For They were Jolly Good Fellows .........And so say all of us

Two glittering careers in cricket are on the verge of receding into the sunset in the coming week. It is not surprising that this year has already seen many such farewells – after all, World Cup years often see the end of the run for many a veteran stalwart in any game, more so with cricket with two World Cups in the same year. Newer stars emerge and the older lot often finds itself unable to hold its own against the younger challengers. Undoubtedly, some survive to fight another day, some come back for final hurrahs but many succumb to the inevitable. Some, however, are still willing to pack a punch, but find to their dismay, that there is no ring to fight in.

Such is the peculiar scenario in which the burly Inzamam-ul-Haq finds himself in. After 15 years of distinguished service to Pakistani cricket peppered with the most test centuries for his country [25 of them, no joke], close to 12,000 runs in ODIs [3^rd highest ever], an average of more than 50 over 119 test matches and long years of stewardship of Pakistani cricket through some of the most tumultuous phases of its history, Inzy has been run out one last time – his own team mates are wary of him occupying the crease again.

Today, at a sombre press conference in Karachi, Inzy decided to bid farewell to Pakistani cricket after being given the chance to play one last test for Pakistan against South Africa at Lahore next week. Many hailed it as magnanimity on the part of the Pakistani cricket establishment, while some called it timely from Inzamam, a parting shot which would help him leave cricket with some dignity. And therein, lies the cruel irony of it all. For it is sad that somebody like Inzamam had to ask for largesse from his own cricket establishment to be a part of a team, of which he was the lead just a little while ago. Yes, he is touching 38 and he has achieved much in cricket and this valedictory gift allows him a chance to leapfrog Javed Miandad to the top of Pakistani run-getters’ list – but here was a person who had clearly spelt out his desire to play tests for Pakistan a little while longer and if statistics are to be believed, was still performing as well as anybody else. But it seems the new team command in the dressing room does not want him pottering around and Inzy himself pointed that out – “I have played cricket all my life and I felt I had 12-18 months left in me still. But I realised the boys are playing well since the World Cup and felt that the age gap between me and them, in the dressing-room, might have been too much. It could have affected the dressing-room.”

Marvan Atapattu in Sri Lanka has not announced his retirement yet, but his international cricketing career is all but finished as well after he chose to burn bridges with the Sri Lankan selectors by refusing to meet them and consequently, seeing himself dropped from the Sri Lankan team for the Australian tour. A former captain, Atapattu too, was humiliated by the Lankan cricketing establishment after being taken as a tourist for the Caribbean World Cup and being overlooked for all matches immediately thereafter.

At the ages of 36 or 37, admittedly, time was running out for both Inzamam and Atapattu. But the way their sagas wound up is a lesson in life for all – how fickle fortune can be – captains and undisputed leaders not too long ago, they found themselves dumped not too long after – Inzy, after his cubs decided that they no longer needed a pater familias guiding them, Atapattu after realizing that all around him had become used to his absence and were better off with it, post his injury which saw him losing his captaincy and then his place in the team.

In a way it is good, for both Inzy and Atapattu epitomized cricket, the way it was – a lazy and sublime sport for entertainment – not the power-packed, frenzied, big moneyed, winner takes it all avatar, that it has turned into with Twenty 20 and all that.

"There are many things you want to achieve but you can't always. Overall, I can look back and thank God for the career I have had." Thus spake Inzamam at the end of that conference in Karachi and I say the same – Thank God for giving us players like Inzamam and Atapattu to tell us what sublime beauty is all about.

[For my post on Inzy's ODI retirement announcement - check out]

Bow Barracks Forever

Anjan Dutta had disappeared from the world of movie productions for a long time and one could be pardoned for thinking that he had taken the commercial failure of BADA DIN too much to heart [remember the Marc Robinson, Tara Deshpande, Shabana Azmi starrer?] Thankfully, of late, he has dispelled such notions with two back to back releases – THE BONG CONNECTION, which I have not been able to catch so far and BOW BARRACKS FOREVER, which I just did, over the weekend in Mumbai.

BOW BARRACKS FOREVER provides a delightful insight into the trials, the tribulations and the triumphs of a forgotten community of cosmopolitan urban India – the Anglo-Indian community. The story has a real backdrop – the setting is that of a quaint corner of North Kolkata – the Bow Street, where a varied assortment of Anglo-Indians struggle to cope with a city that has outpaced them in changing to a different equation of life, where they are an unwanted hangover of the colonial era. Living in a set of old, dilapidated barracks which once housed the American soldiers of World War – I, the inmates seem to live with a cloud of destruction perennially hanging over them – destruction of their abodes which is under the malevolent gaze of a land-grabbing builder; destruction of their culture in a city, which has bypassed them on its path to the future; destruction of their destinies, as embodied by a young Clayton Rodgers who says that the best that he can hope for is to become a waiter in a Park Street restaurant. The gora sahibs may have gone, but their colonial cousins desperately hang on to the remains of the day. So much so, their mongrel existence has left them schizophrenic, neither completely Indian nor completely phirang. In Potter terms, they are the original half-blood prince and princesses who build their local bands on terrace tops, while dreaming of making it Beatles' land.

Anjan Dutta has woven beautifully rendered tales of human relationships, the highs and lows around each character – Peter, the Cheater, a former soldier and the proud descendant of an American World War officer, but who now specializes in con jobs as a vocation, under the guise of an antique dealer; Mrs. Emily Lobo, forever dreaming of severing her links with the crumbling world around her by shifting to London to her eldest son, making infinite calls to her son, only to be repeatedly met with voice messages and a stony, obdurate silence from the other end; Tom, an Armenian Christian wife-beater who has taken to smuggling and his wife, Anne, trapped in a dysfunctional, abusive relationship; Mrs. Rosa D’ Costa, desperate to latch on to anybody who is willing to take her away from Bow Barracks and thus, away from her husband, who is too much in love with his ancestral dwelling.

Remarkably, each one of them show a tremendous resilience to rise above their destinies – Peter may well be a fraudster, but he is a gentleman to the core and that too with a huge, kind heart and the old soldier’s blood still boils over in the face of injustice and Mrs. Lobo realizes that her younger son, may well not succeed as much as her elder son, but is a much finer human being, while Mrs. Rosa finally realizes the worth of true love and a nice human being and Anne is rid of the trauma of her abusive husband. And of course, the jolly and rambunctious community with all its idiosyncrasies, still has its guitars and trumpets and the wannabe John Lennons and George Harrisons to tide over the worst and rekindle the love for one’s own sweet home in the midst of each one’s hearts.

On the negative side, one may say that Anjan Dutta has perhaps chosen to go with a stereotyped image of the Anglos in Kolkata and the editing of the movie could have been better to make it a little tauter. Certain actors like Rupa Ganguly, George Baker and even the wonderfully talented Sabyasachi Chakraborty have been wasted. The sex scenes are quite uncalled for and most awfully picturised, leading to sheer misery as a cinema-goer. Interestingly the term Anglo-Indians is a loose umbrella term for all kinds of Eurasian Christian minorities in Kolkata and the uninitiated might find it strange that distinctly Portuguese sounding surnames like Lobo or D’ Costa or the Armenian Christian Tom are all passed off as Anglo-Indians.

But, watch the movie for the stupendous performances from Victor Banerjee as Peter, the Cheater [you have to pardon a few instances of him going overboard, in Fagin like mannerisms from Oliver Twist] and Lillette Dubey as Mrs. Lobo, apart from the interesting sepia tinged look at this fast dwindling heritage community – of course, a certain acquaintance with Kolkata and its Anglo-Indian community would help make it that much more meaningful.

Come Play !!!!

"I can't quite understand what motive one can have to kill a person like Bob Woolmer." crooned former Pakistani great Imran Khan.

A youngster seated next to me, snorted in derision - "Can't quite understand?? Kya bakwaas hai. It is obvious that the betting mafia used the underworld dons to eliminate him because he was about to spill the beans."

Really? Is this what cricket has become? Is the "murder" of a cricket coach during the World Cup the culmination of years of corruption that has seeped in or is it just the tip of the iceberg? And to think that when my father used to watch cricket avidly, teams didn't even have coaches !!

Indeed, so much has changed for the game. Hanif Cadbury, Saleem Langda, Arshad Pappu - are these then, the characters that decide the fate of international matches today instead of the Brian Laras and Glenn McGraths, that we are made to believe? Why, the names remind me of typical Bollywood masala flicks and indeed, that is typical of the drama that is now unfolding in the Caribbean.

"It is time for cricket to exorcize the ghosts of yore once and for all and start afresh" says Alan Border. But who will do that? Is anybody beyond reproach? Pardon me, but all the conspiracy theories have demented my rational thinking - can it be possible that just like in a typical Hindi film flick, when our honest cop finds out that even the Police Commissioner is in cahoots with the bad boys (recollect all those insufferable rehashes), perhaps all and sundry are involved - perhaps, Malcolm Speed is the very Head Honcho who is driving this all??? Not plausible? But then, what is? That gun-toting mafia dons who are planning to blow up railway stations and World Trade Centers are also determining the outcome of cricket matches? Perhaps, this is the example of the growing clout of cricket internationally that the ICC boasts of !!

There was a time when cricket was just a sport. Or at least, most of the times back then. And it was not too long ago - I was a kid then and I am still a young guy. When one would be all pumped up for a cricket match and invite anybody and everybody in the neighborhood for a good day of cricket watching. There were no odd coloured Pepsi colas or batsmen with weird drawings under their eyelids. But it was still enjoyable. Television channels did not disseminate information about the details of the Thai cuisine that the newest kid on the block likes or which brand of toilet paper he uses to wipe his ass in the morning, but then we still liked our players. Cricketers did not endorse everything from multi-grain biscuits to flavoured condoms, but people still bought those products. When 250 was a winning total in 50 overs and the first 10 overs were still about consolidation and not inane power-hitting without any semblance of technique on subcontinental dustbowls - one still had exciting matches. Dickie Bird would not raise crooked fingers at people or spectators were not addled by concepts like Power Plays - fixed and flexible and what not. One did not have telvision channels like Set Max which is all so eager to air the same ads zillions of times, that it often eats up the last delivery of an over or the first of the next one and God save you, if that last ball ended up as a wide or a no-ball. Don't even expect to watch the extra ball which was about to be bowled because by then the idiot box is spewing out some cranky ad where a bunch of ruffians are shouting "Ooh - Aah India" [how obscenely kinky words :)]and cricketers are transmogrified to tigers - the fact that they are soon to become lambs for slaughter only increases the irritation levels.

I had read somewhere that Erapalli Prasanna took a break from cricket to complete his education so that he has some recourse to good jobs once the cricket days were over. The other day, Lala Amarnath was recounting the early days and how cricketers from different parts of Mumbai would catch the train that would take them to their next test match venue, at different local stations depending on where their residence were. Now, with a huge army of support staff that does everything from massaging their legs to pressing their underwears, with stays in the most deluxe of hotels in the most elite of company, with brand endorsement moolah rivalling those of the Bollywood Badshahs, are the cricketers still not satisfied? Perhaps, such is the slavery of Mammon.

No Cheers for 300

So this is some new genre of film-making and Frank Miller is supposed to be its high priest? And like we have found inane euphemisms for all kinds of things in life these days, we have started calling comic books as graphic novels?

I must admit that I had really looked forward to 300 – the battle of Thermopylae occupies quite a distinguished place in history and for history buffs like me, the spectre of watching an action filled historical with the heroic Spartans and the legendary armies of the Achamaenians was quite mouth-watering.

Unfortunately, 300 is not a historical movie at all – the visuals might look stunning to naïve 10 year olds who perhaps are only interested in that kind of stuff, but it does no justice to more serious pursuers of historical movies. The fanatical heroism that Sparta has always been known for has been treated, for want of a better word, in some kind of an immature manner – you do not feel any kind of a glowing pride as one might have expected of the bravery shown. I also could not fathom the reason for the sudden volte-face of the Judas of Thermopyale – Ephialtes (who for no reason that I can think of, is shown as a hideous, diseased hunchback – a kind of throwback to the Golum of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings – must things be unnecessarily distorted, just because it is a comic book?) – He says that he wants to fight for Sparta and redeem his father’s honour etc and yet, rejection of admission into the Spartan army suddenly makes him so vengeful that he turns against them? Or for that matter, even if Leonidas is unable to employ Ephialtes as a member of the phalanx, couldn’t he possibly have given him some other role to play in the Spartan army? Historically, there have never been any reports of Persian armies employing war elephants and Frank Miller perhaps deserves credit for introducing war-rhinoceroses for the first time ever.


The Monument to Leonidas in modern day Thermopylae

But perhaps, most of all, what was so disconcerting to me, as a viewer in India, was the not-so-subtle racist underlining that permeates the movie. And while some may just call it historical inaccuracies, I can’t buy that line of thought. It is quite simply put, an effort to show everything Asiatic and Oriental as quite debauched and barbaric, as against a superior and honorable Occidental culture. Can anybody pray tell me who gave Frank Miller the absurd idea of showing Xerxes as some weird, body-piercing Nubian assassin rather than the Achaemenid prince with full beard, long gown like dress and a crown on his head that stares at all in countless stone reliefs found in Persepolis? And are those Halloween type mask wearing monsters supposed to be a good illustration of the legendary Immortals of Xerxes? Perhaps, one would do well to remind Miller that both Iranians and Greeks, neighbours in the Mediterranean for centuries, do not look all that different from each other – his fetish for depicting all the Persian soldiers as some kind of dark devils is rank racist.

A depiction of Xerxes-I from a stone relief in Persepolis

So Long and Thanks for Everything, Inzy

It has been the most unusual of times for Pakistani cricket over the last 2 weeks in the Caribbean. Even the cataclysmic loss to Ireland which saw Pakistan tumble out of the World Cup was overshadowed by the sudden and mysterious death of Bob Woolmer which has shrouded the World Cup in a pall of gloom and unleashed the many dormant evils that have plagued the game of cricket in the recent past. Unfortunately, all this has kind of pushed the ODI retirement of Inzamam-ul-Haq to the background. And that is so very unfortunate.

This was sadly, not the way Inzy would have liked to end his long innings on the international platform. Over the last one year, so much has changed for Inzamam. After being hailed as a hero after standing up for Pakistani pride in the Oval test fiasco, Inzamam’s pictures were supposedly stomped on in Lahore and even his hometown Multan and his house attacked, post the disaster at the World Cup. But for one last time, when he trudged back, teary-eyed, to the pavilion after another typically belligerent innings against the hapless Zimbabweans, everything was forgiven. Like a supernova, which flashes brilliantly before its final imminent collapse, all that was good and great about Inzamam shone forth in our eyes and minds, one last time.

That brutal assault which zapped the Kiwis into submission in the 1992 World Cup semis was the first to spring to mind – Inzy, then a cherubic, clean shaven youngster, staked his claim for inclusion into the pantheon of cricket greats with that impudent, audacious knock. Through the years, he mellowed, the clean shaven look transformed into the bearded patriarchal look that the later generation would perhaps, remember him for; religious moorings took shape and press conferences and post match tête-à-têtes started increasingly with “First of all, thanks to Allah….”. Some things however, never changed – the innocence and general amiability that always characterized and in many ways defined him as a gentle giant, the ever bumbling running between the wickets, the safe pair of hands in the slip cordon, the sometimes bemused and absent look on the field when things were not going his way, the elegant bendy flicks off his hips, the hunched cover drives and savage cuts, that almost lazy stride to the middle when he came out to bat – beautifully and quite ironically, epitomizing both an aversion to any kind of hurriedness in life as well as a supreme confidence in his self and utter disdain for any bowlers, the constant gum chewing which would put the most arduously ruminating of cows to shame – we will definitely miss all of these. But perhaps, what Pakistan would miss most of all was the eternal hope that Inzamam provided, every time he walked out to the middle, irrespective of whether he was in form or not. Like his illustrious predecessors Salim Malik and the peerless Javed Miandad, no opponent could ever heave a sigh of relief till Inzamam was at the crease to guide Pakistani fortunes, no matter how choppy the waters seemed.

Of course, he has only bid adieu to ODIs and that leaves a possibility of us seeing some more of Inzy in the Tests. But considering the tumultuous world of Pakistani cricket, you never know.

As the saying goes, the show must go on, but when people like Inzamam take a bow, somehow, it is never feels the same without them.

Polyester Prince - Dhiru and Guru - a la Mani Ratnam

The fact that it is a film made by Mani Ratnam automatically raised my expectations from it. And rumours that it has been inspired by the story of Dhirubhai Ambani only whetted my curiosity further. The grapevine had it that the movie has made a tremendous beginning at the box office and Amitabh Bachhan quite shamelessly, I think, endorsed son Abhishek's acting skills in the movie in an interview aired on NDTV. All in all, I was really looking forward to watching Guru and luckily, I got to see it this Sunday at the PVR multiplex in Forum Mall.

And I am a tad disappointed. The rumours are of course spot on – only that the movie is not merely inspired by, it is almost a biopic of Dhirubhai. And you can easily figure out the other characters in the movie are inspired by other historical figures – Arzan Contractor is definitely based on Nusli Wadia, Manik Dasgupta on Ramnath Goenka, Shyam Saxena is S. Gurumurthy, Champaklal Damani's character has been shown as a childhood friend and brother of Kokilaben. Kokilaben Ambani has hardly ever been in the limelight and I know precious little of her life's story – so I can only assume that Aishwarya Rai's character is based on her. Turkey replaces Yemen in the movie and curiously, Gurubhai in the movie is only shown to have two daughters – Mukesh and Anil bhai have been conveniently forgotten. Warring kinmen apparently have no place in family sagas.

But of course, Mani Ratnam has made biopics earlier and his Iruvar was widely appreciated. This movie, however, seems to lack a punch and finishes without taking a very clear stand between the two rival threads that run through the film. Abhishek Bachhan's defence during the RBI grilling is unconvincing and his attempt to relate his travails and fights with Gandhiji's fight against the British is ludicrous. Abhishek Bachhan has however turned in a stupendous performance in a role, which, though it was author backed to the core, required him to enact a person much older in age and maturity. Mithun Chakraborty makes a welcome return to mainstream Bollywood and excels in the role of the media patriarch. However, I did feel that the shift in equations between Guru and Manik Dasgupta from friendship to enmity was very sudden and out of sorts. Would a person suddenly dedicate himself wholly to finish off somebody, who, till the other day, was like a son to him? The chemistry between Abhishek and Ash is for all to see, otherwise, Ash really did not have much to do. Her introduction in the movie was however, quite spectacular and Rajeev Menon has handled the photography department with aplomb, as ever. Madhavan and Vidya Balan have however been wasted and the development of a parallel romantic angle between them is totally unrelated to the movie. I simply cannot comprehend the necessity of introducing an item number in a movie like this – perhaps the need to have Mallika Sherawat gyrate in a typical Turkish belly dance is what led to the shift of the background to Turkey from the historical Yemen.

Biopics, if they are simply visual rendition of a true story, without any kind of message being pushed forward or any other kind of embellishment, engender a sense of incompleteness to a movie and I think, that is the problem with Guru.

Hail the Prince

Sourav Ganguly has indeed, scripted a most remarkable comeback, a story as good as any other to be a parable for inspiration.

The last time, I had written about him, Ganguly had just been unceremoniously dumped from the throne of Indian cricket and pundits, all around were busy, writing his epitaph. In the long months of his exile, whenever he would talk of still nursing dreams of playing the World Cup in the Caribbean, people would dismiss it as mere wishful thinking; some would even proffer a few words of pity for someone who had risen so high, but had fallen so mightily. Even the most loyal of his fans had begun doubting a comeback, but it is entirely to his credit that Sourav Ganguly just refused to throw in the towel. Of course, the exile served him well – he has improved his fitness considerably, he has lost that air of “nothing can happen to me and my place in the team, come what may”, he has been playing Ranji trophy matches even in places like Dhanbad, unlike times when he would pull out of even international matches without batting an eyelid. But it is his confidence and the burning desire to prove his critics wrong that has propelled him towards another new innings in Indian colours.

May the Gods script a successful saga for this innings of his.

Who are we blaming??

Hardly anybody in India knew who Jade Goody is, a couple of weeks ago. Now of course, she is perhaps topping the list of the most hated person by an Indian. And all because of a reality TV show – Big Brother – whose Indian spin-off – Big Boss – is one of the stupidest (and to attain that tag, you have to be really special) TV shows I have ever watched on sitcom.

As the racial row erupted and threatened to engulf all kinds of players [at last count, apart from the TV channel, the contestants and the gullible all-knowing audience; the Governments of both UK and India; leaders of the European Union, Bollywood actors, starlets, wannabe models; had-been TV stars turned TV hosts; cricket celebs; newspaper columnists across the racial divide – all had pitched in with their thoughts on this], I daresay, I watched with keen amusement the indignation that Indians and South Asians, in general, exhibited at the treatment meted out to Shilpa Shetty. At the very outset, let me state that I haven’t seen any episode of the concerned TV show and my knowledge of the events that unfolded at the show is purely from media reports and video clips of the concerned episode when it all started.

First things first – I was initially surprised that Shilpa Shetty, who is still going reasonably strong at the Bollywood sweepstakes, would want to participate in a much-rehashed reality show with co-participants, who can only be described, in polite terms as either have-beens, also-rans or wannabe gone wrong (Ms. Lloyd would fit the last category perfectly). But then, from what is all turned out to be, I think it was a smart move by Shilpa’s agent – for it has definitely made her a household name now in the U.K. and if not the Oscars, perhaps she can aim for a few BAFTAs.

While I am in no way, condoning some of the remarks that were passed around in the show, I am amused at the sudden bout of propriety being exhibited by all and sundry, when it must be borne in mind that a majority of these participants do not have the privilege of elitist up-scale education and class that Shilpa seems to have and infinitely more importantly, when it is widely understood that nobody would like to see a program where there are no tamashas, no fights and bitching, no envy or jealousy. Clean, nice, polite people, who are always adjusting, make compromises in the bigger interest, who are welcoming towards one and all, who never fight amongst themselves or take nasty, bitter broadsides against each other behind each others’ backs, do not make for good TRPs. That is just what it is all about – Channel 4 could not have just scripted a nice wonderful happily ever after kind of a show and still hope to catch eyeballs. I am not being sarcastic – sure, it has backfired to a big extent and there are plans of scrapping the program altogether, but all this muck still made national headlines and everybody who previously did not know of or did not see Big Brother, is now wiser about it. And who knows, perhaps the news that it will be scrapped altogether, might just make people nostalgic about this 7 year old program and it might just burn out like a supernova at the end and ah!, what a grand finale that would be.

But all this brouhaha brings me to the larger issue of racism. We, i.e. all who have melanin in different dosages and in higher content than whites in our system – are too quick to react to any kind of behaviour that mildly suggests a racial undertone to it. And yeah, it has got to do with our history, of the past unjustness exhibited by our fairer brethren etc. But the fact is that all of us are racist deep inside and it just manifests itself differently in different people.

Gujaratis in Mumbai are unwilling to allow non-vegetarian tenants or residents in their housing complexes, the same goes for South Indian Brahmins in different parts of cosmopolitan India – Bangalore may be the new buzzword in the global arena, but if you go to Malleshwaram and say, that you are a fish-eating Bong and would want to rent a house, the landlord is most likely to smirk. God save you, if you are a non-vegetarian in Borivali and you need to buy eggs urgently – all the best, trudge miles for a shop that stocks it. Try going to some of the most happening places in the sunshine beaches of Goa – some of the Hindu converted “Portuguesophile” Goans would treat you like dirt and through subtle means, would try telling you that those places are reserved for the gora chamdis. Imagine, being marginalized in your own country by your own people. And we display these traits copiously – go down to the Gateway of India in Mumbai anytime and you would see scores of us, always eager to help the white tourist, whenever he needs something or being over-enthusiastic in answering their questions or allaying their fears [there is the other kind too – the one that fleeces them like hell, but they too act in the most subservient manner to the whites]. Ask the same people to help out a Nigerian or Kenyan tourist and they suddenly remember lots of work or display plain disdain for people, who are more coloured than they themselves are. Sure, for the economically weaker section of this subservient domain, it is simply the power of the relative currencies that dictates their action, but notice the difference when some of the airlines crews interact with white and black foreigners and you will know what I am speaking of. We label backward places as “just like Bihar”; we tend to think that all Tamilians must say “Aiyyo” at every thing in the most stupid manner and we portray accordingly in movies and serials; we tend to believe that every Muslim in the neighbourhood secretly supports Pakistan in an Indo-Pak cricket match; we think that all Mongoloid looking young females in the cities must be sluts and the males, drug-addicts; we think all Bongs are too arrogant and feign intellectual prowess of the most irritating kinds; we believe that all Marwaris are nothing but money-minded ogres who would do anything to make profits; we believe all Parsis are zany idiots etc etc.

Who are we blaming then??