Some things change so quickly that it’s easy for others to stay just the same

THE WORLD T20, a tournament that Sri Lanka hosted, West Indies won and India participated in—taught us some vital lessons about cricket’s past, present and future. Here, I list a few (in no particular order). 1. An international T20 tournament is won by a team that starts poorly, stutters, hiccups, and threatens to choke before beating down the odds in grand style. India did it in 2007. Pakistan surprised everyone with their late surge in 2009. Ditto England, in 2010. West Indies followed the script here. The trend is clear. Mary Poppins, who spread the rumor saying well begun is half done, was wrong. It is time Lalit Modi filed a lawsuit against her. 2. West Indies need to do the exact opposite of what their heroic predecessors did. Clive Lloyd might have unleashed the most fearsome fast bowlers, and Viv Richards, and his gum-chewing buddies, might have turned bowlers into thumb-sucking toddlers, but this WI team is a polar opposite. Darren Sammy’s team relies on spin and medium-pace. They defend when it is time to attack, and go ballistic when it is time to consolidate. They lose heads regularly and need to hold their nerve to win close games. And they celebrate ‘Gangnam Style’. Yes, the men from the Calypso heartland are bowing at the alter of a Korean, whose motto is “dress classy, dance cheesy”. The wheel turns. And how! 3. Sri Lanka are in contention for cricket’s greatest bridesmaid. This was their fourth major finals defeat since 2007. They resemble England in the 1980s and early 1990s (a World Cup semi-final loss and two finals losses). Had Sri Lanka been South Africa, they would have had the word ‘chokers’ plastered all over their jerseys, but people are applying words like ‘unlucky’ and ‘temperamental’. Lanka Captain Mahela Jayawardene was lost for words at the end of the final and suggested more matches against India will help them prepare better. OK, I made the last part up. 4. Pakistan are in a worst position when they are tipped to win. Many cricket experts picked them as the pre-tournament favorites. Some said, “It’s their tournament to lose” (now stop getting ideas!) and others said they have the right mix of youth and experience (though nobody was sure which part of that fence Shahid Afridi sat on). Surely enough Pakistan lost. So all ye’ experts: if you really think that Pakistan is the best team, then lie through your teeth, and say they suck. Write stories about skirmishes, inflated egos and conspiracy theories. Quote former Pakistani cricketers (some of who think every ball is fixed). And when the team wins, write how they beat all odds (knowing well that they were the best in the tournament). 5. Pakistan will beat India when they play them next in a global tournament. I say this with conviction because I have immense faith in one of the most important laws of cricket— the law of averages. Now, I know statisticians (genuine ones who deal in high-end mathematics, not some fluffy tabulators who calculate batting averages), and these guys tell me that the law of averages is bunkum. They say that the law is used conveniently when it fits a situation and is forgotten otherwise. They say I am an ignorant dunce, who thinks that five heads will be followed by tails. I may not know statistics, but I know history. Mark my words. Pakistan may have lost to India in every contest in a global tournament, but there will come a day (not too far in the future) when they are going to need four runs off the last ball, and when one of their batsmen is going to tonk a full-toss for six and charge down the ground like a triumphant bison. Then Pakistan will keep beating India for the next 10 years and the statisticians will continue to insist that the law of averages is bogus. In other words, history will repeat itself—in more ways than one. 6. Afghanistan and Ireland will continue to see cricket’s big boys conspiring against them. These two teams (and Zimbabwe) are like the clowns in a theatre—the big boys want them in the arena, wish for everyone to enjoy their cameos, but do not want them to take over the performance. They cannot bear the sight of these teams in the later rounds. Cricket’s economics seems to frown upon this. So, they create a format to ensure that these teams make a guest appearance. This is a pity. Because the only way Afghanistan, Ireland and the so-called minnows, are going to improve is by playing big games, not by rearing their heads for a game or two and then returning to obscurity. It’s all fine to celebrate Afghanistan’s long road from a wartorn background to an international tournament (there are many stories that keep appearing in few years), but it makes no sense to reach this far if they aren’t given more chances to raise their game. I am sure they themselves will prefer pragmatism to overt sentimentality. 7. India can lose as many matches as they want and the same questions will be asked and left unanswered. India lost eight Test matches in a row. Everyone asked if M.S. Dhoni has reached the end of his tether. Now, after the World T20, they ask the same question. During the whitewashes in England and Australia, many asked what Duncan Fletcher was bringing to the side. They continue to ask the same after this World T20 ouster. Why did the selection committee make such bad decisions? Ditto and ditto. When is someone going to take a call on Sehwag and Gambhir? Is the IPL the reason for our poor performance? Asked before, asked again. A few days after the World T20 some of India’s cricketers headed to South Africa for the Champions League T20. Then, they will head back for the home series against England. So on and so on. There’s no break in cricket’s caravan these days, no time to sulk, no time to take stock. Some things change so quickly that it’s easy for others to stay just the same.

...Is what the students of Haji Public School are singing, and they are not the only ones celebrating

Once on the banks of Chenab, a bunch of children were busy chatting amongst each other. As the villagers heard them, they began to wonder—the children looked like one of their own. But none of the local people knew English. How did this bunch manage to master it? Finally, the elders could take it no longer and went up to the bunch to ask them. It was then that the children shared a wonderful secret—Haji Public School (Breswana). Sabbah Haji beams with pride, and happiness, when she recounts how her students stand apart from the crowd. Her students are, of course, different from rest of their ilk; they are not only well-versed in English, they know how to use a computer and access the internet. In fact, Haji Public School students begin using the computer from Class I, an unthinkable practice in most government- run schools in Breswana, which is tucked away in the Doda mountains in Jammu and Kashmir. This is where Sabbah Haji, the school’s founder, belongs to. And this is where her mother was born. In 2008, when the Amarnath Riots broke out, Breswana was deeply impacted. Sabbah was in Bengaluru, working for a website designing firm. She watched the riots take place from the safe confines of her cubical. It was only when she received a distress call from her mother, did she realise that it was time to pack her bags and return. She quit her cushy corporate job and left, to start a school, funded by Haji Amina Charity Trust, which was started by her uncle, Nasir Haji. Within the first year, the school had 30 students. The extra care that Sabbah put in, reaped results, as her students began showing marked improvement right at the outset, whether in their conversation or comprehension skills. They read books, which Breswana has not seen before. Watching their children learn and grow, villagers began to send youngsters from their families, too, and winds of change began to blow. The journey thus far, might sound like a fairytale, but it was not always easy. Sabbah, however, does not believe in complaining. She is more than happy that the “children are getting their right to quality education”. And if you pester her enough, she opens up and explains the process. “Starting the school would not have been a problem had it not been for the authorities,” she confesses. The land was provided by her father, and the money by her uncle. But the permission to start the school and the legal frame work involved, crossing that hurdle was no mean feat. It took the Haji team quite a few trips down the hill to get the paperwork done. Authorities of the local government schools were scared. And rightly so, because what Sabbah and team were offering was so much more. Even today, when Haji Public School has earned quite a name, pan-India, local authorities and the state government refuse to acknowledge them. The school’s teachers are often made to travel distances for minor paperwork every other day. But Haji and team does not let such small details faze her. She accepts them as they come, and forgets about them the moment they are over. She talks with an infectious optimism about the future—where and how they plan to start a high school. “Right now, we only have lower classes. In higher classes, parents will start feeling uncomfortable sending girls to co-ed schools. We plan to have different schools for girls and boys by that time. The motive is to provide everyone with solid education. Once that happens, we can fight the gender issues,” she says. Sabbah and team also plan to start a college with hostel facilities for young men and women. With so many issues to fight, how does Haji Public School manage to get competent teachers and run their classes? Sabbah says that they pick local people and train them, ensuring that they are fit to teach a particular batch. The trust also runs volunteering programmes, where individuals from various parts of the country come and teach the children, and train the teachers as well. Haji Trust’s focus to hire only local people as teachers, has ensured steady employment in the village. And the locals are also involved in other activities surrounding the school. Unlike government schools, Sabbah makes her students pay a minimal fee, however, books and uniforms are distributed for free. Perhaps, it is this minimal amount that makes her students and their parents value the education they receive. Students of Haji Public School do not follow the government curriculum. Instead the team designed an innovative syllabus, where students are taught through toys, sketch books and picture perception methods. The school also provides students sports equipment. The school has a world-class library which boasts of more than a thousand books, most of which have been donated by organisations such as Pratham Books. The library is not just open for students and staff, but the entire village. Kashmir seems to be forever trapped in turbulent times, especially if you believe the 24*7 news channels. But within that violence and strife, there are little oases of peace, of which Haji Public School is one. It manages to function without worry lines. If Sabbah Haji is to be believed, the violence of Kashmir is a thing of the past. She tells us so, with such conviction that even we would like to believe it. Looking at Haji Public School and its students, makes us think that there is, at least, a part of Kashmir which remains at peace.

A quirky look at the average, domestic life of a pre-liberalised India

THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE is set in pre-1991 Madras, when India was not shining and Madras was the name of a 17th century town rather than a modern metropolis. Joseph says in his acknowledgements, “It is where I spent the first 20 years of my life. I am grateful it was not a paradise.” It was rather a place where “all husbands are managers, women are housewives, and all bras are white”. That is Joseph’s Madras—miles and years away from being the metropolis of Chennai that it is today. The main protagonist is Ousep Chacko. Ousep is a journalist by day, and neighbourhood drunk by night. His wife, Mariamma, has a postgraduate degree in economics, nurses fantasies about killing her husband, and regularly talks to the walls. They have two sons—Unni and Thoma. Unni, the elder, is the one whom everyone loves. It seems there is nothing he can not handle, from his classmates to his mother’s delusions, his father’s drunken antics to his brother’s anxieties. A gifted cartoonist, he’s the one person in the novel who isn’t burdened by the mania for academic excellence. Unni is the last person anyone expects would have a great fall, but one day, inexplicably, he does. For the next three years, Unni becomes Ousep’s study and the father’s project of unconquerable will is to figure out why Unni lost his will. Mariamma continues to stretch the family’s money, raises her remaining boy, and, in her spare time, gleefully fantasises about Ousep dying. Meanwhile, younger son Thoma, missing his brother, falls head over heels for the much older girl who befriended them both. Haughty and beautiful, she has her own secrets. The Illicit Happiness of Other People—a smart, wry, and poignant novel—teases you with its mystery, philosophy, and unlikely love story. The Illicit Happiness... is a witty, unforgiving but deeply affectionate look at life in pre-liberalised India. There is none of the acidic contempt that can be found in Joseph’s first novel, Serious Men. It is fun, despite all the unhappiness and angst that riddles it. Joseph’s characters are peculiar. Their stories are told with an empathy that is intelligent enough to note all absurdities without reducing anyone or anything to a caricature. The author has no sympathy for the blinkers that old India clapped on itself, but even as his scathing critique stings painfully, Joseph’s sense of humour makes it impossible for a reader to not grin while reading the novel.

Is Narcopolis Thayil’s antidote after all the decades spent smashed? Yes, it probably is

AN ALCOHOLIC and an substance abuser for over two decades, firsttime author and long-time poetcum- musician, Jeet Thayil perhaps found his antidote in writing. It is not surprising that Thayil found his cure in prose and verse after all, as he has the DNA makeup. Jeet Thayil has the fortune of calling Thayil Jacob Sony George, better known as T.J.S. George, an Indian writer, biographer and a Padma Bhushan awardee, his father. However, pedigree can be both a boon and a bane. Legacy can be daunting. And living up to it, a challenge. But legacy could not have been Thayil’s singular challenge—his biggest one lay in one detail; how was he to make his book authentic enough for his readers? Will they not immediately sniff a foreign-educated writer who lived a substantial bit of his life away from the city that he describes with such obvious pleasure. Thayil’s first attempt garnered mixed reviews from Indian reviewers and critics. However, it has been a sweeping success overseas. He is not far from joining the league of Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie and Kiran Desai, as his debut novel Narcopolis is next in the race to winning this year’s Man Booker Prize 2012, the winner of which will be declared on October 16, 2012, at London’s Guildhall. So does the Indian author succeed after all? In bits, he does. Thayil creates a melange of characters successfully. However, it is difficult to emotionally connect with most of them. The main protagonist is the city of Bombay—its transition from the old-world Bombay to the newage Mumbai. And living in the city’s underbelly are the so-called dregs of the society—Rashid the opium den owner. Dimple, an eunuch who makes pipes in Rashid’s opium den. Mr Lee, a Chinese refugee who manages to drive a stolen vehicle out of China and into Bombay. Then there is the vast supporting cast of pimps, prostitutes, and criminals who drop in and out. The variety is Thayil’s attempt at “honouring the people I knew in the opium dens, the marginalised, the addicted and deranged, people who are routinely called the lowest of the low; and I wanted to make some record of a world that no longer exists, except within the pages of a book”. The story opens in Rashid’s opium house on Shuklaji Street sometime in the 1970s. We meet the owner himself, his clients, and Dimple. Thayil is no stranger to the written word as he has been an accomplished poet. That strength serves him well as he takes the readers in and out of his characters’ lives, emerging occasionally inside a vivid drug-induced recollection. The story, which begins in the 1970s, jump cuts to a few years. This is where Thayil emerges victorious, while exposing the contrarian nation—one that seems to be in an opium-induced, dream-like state, wrapped up in ideals of simplicity and unaware of the sweeping changes that would strike soon with the economic liberalisation in the 1990s. For Rashid and Dimple change arrives in the form of heroin, a drug that heralds a new world order. Their regular customers switch while their city disintegrates into communal riots and mayhem. The degeneration does not limit itself to the city but drags all the individual players along with it. All things end. The end sadly does come and it is written with empathy. It is well understood through a scene which unfolds in a shiny nightclub, with Rashid’s. The story finally ends at 2004 (incidently also the year when Thayil returned to India). It ends at Shuklaji Street, the same spot it started: with the ‘I’ narrator and a pipe: “All I did was write it down, one word after the other, beginning and ending with the same one, Bombay.” Language is the clear focus of the book which is an highly-intertextual one, containing references to invented texts, stories within stories from a broad mix of genres and repetitions of key phrases and narratives. Layers of reality mingle and swirl so that it’s not always evident what is dream, what is not. Thayil apparently felt that he lost almost 20 years of his life to addiction. But reading Narcopolis, it seems that perhaps that it was not much of a waste after all.

Small and serene, Arusha is a jewel tucked away in Tanzania

“But is it safe?” Between my husband and I, we have a truly extended family. Nearly everyone in that rather large and well-meaning Bengali family of ours expressed their dismay when we declared our decision to move to Africa for good. We were bombarded by tales of people they knew of or heard of or read about, who lost a leg, an eye and assorted parts of their bodies in mugging incidents. South Africa was safe, but the east? Despite the naysayers, my husband and I remained unfazed. We invented a game to guess at what point of conversations, the safety question would pop up. Partly, our families are to be blamed for our interest in Africa. They got us the book—the greatest adventure tale ever written in Bengali—that all teenagers, especially the boys, read. The book by novelist Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay called Chander Pahaar (loosely translated as The Mountain of the Moon). It is not just a book. It is a rite of passage that my husband and I went through. Between that and the Enid Blytons, I was frankly torn between what would be more glorious or glamorous—discovering an island cove or a cave filled with diamonds. Thus when the Arusha offer came in, a bit of that child who remained was too thrilled to even care. There were no second guesses. It was a “I do” to Arusha’s call. I knew that the world had changed and that in Arusha there were probably no caves filled with diamonds. But what greeted us, was a rather exotic mix of old world charm and new development, present in a chaos reminiscent of home. There are few direct flights to Arusha, usually it is better to land in the capital of Tanzania, Dar-e-salaam, and then take a car or bus to the city. Arusha does have its own airport, which is rather small and tidy. The city is the fourth-largest in Tanzania, a lovely little spot tucked away within a valley, with more-orless mild weather all year round. Because it is situated in a higher altitude, the region is also drier. Arusha is the capital of northern region of Tanzania also called the Arusha Region. And it is the place to go for those who dream about safaris—the city is close to some of Africa's most famous national parks, including the Serengiti. It is also famous for its touts trying to sell safaris, and vendors trying to sell souvenirs. Though well-meaning, it is better to book the safaris well before you land to ensure safer travel. The town rests on a rather picturesque spot below the Mount Meru on the eastern edge of the Great Rift Valley. Make it a pit stop in Africa, even if you do not plan on staying for long, as it is close to Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Manyara, Olduvai Gorge, Tarangire National Park, and Mount Kilimanjaro. The visit that got us excited was the Arusha National Park which, till 1967, was known as the Ngurdoto Crater National Park. The Arusha National Park is located halfway between Arusha and Moshi towns. It is surrounded by a sweeping band of forests. The breathtaking bit within it, is the Momella Lakes with its flamingoes and hippos. The lakes, because of their varied mineral content, each supports a different type of algae growth which lends it a distinct colour. From the highlands, the lakes divide the park almost equally. In the rainy season (November to December and March to May) it swells into a mighty waterway that floods the entire area. The sweeping plains around Momella lakes are natural grasslands fed by underground streams. Because the water is salty, animals do not use them for drinking. For ornithologists, the lakes are a mustvisit because some 400 species of birds use the wetlands close to the lakes. While there you can also spot the bushbucks, water-bucks and bohor reedbuck. Also within the park is the Ngurdoto crater all of 3km wide and 1,474 metres deep. The crater has rocky cliffs, forest and swamp interspersed by open plain. Though tourists are not allowed on the crater floor, there are plenty of spots from where one can watch the animals. Once, it is belived, the Mount Meru was higher than Kilimanjaro. Meru collapsed sideways, destroying its eastern slope of the volcanic cone. The mountainscape is scenic and spectacular. Use Meru as an high-attitude warm-up before you tackle Mount Kilimanjaro, which is 5,895m high. The Arusha park promotes walking safaris with armed escorts as transitory lions are spotted, but we got to see none. And there is plenty more to see in the towns. Before we became one of the people, my husband and I decided to be tourists for a bit and take in the scenary on a daladala (mini-van taxi) into town to the Central Market (intersection of Market Street and Somali Road) which sells herbs, spices, sandals made from old tyres, colourful kangas, traditional medicines and local produce such as baobab seeds and fresh tamarind, both of which can be sucked like sweets. The markets are open daily between 7am and 6pm. For those who are interested in local crafts there are enough crafts shops at Goliondo Road where Tingatinga paintings, Masai jewellery and batik, are sold. Beautiful, exotic and filled by asili (‘genuine’ in Swahili) people, Arusha is a must-see, especially during the months between January and March, when the wheather is just perfect for a stroll.

IN OUR trade happenstance is the hero. A news here, a glance at the past and suddenly there is a thread of an idea which grows as a story. Two fortuitous event set the path for the present edition; one a mention of an interesting art gallery tucked away in Neb Sarai. The other, a visit to a house where a Jatin Das painting was on display. I confess I knew of Jatin Das, rather than know him. I had always heard that Das treads a tricky path—he condemns what we see as contemporary modern art. Yet for most people he is one of the stronger members of the Indian contemporary art movement. He has been even more vocal in his criticism of the world of computer-generated, tampered, over-painted and photo-transferred art. The volatile verbaliser and artist who likes to work on large-scale murals and welded steel sculptures, what a wonderful figure he would make on the cover. And then there was K.G. Babu, an upcoming artist whose vivid, vibrant and arresting canvases stole our hearts at NIV Art Gallery. Babu and Das are poles apart. The former is slowly getting his due, while the latter has been a shinning star for 55 years. The former barely speaks. The latter is not shy at all. Yet there is that thread of commonality—their joy in creating. They paint because that is what they know best. They create because without it life is meaningless, because pursuit of passion is often that defines us. Like pugilist Mary Kom, who boxes, for her life is meaningless without it. She is our special feature this month. Read about her as Kom bares her soul and talks of her family and passion. In the more prosaic matters, the FDI debate, one that DW visited in February 2012, has resurfaced with anti and pro-FDI schools screaming themselves hoarse over the issue. First the LPG and diesel hike, and now the retail debate, tell us, who stands a chance—the economy or the people? The time is right for such a debate as we celebrate the birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation on October 2, 2012.

DISASTER \\ In September, Pakistan faced one of its worst industrial disasters till date when a garments factory caught fire and was gutted. The death toll rose to 259 leading to the government registering a case of murder against its owner and manager of the Karachi factory—Ali Enterprises, his two sons and managers at three-storey garments factory. On the same day of the Karachi fire, 25 people were also killed in a fire at a shoe factory in Lahore. Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Malik gave a twist to the country’s worst industrial disasters by calling them an ‘act of terrorism’. The bigger fire started in the garments factory in Karachi’s Baldia town. Evidence suggests that the fire started because of a generator malfunction or short circuiting. The owners, who have obtained preventive bail until 21 September, 2012, also recorded their statements with the police. Till date only 177 of the dead bodies have been identified, including 23 women. Sindh police surgeon, Kamaluddin Sheikh, said around 600 people were in the factory when the fire broke out and many managed to escape with minor injuries or were rescued later.

UNREST \\ A low-budget, crudely-produced film called Innocence Of Muslims, which allegedly portrays Prophet Mohammed as a “fraud”, a “womaniser” and a “child molester” sparked off controversies across the Middle East leading to violence and disruption. The violence began when Islamist protesters climbed the US Embassy walls in the Egyptian capital of Cairo and tore down the American flag from a courtyard pole. Chris Stevens, the US Ambassador to Libya, was killed, along with three other Americans, as violent protesters stormed the consulate in Benghazi. The intensity of the anti-American fervour initially caught US leaders by surprise, but in the past days, the Barack Obama administration has called for calm. It urged foreign governments to protect American interests in their countries. The film, has sparked violent protests in many Muslim countries and the US has responded by deploying additional military forces to increase security in some hotspots. In a televised speech, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said America must be held accountable for the film, which was produced in the United States. The US government has condemned the film. Nasrallah called for protests in which the Muslims expressed their “anger”. In Pakistan, police fired tear gas and water cannons at the protesters in Karachi. The protesters threw stones and bricks, prompting the police to beat back the crowd with batons. One protester was killed during the clash, said Ali Ahmar, spokesman for the Shiite Muslim group that organised the rally. Thousands more held peaceful demonstrations against the film in other parts of the country, including the eastern city of Lahore and the north-west city of Dera Ismail Khan. The demonstration in Lahore was organised by Jamaat-ud-Dawa, believed to be a front for a powerful militant group blamed for attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008 that killed more than 160 people. It has been unclear how much of the violence was spontaneously triggered by the film and how much of it was spurred on by anti-American militants using it as a tool to grow and enrage the crowds. Libya’s interim president Mohammed el-Megarif said the attackers who killed Stevens appeared to have spent months preparing and carefully choosing their date—the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. But US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice said evidence gathered so far indicated it was a spontaneous reaction to the anti-Islam video. In the meanwhile, tension escalated in Libya as the civil war continued unabated, also leading to anti-American sentiments in most parts of the country.

Cuba-born boxing coach Blas Iglesias Fernandez became the first foreign coach to win the Dronacharya Award. He has dedicated 22 years of his life in training Indian boxers and has two-time Olympic medal winner, Sushil Kumar, as one of his students.

SPORTS \\ Tennis star Andy Murray ended Britain's 76-year wait for a male Grand Slam singles champion with an epic victory over Novak Djokovic in the US Open final. Murray, 25, emulated Fred Perry's 1936 achievement, winning 7-6 (12-10) 7-5 2-6 3-6 6-2 in four hours 54 minutes in the Arthur Ashe Stadium. Murray also won an Olympic gold this summer. This is Murray’s first Grand Slam victory after 28 appearances. On the day when the talented duo played against each other, a swirling wind made conditions troublesome. It was Murray who coped better in the first two sets and eventually ended Djokovic’s title defence and 27-match hardcourt winning run at majors. Murray made a devastating start to the decider, breaking in game one and consolidating it with some defensive play of the highest order. The third seed was in dreamland when Djokovic netted a forehand to hand over the double-break, only for a nervous Murray to immediately surrender one of his strikes with a timid backhand.