Evolution and Insult of Rules नियमांचा फज्जा

In the year AD 66 a guy called Gaius Petronius said, "What power has law where only money rules?"

He couldn't have said it better today.

Rules. Those noble things that made life simple and sometimes , tolerable.

Earlier these worked. Now, I'm sorry to say, it appears, that they don't.

In our primary school, Class II, we learned the Rules of Crossing the road . It went : "Look right, look left, when you cross the street; use your eyes, then your ears, and then you use your feet."

( Denizens of advanced countries addicted to driving on the right may design a suitably altered version for themselves).

(Mrs Desouza (my class teacher of 50 years ago who taught us this ditty) , if you are reading this, remember me as one of those, who stood with palms out and open, as you moved around with ruler(raised sideways) , punishing those who messed up subtraction-with-carry sums).

At that time, this rule worked like a charm. We believed everything our teacher told us. We follow somethings even today, unconsciously. So did the traffic on the road.

An effort at doing that recently, outside on the road, nearly lead me to an accident and traffic jam .

I looked right; only to have a policeman blow a whistle, and wildly gesticulate asking me to move back from the path of a bulldozer trying to make a right turn , from the opposite side of the road,almost on me. An agitated leap back, almost caused my collision with the fashionable exterior part of the bonnet of an unusually upmarket car with highly evolved occupants , who proceeded to give proletarian-me , disdainful looks.

I looked left; and got a whiff, then a blast , of diesel , as all the traffic had stalled at the turning, and I barely escaped being part of the pile up. Seeing stopped traffic on the road makes me very happy these days. I CAN CROSS SAFELY !

I used my eyes (after rubbing the diesel particles out), used my ears ( no dangerous accelerating engine noises, no police whistles, no one-shouting "Oye, dikhta nahi kya ") and was about to use my feet, when a motorcycle whizzed past, with the pillion rider, shouting at me saying"Watch, watch", and the driver did one of his angular 40 degree bends to the side in typical filmy style. He barely avoided crushing my extended right ankle. One of my friends was not so lucky. In a similar situation, the occupant of a rickshaw shouted in a similar manner, but in addition pushed her back (supposedly for her own benefit) , from inside the rickshaw, with the result that she fell to the ground, as the vehicle disappeared into the traffic.

Sorry Mrs Desouza. Rules today are designed , so we can all break them.

Smoking in public vehicles is banned . (notice how I hesitate to even mention public "places"). A request to a middle aged chap in my bus, (who alternated between "enjoying" his mobile phone and cigarette, and caused nauseated uneasy reactions in some of us), to put his cigarette "out" , brought forth questions about who owned the bus, and did my father figure in that ?

Ladies seats in the same buses, are another cause of Rule trauma. The Bus authorities, in their wisdom , and out of great concern for Mumbai's embattled, public-transport-using women, reserved certain seats in the bus for women. This rule has been disobeyed so many times, leading to arguments , finger pointing at the painted rules, and adamant males, that one day, has simply been etched into my memory. I got into a bus, and kind of squeezed ahead to the aforementioned seats, to find two guys standing next to them, leaving those seats vacant, for stumbling folks like me. I emerged out of my utterly speechless state, to give them my thanks. Really felt like nominating them for some awards.

(But I didnt know the RULES for nominating them).

Nowadays, I suspect there is another reason for making rules. Every rule and regulation has an equal and opposite reaction. I don't think even Newton realized how widely prevalent his 3rd law would be. Every new rule spawns a set of experts who specialize in bypassing them . Mumbai has an industrious lot that designs systems to bypass rules , for a price.

Buying of tickets, reserving bus,train and other seats , admission to colleges, getting identity cards, applications to various posts in government institutions, buying grains at subsidized rates, obtaining ration cards, getting unentitled medical care; the list is endless.

They don't spare people even in death. Crematoriums charge a fixed amount as per municipal rules. Details of the cremation are forwarded to the municipal ward office, for further processing, leading to the issuance of a death certificate.

A certain electric crematorium has evolved a "tip" culture where people pay them substantially more than the designated charges. Those that stick to the municipal rules, thinking, that decency and respect will prevail in the last journey of a tired life, will be left making innumerable trips to the ward offices for the certificate, as the relevant information doesn't move from the crematorium, without the "green" tip.

(In this case, a visit by the daughter of the deceased , and some loud questioning by her , in a place where women are not naturally seen, seemed to do the needful, and the information was forwarded to the ward office , more out of a sense of getting rid of her and the ensuing embarassment in front of the "paying" people, than any remorse on their side).

They want to convert Mumbai into Shanghai. Maybe even Singapore or New York. But in the euphoria of brick-and mortar progress, and unnatural huge attention to money matters, we are certainly destroying peoples good sense and minds.

It's a sign of the times. There is degeneration. The impressive Asiatic Library Town Hall building in Mumbai, today is direly in need of maintenance, if the original structure and wealth of books and knowledge, are to be saved .In all the statue obsession and individual avarice, funds seem experience obstructions. Aldous Huxley, who would certainly know what he was talking about, once described the Asiatic Library town hall building as the only gentleman amidst cads and bounders.....

Will a real gentleman ever stand up amidst the rule breaking cads and bounders of Mumbai ?

A question of statues....पुतळेच पुतळे

"Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it”

The great Michelangelo, probably said this between finely chiselling away at someone's nose or giving a great gradient to someone's waist, on his way to creating another masterpiece in Rome. Michelangelo Buonarroti was , to put it mildly, a very creative person. Very fond of sculpting, he also had some other things to say (as above) , which , it appears, are being avidly followed by the government of this state.

The trouble was, you needed to find free ,available, and unencumbered blocks of stone, possibly with a clear title, in this city of Mumbai. And that was the tough part. But, as someone said, where there is a will, and a possible early election, there is always a way .

And in Leonardo da Vinci,(1452-1519), Italian draftsman, Painter, Sculptor, Architect and Engineer whose genius epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal, they found some great support when he said:

"I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” (Italics mine. Leonardo possible couldn't have known about the current intricacies of "applying" for stuff and "getting stuff done").

If you cannot find a block(s) of stone(s), not to worry. For a government which has managed to convert water into land at an amazing and profit making speed, why stop at blocks of stone?

Aim high . Create an island.

And so the powers that be got into a speedboat, skimmed through the crashing waves, life jackets and all, assisted by what may be called "affirmative" men and women , and did a recce of the wild waters of the Arabian Sea a mile into the sea. They came back, and decided that they would create an "island" .( Eat your heart out, Aristotle Onassis. Gifting your wife an existing island may be a laudable proposition, but I bet you never created one).

Why all this ?

The urgent need to create a Shri Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Island, as a grand home for a huge statue of Shri Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, that will look down victoriously in international globalized splendour at the Statue of Liberty, which will now be 4 feet shorter. This feat , that is, the "gazing down" at Old Liberty, appears to be a bit difficult due to various guys like Galileo declaring that the earth is round, despite modern Friedman types declaring flatly, that it is, what else, flat.

The Shri Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Island, will host a Shri Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Museum, the Shri Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj sound and light show, the Shri Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Gift shop and Food Court. Special buses will be run from The Shri Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Train Terminus(CST) and the Shri Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport. When visitors of ranks higher than you and me visit, there will be an n-star hotel on the premises, so they can have "Paav sur le Vada", "Misal a la Kolha" "Soul Kadhi Supreme, "Thal-i-Peeth au Konkan" and unnamed carnivorous items (unknown to shakahari me) , about which details will be known later. Various motorized water vehicles, will skim across the Arabian Sea (now to be shortly renamed as the Shri Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Samudra, as soon as the PM is free of the Nuclear stuff, for the inauguration), carrying passengers to the island.

Did someone ask about a freeway being earlier planned through the waters , to ease the traffic congestion in South Mumbai ? Simple. The Government is all set to drop nearly four kilometres of sealink between Malabar Hills and Nariman Point which is part of the ambitious Rs4,500-crore Western Freeway sealink project. The reason apparently is to give an unobstructed view of the Chhatrapati Shivaji statue which is to be installed in the sea, off Marine Drive.

The cost of all this ? A mere 25 million dollars. One billion rupees. The number of zeros is enough to send arithmetically-disabled-me into a dead faint.

And another cost too. A long term one. Without Zeros.

The Indian Express of 24th June 2008, on page 4, reports that a bunch of politicians have been visiting the chief minister, and asking that a statue of Dr B. R. Ambedkar be set up ,off the sea of the sea coast of Mumbai. What the Chief Ministers reply was , is not reported.

Why not also, a statue of the Rani of Jhansi, Laxmibai, who was a part of the original war for independence, thus also celebrating the outstanding contribution of women to the nation's independence, as well as giving it the honor it deserves, as a precursor, to a series of women in power in India over the years since 1947. (And we will just forget about those insecure types who keep opposing the 33% women's reservation bil in Parliament)

People in Kolkata will not rest unless the Marxists, currently reeling under Sangrur and Gorkhaland, agree to install a statue of Shri Subhash Chnadra Bose in the Bay of Bengal, and flights from Anadaman Islands to Chennai will fly low over the approach to Chennai to point out the huge statues of MGR, Annadurai, Jayalalitha, Karunanidhi and others , standing somewhere in the ocean, looking back at the land they called theirs. Of course Gujarat would not rest unless their Iron man , Vallabhaiji Patel was given his rightful place , looking benignly across his land of birth from his perch in the Arabian Sea, maybe just off Dwarka.

Helpless ignorance allows me to avoid mentioning who Kerala, Karnataka, Rajasthann, Haryana, Punjab UP, MP, and Bihar might nominate for an honorable place in the Sea. And lets not even think of states that would start clamouring for Statues in the mountains of the north.

The possibilities are endless. The consequences , frightening.

It is very clear, that someone needs to pay great attention to this new fashion of erecting statues, on what would essentially be, land stolen from the sea.

Cut to Mumbai monsoons in the year 2030. There will be no flooding in Juhu, simply because there will be no Juhu. The sea will have taken over. Folks will look back nostalgically at the walks they took on various promenades at Bandra, Worli, and Marine Drive, and mourn their loss, and look angrily in the direction of the statues on islands, then hidden by the south Mumbai smog, thanks to vehicle exhausts. The Thane Creek will suddenly look huge, what with most of its banks, minus the mangroves, flooded with sea water , consequent to an all round rise in sea levels. People will stand on the Pedder Road flyover, and look down into the water swirling below, and wonder about where Breach Candy used to be, and how they stood in line for their US visa 22 years ago. The US Consullate, having switched to the Bandra Kurla Complex, at a huge cost, will wonder why flooding is inexplicably linked to their location, now that BKC is also water engulfed. The Commissioner of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai will be relaxed at the sudden decrease in maintenance of manholes and storm drains, since everything is now officially , "the sea", and will hold a press conference on a ship to announce his success. The Taj will now be a 10-star floating hotel, and school children will wonder what the idea of the Gateway was, if King George had to wade in through deep water anyway, since the gateway was way out in the sea.


Maybe we need to create a single island for all statues. Mark out areas. The government will have its work cut out, trying to balance all the political demands. New statues will come up as new coalitions come into Power. Parliament will have an entire session to decide reservation issues in statues. All those great men and women immortalized in stone will look on aghast as the representatives of the people resort to fighting,sloganeering, and flinging of microphones and chairs. Regional infighting on the island consequent to political compulsions, will make people stay away. Mumbai Police, will come steaming in in their Maruti launches, IPC section 144 at the ready. It will be an island of statues, of people, who if they could, would simply shake their heads, as if to say "I told you so"......an island of figures, standing tall, looking out at their land, and wondering what it had come to..

And far away from Mumbai, in a load-shedded small town in Interior Maharashtra, thanks to all the power concentrated in Mumbai, electrical and otherwise, a child will be pouring over his homework, in the light of a lantern; something he needs to finish fast, since he needs to get up very early as his school requires that he walk there 8 kms each way, thanks to the school in his village that exists only on paper, and the broken bridge that no one wants to repair. And nobody really cares.



The homework assignment ? An essay on Maharashtra's greatest glory : The Neta Island - off Mumbai.

.

Matric fail मँट्रीक फेल

There is a very disgusting ad doing the rounds on television these days. Contrary to what most suspect, it has nothing to do with displaying maximum parts of the female human anatomy with minimum clothes.

It advertises some energy saving CFL bulbs being marketed by what I thought, was one of India's leading IT companies(Wipro), who was, or maybe is, also involved with soap. As in washing, not operas.

So what is disgusting ?

A very presumptuous, money minded man, talks down derisively to a slightly older, supposedly uneducated, confused man, to tell him that the energy saving capabilities of the CFL bulb were really equivalent to putting money in your savings account. He ridicules the man , treating him like a dumb kid being subject to rote learning, and abuses and addresses him loudly ,as "matric fail", clearly designed to elicit a "laugh" from everyone around including the shopkeeper .

Given the lopsided standards in society today, he succeeds. I wonder what the company is trying to tell us besides the wonders of the CFL bulb.

What else is to be expected, in a society, where education has become such a business, that we now have, a category called "education moghuls" or "shikshan maharshi", patronized by those in politics who acquire cheap government land with spurious lofty intentions, and then build their "empires" fuelled and funded by outrageous fees charged from students , and never mind that several families may have just denied their current generation their own house , lost their ancestral land , denied a similar chance to their female offspring, or gone into debt, all under the pressure that "this admission was a must".....

What else is to be expected in a country where ability to threaten is often accepted as a management technique to be employed in communicating with examiners , currency notes are often stapled to examination answer books; come march-april, newspapers are replete with stories of how some invigilator was bashed up because he tried to forbid some guys from passing examination answers from outside a window to students inside, and june simply sees newspapers full of details of students who end their lives because they couldn't face failure and parents at the same time..........

What do you say about a place where an all-round brilliant student was once docked marks in national board exams, because he dared to solve the a mathematical problem in an innovative way, (way beyond the comprehension of those Kings of By-heart who go into a tizzy just seeing an English spelling, wrongly, but logically phonetically written), the concerned parents who brought in experts to prove their child's point were successful, and the parents politely refused when they were asked to make an "application" to have the child declared a topper in an exam he had topped anyway...........

What else is to be expected when authorities act as if education is only about college, and in the meanwhile, schools in remote parts of the state close down because the money sanctioned for repair of the roof of the single room primary school building, never reaches there, and materialises as a motorcycle for some one's son, who probably couldn't spell "truth" if he was asked......

What is to be expected by sets of parents so brainwashed by the rote form of learning, the neighbour's child's success, and intricacies and movement of the decimal system in the 90th percentile of marks, that they ridicule their child who is a gifted artist and or sportsman, reacting to low marks by acquiring into a plethora of mental ailments which they then pass on to their children , only to benefit a breed of counsellors and psychiatrists that has since become very prominent....

Does being "matric" imbibe you with common sense , or a halo of brilliance ?

For some people ,the answer is a resounding NO.

In my childhood, there were many women, who had studied only up to the class 7, prevalent in those days; sometimes due to brothers reaping most of the family resource benefits, and sometimes due to financial,societal or geographical constraints.

Some of these folks were mothers, some were grandmothers, not very "educated " in the formal sense. But their sense of the greening of the environment, their natural abilities in energy saving in most of their household activities, their understanding of economics in the home, and handling of family members with differing mental and physical abilities could teach today's educators a thing or two. This knowledge was never hoarded, kept secret, or sold. it was available to those who looked like they could use it.

They didn't have degrees in liberal arts or sciences, but were able to relate what they learnt to day-to-day matters of living, problems and all.

And lets not restrict it to the female of the species.

A lot of the men then, made their careers by being clerks, after some kind of basic education. Matriculation was mostly a function of the other requirements and needs within the immediate family, based on everyone's health and monetary situations. Being a matric didn't mean you calculated things faster, or read faster. It meant you qualified for a job in places like the government , where matriculation was a weeding process for others rather than selection process for you.


Today my "uneducated household help" , who operates her bank account with an inked thumb impression, can calculate things faster than some people I know . Her son, who probably classifies as an aforementioned "matric fail", runs a fresh vegetable stall, and is yet to be cheated by anyone, including some educated types. He married a "matric pass" girl, who, after having 2 kids , wanted to do a state government computer skills course, and it was her , so called, first-grade-fail mother-in-law , who enthusiastically stood behind her, offering to manage the kids, thereby sending a message to her sons.


Unfortunately, the prevalent thought today is that education ends with a degree; you pay for it, you get it; if you don't have a degree, you are not only unfortunate, you are stupid. Doesn't matter if you don't end up learning. You need a stamp, a label. And forget your aptitudes, your native intelligence, and special capabilities. Green doesn't mean trees, it means money, like the currency notes the "educated" man flashes in the ad, and the disgustingly subservient look on the face of the other.

And so the man in the Wipro CFL bulb ad, epidermically thickened after being derisively addressed by the so called successful, moneyed, arithmetically-enabled disgusting non-gentleman, will go home, install the bulb, and try to use the "savings" to build up a fund to send his son to some outrageously expensive coaching classes, so no one , can, EVER, call his son a MATRIC FAIL.

Deep down , somewhere , it hurts.

P. S. Does someone in Wipro actually see what ads they are putting up?

Lessons from the chutney stone: Mastic-ization of Mumbai Roads...रस्त्याला टाकी लावा......

Takes me back to the days when chutneys were still ground on stones. My mother must have been the last of those loyalists who looked down their noses at folks trying to make lassi in mixers, pretending that dahi became buttermilk solely due to blender brilliance, and of course those who thought that metal blades making a mess of coriander and chilles was something to be thrilled about.

There is something about fresh moist coriander, chopped finger burning chillies, fragrant fresh coconut, refreshing sprigs of mint , some lashings of kairi, all this oozing aroma as it lies on a dark flat stone, being crushed and dragged under another smaller cylindrical stone, getting enriched with jeera,salt, and other things.

So much so, that, about 30 years ago, I once lugged a biggish chutney stone from Pune to Mumbai , in a tough shoulder bag , in a crowded second class ladies compartment in the first train of the day, and won the everlasting admiration and encouragement of those hardworking women (who commute to work in Mumbai daily), who were so impressed that they even helped me carry it towards the compartment exit, as I battled entering passengers, trying my best not to injure them , and also myself, as I jumped out in a gravity defying manner , all this in the standard 30 second stop at the station.

It instilled in me a healthy respect for weight bearing exercises , as well as my clavicles. and subscapularises, and my subclavicles.

One of the things one needs to do as maintenance from time to time , on these stones, is to ensure a roughened surface. As you grind more and more chutneys, and various lipsmacking fluids kind of overpower the surface, gradually smoothening it with spicy wear and tear, a time comes, when you need to do what is called , "taki lavne" in vernacular, but simply means that you call someone to hammer the surface with a special nail in a special manner, so as to create the correct rough surface once again.

Unfortunately, the folks at the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai(MCGM), almost all of who grew up , undoubtedly in traditional chutney households, have been so wonderstruck with mastic and asphalt, that they have forgotten this simple friction principle.

So we have 136 accidents on the Eastern Express Highway in the first 5 days, of a monsoon, that has started this year, in a fury reminiscent of the 2005 deluge. Roads were treated with mastic and asphalt, to avoid fast creations of potholes, which is the norm for our roads. This time the roads became too smooth, and vehicles skidded, many people were injured, and vehicles damaged. A van returning with a marriage party skidded , killing an entire family , with the exception of the father.

I wonder if the MCGM knows that Ireland resurfaced its mastic-ed roads into a non-mastic-ed state , and restricted the mastic-asphalt stuff to roads where the speed limit was 30 mph. Police did trials on these roads before foisting it on the public, and were aghast at , what is called skid resistance. Tests initiated by the National Roads Authorities (NRA) in the Irish Republic raised questions about the materials' ability to provide enough friction for tyres at higher speeds.

Turns out that the Highways Agency of the UK , doesnt agree. Even though BBC reports mentioned police in Debyshire doing a test and agreeing with the Irish. Germany also has reservations about the use of this, and they actually were the pioneers of this mastic asphalt stuff.

Then there is this high cost of what is known as filler and binder material while laying the asphalt-mastic stuff. Science says that Stone Mastic Asphalt( SMA ) mix must be cooled to 40°C to prevent flushing of the binder to the surface, and it is this binder stuff on the surface which needs to be worn off so prevent skidding.

It may be even necessary initially to do to the road, what we did to the chutney stone. In road parlance it is called applying a small clean grit.

In many ways, thats what it takes. Grit . Determination.

To do excellent scientific supervision. To ensure that the epidemic of easy money, consequent to contractors using cheaper fillers etc, is handled strictly. To ensure, that when an adverse experience is indicated in Indian conditions, technology be adapted to our situation. Maybe the roads should have been masti-asphalted at the end of the last monsoon. So the binder on the surface would have nicely worn off by this monsoon, given our huge traffic density and vehicle variety.

Our corporators gift themselves laptops. They go on junkets to Europe , ostensibly to study governance. Presumably with eyes and ears closed. Pockets open. I wish they would surf and see this .

What is interesting is that the country(UK) whose governance model we apparently follow, had apparently banned the use of this mastic-asphalt, only to overturn that some time later.

BBC did a campaign. No change. Rings a bell ?

A police seargent in Debyshire testing the surface said "It was a sunny day in August. I jumped on the brakes and the car just kept going and going.Instead of the scream of tyre on road and a cloud of smoke there was just a gentle hiss as I passed over the road, and I skidded far further than I ever expected to."

Back to Mumbai

Those 136 accident cases in 5 days.

The marriage party where a skidding vehicle killed all but one family member.

Maybe, like the sergeant said, there was a gentle hiss.

But is the MCGM listening to the screams of those that are no more?

The power of a Canis Familiaris *** मुम्बई का कुत्ता

Have wings. Will fly.

Lest you think that I hop from plane to plane and travel a lot, let me explain that the scope of my travel normally extends to three wheeler and bus travel between Mumbai's eastern and western suburbs, and occasional suburban train travel, when the skies are not excessively overcast , and threatening to discharge fifteen kilometres of high dark and loaded cloud cover in 8 hours , as happened in July 2005.

As a person with feet more or less firmly planted , not only on the ground, but these days also in deep and watery potholes, I often feel a tinge of envy as I see planes coming in for a landing beyond the hill in the distance; no slush, no wetness, no wet mud splashes on your window (if not on you, in a 3-wheeler), no pushing and shoving in buses, no defining your space with unfolded umbrellas, no glaring and , hopefully, no shouting.

No more. Because of a dog.

A stray dog, the mongrel type that wanders aimlessly in crowded areas, trying to snatch something to eat from something we humans trash, the type that children like to stone and run away, and the type that often runs in a pack with other like minded homeless dogs, suddenly realized that there was this huge clean inviting expanse that he could run on to in the rain, now that a portion of the airport perimeter wall, had collapsed, thanks to the aforementioned rain.

So what's new ? This.

One dog, was able to divert 5 flights, delay 30 , and have hundreds of folks running around trying to catch him, as he frolicked on the runway. He appeared on the scene, a few minutes before another runway was to be closed, and so all these high tech, radar technology enabled folks were desperate to catch him. Of course , there were other things like cargo planes which had made emergency landings and blocked some area, but the dogs timing was, if you forgive the usage, superb.

Just think. Diamond merchants, bankers, stock exchange honchos, looking forward to landing, whizzing off to their air conditioned offices in their air conditioned cars, to make an air conditioned profit, suddenly realized that they were not landing, but diverted to say, Ahmedabad. And you could not use your cell phone.

Maybe , some of our captains of industry, no longer flying junta level planes (but their own private ones), winging into Mumbai for a meeting and a page 3 party, suddenly realized that they were going round in circles, and not likely to land soon. Think of the revenue lost per minute, collaborations left unsigned, and lets not worry about the jet fuel wasted.

The idea that the world's 3rd richest man, trying to land in Mumbai in his own jet, waiting to helicopter over to his south Mumbai abode, is unable to any of it, all due to a dog , is simply outrageously funny. Not that it has happened but the scenario simply sizzles. How very unReliable.

Politicians, some brimming with optimism after a successful visit to Delhi, others, seething with anger and discomfort after a perceived treacherous episode in Delhi, and some others, simply wasting their country's resources, flying into Mumbai with large families and even larger Z-plus securities, for a social event camouflaged as a working visit , must have wrung their hands in despair, as the air hostess announced in shudh hindi about the diversion to an airport 600 miles away. (And that state was ruled by the opposition....).

The rest kept circling round and round , giving everyone a birds eye view of the flooding , the slums, the traffic, and the uprooted trees.

Some flights were international. Some carried people from the worlds most advanced IT companies. NRI chaps returning home, participating in the newly happening "brain gain". Some were terribly embarrassed. Some were desperate, they had interviews to appear for. Some like my friend, were actually kind of relieved - this would be an unexpected off, in their heavily crowded, day-to-day routine, they were returning to. Some just took a deep breath.

But I often wonder. Knowing the nature of the population and density just outside the perimeter wall, should they be pursuing some added technology besides the brick and mortar wall ? Some kind of ultrasonic/electronic sound technology that only animals would hear and keep away ? Is building an airport only about making five star amenities in lounges, and newer technology for the air traffic controllers? For a city with a huge population, would it be a feasible solution to train and employ local lads to guard the perimeter walls to avoid such things ? Is technology all about machines, smarter, faster, bigger , or is it about trying to improve the lot of the people who live around you?

Maybe the dog has an answer. Maybe it is trying to tell us something. Maybe we need to pay attention to the little things.

Like someone said, " The intelligence of a Poodle and the loyalty of a Lassie. The bark of a Shepherd and the heart of a Saint Bernard. The spots of a Dalmatian, the size of a Schnauzer, and the speed of a Greyhound. A genuine, Mumbai ka kutta has it all."

***Canis Familiaris : mongrel dog

Tencket, anyone ? अगोबाई, टेनीस का क्रीकेट हे ?

Cloudburst after cloudburst in defiance of the Met office predictions, heralding the angry onset of this year's monsoon, flooded railway tracks, deep water filled roads, municipal authorities fibbing and giving creative excuses on most TV channels, has made me gravitate towards the sports channels, which I had hitherto relegated to the trash folder ever since the ostentatious overdose of IPL happened.

It's Sunday evening, and I see Rafael Nadal serving at 198 mph at Roger Federer. Maybe it is kmph. But if you look at it from the ball's perspective, it may be similar to what it feels when being flung out of the curved palms of Ishant Sharma or Mr Akhtar.

Which has got me thinking. (Regardless of the fact that a lot of people think such an event is difficult to imagine).

Anyone interested in Tencket ?

A bunch of 11 people , playing on a pitch, versus two guys holding bats. One guy running in and hurling a ball, taking care to not bend his elbow more than so many degrees. Bat swipes the ball, some of the 11 run after it, while the batters keep running between the two ends of the pitch.

Imagine a game where most things remain same, but the ball is flung with the help of a tennis racket. The bowler runs in, tosses the ball high up, takes a few more steps and smashes a serve on the pitch. 200 kmph . Maybe even mph, given that you need to bang the ball much closer than on a tennis court. The secret is to know how high up and at what angle to toss the ball, so you can whack it before being no-balled.

You can even call the racket , a "backet", out of consideration for cricketing types. The batting guys will have to be really alert while performing their stuff. Of course umpires will have to considerably reposition themselves so as to not retire hurt due to a tennis racket smacking them .

It will mean the bowler must take return catches, if any, with one hand. Its been done before, the one handed catches, that is.

Of course this will mean redefining the tennis racket gutting material. Normal gut will not handle the red cherry.

Just like in current matches, you have guys from the batting team running in with spare bats and gloves , sometimes to pass messages from the gurus inside, you will now have the bowling side's benched payers running in with different tennis rackets for the bowler to check. With the stunning impact on the ball, once from the tennis racket and once from the cricket bat, players will have to figure out ways to make use of the innovative wear and tear on the ball, as well as better ways of polishing the ball, than rubbing it in weird parts of their trousers.

There will be a new type of spin. Doosras and Teesras will be a thing of the past. This will some kind super fast spin. Folks will now specialize in Satwas.

Think of the new stuff you could add in the rules . Bowlers taking one handed catches from their own bowling (with a racket), can now subtract 3 runs from the batting side.

Guys fielding near the boundary in deep and silly positions, can do so with a racket in hand when required. Very useful while stopping boundaries (even as they slide in the slush), and bouncing the ball above the racket , over to themselves to take a catch. Such a "catch" would then be called a "snatch".

T-20 authorities will curse the day they made the rule about resolving a tie by bowling at the stumps . Serving and smashing the stumps will be so much easier.

Third umpires , who tend to have doubts over the television replays will now be assisted by tennis umpires. Bowlers who make a fuss, come running in, and suddenly decelerate and cancel the run-up , will be glared at by the umpire, who will, in his best Wimbledon imitation say "Time!" while giving the bowler a dirty look, and asking him to serve the next ball immediately.

Think of Billy Bowden doing some newer steps while declaring someone out. Dennis Lillee will now be assisted by a tennis player . Sania Mirza will be advising the Deccan Chargers, and people will crowd the next IPL fixture to watch her sitting in the dugout . Shahrukh Khan will hire Leander Paes for the Kolkatta Knightriders. Mahesh Bhupathi will give the nod to Rahul Dravid. Dhoni, aiaiyo, will be happy to appoint Bopanna. And Shane Warne will probably take tennis lessons himself .

With so much excitement, the Page 3 , cricket ignorant IPL owners who deemed it necessary to outsource expressions of excitement to the Washington Redskins and similar outfits (pun intended), will find that cheerleaders (version 1.1) has been upgraded, and that version 1.2 now consists of page 1 common folks, who throng the stadiums to watch their favourite players, make witty posters, do Mexican waves, bravely face up when hit by a six (war injuries are honorable), demand sixes, shout themselves hoarse over a diving catch 2 cms short of the boundary and quieten down dangerously when Sachin , just out, walks back to the pavilion, looking up at the sky.

The BCCI, in its new upwardly mobile attitude (thanks to the several hundred crores from the IPL), will sniff at Mahesh Bhupati and Bopanna, and hold talks with Rafael Nadal, Andy Roddick, and Lleyton Hewitt. Chak De situations will demand the presence of the Williams sisters, and there will be big competetion with Maria Sharapova announcing her entry into coaching.

Or should I say Federer ?

The last time i looked he wasn't doing to well at the French Open finals.

Let it rain ...........येरे येरे पावसा.......

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.

So said Rabindranath Tagore.

So far as the meteorological services in India are concerned, that would have been just fine. Clouds could come floating and go, occasionally drip some rain here and there, there would be a poem written about sunsets, and the meteorological types would be back to wrongly predicting light showers over Madhya Maharashtra,Telangana and other exciting places.

I watch the news daily at night. Between being thrilled to bits about temperatures in Patna hitting 2 degrees below normal (Yipee), and a western low pressure disturbance threatening to come in, (along with many other dangerous things) from Pakistan , the fun part begins when the western disturbance, simply drops its disturbing style and simply remains western the next day. Thankfully, the North, South, East and West do not change .

Last evening , while hurrying through the bhaji market at dusk, there was a different feel to the air. The covers put up by the bhajiwalaas to protect their veggies from excessive sun and possible rain, were actually flapping around. There was a lot of dust suspended in the air. Everyone was hurrying around. The last few days had been incredibly hot and humid. Post sunset, things got a bit cooler, something unusual for Mumbai. Opening my balcony after entering an empty house, I suddenly saw some lightening. First just a lighting up of the southern sky near the horizon. Almost as a reflex action, I took in a deep breath, seeking the smell of wet mud, which was not yet there. Streaks of lightening then started appearing more frequently. There was a massive wind that simply rolled in through the balcony, pushing the doors in, and scattering all kinds of papers, greeting cards and other knick knack which had been sedately sitting around all these months. A windy rain followed , with a great intensity, did its stuff for about five to ten minutes, and then , breezed off towards the ocean, leaving behind the wonderful smell of wet mud after the first rains .

Wonderful as this sounds, it would have been still more wonderful, if our esteemed meteorological pundits had predicted its possibility. A lot of mango "chhundaas ", slowly getting solar-cooked in the heavy heat on terraces, would have been saved . Housewives at the fag end of their summer stocking of papads and other storage items, would have taken different decisions had they known. What a waste !

Why is it that the meteorological services in India, explain the event after it happens? Why doesn't some one appear on TV and say "folks, if you are planning on open-air celebratory gettogethers, there is a definite chance of some rain in the evening. So take care of things".

I know countries where they predict not only rain, but how much will fall. If it is snow, they tell you which areas to avoid, due to dangers of heavy snow. A whole generation of automobile-enabled weekend-obsessed citizens, plan their outings accordingly.

What technology do they use that we cannot get? Is it that we have the technology but are not trained to interpret the findings ? If we do not have the technology, why do we not acquire it ? Is there a priority list for stuff to be bought by the government ? In all the amount of people that go abroad to learn about Hindi usage in Sweden, thief catching procedures in New York, solar energy usage by hotels in Australia, how rain is tackled in London, and laundering of a different kind in Luxembourg or Switzerland, can we not find funds for a few smart types who can learn the techniques and come back and train others here ? If not humanware and software, then do we lack the hardware ? In our great journey from things nano to things mega, are we forgetting day-today life ?

Why are most of our weather reports dedicated to telling you what the temperatures were yesterday?

Lest these questions fall on deaf ears, think of the just finished IPL. Think of the sudden rains, and the unready manpower that struggled to run with the pitch covers. Think of matches that ended differently due to the machinations of Duckworth and Lewis. Think of the points table which would have said 2-0 instead of 1-1.

We have so much know-how in so many fields; it is high time we developed the know-when.

In the meanwhile, some high authority of the meteorological type, giving avid news people , what is considered a authoritative scholarly news bite, says : "This is just a precursor to the monsoons, which should be setting in by next week. These rains came because of the excessive heat situation in the last few days/weeks/etc."

Thank you indeed.

I don't know about you, but my household help, Kusum, who is by definition , illiterate, told me exactly the same thing .

So did my daughter, who controlled herself from dashing to the terrace and getting wet, saying, this rain brought down the main dirt from the air above Mumbai ; the next rain, in a week, would be the one to get wet in and enjoy.

Why do we persist with the meteorologists ?

Maybe they are avid followers of the American Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), who is supposed to have made , what he thought, was an important statement, when he said, "“The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.” ........(I resist the temptation to ask "Aur kuch?).....

And to hell with predictions of the useful kind.

Wondering in Wadala : वडाळयाची गोष्ट

Way back in 1969 when Bombay roads could still be enjoyed by sticking your head out of the window as you drove in the left lane at Marine Drive,and most cars did NOT have airconditioning, I once went to the RTO office near the Race course , in Tardeo, for my driving test.

The feeling was identical to what one experienced before an important university exam, similar to one I had just given. There were two types of tests. One was slightly acrobatic, and the other tested your desperation.

The first one involved entering with your car, in reverse, through an area marginally broader than your car, into a larger rectangular area. You then proceeded to face the various corners going backwards and forwards, till you were again equipped to come out, in reverse again , through the aforementioned narrow entry channel. For further excitement and instant disqualification, the corners of the rectangle were identified with removable colorful markers, which fell down with the slightest touch, or a strong whiff of a dangerously close auto exhaust, created by a nervous and tense future driver.

The second part was slightly sadistic. You waved goodbye to your motor school trainer, (like a kid waving to his mother on the first day at KG) , and with a massively structured driving test examiner sitting next to you , you drove towards the side roads leading off Pedder Rd. (Pedder road cuts through, what must have been a hilly area in ancient days). Electronic turning signals were always supplemented with turning hand signals, and heavily hyperthyroid eyes observed all your signalling as you drove. They then asked you to stop on a deadly incline between two cars. The crowning part of the test was when they asked you to start the car again, and get into the traffic, without the car rolling backwards. If you rolled, you were finished. So were the cars parked behind you. You said your prayers, did your stuff with a foot acrobatically placed on the accelerator and brake simultaneously, and hoped your letting go of the clutch would be exemplary, and not thudding, if you know what I mean.

(I got my license).

I recently had occasion to accompany my daughter for her learners license , as well as get my relic-of-a-license renewed.

The graceful, old world , race course RTO in the city, now caters to denizens of south Mumbai. Ordinary mortals like us go to the Wadala truck terminal.

This is a massive acreage of land, somewhere between Dadar and the eastern seaboard, of Mumbai. The authorities, rubbing their hands in glee over so much potentially developable land (and the ensuing flood of the non-biological green), in a sudden attack of righteousness, agreed to situating a Truck Terminal there. One envisaged a set up where trucks bringing in all kinds of stuff from across the country would enter , and their goods unloaded after some quick checking ,tax payment and registering, allowing the drivers and cleaners a decent rest before dedicating their days to diesel once again.

What you actually see is different. You enter through a massive arch that suddenly appears on the side of the main road. Half the main road in permanently dug up, and if you try to strain your neck to read what it says on the arch, (Regional Transport Office), you run the risk of banging into something resembling a ruin.

You then drive, somewhat with a lot of doubt, through a landscape of arbitrarily parked trucks and tankers, in various states of non-readiness . There are trees growing through apertures in some chassis, some aged vehicles, helplessly appear to squat on their flat tyres, and sometimes NO tyres. Cylindrical tankers with lids open, challenging the summer sun to dry their innards, trucks which have seen better days, displaying what another vehicle did to them on one side, despite declaring "Buri nazar wale, tera mooh kala".....Its a landscape that would warm the cockles of the heart of a movie producer, as he thinks of the variety of crimes, chases, and chorus dances that can be done with all that infrastructure , maybe even for free.

Just when you feel like turning back, you come to a slightly leafy tree lined road, with a fire engine parked prominently. Behind it you notice firemen undergoing training as part of the Mumbai Fire Brigade training program. On the opposite side are a bunch of government-issue , depressing, rectangular buildings, some of them with ramps of alarming gradients. Between ditches designed to subject trash to sunshine , and suspicious looking people wandering about aimlessly, you notice a bunch of ruins that appear to function as tables. Two tables that have legs on only one side are joined together on the non-leg side, and supported by bricks unloaded by the municipality for some other purpose.

The new learners line up, and the RTO officer, no longer massively structured , but with a huge file, takes his seat on one side of this roadside table. One by one, the learners applications are perused, entries made, and everyone is then asked to go to the nth floor of another nondescript building, after dodging through a large amount of container carriers, trucks, and police vehicles, not to speak of young chaps carried sixpacks of cutting chai , to the officers, functioning picnic style on the nonexistent lawns.

We blindly follow the driving school guy. He points us to the lift. He will follow in manual mode. Wonder of wonders, there is a queue system to get in. We miss out on the panstained walls, and noticeboards designed to give you a cervical pain, as we meet our guide on the 3rd floor and are taken to a hall studded on one side with payment counters, and the other side with PCs. web cams, fingerprint machines, and young people.

The place is throbbing with driving school instructors and their students. In the midst of all the government yellow walls, with pan stains, ink stains, unreadable notice boards at unbendable angles, there is this room with six electronic number displays with a ringing tone, which announce who must come to get their picture taken. While you do your stuff, trying to pat your hair in place, others trying not to display their braces, while still others strike a pose designed to impress a cop if they ever get pulled up while driving, the computer operator wants to know if the captured photo is OK with you.

This is certainly a new thing. Everything has a style.

You may drive atrociously, but you need to get caught in style.

I don't even bother looking at my photo. My daughter demands another shot , which, at first glance , will NOT send her friends into a paroxysm of laughter. The computer operator obliges. "Its your license. Your photo. If you need to show it all your life, it needs to look good.....". True.

We get a receipt that will suffice till we get our final driving license, duly renewed etc. We trudge back to our vehicle. The RTO officers with their open air tables have gone. The shadows of some buildings now hover near our vehicle , in the midday sun. Nearby we see a charpoy, on which several truck drivers wearing comfortable lungis, are enjoying various relaxed poses, giving moral support to their assistants who have come for a test. We see a bunch of driving school cars whizzing past us with the instructor and student in the front seat. The student is doing his stuff, the instructor is confident, and the rto examiner person, sits in a bored fashion in the seat behind.

No wonder, every week we hear of people losing control of cars at high speeds. People who should not have driven at all. People who should have flunked the test.

Maybe its time to get some movie producer types to design hilly sets in Wadala. Then everyone can take the acrobatically desperate test that has stood me in such good stead all these years. Makes you mentally capable of handling pressure and desperation.

And never mind the massively structured RTO types. With the ruin-style work tables in Wadala, stability would be a difficult proposition...

Memories : shredded and retrieved

I am sitting at the moment surrounded by newspaper cuttings and articles. All pertaining to me. And my childhood. Carefully collected, but now , handling tends to cause a disconnect in the molecules that hold it all together.

I came across this plastic bag on my recent visit to my parents' empty house. Eerily empty, not of just humans, but even paper memorabilia.

Very atypical.

After my mother's passing away , my father lived for 6 years, till the age of 89 years. Except for the last few months of his life, he never had a problem of how to occupy his time. He read voraciously, wrote prodigiously.

One of my most abiding memories is that of my father and his cupboards full of books and files; the growing cost of books meant it was more of the latter. Files full of cuttings, reference articles, notes, copies of stuff , pictures; all this in several languages. He conducted a continuous verbose correspondence with various socially dedicated organizations, and authors and publishers. On his visits to me, his favourite hobby was to rummage around in our collection of books.

Somewhere in the last few years of his life, his intellectual activities, (the ones that we could see, that is), reduced. My sense of wonder in observing the workings of his brain led to this blog.

Towards the last few months , when he was still mobile, he went through the various papers in all the various cupboards. Our household help who has been with us for 60 years, tells me of the extreme zeal with which my father proceeded to simply remove and destroy, anything, that spelled paper. A pair of scissors was a permanent fixture, and slowly, a host of cupboards started falling empty.

This also coincided with the period in which he became slightly delusional, forgot people, got angry very fast, was adamant about imaginary things, and often got confused about household and personal things he had done all his life.

Some call this a dementia of the Alzheimer's type. Some just call it old age dementia. It gave a new meaning to the phrase "out of sight, out of mind". Those of us that he saw often, he remembered. On my every visit to him, I would see gaping cupboards, newly empty shelves, waste baskets brimming with paper cut to pieces. You asked him about it, and he either feigned complete ignorance or indifference , or gave you a big piece of his agitated mind, saying this should have been done ages ago.

They say , some parts of your brain just quietly reduce efficiency and stop functioning, as you go deep into old age. Alzheimer's patients have a well documented obsession with cutting up paper.

But the brain efficiency is not an absolute thing. Its all about observing things, and the brains ability to receive body signals or messages, and maybe, sometimes, do a bit of learning from it. Which probably explains , why those of us who continued to appear in his environment frequently, made an impression somewhere in the neuronic jungle, and smart links were maintained that lit up his synapses, as recognition dawned in his mind, whenever we met. Those who he did not see frequently, were either not in his database, or more likely, they were there, but the links were, as they say, corrupted.

This state of affairs worsened. The last 3 months he was completely bedridden. The delusions increased, adamancy reached new heights, language skills got limited.

One of my most traumatic memories, is walking through an empty house a day after his death, trying to occupy my time (between attending condolence visits), searching for his papers, looking for old letters, searching for something that would simulate a virtual personality in the house; the strange thing was, he had got rid of all his books, files, and even family photographs. There was nothing to clutch and work on.

And now this plastic bag that I came across on my recent visit.

Its a file of clippings.

Poems I wrote as a child, laboriously rhyming the words. Articles written by me, in children's magazines in marathi, about various travels we undertook with our parents , when young. Letters written by teachers and school principals, after some decent success in school leaving exams. Indulgent communications from favourite aunts and uncles after seeing their niece do so well in some competitive exam. Mature articles I wrote, as an adult , in various publications in English and Marathi , about graduate studies and life in the US ,in an age (1969-71), where it was so uncommon, there was no one standing ahead of me when I went to get my US visa ! I had taken my father to Disneyland when he came to visit me at the university there, and the file even had a caricature of me done by the artists there, which I had completely forgotten about.

How did these papers survive? How did papers relating to a slew of unrelated activities get thrown together ? When did he find these ? How come they escaped the scissors ? Why did he leave these things for me , when during his lifetime, I never knew that someone was archiving these ?

They say the brain is the machine that manages, but what makes the "mind" is the the effect the rest of the biology of the body has on the brain. Its a question of parts of the body sending messages and the brain being geared with a perfectly configured cell "receiver " for these messages.

They say your limbic brain in hardwired. Your emotions, intuitive reactions, remain hardwired , tempered by age.

What changes in the learning.

Its just something that makes you wonder about the Maker of the human body.

It could be intelligent cell division and energizing of the various body parts while in the womb, while protein messengers flash around triggering a hormone here , another protein there, starting and finishing things.

Its simpler to think of Someone Up There, who guided my father into unilaterally preserving these things , while the rest of it lay in shreds all about him........

Pangats to Gilly Payasam

One thing one realizes having lived for close to six decades is how the "pace" pf living has changed, and how it pervades all aspects of our life, personal and public.

Take wedding meals.

Childhood memories take me back to wedding meals that may be defined by a single word : "pangat" , and it has no clear translation in the English language. Elaborate sit down meals, on wooden flats arranged in lines on the floor; each wooden flat faced up to a plantain leaf that greened the occasion, and glistened , as an entire army of food servers went by in almost military precision, serving stuff in a predefined order.

Every food item had a predefined place. Uncooked meal items like koshimbir(salad) , and mouthwatering green chutneys redolent with the aroma of raw mango graced the left. Various cooked vegetables with varying amounts of comfort gravies dignified the right. Typical vegetables were cooked regardless of status of the wedding party; "aluchi bhaji" (a sweet and soft , tantalizingly sour concoction of gravy made from colocassia leaves, tamarind and gram flour), "bharli wangi" (baby aubergines stuffed with a heavenly mixture of coconut, jaggery and spices, steeped in a spicy gravy), and the ever popular, universally applauded "batatyachi bhaji" (dry boiled potato bhaji).

While one may slurpingly overflow, while describing various items, what was significant was the serving method.

After the initial mandatory serving of all items, serving folks kind of went up and down each line of seated guests, bent just so at the waist, announcing the item as if singing a song chorus. ("Panchamrit. Panchamrit, Toop, Toop, Khamang kakdi......") If you wanted an item, you signalled, and the container was inclined appropriately, your item descended into your plate, and the procession continued. Simple items like fragrant rice and waran(dal) were embellished magically with a stream of golden ghee, a pinch of salt, and thoroughly enjoyed with freshly made mango pickle. Jilebi was the dessert of choice, and in all the "methods of serving food" , serving these was an exception. The newly married couple came by, with a huge plate of these, urging you to have just one more. A typical thing that happened was someone , on a dare, showed that he could eat a plateful, and he was indulged by the newly married couple, and watched avidly by the others. Folks who ate with single minded dedication, often slurped, and the louder the slurp, the more terrific the food item was. Elderly types often went up and down the "pangats" being sociable and observant about wastage at the same time. Some elderly lady, often overcome with the wedding emotions was cajoled into singing a Bhavgeet, and she did so, eyes downcast, fingers fiddling with a jilebi piece, as a hush descended , people quietly getting on with their meals, keeping their musical opinions to themselves.

Then came weddings where what you eat became more important than how you eat. Individual idiosyncrasies ruled. Folks liked to show their awareness of food not native to them, and the entire combination of quality and quantity of food did not fit into the pangat system. It became acceptable to fill your own plate, wander around eating, take random helpings, and then discard your plate (sometimes along with food). The milieu changed . The kitchen and dining area arrangement fizzled out, and we were presented with tables laid out , groaning under all kinds of food, kept warm, being roasted "online" sometimes, occasionally replenished by a guy, who suddenly darted out from behind a table with a refill . Rules were changed to suit the new social habits. Unlike what you normally see on Mumbai bus stops, people in their finery organized themselves into civilized queues. This often translated into people having to wait for long before getting a meal. And you couldn't tell who was the host, with so many people mingling around.

Weddings which earlier meandered over 3-4 days, were slotted precisely into four hours defined by economic compulsions related to availability of wedding halls, and working days and holidays for the attending guests.
With globalization, came the complete destruction of the "original wedding meal". People suddenly served "starters", unclear whether the food or the people were starting something. Then you had stuff from at least 3-4 different countries, so that your gut was overloaded with shrikhand neapolitono, undhiyo au gratin, and chowmein navratan supreme.

I shudder to think what comes next.

Since most people in India, eat,sleep and drink cricket, it is to be expected that this desperation will have its effect there too.

And so the sedate 4-5 day test matches, where players landed up daily in their impeccable whites, and played during office hours, cutting,swiping,defending,sweeping,glancing etc, nicely interspersed with a lunch break where you were polite to the opposition . Mornings and afternoons were interrupted by well defined drinks breaks, and tea breaks, folks applauded in a genteel fashion from the pavilion, and no one removed their shirt and waved it around.

(Actually, my son (then a very young school kid), who watched tests and the TV Ramayana/Mahabharata during that period, really believed that the Mahabharata war had warriors following some kind of "end-of-the-days-play" system, and going back to some place, to duly arrive back the next day with their chariots, and maces, to get on with the war once again. Maybe he looked for P. Karan, c Krishna b P. Arjun, or maybe K . Duryodhan c and b P. Bhim)

The one day internationals and the T20's are the so called modern improvements. Quick events. More noise. Less substance. Unnecessary expenses. Again, like us old timers who recall the earlier wedding meals, there are purist cricketers who try this new style , but are not really comfortable about it. T 20 has even introduced the foreign colleague system. And the less said about the cheer leaders , the better.

So its Masaledar Warne with Murlidharan au Gratin, with a side of Ponting Sandesh and Gilly Payasam .

Enjoy.