Trouble Down This Road

Last month, I had posted a blog here about how the Jarawas, a Stone Age tribe, of whom just 250 survive today, are facing extinction in the Andaman and Nicobar islands, off the eastern coast of India. The Jarawas have been declared as one of the three most endangered tribes in the world by Survival International, a London-based tribal rights group. A road built through the land earmarked for the Jarawas is forcing human contact on the Jarawas, exposing them to a lifestyle they are not used to and not trained to cope with. A contact that anthropologists fear would eventually lead to the extinction of one of the oldest tribes in the world. Now, a top official of the government of India has echoed similar fears in an article in The Hindu, one of the leading Indian newspapers. Meena Gupta was till recently, Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India and was recently appointed as Secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests. Here's what she has written :

THE deprivation of a name, the loss of a homeland, the extinction of a tribe — this seems to be the ominous progression of one of the oldest extant hunter-gatherer tribes in India, indeed, possibly, in the whole world. ‘Ang’ is what they call themselves, but the world knows them as the Jarawa, the Palaeolithic tribe that lives deep in the jungles of the Andaman Islands.

The word ‘Jarawa’, in the language of the Great Andamanese (another Stone Age tribe of the Andamans) means ‘the stranger’ or ‘the outsider’. To the Andamanese, the Jarawa were outsiders; a different people, albeit of the same Negrito stock and inhabiting the same islands. It is unfortunate that this name — rather than Ang meaning ‘humans’, which the Jarawa use for themselves — should become the name by which we know them.

Total isolation

The Jarawa are one of the five Stone Age tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which have lived in almost total isolation in the dense tropical forests of the islands, and have survived virtually unchanged up to modern times. They are hunter-gatherers, who do not practise even rudimentary agriculture, wear no clothes, shun contact with outsiders, and are fiercely independent. Their physical appearance — dark, almost ebony skin, closely curled woolly hair, and negrito features — are quite distinct from the population that originates from the Indian mainland and mark them as a race apart.

Because of their small numbers (240 persons as per the 2001 census, 317 persons as reported by the Andaman administration in 2007) and their being nomadic deep forest dwellers, they are virtually unknown as a community to the rest of India and are only a name even to the inhabitants of the islands.

The plight of the Jarawa has, in recent years, generated a lot of interest because of an almost sudden change in their behaviour in the late 1990s — from avoiding all contact with the outsider to actively seeking such contact. This change, which began in 1997, has heightened their vulnerability and threatened their way of life.

The single activity that has had the most significant, and adverse, impact on the lives of the Jarawa is the construction of the Andaman Trunk Road. Running in a south-north direction from Port Blair, the administrative headquarters in South Andaman to Maya Bunder in the north, the ATR was started in 1958 with the very laudable intention of linking Port Blair with the several settlements scattered in the middle and north of the Andaman Islands.

These settlements, which consisted entirely of people who migrated from the mainland (refugees from erstwhile East Pakistan, other people who had migrated in search of better opportunities, descendants of convicts and jailors brought by the British) were either consciously established by the administration or, more rarely, had sprung up on their own.

Established at great human and financial cost, they are now flourishing habitations, with the people conscious and vociferous about their rights. Before the construction of the Andaman Trunk Road, these habitations were connected to Port Blair (and to the mainland) only by sea routes. With the completion of the ATR (an endeavour that took approximately 40 years), a direct and unimaginably convenient land link was established between the settlements and Port Blair.

The trouble was that the ATR sliced right through territory that was, until then, the exclusive and undisturbed preserve of the Stone Age, hunter-gatherer Jarawa tribe. In fact it was because this territory was, by and large, undisturbed that the Jarawa had been able to survive with their way of life almost unchanged over centuries. The incursion into their territory, through the means of the ATR, exposed them to modern civilisation and its baneful influences like tobacco, alcohol, unfamiliar foods and diseases against which they had no immunity, which could together take them to the brink of extinction. What was a boon for the settlers, therefore, could very easily sound the death knell for the Jarawa.

Alarm bells about the impact of the ATR on the Jarawa should have started ringing long ago. When the road first started, sensibilities about the environment and human rights and the different rights of tribals were low. Therefore creating a road through someone else’s homeland, destroying virgin forests was not a matter of great concern.

Opposition

But over the 40 years or so it took to construct the ATR, consciousness of environmental issues and human rights has grown by leaps and bounds. However when the rights of a tiny group of people clashes with those of a much larger one, it is usually the more clamorous and stronger voice that is heard. And that is what has happened in the case of the ATR.

There was certainly no dearth of opposition from the Jarawa. Starting with the killing of the labourers building the road, to shooting with bow and arrows at buses and other vehicles when they started to ply on the road, the Jarawa made their objection to the violation of their homeland and space quite clear. That the administration continued with their efforts could be seen as an act of valour and determination in the face of odds or callousness and insensitivity towards the rights of weaker people depending on the point of view.

The Jarawa became the subject of a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Calcutta High Court in the 1990s with the High Court issuing an order to frame a policy for the Jarawa. The Jarawa Policy was prepared as a consequence, in consultation with a number of experts, and was adopted on December 21, 2004.

The Jarawa Policy dwells not inconsiderably on the ATR and its impact on the Jarawa. It recommends, among other things, that the traffic on the road be restricted to essential purposes (which have been specified) and allowed to move only during restricted hours and in convoys. It repeatedly stresses that all manner of interaction between the Jarawa and the travellers, particularly tourists, be prevented. Very importantly, the policy talks of encouraging and strengthening facilities for travel by boat and ship. The policy also talks of removing encroachments in the Jarawa territory on priority basis, and ensuring that no such encroachment of non-tribals take place.

No implementation

In the two and a half years since the Jarawa policy has come into being, little has been done to implement its recommendations, particularly the more difficult ones. In defence of the administration, it must be pointed out that the inaction was not, perhaps, deliberate. The Jarawa policy was adopted on December 21, 2004. Just five days later, on December 26, the devastating tsunami struck the islands. The Jarawa were not affected by the tsunami, so the administration, whose entire attention got diverted to the affected areas, had little time to think of the Jarawa, apart from verifying that they had not suffered any loss.

The Jarawa policy has thus remained, by and large unimplemented. No attempt has been made to explore alternate sea routes to link the places that the ATR goes to. Little effort has been made to curtail the number of vehicles plying on the road. The average number of vehicles plying on the ATR annually shows a steep increase from 17,179 in 2001 to 35,798 in 2006. The number is poised to exceed 40,000 in 2007.

Convoys of vehicles leave eight times a day from Jirkatang and Middle Strait — the two opposite ends of the portion of the ATR that runs through the Jarawa reserve — with an average of 120 vehicles per day. And despite explicit stipulations of no contact with the Jarawa, vehicles conveniently break down or stop on one pretext or the other on the portion of the road inside the Jarawa reserve to allow tourists to see and sometimes interact with the Jarawa.

The subject of the Jarawa was again studied by a sub-group of experts and officials, set up in January, 2006 by the National Advisory Council, to examine inter alia institutional arrangements for protecting the Jarawa and to suggest various measures to ensure greater protection. By January 2006, the Jarawa policy adopted in December 2004 had not had a fair chance at implementation. Just a year had passed, and the tsunami and its aftermath had grabbed all attention and resources. The sub-group studied various aspects including the notified Jarawa policy and its implementation and made several recommendations.

Regarding the ATR, it has suggested that the portion that runs through the Jarawa reserve eventually be closed, after alternate arrangements for transportation by sea or air were put in place. This means a further delay since very little action has been taken to explore other arrangements. Unless a firm decision to close the ATR (i.e. the portion inside the Jarawa reserve) is taken, the administration will continue to drag its feet on alternate routes.

Other alternatives

Despite the Supreme Court having taken such a decision in 2002, the administration has filed a review petition, which is yet to be finalised. It is easily forgotten that before the completion of the ATR (which is fairly recent), sea routes were the only alternative.

Even today, for all other islands, e.g. Car Nicobar, Havelock, Great Nicobar, other islands of the Nicobar group, Little Andaman and many others, transportation is only by boat or ship and, very occasionally, by helicopter. Therefore the people living in North and Middle Andaman can hardly claim that they will be specially inconvenienced.

Almost all the officials who work or have worked closely with the Jarawa, whether of the Andaman administration or the Andaman Adim Janjati Vikas Samiti, a registered society set up to look after matters relating to primitive tribes, privately aver that closure of the ATR is essential to reduce contact with the Jarawa and protect them from abrupt induction into the 21st century.

However, other officials strongly claim that closure of the ATR, even a portion of it, is impossible since it is a lifeline for the northern settlements. The attitude of these latter officials is understandable, but unsupportable, if one keeps the future of the Jarawa in mind. It is apparent they are thinking not of the Jarawa but of the other inhabitants. For these inhabitants, other alternatives are, or can be, made available.

For the Jarawa, who virtually have their backs against the wall, there is no alternative, and time is fast running out.

More egg on the BCCI face!

Many years ago, a friend of mine had likened the goings-on in the Indian cricket board to a drunken couple performing a waltz -- one step forward, two steps backward. We have just seen another stand out performance from the BCCI, to take the dancing metaphor a step forward, now that Ford has refused to tango.

That Ford fellow is rather smart. He sussed up the situation pretty quickly during his brief stay in India on Saturday and his instinct for self-preservation must have prevailed over the lure of, despite its obvious pressures and considerable distractions, taking up what must be one of the hottest jobs in international cricket today.

On the face of it, Ford had seemed an excellent choice for the job. His record was second only to the Australian John Buchanan, among post-1999 coaches. He was a low-key person, something of a welcome quality in Indian cricket right now, after the departure of the oh-so-media-saavy Greg Chapell. But all that's water under the bridge now. For, as Sunil Gavaskar said yesterday, the Board is back to square one.

Ford's refusal to take up the Indian coaching job, less than 48 hours after the dramatic announcement of his appointment by the BCCI, is only the latest in a series of eminently avoidable situations the Indian cricket board finds itself. Ford's snub comes in the wake of Nimbus walking out of a deal to cover the Afro-Asian cricket series and Zee Network's decision to cancel the contract to telecast offshore cricket matches involving India.

Then Kapil Dev, honorary director of the National Cricket Academy, and Kiran More, the last chief selector of Indian cricket, have embarrassed the BCCI by associating openly with TV moghul Subhash Chandra's proposed cricket league. More who was not too long ago accused of seeking bribe to select a player rather bluntly told a TV channel the other day : "Even the petrol I use to drive to the Mahrashtra Cricket Association's office is paid by me." Not very haqppy days for the Indian cricket board, eh?

A potentially embarrassing, if not downright explosive, situation could still emerge out of the protracted contracts negotiations. Though the Board is understood to have offered more money to the players in the form of higher television revenue share, the players are almost unanimously opposed to the cap on endorsements -- a decision that was taken in the first place without much reason and more as a populist step to convince the Indian cricketing public and the Board's eventual paymasters that the BCCI could act tough with non-performing players.

There is also the little matter of protecting the interest of the Board's official sponsors as opposed to the sponsors of individual players. Adidas has already taken Nike to court over a sponsorship row involving Sachin Tendulkar. Surely the last hasn't been heard on that matter. An ineffective BCCI would in the days to come be open to more such litigations as sponsor interests clash. Not surprisingly the Adidas case, I'm told, is being watched with considerable interest in the Indian corporate world.

Meanwhile, my friend who had come up with the drunken couple performing a waltz one liner came up with yet another gem last night to describe the Ford fiasco.

He said, more egg on the face wouldn't bother the Indian cricket mandarins. He said : "I am sure one of these days someone like Lalit Modi, the current Mr. Moneybags of Indian cricket, would grandly announce that with so much of egg around, the Indian cricket board has decided to get into the poultry business!"

A Midsummer Day's Dream

Life in a hospital's Intensive Care Unit (ICU) can be pretty exciting. The care IS very intensive -- nurses poke you with all kinds of needles at periodic intervals, thermometers are stuck up different orifices, medicines of different colours, shapes and sizes fed to you during, before and after meals and doctors with smiles as fake as Pamela Anderson's breasts tell you not to worry about a thing and then cheerfully reel off some very worrisome facts about your body.

Why am I rambling?

It is a pleasant 40 degrees in the shade. Brave (and, I thought, a bit foolish too) young men are playing cricket in this lovely weather. And yet I can't string together a coherent thought, let alone a sentence. Heat gets to me. Always has. Among my several serious reservations about self, the biggest one undoubtedly is my inability to relocate myself from a city that I have hated with some passion over three decades now. At one point of time I used to gripe about the people of this city, but for a long time, a very long time now, I haven't enjoyed living in this city because of its terrible weather. Not that life in the decidedly more humid Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai will be any cooler.

But this, the Delhi heat, is a different sort of beast. It works on you from the beginning of February, gets its claws into you in March and April, overwhelms you in May and June, saps your energy in July and August and by October end, you are so beat you think the coolness of November, December and January is just a figment of your meteorologically deluded mind. And then its February once again, the beginning of the nine-month summer season. More than anything else, it is the length of the Delhi summer that gets to you.

I once read somewhere how the author, a political prisoner in an Indian jail, would tell stories to young children, who were staying in the jail premises along with their prisoner mothers, about dogs and cats. And then she would notice the blank look on their faces and realise most of them had never set foot out of the four walls of the jail and had never seen a cat or a dog.

Similarly I fear Ritwik would never know spring or autumn, easily the two most beautiful seasons of my childhood and adolescence, if he grows up in Delhi. In this city, one day you go to the laundry and hand your sweaters and coats for dry cleaning and then come back and don your bermudas. In Delhi, the transition from winter to summer is terribly abrupt.

On top of it, this is a city without a major waterbody in and around it. You call Yamuna a waterbody and the river itself would rise from the mire of silt and from under the city's refuse and sue you for defamation. The water in Yamuna is as much of a chimera as the mythical Saraswati is. You knew there was water there once.

Damn, I am rambling again.

Point is, I am spoilt, both in terms of plentiful water and good weather. I grew up in Andamans, in the towns of Port Blair and Diglipur, when the population was sparse and the forest cover, at a conservative estimate, anything between 90 and 97 per cent, and anytime of the day and anytime of the year, you could feel the sea breeze on your back. In Port Blair, the front of our house faced the road. But the back of the house opened into sand and you could walk straight on to the beach and then to the water. From every room in my house, I could see the sea. And now from every room in my apartment in Delhi... ohh nevermind!

Long after I left Andamans, the islands became a refuge from my physical and emotional troubles. I would transport my mind to Port Blair or Diglipur and shut myself off from everything else. These days when I get depressed, I think a lot about the ten days I spent last year in the ICU. Both, I guess, are clumsy attempts at coping.

Right now, even as I write this, beer is emerging as a serious option. That is, as an attempt at coping.

In my mind's eye, as I wipe the dust off the years, I can see a big tub with chunks of ice, and countless bottles of beer buried in between the ice. The air conditioning on at full blast killing the afternoon heat. A bunch of old friends who can communicate even by passing a cigarette butt, an old seventies movie (could be Angoor or Golmaal or Chupke Chupke, take your pick) on the DVD in a semi-dark room with blinds drawn. Someone almost unobtrusively passing on plates of non vegetarian snacks at regular intervals. Mmmmmm.

Gosh, more rambling.

But I like the train of thought ...

In Defence of the Self and More!

Dear Anonymous,

I liked Cheeni Kum "just because". I am 43, remarkably superficial, a journalist by design if not training, so I am conditioned not to look at things too deeply.

And no I didn't think the movie to be "psychologically realistic" or "shockingly refreshing" or "morally complex". I just liked the movie, yaar.

I grew up watching some really terrible movies, countless number of them, in fact. And for years went to movies with very little expectations. I sat in dark theatres and wished for good photography, slick editing, witty dialogues, oh and the occasional nice story.

I found a bit of all that in Cheeni Kum which is what got me excited. I remember watching Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum and smiling most contentedly at one point when Kajol asks Shahrukh "Aaj jaldi ghar aa jana" and Shahrukh enquires "kyon?". Kajol has this lovely smile on her face and says "Aiwayi". That dialogue made my day, redeemed the movie in my eyes. As I said it takes little things to make me happy about a Hindi movie.

Ditto for Cheeni Kum.

All I see in a movie like Cheeni Kum which I like is that the gap between Indian movies and Hollywood is narrowing. It’s good entertainment for two and a half hours. And ,speaking a tad more personally, I am not exactly averse to the idea of seeing older men woo women far younger than them. It DOES give me hope.

As for older women and younger men. In self defence, all I can say is I watched 'Notes on a Scandal', quite loved the movie, and couldn't find any moral outrage within me about a teacher falling for a fifteen year student.
Looking back, I also quite enjoyed watching The Graduate and The Summer of 42. And please don't hold it against me that I was in my teens when I watched both the movies.

A film maker likes nothing more than a viewer identifying with the movie's protagonist. With someone like me that has happened over the years. I remember watching Sholaay as a eleven year old with a brother two years older than me. When Amitabh dies, and Veeru enters Gabbar's den, shooting down his henchmen on sight, my cousin broke into spontaneous applause and said : "Shabash Veeru, aur maaro".

From mid seventies to early eighties, I WAS Vijay. In Shaan, I was the one who smashed open the door to the villains' den and said : "Mai hamesha apne dushmano ko ghar me ghus ke marta hoo". And in Kabhi Kabhie I was the one who sang "Mai pal do pal ka shayar hoon".

It was also easier to identify as a young man with both The Graduate and The Summer of 42. I found the idea of a young man seduced by an older woman quite "hot". I can't quite honestly say I find the idea as appealing today.

On the other hand, one does get this nice feeling watching Bachchan wooing Tabu. Having said that, I must insist, plausibility plays an important role here. Bachchan and Tabu look good sharing screen space. There is a certain chemistry between the two.

Thus the real issue here, according to me, is not of the appeal of an older man falling for a younger woman, or vice versa. Point is, whether you can carry it off on screen. In Nishabad, the same premise took a beating, yet for me it works in Cheeni Kum.

Of Ghalib and review of a review of Cheeni Kum

Mat pooch ke kya haal hai mera tere peechhe,

Tu dekh ke kya rang hai tera mere agey,

Baazi chahe atfaal duniya mere agey,

Hota hai shabboroz tamasha mere agey...

Someone whom I haven't seen for a few blue moons sent me the above lines. Now, I usually need an interpreter for Ghalib. I have one local interpreter and another I call up in New York. These lines reached me without any help, though. I guess that's why some of my more sensible friends swear on the genius of the fellow. Today he made me smile and write about a movie that I thoroughly enjoyed watching ten-odd days ago.

I almost didn't see Chini Kum. I was so discouraged by Khalid Mohammad's review of the movie. And then my fondness for movies got the better of me. Thank God for that! I thoroughly enjoyed watching the movie. Along with Metro, it happens to be my favourite movie of the year so far.

I am no critic and finer points of movie-making escape me regularly. But I found the setting interesting, the story plausible and the acting of Amitabh Bachchan and Tabu (particularly the latter) very very good. All of which made for a most entertaining two and a half hours.

Khalid Mohammad in his review exhorts Amitabh Bachchan to act his age and give up on his 'Sexy Sam' (obvious reference to his character in Kabhi Alvida Na Kahna) image. Sixtyfour year olds cavorting with women half their age stretches viewers' credulity, avers Mohammad. Personally I thought it somehow offended Mr. Mohammad's sensibility.

At some point in the movie, Amitabh tells Paresh Rawal : "You are jealous of me. You cannot imagine someone my age can be happy, can be looking forward to new things in his life. You had me slotted in a particular image and now you are upset that you had presumed wrongly." Bachchan could have been talking to Khalid Mohammad.

I thought Big B and Tabu looked rather good on screen. Two mature inelligent people who made mature intelligent conversation. They looked far better than, for instance, the pairing of Dharmendra and Nafisa Ali in Metro.

Cheeni Kum is very different from Nishabd. In both the films Big B is seen being attracted to women far younger than him. But that's where the similarities end.

Admittedly Jia Khan and the Big B looked a complete mismatch in Nishabd. But that was not just due to their age gap. The difference between Tabu and Jia is not just in their years, but also in their histrionic abilities. Tabu is a classy actress and methinks one of the most under-rated actress of our times. She has two national awards in her kitty -- for Chandni Bar and Astitva, should have won another for Maqbool, if you ask moi.

I liked Cheeni Kum because of the dialogues. I am sucker for intelligent dialogues and there were a fair number of them in this movie. I loved it when the chef remarked to his colleague: "Tere aur Maya ke beech koi hai. Tere daant." And thoroughly enjoyed Tabu sending Amitabh on a jog, after he had held her hand.

Now I remember the connection between Ghalib's lines and Cheeni Kum. Both made me smile.

A Global Sikh!

In the summer of 2003, I was commissioned by BBC Radio to do a couple of stories out of Punjab. After the obligatory interview in Chandigarh with the state's political bosses, a friend suggested I meet a rather resourceful Keenu farmer in Hoshiarpur, who was also writing for The Times of India. My interest was piqued -- a farmer and a journalist.

On a dusty summer afternoon as I drove into the sprawling Keenu farm, I was greeted by this genteel, soft spoken, young man. We introduced ourselves. He said, with a smile, "I am Khushwant... Khushwant Singh." And then quickly added, "No kin of my more famous namesake."

He went to the kitchen and got me a tall cool glass of fruit juice. And then very seriously proceeded to guide me who should I speak to for my story. He was most generous with his contacts, and arranged for me to stay the night in his lovely farmhouse.

That evening I made acquaintance with a different Khushwant. He was more jovial, cracked one bad joke after the other, started slowly with his whiskey and then by the end of a long evening had drunk me under the table. Late that week as I drove back to Delhi, I realised Khushwant was most unlike any farmer I had met, and even more unlike any journalist I had known.

After that first meeting, we often spoke on the phone. We would discuss stories, discuss the relative decline in recent years of the states we came from, Bengal and Punjab. He spoke about Punjab agriculture and Punjab journalism with equal passion and considerable knowledge. We spoke about Subhas Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh. And for good measure, we discussed at length how exotic Punjabans and Bangalans were. Conversations with Khushwant have always been as varied as the man is.

Over the past four years as he has grown to be one of my better friends, I have met him many times and almost each time I have seen a different side, a new facet of the man. I have seen him upset, even angry about farmer suicides and female foeticides. He fumes about the rising drug consumption in the state and the high unemployment rate. I have seen him covering Jassi, the serial wife from London who duped a dozen odd men into marrying her, and breaking into laughter as he lapsed into Punjabi : "O mainu gaaliya kad rahi si (she was abusing me)".

Then one day he called me from Hoshiarpur and made this grand announcement, "Oye puttarr, I have decided to write a book." He paused, let the news sink in and then added : "A book on Sikhs." Now, I have been a journalist for some years and have heard a few book-writing announcements in my time. In a good year, I myself am overcome, at least a couple of times, to finally pen that masterpiece which I know is churning inside me.

So I didn't take this threat very seriously. Even though, there were a few conversations after that in which he outlined how he planned to travel to different parts of the world and meet members of the Sikh community who had gone on to make a difference to the lives of the people they have lived amongst. As I learnt about the ambitious travel plans, I grew more sceptical about the literary enterprise.

That is, until one day I had this urge to spend a few days in the hills, and called Khushwant seeking his company. "But I am off to UK on Saturday," he said. "I have these interviews lined up for the book," he said over the phone. Suddenly I realised the sardar was serious about the book.

Rest, as they say, is history. I have been privy over animated phone calls and excited face-to-face conversations how interesting Fauja Singh was, and how difficult it was to initially meet Gurinder Chaddha. Over the past year and a half, the man has lived and breathed his book. Last year, I went to Hoshiarpur to watch the World Cup soccer finals together on TV, this year disconsolate over India's early exit from the World Cup I called him up, looking for emtional support. On both occasions, all he wanted to do was discuss his damned book.

And there have been times when I have spotted a mistake or two in one of the chapters he had sent me and I called him up to discuss it. From the other end, an excited voice asked "Dhoom 2 dekhi hai? Both Ash and Bipasha look hot, yaar."

Oh well, that's Khushwant Singh for you. Farmer and journalist. And now a writer. Its still early days to comment on the book, but if it is anything like its author, it should be one heck of a read.

Go smell the coffee, Rahul!

Seriously, guys, I have often wondered, more than once, if I missed my true calling by not becoming a sports journalist. My first article in journalism was a profile of the stylish New Zealand batsman Martin Crowe, just before the 1987 World Cup of cricket.

There was both opportunity and more-than-occasional desire to write more on one of my more favourite subjects, but I chose not to do anything with those opportunities. There is a lot going for a career spent chasing cricket stories and watching interesting matches all over the cricketing globe. A career that could so easily have been, but, alas, never was!

On the other hand, given the passions that the game rouses in me, it is just as well that I didn't go onto become a cricket scribe. Or else, the most frequently mentioned medical event of this blogspace-- the cardiac arrest of yours truely that happened last year -- would pehaps have happened a tad earlier.

It is just not the cricketing actions of the Boys in Blue that cause such turmoil in my heart, though it must be said that the side's oft-demonstrated ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of near-certain victory does play havoc with one's cardiovascular system and would perhaps even be behind the odd ulcer that might be insidiously growing inside me.

Methinks the more serious damage to my health, over the years, has definitely been caused by the way the game is run (or not) in this country. Baffling team selections, inexplicable persistence with some players while the more deserving were cast aside, often impacted on my bloodstream with serious consequence.

As I sit to pen this, not everything feels as it should inside me, and my heart can be caught casting an accusatory glance at the TV set, where India has just bashed the living daylights out of Test cricket's favourite punching bag, Bangladesh.

You would think my latest lament about how things are in Indian cricket is rather poorly timed, coming as it does after the somewhat spectacular performance by the B-in-B (only the first instance in the history of Test cricket where the top four batsmen have gone on to score hundreds) in what is surely a revenge series if there ever was one.

I just can't help but feel a great opportunity to rebuild has been lost. After the much-publicised and not-entirely-unexpected (that is, if you go strictly by cricketing form and not hype) early exit from theWorld Cup, the Bangladesh tour provided an ideal opportunity to put the Indian cricket house in order.

Indian skipper Rahul Dravid's decision to go in with five specialist bowlers, and thereby restricting the number of specialist batsmen to five, has evidently worked. But the success of this strategy or for that matter Tendulkar's 36th and 37th Test hundreds or Zaheer Khan's first five wicket haul in four years has to be seen in proper perspective. That these successes have been achieved against a side that has notched just a solitary Test win in 44 matches.

Given the fact that far more sterner test lies in wait, playing England in England and then hosting Pakistan, the five-batsmen strategy makes little sense.It is at best a temporary strategy that can only be tried against a weak side like Bangladesh. I can't imagine India playing in Lord's with just five specialist batsmen plus Dhoni, or for that matter, taking the field against Pakistan without six specialist batsmen.

Even the best cricket team inthe world, Australia plays with six specialist batsmen, this despite the redoubtable Adam Gilchrist at the number seven spot. As Steve Waugh once said, Gilchrist would perhaps be as effective at the number six slot, but the sight of him walking in at number seven often breaks the bowling side's morale.

Ditto for Clive Lloyd's strategy of the four-man pace attack. You would think Andy Roberts, Michael Holding and Malcolm Marshall, between them, would dsmantle most batting sides, but Lloyd always wanted the extra firepower of the big bird Joel Garner, in addition to Roberts, Holding and Marshall. Chetan Chauhan, long time opening partner of Sunil Gavaskar, once told me, after one has faced a hostile opening spell from Roberts and Holding, then handled the liquid pace of Marshall, one of the most discouraging and hearbreaking sights for a batsman was to see the big Joel Garner loosening up at deep fine leg, preparing to bowl.

More recently, Sourav Ganguly's decision to use Dravid as a wicket keeper in one-dayers allowed India to go in with seven batsmen. Not many bowlers in the world enjoy the prospect of bowling against a side where the redoubtable Dravid comes in as the seventh batsman. After that famous 326-run-chase at Lord's in 2003, the then English captain Nasser Hussain said : "This Indian side is packed with batsmen, they just keep coming at you."

That is the whole idea. To keep coming at you. Ask the Australians and they would tell you, it intimidates most opposition on most days.

Instead, India opts for the extra cushion of a fifth specialist bowler against Bangladesh. What should be a matter of serious concern for India is if five bowlers are needed to bowl out Bangladesh, how are four expected to deliver the goods against far better batting line-ups? Logically, wouldn't it be a better idea to practice taking 20 wickets with four spcialist bowlers against Bangladesh, than one fine day asking the bowlers to do the same against England, South Africa or Australia?

Even more worryingly, Dravid's much-touted five-batsman strategy ensures one of India's finest Test batsmen VVS Laxman remains benched, and devoid of crucial match practice before the more important business against England begins. Also one gets the feeling, more than just strategic thinking was behind Laxman being dropped (unlike a Tendulkar or a Ganguly, he doesn't even get to hide behind the fig leaf of being "rested") from the side against Bangladesh.

A cricket board that has perfected the art of taking symbolic stands rather than taking any concrete measures, had earlier "rested" the senior pros Tendulkar and Ganguly in the one-dayers against Bangladesh. Though it was oficially denied, the move was seen by many as a slap on the wrists of the duo who allgedly didn't pull their weight in the disastrous World Cup campaign.

As Greg Chapell quit and Dravid appeared unwilling to lead the side, the Indian cricket board made a characteristically symbolic gesture of mollifying an angry Dravid by making Tendulkar and Ganguly sit out the Bangladesh one-dayers.

Howver, both had to be restored to the Test side quickly to dispell any talk of a witch hunt. As the Indian criket board continued to play footsie with the game, the easiest way to restore status quo was to keep Laxman out of the side, though it can be argued even in a five-batsman Test team, the very very stylish Hyderbadi commands a place on the basis of his past performance. I hope no one seriously thinks that despite his promise and pluck, Dinesh Kartik deserves a place in the side ahead of Laxman.

Laxman's problem is his ability to negotiate boardroom politics doesn't quite match his exquisite onside play. Thus, forever the first batsman to be axed out of a one-day side, he finds it increasingly difficult to make it to the Test eleven.

Remember Jawagal Srniath?

The most successful quick bowler in Indian cricket after Kapil Dev. The fellow would have picked up 100or even perhaps 150 more Test wickets had he played more often for India when he was younger and a yard or two quicker. Instead Srinath cooled his heels in the sidelines, as the once great Kapil Dev lumbered onto his Test record haul.

Some cricketers are more expendable than others. Srinath was one of them, so is Laxman.

Equally baffling as Laxman's absence from the Test side are a few other selections. Virender Sehwag, in the midst of batting horrors, finds a place in the one-day side against Bangladesh, but not in the Test team. Even a cursory glance at his record would tell you, Sehwag has been a world class prformer in Test matches, while his one-day batting, though occasionally explosive, has seldom been consistent. Yet after really one poor Test series against South Africa, he is out of the Test side, but continues to retain his place as an opener in one-dayers, despite the extended run of failures.

The story gets curiouser with Sourav Ganguly, whose career record is exactly opposite of Sehwag's. However, the man with over 10,000 one-day runs and India's man of the series against Sri Lanka in the last one day series before the World Cup and India's highest run-getter in theWorld Cup, is rested in one-dayers, and then waltzes into the Indian Test team ahead of the likes of VVS Laxman and India's best young middle order hope, Yuvraj Singh.

First the recently departed (that is, from Indian cricket) Greg Chapell spoke about "the process". Now it is the Indian captain Rahul Dravid's favourite buzz word. I am trying so very hard here to understand "the process" that allows for such decisions which fly in the face of common cricketing logic. If there is a method, oops, sorrryyy, a process, behind this madness, can someone care to elaborate?

Oh the wise Indian captain, we, the blue billion, wait in delicious suspense.