aditya kumar's weblog

Two bombs went off yesterday at the Bangalore cricket stadium, minutes before the Bangalore-Mumbai IPL match. 15 were injured, several among them in a serious condition. Despite all this happening at the match venue, the match went on. A 30 minute delay was all that these bombs managed, apart from the 15 injured. The match went on, Bangalore eventually lost the cricket too while DNA, the day after, has this headline: “Cricket wins over safety”.

And if all this was not enough, rediff and timesofindia.com have reported, here and here, the discovery of another live bomb, at the Mahatama Gandhi Statue just outside the stadium.

My question to the IPL commissioner and the Police commissioner of the city would be why was the match allowed to go on, despite two bombs going on within a few meters of the stadium. With the bomb that was discovered on Sunday, it appears the match went on with a live, yet to be discovered bomb in its vicinity.

Lalit Modi is a greedy man and it is high time he is made to realize the repercussions of his deeds.

Contrary to what DNA said, I do not think that it was cricket that won yesterday but it was eventually the money.

What surprises me further is that everyone, including some of the most admired Cricket commentators involved in the event look like they have sold themselves off. While they could admire the MRF balloon all they want while discussing its virtues and influences on humanity (not to forget the karbonn kamaal catches), I think it is a disservice to cricket that these individuals have started to advocate everything, good or bad, that the IPL stands for. Well, it is the bad that hurts.

It would also be interesting to see if any of the senior cricketers, of the likes of Anil Kumble and Sachin Tendulkar, come out in the open, questioning the decision of continuing the event in a scenario such as this.

The BCCI should ask itself questions, retrospect and take ownership. Or has this madness of money which is often confused with cricket, overcome us all?

Years back, when rediff.com was yet to be degraded and more often than not carried articles of substance, I remember reading a detailed story about Shoaib Malik’s Indian wife on the website. Of course, as we all know, Shoaib Malik has been in a state of denial since then but it is a strange cover-up (if it is one), especially since the whole Pakistani team had been treated to a gala dinner in Hyderabad. What adds more credibility to the rediff article is that it claims the source of the news to be Reuters.

The article is still online. If you are interested, it can be found here.

Then today evening, I read the news on another news portal that hits a new low every now and then. Timesofindia.com has Bal Thackeray fuming over Sania’s wedding plans — “Had her heart been Indian, it wouldn’t have beaten for a Pakistani”. I read that and wondered for a moment. What is wrong with Sania marrying a Pakistani? Would the supremo had said that if her prospective husband was of any other nationality or religion? Her heart is human and it is beating for a fellow human but then again, how can one expect Thackeray to understand things that involve human nature?

I am not a fan of Sania Mirza and I would be happy if she went ahead and proved me wrong because I believe that her best is behind her. And personally, I think there is a chance that she may miss the freedom she enjoys as a Muslim lady in India but these matters, I think, should be left for the individual to decide upon.

How very unreasonable we all have been in quietly discarding her choice of a beau. Who are we to judge and who gave us that right? Would there be such noise if Shoaib Malik was not from our hostile western neighbour?

One of the candidates for the BBMP election to be held today — I won’t name her, sent leaflets to her prospective voters through newspapers. One such leaflet made its way to me. While I must insist that the Candidate’s usage of English grammar (or the lack of it) should have nothing to do with deciding who to vote for, I am still reproducing here the contents of the leaflet, as is:

Dear Respected Voters

I know you have hopes from New Carporator, Who want order in every thing, Voters who have some issues which they want to be sorted out by the new Carporator, to do and facilities by solving Civic problem. Like Garbage, Drain or Rajakaluve cleaning specially in the rainy season, Mosquito problem in summer and they want health security, chain snatching incidents are also not uncommon, and they create a cascading psychological fear among women. We hope that Ward No.174 voters will give me one opportunity to show my civic championship I will work for their safety, healthy, security & welfare. I would like to show qualities in practical not by writing in serial one by one many school’s and colleges around the place and this will be an immense requirement of students is bigger stadium 1. water facility 2. swimming pool 3. government school conditions 4. road conditions 5. day to day theft door lock break problem 6. water pipe damages 7. free legal services to senior citizen and physical handicraft 8. Street dog bite problems specially for vehicle drivers by doing many other work want to make the HSR Layout is the pride of Bangalore, I COMMIT FOR HUMBLE, HONESTY AND HARD WORK.

“Indira’s killers are being hailed as ‘martyrs’, in New Zealand’s largest gurdwara”, screams the first line of this report, online at Timesofindia.com. The report originates from Melbourne and that makes me wonder what is with Australia and the Indian media.

Titled “Shaheed Bhai” – or martyr brother – the paintings of Satwant and Beant along with Kehar Singh, who was the co-conspirator, hang on the walls in the Takanini gurdwara alongside others who have been killed for their Sikh beliefs, the ‘Weekend Herald’ reported.

Furthermore:

The pictures have divided the Sikh community in Auckland – and upset others in the Indian community. But few were willing to speak publicly on the matter, the report said.

Something is wrong with the Sikh and the Indian community there. Why should it be condemned? Why are they upset? They have no reason to be.

Because right here, in the holiest shrine of the Sikhs, The Golden Temple – Amritsar, we hail them as martyrs too. To kill the PM of a country and then, in that country itself, be hailed as a martyr.

In 2006, I was disturbed to read this article. And then this was published, in 2009, in the Hindustan Times Editorial. I had then mentioned it on my blog, here.

If you feel disturbed too, please read them.

Yesterday evening, at Reliance Timeout, for launch of Dilip D’souza’s book, “Roadrunner”, there was a very insightful conversation that happened. We had the author along with India’s best historian, Ramachandra Guha and Rahul Dravid talking about India, America, about few of the the many dots that connect the two democracies and how this particular book tries to find answers while attempting to understand America from an Indian’s eyes.

But while at it, I picked up P.Sainath’s, “Everybody Loves A Good Drought”. Sainath is probably the only journalist who has worked extensively in India’s most rural districts and has, time and again, attempted to bring out the causes of the poorest of India’s citizens. I first heard about Sainath when Vidarbha was at boil over farmer suicides (I have written about Vidarbha here). The land is still at a boil and with Telangana’s formation imminent now, they might be justified in asking for a separate state as people at helm of affairs in Maharashtra and people in media have conveniently ignored Vidarbha’s problems. But all this, despite being fodder for thought is another topic altogether.

So Sainath, in the introduction of the book, emphasizes that while India’s hunger “would not make for the dramatic television footage that a Somalia and Ethiopia would do”, that is precisely the challenge before a journalist because, I quote here, “while malnourished kids may look normal, yet lack of food can impair their mental and physical growth in such a way that they suffer its debilitating impact all their lives”.

And then there is the case of the “Number of poor”. Back in 1993, the Government of India set up an expert group to estimate the people living below the poverty line. The group, after arriving at a figure of 39% (people living below the poverty line) also recommended changes in the way the Government used to estimate poverty. In a later survey, discrediting the recommendations and the figure arrived at by the expert group, the Indian Administration came at a figure of 19%. But the story does not end here. In the time that was between these two figures, a few months, the Government of India cried out aloud in the World Summit for Social Development at Copenhagen — they presented a figure of 39.9% of people below poverty line. Why? More poor, more Donors, more money. No rocket science, this.

The year this happened was 1994 but aren’t we dealing with the same problems, 15 years on?

Coming back to the conversation between these three great intellectuals that I witnessed yesterday, there was one question from the audience, regarding India still being a developing nation and not a superpower. As a part of the response to the question, the author questioned back — Why do we need to be a superpower? Ramachandra Guha seemed to agree with it and while reading Sainath’s commentary in the introduction to his book last night, I found the answer in the question — Why can’t we be a better democracy first?

We may be the world’s largest democracy and be proud of it but we are far off from being a good democracy. I think its an obligation to each and every well-wisher who is a citizen of this nation, be it you, me, an ordinary citizen or a politician, to make the world’s largest democracy a better democracy. When that happens, maybe I’ll be much more content drawing parallels between the world’s oldest democracy and the largest one.

One year since the November 26 2008 carnage that happened in Mumbai and we have already found more important things to talk about.

We have, for example, witnessed a “furore in the House” (as promised) when one MLA chose to take his oath in another language but Marathi. We witnessed how a few elected to the office by the people can transform into goondas as and when convenient.

If only all the promises were kept and taken in the same vain by them who were making them, our country would have been a much better place to live in.

We have also witnessed a national hero proclaiming that He is proud to be a Maharashtrian but reinstated that Mumbai is of whole India. As always, he got his priorities right but then we also witnessed the grand old man, the self-proclaimed big daddy of the Marathi Manoos, telling the former that his comments had hurt, no prizes for guessing who, the Marathi Manoos.

Never has the “Proud to be an Indian” comment raised so much controversy.

Then, of course, we also know that calling the city “Bombay” (and not “Mumbai”) can get you thrown out of the city limits.

This is November 26, a year after. Of prime importance, these things.

Postscript: Coming in just now, the political party that owns the goondas who fulfilled the promise mentioned above has put up a hoarding in Mahim paying homage to the martyrs of 26/11. But only the Marathi Manoos among those heroes find a space there. Bangalore’s Major Unnikrishnan and Dehra Dun’s Hawaldar Bisht have been conveniently forgotten — their sins being that they were not the Marathi Manoos. Look at the picture here and you will notice, the political heroes who have put this hoarding up have their own faces enlarged on the poster — larger than the faces of the people they are supposedly paying homage to.

In the last 6 years, a critically acclaimed actor (who is a khan too), an actor who is a Punjabi and a Hindu, the other two “bankable” khans of the Indian film industry, a model-turned-actor (a Christian) and a former, and arguably the most respected, President of India, were all frisked at US Airports by Homeland security.

Still, one so called King Khan chose to make a huge hue and cry about it. On top of it, the man says SRK does not need publicity. Also note that he introduced himself as a movie “star”.

Shahrukh Khan is one arrogant man.