Dhoni's Dharma in the age of IPL parties

By John Cheeran
Defeat is easy to explain when compared to victories. Scoreboard lays bare all your fault lines and anyone is free to cast the first stone. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, till the other day the lucky mascot of Indian cricket and captain ice cool, is finding the rise in temperature a bit too hot to handle after India’s disgraceful exit from the T20 World Cup in West Indies.
Dhoni’s ascent to glory started with a T20 World Cup championship title but it was accentuated by India’s early exit from the World Cup held in West Indies when Rahul Dravid and Greg Chappel were in charge of the team management.
Dhoni, captain of the IPL champions Chennai Super Kings, has hinted at the larger pressures at play in the IPL while looking for answers for India’s recent T20 disaster. How can Dhoni blame the IPL as a tournament and its format? Not only his franchise but the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) would be displeased. So Dhoni says it’s not the problem of IPL but players themselves. They need to be a smarter lot to handle temptations such as IPL Afterhours parties and stuff like that.
While ranting against IPL and its decadent parties, let’s not forget that India has lost matches and tournaments even when there was no IPL to add to the non-stop whirl of international cricket. On those occasions, plainly, our cricketers were not good enough to win. After all India won the World Cup in 1983 and has not won the championship since then. The story remains the same. Despite being the No.1 Test side in international rankings, quality of our cricket is still patchy at its best.
IPL or afterhours parties, what counts is the attitude of our heroes towards their primary task, winning matches for India. If you are carrying an injury, you have no business to be part of the squad. You should have the honesty to let the team management and the national selectors know about it and the best available men take your place in the side.
BCCI, it has been reported that, is not happy with Dhoni criticizing IPL for the T20 debacle. It is even said that Dhoni would be stripped of his captaincy soon. Dhoni, like any losing captain, has made errors of judgment in the T20 World Cup and will have to square up to face the consequences. But it is not Dhoni alone who has erred. What about the national selectors? On what basis was Yuvraj Singh selected for the World Cup despite his listless form throughout the IPL?
Now, to the IPL parties. A news channel reporter who was condemned to hang out outside IPL afterhours parties tells me that cricketers, Indian and foreign, had only on thing on their mind during the IPL -- sex with the Bollywood hotties and other assorted starlets who were part of the Lalit Modi gravy train. Nothing wrong with that, especially after coach Gary Kirsten came out with the thesis on how sex improves your strike rate on the field.
Yes, I know and you know that it’s not morality that counts but runs and wickets. But it’s pathetic that some of our leading batsmen can’t handle the ball when it is pitched short. Bowlers can’t hit the line and length that stifles stroke-making. These are basic flaws. After all, hunger for sex should not be at the cost of the hunger for victories. Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh have a lesson or two to learn from West Indies skipper Chris Gayle and glamour girl Sherylin Chopra.

Known Turf, Unknown Turf: Annie Zaidi

By John Cheeran
Of course, Annie Zaidi writes about her known turf in Known Turf, a good thing to do if you are a journalist. Deeply made aware of her religious identity by people around her and shaped by the rigours of journalism, Zaidi has put together a few sketches of India where the predictable rules.
The sneering attitude of men towards women dominates the pages though Zaidi starts her book with a lot of promise by venturing to find out why Chambal is such a fertile terrain for dacoits.
Someone, indeed, threw this book at me and having read Known Turf I’m grateful for that assault. Between the lines, I could recognize Zaidi’s silent wish to be another Arundhati Roy. No crime that is. The true tales narrated by Zaidi did not make me shudder or wonder for the fact that one has been quite familiar with such situations. It is a pity that life has not prepared most of the reporters in English language newspapers in India for a class steeplechase; many ordinary moments in urban and rural life are epiphanies for such tribe when they step out for a story. Zaidi, too, is no exception. Her forays into reporting make no fresh ground but issues that she writes about such as dalit resurgence in Punjab, struggles of weavers in Benares and starvation deaths in MP do deserve readers’ pause.
Zaidi’s anxieties and self-doubts on her beat, at a certain level, assail the reader as when she writes “what do you do when a man minus three limbs in a government hospital trauma ward begins to sing?”
Her attempts to answer questions such as ‘what are you’ and ‘where are you from’ in the latter half of the book, however, should have been restricted to blogosphere.

Make Shashi Tharoor IPL Commissioner

By John Cheeran
If I were the President of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), my man to clean up the IPL mess would have been Shashi Tharoor.
I understand that the BCCI is all set to strip Lalit Modi of the IPL Commissioner’s post, come Monday. Is there anyone better qualified to replace Modi other than Tharoor?
Tharoor loves cricket even though he has other mature loves in his life. He now knows what’s exactly wrong with IPL and cricket administration in India. He, of course, knows to tweet as well as Modi and may be he knows to outbid a few others within the boundaries of the rulebook.
And most importantly, Tharoor does not have a full time job, so can devote his considerable energy to the job at hand. Now that Sunanda Pushkar has given away her sweat equity in the Kochi IPL franchise there is no longer a conflict of interest!
I hope Shashank Manohar and Arun Jaitley read this blog post before Monday.

Why my blood boils when I hear of Tharoor, Sunanda, IPL and Lalit Modi

By John Cheeran
Former minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor invoked poet Vallathol Narayana Menon’s famous lines
Bharathamennu Kettal Abhimana Poorithamakanam Antharangam
Keralamennu kettalo thilakkanam namukku chora njarambukalil in Parliament on Tuesday to lend substance to his mentoring of the Kochi IPL franchise.
The nationalist poet had urged Malayalis to swell with pride in their minds when they heard the word Bharath but when they heard the word Keralam blood should boil in your veins.
It has been a tumultuous week for Shashi Tharoor, Sunanda Pushkar and Lalit Modi since April 11 when Modi’s tweet set off a chain of events of which the last is not heard of yet.
It would have been foolhardy on my part to comment on the issue without understanding the facts related to the Kochi IPL franchise. Information about what transpired in the stratosphere of IPL and BCCI is still hard to come by but it is quite evident that a lot is not right with the secret society of BCCI and the uber secret society that is Indian Premier League.
It is now quite clear that Shashi Tharoor made a grave error of judgement when he more than mentored the Kochi IPL franchise. Tharoor has made a fervent appeal to the sentiments of Malayalis when caught in the silly point of sweat equity thanks to the Modi tweet and it is hard even for me to buy into that argument.
Yes, the world of cricket and high politics is not an easy party to gate crash either in New Delhi or Mumbai and racism of different colours are in operation in such elitist places.
But had there been no sweat equity for Sunanda Pushkar, Tharoor could have been justified in his batting for Kerala as an MP from Thiruvananthapuram.
The lesson is that you should not mix your love with your work. You can love your work but cannot work your love. Not that Tharoor does not know this. He, of course, has had much diverse encounters in life than I can ever aspire. But still he was foolish to push for Pushkar’s cause.
Tharoor’s crime was this he forgot that Lalit Modi was the other half of his profile. It did not take much time for Tharoor to figure it out that IPL and Indian cricket is a secret society where players and politicians guard each others facts and figures. You could slough off your morality and integrity and have to be accountable only within that charmed circle. Well, his understanding was quite right but then he would not have bargained for the kind of compromises that you are supposed to make to remain in that secret society. Tharoor made the mistake of becoming one among the cabal even for a short duration and the kind of pacts that are signed and sealed within the 22 yards of IPL would have emboldened him to close his eyes towards the sweat equity provisions to his friend, possibly at the behest of the motely crew of the nascent Kochi IPL franchise.
Tharoor did that and has paid a huge price for the sweat equity worth Rs70 crore.
Having said that I want to reiterate that Tharoor’s decision to mentor the Kochi IPL was a bold move but he should have worked it out without seeking the management brand building expertise of Pushkar. The Union minister for external affairs pushed the boundaries of the imagination for an average MP from Thiruvananthapuram. But what me and others like me were not prepared was the involvement of aunty Pushkar.
I have no qualms with Tharoor’s choice of friends. Let him marry Sunanda Pushkar and do whatever that pleases him.
At 56, Tharoor remains a romantic and that gladdens my heart. Before him Shah Rukh Khan is an inferior monkey. I admire his written words and Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel is one of the finest works in English produced by an Indian author.
But all these do not give him the right to demand for his friend what’s not largely unheard of in corporate world. But, then, again Tharoor would not have asked anything in return for his mentorship. The only thing is that it sounds a bit incredible to me and the rest of India.

The importance of being Krishna and Radha

By John Cheeran
So it is said that Krishna and Radha, the most romantic couple in Indian mythology, had a live-in relationship. Most of us didn’t know.
Or we couldn’t look upon that that too was a live-in relationship, with or without the knowledge of Rukmini, the official wife. Thanks, me Lords.
The remark of Supreme Court judges must gladden the hearts of those who are walking outside the ramparts of marriage in India.
A friend quickly points out that how liberal India was till the advent of Semitic religions, especially Christianity and Islam. All our gods and goddesses had a wonderful time, choosing to live the way they wanted. Morality was what suited your desires. There was freedom to chase your dreams.
Sex was a celebration of love and life in India. But, then, it got equated with sin with the arrival of Adam and Eve. Sex became only a process to procreate.
Now that live-in relationships gain in currency, though in a timorous manner, it could have much more influence on the way men look upon women and vice versa, than the 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament.
The argument goes that marriage protects the rights of women. Well, marriage protects neither the man nor the woman. May be it ensures a better deal for children.
I don’t know.
A live-in relationship demands a firmer commitment from man and woman to ensure that such an arrangement works. And despite the best efforts, if it does not work, then you shouldn’t be chained by the emotional, visceral baggage. All of us deserve second chances to dream again and live again. For that, to wait for six months or a year, and courts to debate over your crimes is a path that we could abjure, if we could afford.
Long live, you and me.

When Krishna and Radha had a live-in relationship…

Are you in a live-in relationship?
Do you know your puranas well?
The Supreme Court says even Lord Krishna and Radha lived together according to Hindu puranas, and living together is ‘a right to life for a man and woman.’
A Supreme Court bench consisting of Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan, Justices Deepak Verma and BS Chauhan observed that there was no law that prohibited live-in relationship or pre-marital sex.
The apex court made the observation while reserving its judgment on a special leave petition filed by noted south Indian actress Khusboo seeking to quash 22 criminal cases filed against her after she allegedly endorsed pre-marital sex in interviews to various magazines in 2005.
"When two adults want to live together what is the offence? Does it amount to an offence? Living together is not an offence," judges observed while reserving the verdict.
Khusboo has been hounded by criminal trials for expressing her thoughts on pre-marital sex and virginity.
The SC bench said the perceived immoral activities can’t be branded as an offence.
Counsel for the ‘aggrieved’ complainants contended that the comments made by the actress, endorsing pre-marital sex would adversely affect the minds of young people leading to decay in moral values and country's ethos.
Judges refused to buy this argument which is often made in a variety of cases alleging decay of culture, morality and ethos or injury to the religious or behaviour sensibilities of the complainants.
"Please tell us what the offence is and which section of law applies? Living together is a right to life," judges observed while expanding the scope of Article 21 that guarantees to life with dignity, liberty and respect.
Describing Khusboo’s words as her personal feelings, the bench asked the counsel "How does it concern you. We are not bothered. At the most, it is a personal view. How is it an offence? Under which provision of the law?"
The court again countered the counsel who supported a Madras High Court directive, asking the actress to face the prosecution on the charges of obscenity and indecency.
Judges wanted the complainants to produce evidence to show if any girls eloped from their homes after the said interview. "How many homes have been affected, can you tell us?" the bench had a pointed question for the counsel.
When the judges asked whether the complainants have daughters, the counsel replied in the negative.
"Then, how are you adversely affected?" the apex court had another salvo for the complainants and their lawyer.

God’s Own IPL team is an eye-popping moment in Indian cricket

By John Cheeran
So finally, after Tinu Yohannan and S Sreesanth, Kerala gets its own IPL team, for an astounding amount of $333 million.
Of course this is great news for Indian cricket and sport in Kerala. The audacity of the Rendezvous Consortium to dream big and bid for an IPL team, believed to be under the tweeting leadership of minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor, need to be celebrated.
Well, the Kerala Cricket Association does not have its own cricket stadium, and the consortium itself has the presence of outsiders in it, but such things should not take away from Kerala’s Own IPL team.
Many would point out that Kerala does not have enough quality cricketers in the small state. But, then, again, many of the existing IPL teams too have a similar situation to tackle with. Look at Chennai Super Kings. It basically runs on the power of Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Matthew Hayden and many other skillful practitioners of the game quite outside of Chennai and Tamil Nadu. So is the case with Rajasthan Royals.
But, make no mistake, the formation of Kochi IPL team will unearth more gritty cricketers from the state. Now that the bidding is over, it’s time for a suitable name for the Kochi IPL team. Kerala Cobras, Kerala Tuskers, whatever it is eventually going to be, this is a great leap into the whirlpool of sport and high finance.
It is also important to notice that unlike the backers of of Deccan Chargers (Deccan Chronicle) and Mumbai Indians (Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries), Rendezvous Consortium has ventured into a field where traditional moneybags in Kerala have shied. It was, no doubt, the biggest business opportunity of the new decade in Kerala and the very fact that the Rendezvous is a coming together for the love of money and cricket in equal measure is a eye-popping moment in the history of Indian cricket.

A few stray thoughts on Orhan Pamuk’s The Museum of Innocence

By John Cheeran
Everyone has a right to be happy. Pursuit of happiness, often, is a direct result of pursuit of love. Bitterness, despair and rancour may follow, but just because others have failed to keep the flame of love alive, we should not be scared to look love in the eye.
Orhan Pamuk takes a close look at love and its varied fragrances in his new novel The Museum of Innocence, set in Istanbul at a time when empress Indira Gandhi imposed emergency in India.
When Indians were sighing over love that never could find utterance in word and deed, in Turkey, with its proximity to Europe, it was a time of awakening for lovers. For Sibel, Fusun and Narcihan, making love to the man they loved before getting the seal of marriage was far from a moral dilemma.
More than love, I’m tempted to say, it is happiness that holds together the events spanning more than 30 years in The Museum of Innocence.
Or is it the other way round? Don’t you find true happiness when you are in love that is deep and pure?
Pamuk’s hero, Kemal Bey, starts his story by telling about his happiest moment in life. And, at the end of his obsessive passion, he reminds Pamuk, the writer, of his responsibility to tell the world that he has lived a happy life even though Sibel, the girl to whom Kemal was engaged when his life upended after catching sight of the most beautiful girl in Turkey, Fusun, finds him utterly crushed and spent after the tragic accident in his life.
Emperors have built monuments for their departed loves but I haven’t come across another instance of a lover setting up a museum for his lost love.
It, however, is a moot point that does Kemal’s The Museum of Innocence, deserve that name. There was hardly anything innocent about the love between Kemal and Fusun. Kemal, engaged to Sibel, a pretty and classy girl , and informed about the ways of the world in his 30s, knew pretty well what he was up to when he fell for his radiantly beautiful but poor relative, the 18-something Fusun. Fusun, though not been to Sorbonne, gives herself completely to the passion of Kemal for 41 days. She did not strike any bargain with Kemal while baring her body and soul to her lover. The only thing that she wanted to know from Kemal was that whether he has been sleeping with Sibel. It was a lie that Kemal lived to regret for the rest of his life, when Fusun found out the truth while dancing at the engagement party of Kemal and Sibel at Hilton.
Kemal realises how much Fusun means to him only when she walks away from his life. Kemal’s undoing was his plans of being happy by having a lover while staying married to Sibel. Fusun would have none of that.
Again, most of us cannot even understand when we experience true love or when we lose it. Kemal, to his everlasting credit, realises his mistake and woos an already married Fusun over the next nine years, like a faithful dog, visiting every street where Fusun walked, looking for her scent and anything that reminds him of her.
What takes away from the classic quality of this love story is the fact that Pamuk let Kemal and Fusun unite in body and soul as soon as they found each other; it’s a lie from Kemal that unhinged Fusun and forced her to turn bitter against her cousin and lover.
Despite all the deep machinations, despite the impossible and vexatious demands, remember, Fusun again gives herself to Kemal on a doomed trip of knowing, and settling all old debts. And, in turn, does it make the fatal car crash all the more unbearable for Kemal?
I won’t know.
For, I would have been fortunate to sit next to my Fusun for the rest of my life and listen to and talk to her till the end of time. As Kemal confesses while he is looking for crumbs of emotional comfort at the Keskins’ table during supper for nine years, happiness is being close to someone you love.
How close, one might as well ask, after gazing wistfully at a museum that only has floating memories and sound bites in it.

Lessons In Forgetting by Anita Nair: A Review

By John Cheeran
Who doesn’t think about beginning life anew?
Of course, such thoughts punctuate the middle age. Only a few hours ago I read a newswire story saying the middle age begins at 36 and the old stage starts at 58 (that’s in England).
Ah, well. I have recently finished reading Anita Nair’s novel Lessons in Forgetting. Characters in Anita’s novel talk about forgetting and coming to terms with second life. It’s a theme even I’m keen on. Apart from that how good is Lessons in Forgetting as a work of fiction?
Anita Nair, of course, writes well. It is important to admit that, for me, Lessons in Forgetting was the writer’s first book. But often writing well does not make a great work of literature. One may well ask, why should anyone read a particular book?
So let’s ask, why should have I read Lessons in Forgetting?
Does it offer any insights into life, relationships between men and women?
Anita Nair makes a valiant effort to present her work as a map to the minds of corporate trophy wives. It begins when a disillusioned corporate honcho walks out on his homemaker trophy wife. When Anita makes out that Meera (wife) did not know that Giri (husband) was planning to move out it does not cut any ice. Despite the pretty prose, Anita fails to come up with arresting reasons for Giri walking out on Meera, the flimsiest of excuses being lack of funds to climb to another level in life and Meera’s refusal to sell the old but sprawling bungalow somewhere in cozy Bangalore.
It also does not add to the charms of Lessons in Forgetting that Meera has been portrayed as the sacrificial lamb. It’s only after Giri has walked out, Meera knows other men, including the philanderer cine star and Jake, the storm predictor.
Unfortunately, I did not find any insights into man-woman relationships in Lessons in Forgetting. In fact, I felt that Anita Nair forgot how to conclude her lessons. How to finish what you have started used to be a great gift among story tellers. Some of the modern story tellers tend to make it more exciting by leaving it open ended, which, at least in this case, I find a weakness of spirit and craft.
A lot of thought, apparently, has gone into the writing of Lessons in Forgetting, such as weaving in the status of women in contemporary India by skimming the surface on female infanticide in Tamil Nadu. I’m told by a friend that during one of the launches, the book was handed over to a researcher on female infanticide.
Jake and his daughter in a vegetative state do not add to the strengths of this novel which held out so much promise in the beginning.
But I’m happy for one fact.
Meera does manage to stay on her feet in the absence of Giri. She finds a job, manages her responsibilities as a mother and a daughter and slowly accepts that life has more to offer, even though she does not know what exactly is in store for her. For that matter, who knows what has life in store for us?
And the very fact that Meera and readers do not hear anything more from Giri, apart from an email in the aftermath of his walkout, shows that it is possible to move on without dollops of guilt and bitterness on both sides.

IPL-3: Will KKR reverse the slide?

By John Cheeran
Who will win the IPL-3?
May be, we should narrow our focus and ask who will win tonight’s contest between Deccan Chargers and Kolkata Knight Riders, with which the event begins in Mumbai.
There is a lot different in 2010 when compared to last year’s 2020. The most important one is the nature of wickets with the game returning to India. Team compositions, however, remain by and large the same. You cannot ignore that there is less turmoil in KKR camp with little hints of experiments.
I believe Kolkata Knight Riders’ supporters have slain a kangaroo or two to propitiate the gods. If everything goes according to script, KKR should beat Deccan Chargers tonight. The underdogs, last year’s wooden spoonists, hurting the champions in the big game.
What a way to start? Eh?
But despite the so called tactical brilliance that Sourav Ganguly brings to the KKR side, Chargers would not be an easy side to beat under the leadership of Adam Gilchrist.
There, however, is no doubt that everyone would love, especially, sponsors and marketing kids, a KKR victory. That will make the event more open, more sexy and more Bollywoodish.
But right now I’m interested only in finding out whether KKR still have the Fake IPL player in their dressing room.

At any moment, all these can end

By John Cheeran
This word sticks in my throat
Can’t utter this without upsetting
My kind, patient listener and the world
and neigbhourhood around
You are being selfish, I’m gently reminded.
At any moment, all these can end,
Don’t you know this?
This, this idle talk of an idyll
That one can create by bruising egos
Looking only into you and me
Redrawing the lines of this fading picture
Another world but in this space itself
Another life but without dying
Another song but with new lyrics
Arguments begin and end
Another night walks into the promise of a dawn
Voices crackle in distance; I hear a sigh, my own
Hope fills my heart as I hear your prayer
And the footfalls of a child chasing her stars
I rise, look towards you,
And catch your radiant smile
Caught in the gleam of the days to come

The truth about Indian hockey

By John Cheeran
Now that Indian hockey has lived through its customary World Cup convulsions, it is easy to talk about this game dispassionately. The problem with hockey in India is that it has not too many takers. But, then, if you don’t fly into a rage, hockey is not a sport you fall in love with, wherever you are on this planet.
It is a fallacy and fantasy that hockey had huge support base in India once upon a time. Yes, India has won eight Olympic gold medals in the sport, but for most of us that’s an incredible piece of statistics, nothing else. India’s last Olympic gold came in 1980 in Moscow during an enfeebled competition when the US and its allies boycotted the event.
India’s Olympic gold medals did not create a nation-wide support base for the game when it was winning. And it is important to ask why the sport did not catch the imagination of the nation at large. A few north Indian boroughs do not make for a Pan-Indian appeal.
Many ascribe 1983 World Cup triumph for cricket’s astounding popularity in India. But much earlier, in 1975, India had won the hockey World Cup under the leadership of Ajitpal Singh. Did it lead to a surge in popularity for the game? It did not. In fact around the very same time, contours of hockey as a game were redefined.
Modern hockey is a different beast altogether which does not have much resemblance to what Dhyan Chand and his ilk used to play. It’s a fast paced sport and India has to realize that it is yet to master the basics of the new game.
Hockey, as a game, has inherent flaws. Its appeal is limited. That’s why Bolywood hottie Priyanka Chopra and cricket king Virender Sehwag urge you to give your heart to hockey in ads but themselves stay away from the hockey stadium even if it is a World Cup. It’s not a place to be seen.
Hockey is not football, it’s not even cricket.
Hockey is hockey and it is quite sad that not many are willing to watch this sport which definitely calls for a high degree of skills and loads of talent.
And I’m certain that even if India emerges as World Cup winner and Olympic champion in hockey in the coming years, there will not be any increase in the support base for the game. It will remain as a game played by a select few for the pleasure of a select few. It would be difficult for many, and especially hockey watchers, to accept such a viewpoint.
In the next years, sports such as NBA, football and tennis would demand more attention from the Indian public and the space for hockey would be shrinking fast, despite whatever the players would achieve on astroturfs.

What does a woman want?

By John Cheeran
I’m against reservations of all sorts and hence, not enthused by the idea, nay, the bill seeking 33 per cent of seats in Parliament for women.
Instead, reservations should go.
Especially, when it comes to what a woman can do or not do in her life and in society. Ordinary woman does not dream to turn the tables on her male counterpart in Parliament. She only wants to have her voice to be heard at her own home, by her gatekeepers and guardians, in most cases, her parents and husband.
Who can reserve that space and freedom for an Indian woman at places where she lives her life? At work place, at home, at public places?
No one, but woman alone can. Yes, of course, men can help them. No doubt about that.
More than a bill in Parliament Indian woman deserves a change in the attitude of society.
And it would be important to remember that often, it is other women who stand in the way of this change in attitude.
A change in attitude both on the part of men and women will lead to women living their lives to the fullest. Such a shift in attitude will only make men’s lives qualitatively better.
Man, fear not woman. Let her dream her own dreams.
Let’s live without handcuffs.
Quite often it is true that no one knows what exactly a woman wants. May be, not even UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi knows it. But, then, there are women and more women. Some of them are happy to take things as they are or eager for a 33 per cent of the Parliament slice.
But what do you offer a woman who wants 100 per cent from her life, not just 33 per cent of dole from her gatekeepers?
A copy of women’s reservation bill, or a page from scriptures?

A prayer with eyes closed

By John Cheeran

I close my eyes but open my mind
To new roads that lie before me
I feel like a bride again at a Swayamvara
Choose wisely, girl, choose wisely

Breaking free from this world is not easy
Oh, how I hate tears, drama and courtrooms
I don’t want to be the wanton one of my clan
Woman like me are told to live for that epitaph
“Here a lies the woman- husband’s pride and daughter’s refuge.”

I have been gazing at a new map
A map marked with old ink
Streets lined with my heart’s deepening desires
Is this dusty path worth its way to happiness?
Is this the road that leads to a new light?

Scarred and scared as I’m
How am I to trust this stranger?
How am I to trust myself?

Lord, Lord of Nandana, can you hear my heartbeats?
Do you know for whom my heart is beating?
Oh, Lord, are you the stranger?
Are you the voice that I hearken to
every day, night and waking moment?

Hear me, answer me and open my heart
Show me the right path and walk with me
So that I can start to dream again

When beggars turned into kings for 70 minutes

By John Cheeran
On Sunday, it was a 'if wishes were horses moment' for Indian hockey team. It so turned out that beggars were kings at least for 70 minutes of the match against fierce rivals Pakistan in New Delhi, a city that was shaken by the footfalls of refugees in the wake of the vivisection of India.
Let's be honest.
No one, including the team's Spanish coach Jose Brasa, would have believed that India would whip Pakistan they way they did.
India not only dominated the match but scored four goals stamping their authority in no uncertain manner. For the record, I did not expect India to outperform their rivals. In fact I was prepared to watch India sink in after a flurry of well-intended thrusts into the D.
After fighting for their self-respect within the federation and country, Rajpal Singh and his co-conspirators had a tough task. Otherwise they would have been pilloried for their ‘bloody-mindedness’ for asking for what was their due.
To begin a World Cup campaign against Pakistan, that too at home, presents pressures that few can understand. Unlike cricket, which offers a chance for some players to stay above the team's downfall, in games such as hockey and football which calls for team effort at all stages of the game, there are not many escape routes.
On Sunday, it was pretty evident that Brasa had helped the boys to improve their basic skills such as trapping and passing the ball. Even in the matter of penalty corner conversions, not the strength of Indian sides in the past, there is a marked improvement.
For many Indians, the 12th World Cup got over the moment referee blew the whistle on the India-Pakistan game on Sunday. What happens in the remaining days is now merely academic. Indians have won it. Considering the animosity between the two nations in recent times, especially in the wake of 26/11 attacks in Mumbai, blasts in Pune, beheading of Sikhs in Pakistan, hunting down of Indians in Kabul and the botched talks between the foreign secretaries, only the utterly naive could miss the political significance of this classic encounter.
For supporters of India, the battle is over. But not for the Indian team. They have a lot to achieve in the days ahead to redeem the status of the game in this country. For that, they will have to make heavy inroads into the far better orgainsed defences of European teams and emerge as strong contenders for the World Cup.

An ache without any balm

By John Cheeran
I never prepared so delicious a meal such as this night.
After all, this feast is in my honour.
As glasses clink in the raised hands
I can feel the stab of shattered shards in my heart.
I poured a little of my blood, still left after all these years of recriminations, to the sauce.
It tastes great, a kind man remarked with that rare parting of lips.
Beloved, you don’t know the taste of my blood, after all these years?
What do you know of me?
An ache without any balm, a cheek without colour
A breath without life, a look without vision
You, in your feigned innocence, know nothing of these.
I was the easy picking.
I was the lamb who waited for the butcher’s knife with no taste of life and love, before or since.
Now, can you see that glint of ingratitude in my eyes, as
I serve and play the perfect host to your unsuspecting but scrutinizing eyes and palates?
If only I could drink from wells other than you
I would have dissolved
I would have merged in muddy rivers
reeking of slush, sweat, rum and dreams
As lights dim during this night,
This anniversary of primal conquest,
Can you recognize the silhouette of rebel and a dreamer
That still prays for deliverance
From you as well as your kindness that kicks me in absent hours?

A poem for indescribable silence

By John Cheeran
Where are you?
Why this deepening silence?
Every time, I hear a footfall in the corridors of my heart, I think of you.
I know your call will come, that sunshine laughter and timbre of sweetness, sweetened by distance and time.
Days are dreary without you.
Within you I can sense currents of joy and sadness coursing through as clock ticks to the mundane chores.
Morning coffee, breakfast, lunch, dinner, grunts, chidings, a glance of disapproval, an unshed tear and a rare of moment of understanding. Of being poles apart. Like the scarred hearts of a man and woman.
A five course meal, was that the way you marked another millstone? Ah, that extra dose of salt in sambhar almost brought tears to my stomach.
Here I chew on stolen conversations
Vows are easy to be broken as you know by now;
but I will not, but wait till dawn breaks out in the East
So I go on in silence, thinking of you, only of you,
only of you, and only of you.
And search for you in the lengthening shadows around me,
in other voices and faces that stream through
the morning, noon and evening of my consciousness.

When Sachin Tendulkar goes beyond his boundaries

By John Cheeran
Sachin Tendulkar has become the first cricketer in the history of one-day internationals to score a double century. Who would have thought that the Indian master would go beyond this boundary too, during the longest autumn an international cricketer can ever have?
I, forever a critic of Tendulkar’s ways at the wicket, especially in recent years, have never doubted his stroke-making abilities. It was more a question of his power to stay at the crease, with a string of injuries and other slights thrown at him, including those barbs from that guardian of Marathi Manoos, Bal Thackeray, making his comfort zone shrink at an alarming rate. The fact that Tendulkar has crossed this milestone in an era of Twenty20 shows how young he remains at heart. His appetite for runs remains intact as that of a schoolboy cricketer when he used to pad up for Shardashram School.
Tendulkar has had excellent company in this Indian team when it comes to scoring runs quickly. These days it is no affront to the great cricketer when one timorously points out that Virender Sehwag is the most aggressive cricketer the game has ever seen. In the last 12 months, Tendulkar has reinvented himself and the freedom with which he has batted at Gwalior on Wednesday and earlier against Australians at Hyderabad makes one nostalgic about the way Sunil Gavaskar played his final one-dayers, including that brilliant hundred against Kiwis in the 1987 World Cup.
On any other day one would have dared to talk about the benign nature of the pitch at Gwalior and the ease and brutality with which Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni clobbered the South African bowlers to the exasperation of a nation waiting for Tendulkar to run for that single to complete his unbeaten 200. Or, the inconsequential nature of one more one-day series being played out there for the benefit of brand managers.
No, not on this Wednesday, at least.
Yet, one suspect that after 20 years of top-notch cricket, there still remains a few more Khwaishs for this modern batting great. Scoring a Test triple hundred and winning the World Cup for his country could figure among that list. May be we will never know being the intensely private person that Tendulkar is.

My Name is Terror

By John Cheeran
The blast on Saturday night in Pune is a reminder of how inadequate our security system has become. We bemoan inept administration and policing every time lives are lost in the most inhuman manner possible much in the manner of one cursing another inexplicable loss by our national cricket team.
If a day goes without a terror attack in India, the credit should go to your luck. The government does little for you. It’s a government that failed to protect parliament and let militants take a rubber boat to Mumbai.
Terror in India will be combated only when we learn to appreciate the worth of life itself. For us, as long as terror happens in someone else’s backyard that is fine. Such smugness was shattered during the 26/11 attacks but things have been gone back to the square one.
A nation is silly indeed when media and a large chunk of literate society are agitated over the release of a rather inane movie of a rather inane actor. Let’s terror is a 24x7 reality. Vigilance does not end with the second show at midnight.
Instead of My Name is Khan, it’s time you said My Name is Terror. For an average Indian, there are not many choices left with. He has been browbeaten by improvised explosive devices as well as the incompetence of political leadership. Who wants to talk with Pakistan? Who wants to have Pakistani cricketers in the Indian Premier League? Pakistan is a place you send your worst enemy on an all-paid vacation. It is important to love thy neighbour but there are times when you got to shut all your windows and doors when you have a dirty bastard living next to you.
For home minister P Chidambaram and external affairs minister SM Krishna, without any Punjabi baggage to carry around, taking hard decisions on Pakistan should have been easy. In south of India, no one cares if Pakistan gets deleted or not from the global map. But our political leadership still waffles in sentiments and, in turn, we get stabbed in Mumbai, Pune and elsewhere.
My name has been changed. My Name Is Terror.

Players survive as India sinks to the guns of South Africa

By John Cheeran
A Test match that began so well for India, when it claimed two South African wickets for six runs, including that of skipper Graeme Smith, has gone so awfully wrong in the remaining sessions that host is licking its wounds.
What went wrong for India?
Was it the inclusion of Wriddhiman Saha who made his debut as a specialist batsman? Poor Saha, for all you know this may be the end of the road for the youngster.
India lost by an innings and six runs in Nagpur largely because of its batting failure. It's an oft-repeated story; where some of the protagonists make run but not good enough to shore up the side. Yes, we can again rave about the skills of Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar and their centuries.
Look at South Africa. Hashim Amla and Jack Kallis set up the match for their side by playing really, really big knocks. That's the essential difference in approach by the two sides and one that separates the winner from the loser and No.1 from No.2.
May be no Test team would have been able to avoid the kind of collapse that India suffered in the first innings. But, then, again efficient sides redeem themselves playing their second innings with purpose. Think Australia. That did not happen in India's case.
Would things have been panned out differently had Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman been part of the squad? I really don't know. In a sense, that is pointless.
But the point is that apart from Sehwag and Tendulkar none really played his part in India's both innings. Gautam Gambhir failed in both innings but none wants to blame him because he has had such a wonderful run in recent times. Subramaniam Badarinath survives thanks to his half-century. Murali Vijay survives as he hung around in the second innings. MS Dhoni survives since he is the hottest brand and the captain of the side.
But half-measures would not help you to become the No.1 side in international cricket.
In the circus that has cricket become there is nothing called ALL IS LOST. You forget and move on. There is Kolkota and then there is another match.
Selectors have made the changes and brought in Suresh Raina, S Sreesanth and Dinesh Karthick. Will these changes eventually reflect in the composition of the playing XI?
Do all these matter, when we are waiting for the IPL curtain to go up?