Bhery Phunny!

Jo and Woh were two very good friends. And then one day, Jo got scared. And Woh died.

Guess why?

Arey baba, simple...

Jo Dar Gaya Woh Mar Gaya

Hopefully There Is A Method In This Madness

So, The Wall has been breached. Not by a wily opposition, but by five wise men who were once rather eloquently described by Mohinder Amarnath as "a bunch of jokers".

Not that Rahul Dravid, one of only six international cricketers to have scored more than 10,000 one-day runs, would find anything remotely funny in the recent turn of events that finds him out of the Indian cricket side after just one poor series -- that, too, against the world's best cricket team.

For the past couple of seasons, Dravid has increasingly played as the floater in the Indian one-day batting line up. While Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly have both clearly stated their preference to open the innings, Dravid had taken upon himself the tough role of a finisher.

During the last series against Australia, it appeared that the new Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni preferred the hardhitting Robin Uthappa as the side's designated finisher. For the first time in a long and distinguished career, Dravid looked out of sorts in a line up that had the senior pros Tendulkar and Ganguly as openers, the prolific Yuvraj Singh as the new middle-order pivot and Dhoni and Uthappa as finishers.

If such a line up is the blueprint for future, with Ganguly making way for a young tyro somewhere along the future, then there is nothing wrong in axing Dravid. As long as someone in the Indian cricket board had the courtesy to explain in advance to Dravid, the reasons behind his non-selection.

If the dropping, or resting if you may please, of India's most reliable batsman, has anything to do with one bad series against the Australians (and I suspect it being a case of the latter rather than the former) then it is just another sad example of the knee-jerk reaction of a selection comittee that appears even more confused than its predecessor.

The Chairman of selectors, Dilip Vengsarkar not for the first time contradicted himself when he first said that Dravid has been "rested" for the first two one-dayers against Pakistan and then said the senior pro would have to prove his "form and fitness" if he hoped to come back to the Indian team.

Dravid has never been known to be fleet of foot on the field, but he is perhaps India's best slips fielder in both Tests (along with VVS Laxman) and one-dayers. It is difficult to imagine how his agility on the field or his catching in a four-day match for Karnataka is going to help him to return to the Indian one-day side.

If Dravid's ouster from the side raised a few eyebrows, then the decision to bring back Virender Sehwag, not by a long shot in prime form, baffled even more people.

Sehwag was up and down during the Twenty20 World Cup and then again in the recently concluded Challenger series. Every solid performance was followed by a failure, not exactly the sign of a man in form. Having said that, he is just one innings away from his best form is a cricketing adage that fits no one better than Sehwag.

Sehwag's inclusion makes sense only if you are ready to view him as a batting allrounder and utilize the offspin bowling option that he provides. If the Indian team management decide to go in with four specialist bowling options, plus Sehwag, then it does allow the side to play an additional specialist batsman -- either Gautam Gambhir or Rohit Sharma.

Many moons ago, Sourav Ganguly had come up with the inspired decision to ask Dravid to keep wickets. In the bargain, India had got a world class batsman at the number seven slot. In case, Sehwag is groomed as a batting allrounder, it would allow the Indian side to take the field with additional batting firepower.

My ideal eleven for the first one-dayer against Pakistan would be : Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Robin Uthappa, Irfan Pathan, Murali Karthik, Zaheer Khan and S Sreesanth.

Though I daresay the Indian management would play safe and go in with five specialist bowlers. In place of Gautam Gambhir, Harbhajan Singh would come in. Gambhir is in the form of his life (and you can't say the same about Bhajji) and it would be a pity if he was confined to the dressing room. It is difficult to imagine though that the selectors would select Sehwag and not play him in the eleven.

Given the fact that Pakistan is arriving with their first-choice bowling attack -- Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Asif and Umar Gul -- in a long long time, it remains to be seen how the Indian selectors go about their job, not just in the first two matches, but during the rest of the series as well.

As India look for a winning combination that would serve the side well, leading up to the next World Cup, Dhoni and Co could experiment with Irfan Pathan as a new ball bowler. In his heydays Pathan used to be a handful with the new white ball.

Now that Pathan is once again back in the side as a regular, Dhoni could toss the new ball to the erstwhile Sultan of Swing and see whether he can still bring the new white ball back into right handed batsmen with the same devastating effect.

Also in the Indian squad are the young Mumbai middle order bat Rohit Sharma who made such an impressive debut in the Twenty20 World Cup, and rookie all-rounder Praveen Kumar. The tall, well built Kumar is nowhere near express but can be quite nippy on his day and has a happy knack of picking wickets, as he showed during the recently-concluded Challenger Series.

Add to that his ability to wield the long handle, one is not surprised why the selectors, despairing the lack of all-rounders,have so promptly drafted him into the squad. It, however, remains to be seen if Kumar has the ability to deliver the goods at the highest level, or more importantly whether he would even get the opportunity to display his skills.

Some compliment, this!

If India has six better Test batsmen than the Hyderabadi, then my name is Virender.

PETER ROEBUCK on VVS Laxman

Sukumar Ray Didn't Pen This One...

I don't know who wrote this one. Had a laugh reading it. Hope you will have a good time, reading this...

Through the jongole I am went

On shooting Tiger I am bent

Boshtaard Tiger has eaten wife

No doubt I will avenge poor darling's life

Too much quiet, snakes and leeches

But I not fear these sons of beeches

Hearing loud noise I am jumping with start

But noise is coming from damn fool's heart

Taking care not to be fright

I am clutching rifle tight with eye to sight

Should Tiger come I will shoot and fall him down

Then like hero return to native town

Then through trees I am espying one cave

I am telling self - "Bannerjee be brave"

I am now proceeding with too much care

From far I smell this Tiger's lair

My leg shaking, sweat coming, I start to pray

I think I will shoot Tiger some other day

Turning round I am going to flee

But Tiger giving bloody roar spotting this Bengalee

He bounding from cave like football player Pele

I run shouting

"Kali Ma tumi kothay gele"

Through the jongole I am running

With Tiger on my tail closer looming

I am a telling that never in life

I will risk again for my damn fool wife!!!!

Aashchhe Bochhor Abar Hobe

Much as I love blogging, spending Nobomi morning hunched over my laptop wasn't part of the original plan. But things have come to such a pass, with wife and son both down with viral fever, and lovingly returning my favour of tending to them by passing on their infection to me, this is the best on-the-spur-of-the-moment Plan B I could come up with.

Not that Plan A was likely to be any different than other years. Deemer Devil in Kaalibari, Kosha Mangsho in Chittoranjan Park, downing vodkas till late in the night, listening to Mone Podey Ruby Rai blaring as you enter the Rajender Nagar mandap -- that's been pretty much Pujo in Delhi the past few years.

I am more of a Probashi (non-resident) Baangali than a true-blue Delhi Bong. As a bona fide Delhi Bong, one should have ideally been a student of Raisinha Bengali School, one should have spent some, if not considerable, part of one's misspent youth in Chittaranjan Park, and one should be able to speak incorrect Baangla with a certain degree of confidence.

I can't rightfully lay claims to none of the above. And while my command over Baangla is not what it used to be, you still wouldn't catch me introducing myself, a la lot of Delhi Bongs, as : "Ami Baangali hochhi". Years ago, when I first heard that, I couldn't help but retort : "Aato din ki chhili, bhai?"

This Pujo I had made grand plans of spending it with my odd assortment of cousins and uncles in Kolkata. The idea was to indulge in a serious food fest, now that the days of drinking binges are sadly behind me, thanks to those darned clogged arteries. On good days, I romanticize the arteries being filled with vodka and orange juice and butter chicken. On bad days I know better -- it is those bad marriage days that have clogged them arteries.

Anyway, back to my joyous plans for the City of Joy. I would kick off the food fest with Naan and Kosha Mangsho, washed down with a glass (or may be a few bottles?) of beer, on Shoshthi evening at Amber with Partho, more a brother than a brother in law, and Jhili.

Another option was Mutton Biriyani and Kebabs at Zeeshan's, opposite Partho's house in Park Circus. Legend has it there is more oil in Zeeshan's Kosha Mangsho than in entire Saudi Arabia. If he sees me eating there, Sanjay Mittal, my cardiologist, would have a cardiac arrest. On second thoughts Zeeshan is avoidable.

Shoptomi morning, lazing in the bed, may be even catch a movie on HBO or Star Movies. Or may be a shopping expedition to Rashbehari Aveneue to buy a Punjabi (Did I ever tell you about the chaos -- and consternation -- caused aboard Rajdhani Express many moons ago when a train attendant, in an unmistakably Bengali accent that Pronob Babu would have been mighty proud of, announced: "A Punjabi has been found in the bathroom, owner may collect.") One of those Baatik designed kurtas that you would never find at Fab India.

How about Shoptomi evening with Bappa Da, sampling the culinary delights of Park Street?

My favourite Park Street restaurant used to be Skyroom, which shut down years ago. Then it was Waldrof. I used to love the Peking duck at Waldrof. After closing down in 2003, the restaurant relocated on Russell Street, but the food wasn't the same, and worse, the old charm was gone for ever. Today there's no Skyroom, no Waldrof, no Blue Fox. But you can still have that tall glass of Tom Colins in Mocambo. And then try some Chelo Kabab at the slightly rundown Peter Cat.

But don't fret. Nostalgia may take a beating on the newlook Park Street, but Kolkata still offers as many gastronomical choices as Calcutta did. When he heard I was coming down for Pujo, Borokaku had promised a grand Oshtomi dinner at Mainland China, the restaurant that keeps the Chinese flag flying in Kolkata.

Oh, the best laid plans of mice and men! Instead, I had paaurooti (Bengali for bread) dipped in lemon coriander chicken soup from East Patel Nagar's pride, the Baithak restaurant.

BOO-FRIGGIN-HOO.

Twelve hours and a sleepless night later, we are into the aforementioned Nobomi morning, with yours truly hunched over the laptop.

Aashchhe Bochhor Abar Hobe? No way, Baapi!

I am ashamed of being a Bengali, How about You?

I have often asked myself who am I? And while it is easy to say I am an Indian, a bloody proud Indian at that, and every now and then I see myself as a world citizen too. I am not sure if I am a Hindu, not that I am least bit inclined to join any other religion. Truth be told though I am, and have been all my life, an unabashed Bengali.

Everytime I have had the opportunity to do so, I have unequivocally stated "Ami Baangali".

Over the years I have celebrated everything Bengali. I have been rather impressed about the manner we appropriated Jose Barreto from Brazil, Mother Teresa from Albania and Kanchenjungha from Sikkim. "Shala Indira (Gandhi) puro Sikkim niye nilo, aar amra aakta Kanchenjungha nilei joto dosh", a friend of mine had once reasoned. I am not going to translate that, but try arguing with that logic!

Apart from pride, I have felt a certain degree of comfort in being a Bengali. Some of the finest books I have ever read are in Bengali. I dare say there are few better writers in any language than Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay or Sukumar Ray. I simply relish Bangla food -- from luchi aar kosha mangsho to murighonto to shutki maachh to muger daler peethe. I have no doubt at all that Sourav Ganguly has been India's best cricket captain ever.

More than anything else though I have enjoyed being a Bengali because it gives you a certain liberal aura, a secular credential, which is good for your peace of mind. Today I am most miffed, nay deeply upset, because for the first time I find my identity a burden, a shame.

To be sure, when a predominantly Bhadralok crowd lynches a poor pickpocket to death, I feel terrible. When crowds misbehave in Eden Gardens, my blatantly Bengali heart bleeds too. I have cringed when someone tells me that Bengal has the highest number of custodial deaths in the country. First Singur and then Nandigram left me shaken as well as stirred. But I have always believed -- even defended -- such acts as part of deviant behaviour for which you can't hold an entire state responsible.

Last few weeks though, my belief as a Bengali, and my faith in Bengal has taken an unprecedented battering. It is bad enough that the coldblooded killing of Rizwanur, a 3o-year-old graphics teacher who had dared to marry the Hindu daughter of a powerful business tycoon, is being passed off as suicide at a time when there is enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that if even he wasn't physically pushed in front of a train, he was definitely pressurised and pushed to take that drastic step.

More than the government's response, what is far more difficult to stomach is the state of denial people of Bengal choose to live in. Bengalis are known to issue or deny certificates on secularism to the rest of the world, appoint themselves custodians against imperialism, comment on incidents in Vietnam and Venezuela. And now they allow a Rizwanur to sit easy on their collective conscience.

For those who don't know about Rizwanur, these are the bare facts of the case.

Rizwanur Rahman was a 30-year old computer graphics teacher from Kolkata. He was also a Muslim who fell in love with and married a Hindu girl Priyanka Todi, who happened to be the daughter of Ashok Todi, a member of the Todi multimillion dollar Lux hosiery brand. Priyanka eloped and married Rizwanur on August 18, but her family lodged a missing persons report and eventually an abduction complaint against Rizwanur. The Kolkata police started harassing him to return his wife back to her family.

Priyanka did not want to go back to her family, but was told by the cops that her father was seriously ill. On September 8th, Rizwanur and Priyanka relented and she went back to live with her family for a week. The family however did not allow Priyanka to return back to Rizwanur.

On September 16, Rizwanur, realising that his wife would not be returned to him, sought help from the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights, a human rights organisation. In a written complaint to APDR, he stated that he wasn’t getting any help from the cops - in fact he was being harassed and pressurised by them.

Five days later, on September 21, Rizwanur Rahman was found dead, lying on the railway tracks between Dum Dum and Bidhannagar stations. Within literally minutes, the Kolkata police chief Prasun Bannerjee had declared Rizwanur had committed suicide.

This is not the first time in our secular socialist republic, a Hindu-Muslim marriage has resulted in death. Caste panchayats in large chunks of north India have -- regularly and with impunity -- ordered killings of young men and women who have married outside their castes or religion.

Bengal, you thought, was different. Who can forget the face of the man who lost his family in the Gujarat riots and was given a job and shelter in West Bengal? Now that face has been replaced in my mind and memory by that of Rizwanur Rahman.

There have been protests by members of the intelligentsia and odd articles in the media. But there has to be, there should have been, a bigger display of anger, a more sustained agitation against the West Bengal government's stand on the Rizwanur case. Isn't this after all a state where people take to the streets over a soccer match?

When I visited Ahmedabad during the 2002 anti-Muslim riots what bothered me was the promptness with which the Hindus I spoke to, dissociated themselves from the violence around them. "We don't know what was going on", "We didn't kill any Muslims", was always the stock response. As if their lack of knowledge or complicity somehow made the killings more acceptable.

Hungarian-born Gitta Sereny spent ten years in post-Second World War Germany and interviewed over 10,000 Germans, trying to find their guilt in the events leading up to the deaths of six million Jews. "Not a single person was willing to take even moral or emotional responsibility for what had happened," wrote a very perturbed Sereny. According to her, that attitude was as much to blame as Hitler's policies for the genocide.

Bengal can't afford a similar stand on Rizwanur. It can't hide behind the fig leaf of "It was suicide, and not murder". It doesn't matter if a frustrated Rizwanur threw himself before a train. You have to look at -- take a VERY HARD look -- the situation which prompted Rizwanur to take such a step. Not many years ago, another young man, a brother of mine, had chosen to end his life on the railway track. I know first hand the trauma, the turmoil that prompts one to take a step like that.

Earlier today, the West Bengal chief minister, facing flak from the media and under pressure from his own allies, ordered the transfer of the Calcutta police commissioner and four other police officials. For me, it is too less too late. Transfers are merely symbolic, and simply a politically expedient move. Albeit a step in the right direction, much more (read exemplary punishment) needs to be done, before Bengal or the West Bengal government can hold its head high.

About a hundred years ago, Rabindranath Tagore had returned his knighthood in protest, against the then Partition of Bengal. I have no fancy titles or medals to return to anyone. But if the West Bengal chief minister doesn't take prompt remedial action or if my beloved Bengal continues to live in denial on the Rizwanur issue, I might just give up something as dear to me as my life. My identity as a Baangali.

It is time Buddhababu and rest of Bengal realise that the difference between Modi and Todi should be more than just a letter in the English language.

Indian Village of Identical Twins Pose DNA Puzzle

Almost adjacent to the civilian airport in Allahabad, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh is the village of Mohammad Pur Umri. As you drive into Umri, it doesn't look any different than scores of other such villages in the area. Once inside though as you look at the faces staring back at you, one may be forgiven for thinking that you have stepped into the sets of a sci-fi film on cloning.

For one in ten births in this village of eight hundred odd people involves twins, most of them identical, thus making it the highest concentration of identical twins anywhere in the world.

For the past few months, scientists from around the world are flocking to Umri to try to find out why an extraordinarily large number of identical twins are being born there. Ever since a local daily carried the story about the unusually high incidence of identical twins in Umri, scientists and members of the international media have descended upon this sleepy hamlet.

Globally, the odds of a woman giving birth to identical twins is one in 300.

Over the last 10-15 years, the number of twin births has gone up significantly," Netaji, a village headman who has lived in Umri for over 70 years, told me. "There would have been many more, but infant mortality has claimed many lives," he added.

Among the visitors has been a team of DNA experts from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad. They have been busy collecting blood samples from the residents of Umri, which is viewed as a "genetic gold mine" in the scientific community.

Identical twins emerge from a single fertilised egg, while non-identical twins are born if a woman carrying two eggs has both fertilised simultaneously. But scientists remain unsure if twinning is entirely a chance phenomenon.

DNA experts hope the blood samples of Umri's residents will provide a clue to whether there is a genetic basis for it, and if DNA rearrangement during the embryonic development is responsible.

One theory put forward has been that the high numbers of twins is due to the high number of marriages between relatives, which, in this predominantly Muslim village, are encouraged.There are not many takers for this theory, though.

While villagers admit that marriages between relatives are not infrequent, they dismiss the theory that inbreeding is the reason for the unusually high number of identical twins. According to them, marriages between relatives take place in other Muslim-dominated villages too - yet these places do not have as many twins as Umri.

"We believe these twins are a gift from God, and nothing else," village leader Netaji said. "The land of this area, between the two great rivers, Ganges and Yamuna, is very fertile. That is why this phenomenon occurs.Whether it's sugar cane or twin children, this land has always been very fertile," Netaji tells me with an unmistakable air of pride.

While scientists may beg to differ with this interesting explanation, many of the other villagers are quick to agree with their village headman.

Netaji introduces me to Abu Saad, a 20-year-old who has two pairs of twin sisters among his eight siblings. As we walk towards his house to meet his siblings, Saad explains to me : "This phenomenon is partly a gift of nature, and partly a gift of the land of this village. There's something in the soil that produces so many identical twins." Experts at CCMB claim that two pairs of identical twins in the same family is "an extremely rare occurrance".

The most celebrated twins in the village are the oldest surviving ones, Guddu and Munnu. Guddu said that even his wife occasionally gets confused between the two - one of a great number of stories of confusion involving the twins throughout the village.

"Once my brother had a quarrel with someone in the neighbourhood," Gudu recalled. "When I saw him being taken away by the police, I followed, trying to find out what had happened.

"As I approached a policeman, he angrily asked me to accompany him to the station. I told them I wasn't the person they'd first held - I was wearing a white suit, my brother was dressed differently. "But they wouldn't listen. I was only let out when the confusion cleared, a few hours later."

The young twins of Umri attract a lot of attention at a nearby madrasa, or Islamic school. A very Indian custom of dressing up identical twins in the same clothes has only made matters worse for the teachers, who find it hard at the best of times to differentiate between the children. The scope for confusion, and the odd mischief, is endless.

Meanwhile, scientists in hi-tech labs thousands of miles away from the dust bowl of Umri will continue to peer down their microscopes and try to match DNA strains, seeking an answer to one of the more baffling genetic puzzles of our times.

Akbar, Tansen, Shashi Kapoor and Me

Dad has this theory. For Tansen to perform the way he did, he needed the patronage of Akbar. As one of the nine jewels in Emperor Akbar's court, Tansen didn't have to worry about earning money and he happily immersed himself in music. In my years of mispent youth (and even during years well past my youth) as I chased my share of improbable dreams, Dad left me in no doubt that I could do so only because he played the benevolent Akbar.

Over the years, though I benefited considerably from Dad's somewhat patronising patronage, it is not the Akbar-Tansen model that has enthused, even inspired, me as much as the Shashi Kapoor school of creativity.

The man with that famous bucktoothed smile made pots of money by acting in the crassest of Bollywood films, and then spent that money in financing and producing cinematic gems like Junoon, 36 Chauranghee Lane and Kalyug.

In an interview to an English daily in London sometime ago, the suavest member of Bollywood's first family said it had not been easy to juggle his priorities between mainstream Bollywood films in which he acted and the films that he produced. And then there was his first love, theatre. Kapoor has admitted more than once while films earned him wealth and success, it was theatre which taught him his craft.

Not that I didn't enjoy Shashi Kapoor's acting in mainstream Hindi movies. I loved him in Kabhi Kabhie. I thought he was very nice in Kala Pathhar, where his offer to the baddies to try daalmooth with Limca still stands out in my memory. He was eminently watchable in Deewar, where he had that unforgettable "Mere paas Maa hai" dialogue.

The man had more than Maa going for him. He had the redoubtable Jennifer Kendall as his wife and oodles of common sense and creative energy with which he not only re-started Prithvi Theatre, but also made some of the finest movies one ever saw.

As a freelance journalist, I have tried -- with varying degrees of success and on a very small scale -- to do the same with my own life. I have done projects which would make me money in the hope that the same money would allow me to do projects that are close to my heart. There have been occasions when such endeavours have met with considerable success and I can also remember moments when my plans came unstuck rather spectacularly.

More than once I have lain sleepless on my bed, wondering where the next pay cheque is going to come from. But there have been moments -- more than one, too -- when I have been deliriously happy and not a little proud of the work I have been able to produce. At the end of the day, and I so hope the end is still some distance away, I would be happy with that on my epitaph.

Right now as I mull over my latest project -- a ghost written book on medical tourism for an American client -- I am glad "Mere paas Shashi Kapoor hai" for inspiration.

Trout curry, Vodka and a Slice of Green Chilly

No Einstein, me. But right now I feel I am in the same league, having discovered an equation which is of no less importance to mankind than the one the old man had figured out.

Mine is considerably simpler than Einstein's E is equal to MC square. It reads :
Heaven = Trout curry, vodka, lime and a slice of green chillies.

And if you figure out the right location, as I have (thanks to a friend, with whom I guess I will have to share the Nobel. The Swedish Academy has decided on the prize, they are just quibbling about the category, I'm told), then this could well be a lifechanging experience for one.

Let me elaborate...

To begin at the beginning, on Thursday a friend of mine called up from Mandi in Himachal Pradesh, inviting me to spend a few days in the hills. I have itchy feet anyways. Besides his logic was impeccable -- this time of the year the weather is so good in the hills, it is silly to waste it on Delhi.

So, yesterday I took the morning flight to Kullu. My friend, Sudripto, a senior official with the Himachal Pradesh government picked me up from the small picturesque Bhuntar airport. I thought we were going to Mandi, but Sudripto had other plans. We crossed the bridge over the Beas river and went into Parvati valley. "Let me take you to a place called Kasol," he said, as he drove on.

We had been driving for an hour on this mountain road, with dense forest on either side of the road. Across the forest there was a mountain river. We couldn't see it, but by God, we could hear it alright. Increasingly it was difficult for us to hear each other above the noise of the river. And, then suddenly, my friend braked, stopped the vehicle in the middle of nowhere. He got down from the vehicle and, without a word of explanation, waded inside the forest to our left. I had no choice but to follow him. I had no clue where we were going, but I knew we were getting closer to the river.

After about five minutes of walking, he said : "Now close your eyes, and hold my hand and walk." And then my eyes closed and holding his hand, we walked for ten, may be fifteen minutes. "Ok, stop," he said, "now open your eyes."

And I saw heaven on earth.

Where we were standing, to my left, about five hundred metres away was that mountain river, in full spate. To the right, was the forest through which we had driven and then walked. We were on this grassy valley. Ahead of me, in the distance was a mountain that looked like a giant Christmas tree, the green leaves and white snow was so evenly distributed. What held my attention was neither the mountain river, nor the Himalayan version of the Christmas tree.

My eyes were locked on a beautiful two-storeyed grey building, sitting in the middle of this picture postcard location. "It is a Swiss chalet," my friend whispered in my ears. "Th-this is heaven", I found myself muttering.

Over the years, I have travelled a lot, and been fortunate to see many wonderful places. But this was something else. The scenery, the serenity of the place, it took your breath away. The air was so fresh, so crisp you could feel it, even hear it softly hitting your cheeks. During my first few moments, I didn't utter a word, moved around quietly, tiptoeing on the soft grass under my feet. One felt like an intruder who had walked in through the gates of heaven. A jarring movement, any loud noise, you feared, would break the spell, and you will once again find yourself in a Rajouri Garden mall.

And then a tall dark man, with a hint of a stoop, came out of the doors of the chalet and walked towards us. He greeted my friend and smiled at me. The spell was broken. But thankfully I had not been transported to the aforementioned mall.

"This is Sanjoy... He owns this place," Sudripto said. Sanjoy smiled again, and made a gesture with his hand, and a minion materialized. Sudripto directed him to bring our bags from the jeep. It was about 11.30 in the morning, and i felt hungry enough to eat a horse.

Sudripto went to the chalet. Sanjoy guided me to the riverside. Up close the river looked rather wide, I sat on the cool grass on the banks of the river. Sanjoy leaned against a boulder, then reached in the crevice between that boulder and the next one, and came up with a bottle of Smirnoff, and two glasses. I sat there, making a mental note to search other boulders later. He dipped the glasses in the river, filled half of the glasses with crystalclear water and then poured a generous measure of vodka. Another minion, as if on cue, showed up with a plate of sliced lime and sliced green chillies, which were duely added to our vodka.

Sanjoy handed me a glass held up his own, using the sliced chilly as a stirrer, and then said, "Cheers, Rajan", his first words after we had reached Kasaul. As I looked around, there was not a human being in sight. "The nearest village is three kilometres up that road you drove down," explained Sanjoy, who said it was the "middle of nowhere" look of the place which first attracted him to build the chalet here.

Sudripto joined us a little later, a drink in hand. A simple but yummy lunch followed a little later on the river bank. Deliciously spiecey trout curry and piping hot rice. "We get the trout from the river here", said Sanjoy. But, of course.

Later in the day, after I had woken up from a lazy afternoon nap, as dusk was slowly descending upon Kasaul, Happy Singh visited us. The tall strapping Sardar was as loud as this place was quiet. He had a trout farm not too far away. He obviously knew his way around, and quickly poured himslf a peg that would have had the Patiala peg squirming in acute inferiority complex, and then made himself comfortable next to me. He smiled at me, then pointed to Sudripto, and said : "Sir's friend, my friend."

A little later, he expertly rolled a perfect joint and handed it to me. I lit it and blew a lazy smoke ring, then after two wholesome puffs offered it to Happy. He politely declined, "I don't smoke. I am a Sikh," he explained, a fact that evidently didn't prevent him from either procuring the stuff or rolling it with such expertise. A few, nay a lot, more drinks into the night, Happy Singh departed but promised a la Doug MacArthur that he would return.

That was yesterday.

This morning I woke up to the noise of children playing. I looked out of the window of my first floor room. Sanjoy and Sudripto, half a dozen young children, presumably from a nearby village, and three white men were playing an enthusiastic, if raucous, game of soccer. The time on my watch showed eight. Another picture postcard moment, I said to myself.

The white men were staying at the chalet. I met two of them at breakfast. One was an Italian writer who had booked an apartment for three months. He had come to finish his book here and was going to be in Kasaul till December end. Another was an English musician, who was most excited about the cookies he planned to bake later. This was his second trip to the chalet. He had come here in 2005 and fell in love with the place.

Breakfast was followed by a tour of the chalet. The two floors are divided in four two-room apartments. You can rent an apartment for a minimum of fifteen days. And though there is no official policy, Sanjoy did admit that writers, artists or musicians were preferred as boarders. The rooms are fitted with large screen TV and Bose audio system. There is internet connectivity but no telephones. Sanjoy said: "I never advertise this chalet. I get my customers through word of mouth publicity." Considering that he is booked till early 2009, I guess he isn't doing too badly.

In the basement, one half houses a bakery, where from bread to cookies to pastries, everything is baked to order. "I encourage the guests to bake," Sanjoy said. He added, there is no fixed menu card. Trout and jungle fowl, both found in plenty nearabouts, are the main attractions, fresh vegetables are purchased from the nearest village. And now and then, somone like Happy Singh would show up wth a wild boar, and there would be a bonfire and a feast.

It was the second half of the basement which caught my eye. It was loaded with books. English, fiction and non fiction, French, German, Spanish even Bengali books. What impressed me was the breadth of the collection --from travelogues to thrillers to biographies. There was enough to house a library and more. And then there were the DVDs. Hollywood classics, European cinema, Iranian films, and of course plenty from Bollywood and a surprising number of documentaries. "Everytime I go to Delhi or Calcutta, I pick up books and DVDs," said Sanjoy, who, Sudripto said, was an M Phil in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University in Calcutta.

I write this blog post on my laptop, sitting on the boulder which doubles up as Sanjoy's outdoor bar. It is past three in the afternoon. Riverwater smashes on the rocks and splashes on my feet, and the sun feels lovely on my back.

There is murder on my mind. Ever since I came here yesterday, a thought has crossed my mind more than once -- to bump off Sanjoy, take over this property and the rest of his life and never return to Delhi.

A Little Bit of Insanity Wouldn't be Out of Place ...

Khairlanji disturbs me, bothers me, at many levels.

Perhaps more than the killings in Khairlanji, it is the response to the violence, or the lack of it, that bothers me more. More than 24 hours after the incident no FIR was registered. Despite eyewitness accounts that the women were raped till they died and even after their death they were raped, the government dropped rape charges against the accused because of "lack of evidence".

There is no need to use words like "sensational" or "brutal" to describe what happened in Khairlanji. You can see all those adjectives and more in the eyes of Bhaiyalal Bhotmange.

Bhaiyalal's eyes still haunt me. As he talks to you, you can see his eyes replaying the events leading up to the killings. Everytime he rcounts the incident in a court or in front of the media, his wife and daughter get raped again, his sons get killed again.

I can't forget the look of terror on the face of the Dalit eyewitness who has to stand in an open court and testify against some of the most powerful men in his village -- a village where his entire family lives. More than once, he and his family have been threatened. After all the threats, the act of standing in that courtroom requires courage that you and me might find difficult to even imagine.

It is not just those eleven incarcerated men whose presence in the court scares the eyewitness. It is the entire village of uppercaste families, which has just three Dalit Buddhist families. Heavy police presence in the area has prevented any untoward incidents so far. But the police wouldn't be there indefinitely. Once the police leave, fear NGO activists in Bhandara and Nagpur, all those who have dared to depose before the court will have to bear the brunt of uppercaste wrath.

Today, entire Khairlanji suffers from collective amnesia. None of the residents can throw any light on how the entire Bhotmange family perished. No one in the village heard the screams of the Bhotmange boys when their legs were broken, or the cries of Surekha Bhotmange and her daughter Priyanka when they were raped.

It is difficult to calmly report from a place like Khairlanji, it is difficult to maintain objectivity. Having said that, it would be criminal to report calmly from Khairlanji. Your blood should boil by what you see. I think for far too long far too many of us have remained calm. We have calmly reported Khairlanjis, we have calmly debated over Khairlanjis and then we have calmly gone to sleep, to wake up next morning and calmly move on to perhaps other Khairlanjis.

Khairlanji sorely tempts you to take recourse to other means, means that go against the laws of the land. It provokes the latent arsonist in me. I want to jolt some people out of their calmness. I want to ask some people how calmly they would react to agricultural implements being shoved up the private parts of women in their families. I want to torch a few courthouses which go slow on such cases.

The sorriest, most sordid thing about Khairlanji is what happened there is NOT out of the ordinary as far as crimes against Dalit go. Over the past twenty years I have worked with, and known, some of the finest men and women who have produced top quality journalism in the most trying circumstances. I am a very proud member of this much-reviled Fourth Estate. But Indian mainstream journalism will have to collectively bear the cross of not reporting either the frequency or the savagery of anti Dalit violence.

As a journalist, I wouldn't describe myself of being either scoop-hungry or click-happy. But when I look back upon the past couple of decades, I have to confess there were times when I had been a silent spectator to acts of barbarism. While largely it is my fault, it is partly because of our training as a journalist to faithfully recount, to report what has happened and then de-involve oneself. That training is meant to ensure that one retains one's sanity even as one reports on the madness all around.

But Khairlanji, and other such incidents, do raise an important issue -- after seeing all this, what kind of a human being would, or even should, remain sane?