been trusted with the captaincy of the Indian Twenty20 side. And could very well be the selectors' choice as the new captain for the Indian one-day squad. A dashing batsman, and one of the hardest hitters of the cricket ball, the wicket keeper from Jharkhand is known to have a mature head on his young shoulders. He can, and has tempered his explosive batting skills as per the demands of the situation.

Dhoni's selection as skipper of the Indian one-day side in the home series against Australia allows the selectors a breather before they have to decide on the Indian Test captain.

If Dhoni does well against the Australians, the selectors might hand him over the Test captaincy too. In case he doesn't, they would then have the option of choosing either Tendulkar or Ganguly. Or they might dip into their selectors' hat and come up with an entirely new name.

Which would be completely par for course, given the goings-on in Indian cricket.