Books, Arrested!

I yearn to own books, I repeat,
I yearn to own,
books celebrated, remember,
not read, not to be known.

Majestic as they are, of course,
majestic they were.
Behind the glass door, quiet,
no growl, no purr.

I attack with intent, fierce,
I attack, possess, and shelve.
Legend you might be, rascal,
keep your intellect to yourself.

Hesse, found a way, hooray,
But Hesse, hey, I did tame.
Siddhartha escaped, the hermit,
but not the Glass Bead Game.

So languish, those maestros, dears,
so pleasing, they in anguish.
Ibsen, Mann, Karnad, Premchand, cry,
what else are to we do, to distinguish?

Some have escaped, sadly,
some like Henry Miller.
With Rosy Crucifixion, old lecher,
he lunched on the killer.

I’ll shut the last door, Miller,
I’ll fell you down.
Let it beware of my sloth, yawn,
your Tropic of Capricorn.

As the books lie shelled, wrenched,
as old lions in a zoo,
Visitors congratulate me, bravo,
not knowing which captive is who.

I promise from here on, pledge,
I promise, I’ll continue,
to buy every writer, regal,
to arrest books old and new.

City tales in culture village

It rained heavily at Heggodu, this culture camp,

it rained stealthily.

It rained words, big and small,

words from stalwarts, pretenders and all.

The culture village was made up,

dressed-up hearty and hale,

to pry on matters of its bully,

to listen to the city’s tale.

Covers were off, to begin,

and a pantheon of wisdom revealed,

a reflection of a glorious past,

dusted, sparkling and cleaned.

Standing in for URA,

whom Frankfurt lured with books;

Gray-haired Gireddi, a Gulbarga gaffer,

announced Akshara’s arrival into history’s nooks.

Samik-da, the intellect inside a frame, short and old,

had about modern cities, an opinion formed;

splitting gluttonous cosmos from the creative polis,

he laid bare a conformity that had deformed.

As an adjunct, citing literature,

Manu Chakravarthi came learning, swarming,

with a chronicle of tales, he regaled,

a feast awaited, as he was just warming.

The debate on Cosmopolis rested,

for another storm was brewing.

Shakespeare has many followers,

but this Tempest, even he must be ruing.

Dull, loud and showy,

this had none of Ninasam’s fire,

evidently, next morning,

burning fiery was Sudeshna’s ire.

Prakash Belawadi tried hard,

with a speech, unprepared and undercooked,

trying to rip the politics of technology,

an assault over monopoly, it looked.

This was better, as followed

from Raghunandan, a theater-man,

a tirade, utterly uncontrolled,

seeking justice for the also-ran.

Keeram watched, surprised with irritation,

so when the time came for all to be told,

he tore into theories questionable and derisive,

with the calm of a man, wise and old.

A pleasure after all, it had been earlier,

when this man of Kannada wisdom,

dribbled all past questions and riddles,

posed by the language’s literary kingdom.

The second play was even worse,

worse than Birugaali of yesterday.

Crass, it was, no class to be seen,

a dramatic arsonist, it made us pay.

Undadi Gunda, or whatever it was,

had pleased even Sudeshna, a volte-face?

Had it not been for Manu C,

this would have been a biased case.

Manu C, came armed to the mike,

with scalpels, scissors, made of words,

used it like an inch-perfect surgeon would,

or how a Samurai brandished his swords.

Teasingly, questioningly, needling, he asked

“Do you not respect your intellect?”

By blasting its patrons for celebrating a dud,

he had killed an uprising, before it could collect.

The platform was set,

for the most serious of speakers,

Lakshmish Tulpadi, serene and calm,

who thoughtfully untied, philosophical creepers.

On the theory of awareness, he deliberated

espousing the struggle, turmoil and twirl,

when the inner mind tries to connect,

with the awareness of the world.

Clouds were clearing,

as entered the storyteller, above par.

Mischievous, funny and street-smart,

he was Chandrashekar Kambar.

Making fun of concepts,

yawning intentionally at theory,

he showed how it is told,

with truth and lies, a story.

“We might forget to tell tales,

like we have always told.

If children aren’t taught to concoct and invent,

our culture, like American, will be sold.”

So saying, Kambar mimicked,

the utter western paucity,

where an American kid’s average story,

goes “… 480, 260… 120”.

Ashish Nandy revitalised the city’s tale,

the city, dark at times, while at times, lost.

“Nostalgia enlivens what time overlapped,

modernity prospered at the city’s cost.”

In the eyes of the loyalist,

lies a view of the city,

which being his own when the city dies,

brings with melancholy, a kind of self-pity.

To substantiate the theory of a city’s life,

screened was a visual document,

Seven Islands and a Metro,

on the city of cities, being an insider’s comment.

Madhushree Dutta’s view of Mumbai,

exposed its niceties and warts,

a good account of a city diverse,

which, if anything, is a sum of its parts.

To wrap it up for cosmopolitanism,

Vaidehi forwarded a splendid cry.

A story-teller of rare honesty,

a magnificent recipe, did she try.

She told her true story,

a transformation from timidity to confidence,

a tale so simple; she exuberant,

told with no high-handed pretence.

The air that theater had jarred,

could music refresh and clean?

Yes (emphatically)! Two performances,

that pleased ears, for soothing, keen.

Alka Devi Marolkar, with Hindustani,

Sikkil Gurucharan, a Carnatic,

refreshed the cultural evenings,

energising what had become static.

One master-class waited,

as Manu C laid claim to further honours.

Gurucharan took his queries,

while the former cut no corners.

No easy questions were asked,

the singer, the connoisseur engaged in a healthy spar.

“Why, what, how, is it?” followed,

by the end, who was the bigger star?

As if to suggest

the worth of simplicity,

with substance apropos,

and practising austerity,

Ganesh and friends produced,

the saga of a criminal caste,

in a jam-packed theater,

Uchalya, untouchable, made chaste.

Fortunes had changed,

dramatically (pun intended) for sure,

Akshara’s Krama Vikrama,

gave Measure for Measure.

Played by non-professionals,

and directed with respect,

despite the profanity,

this was a winning prospect.

Rounding off in style,

Tarkovsky lay siege.

Solaris, for the untrained viewer,
came with no ready ease.

The story of loss, science, humanity,

did put some to sleep.

But as a film of importance,

this was a clean sweep.

A week had passed,

a village witnessed an event,

where the city’s hidden rags,

were displayed, perhaps to prevent,

more such cities of future,

being built on cultural destruction.

Yet, prevention may not be possible,

for, doesn’t history practice recursion?

Dommie’s travels

Having chanced upon a travelogue of sorts written by the late, celebrated poet, Dom Moraes, I wondered at the quirkiness of reading a book well past its sell-by date. Even quirkier is reading a travelogue after more than forty years of its writing.
Gone Away was written by Moraes covering his travel in India from August-November of 1959, a year after he had become the youngest recipient of the Hawthornden Prize* while studying at Oxford. By his own admission, having very little knowledge about the place he was born, and its people, Moraes set out on an impromptu journey that covered such places as Calcutta, Kathmandu, Gangtok and the Nathula Pass, while meeting people from varied backgrounds, like Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister and the Dalai Lama.
If the tag of “An Indian Journal”, bunged with the title doesn’t convince you that the book was meant for a western audience, the narrative certainly would. This was around the time that India was being speculatively viewed as a country of the proverbial snake-charmer, and Moraes’s experiences might only have legitimated a few myths. For instance, his meeting with an ailing poet on the banks of a Nepalese river, where he is left to die, is a reality of the past which might seem incredulous now to us, just as it might have been fantastical to a western audience then. Or take his meeting with Nehru for instance, where an icon of independent India presents himself as what he is; an aging politician, and slightly frustrated at that perhaps.
It is this quirkiness in the book that makes it fascinating. Had it been read in 1960, the year of its publishing, an Indian reader would have had to rely on the underlying humour to carry him through and past the pages. While the readers to whom the book was meant for, the non-Asians in this case, would have experienced astonishment at the events themselves.
Yes, as a travelogue the book is dead in parts. Gangtok must have more hotels now and Chinese spies would have gotten better at shooting and traveling has become tourism, ceasing to be just travel. What will remain is the past, etched poetically by a man believed by many as the best English poet of India.



* The Hawthornden Prize is a British literary award given to the "best work of imaginative literature". After Moraes won it in 1958, V.S. Naipaul was to win it in 1964.

About the Author:

http://www.hindu.com/mag/2004/06/13/stories/2004061300080100.htm

PS: Outlook opened its celebration of Sachin Tendulkar's 25th birthday edition with a poem by Moraes called "For the Cheap Seats". When he was 12, Dom Moraes apparently began writing on cricket.

Waugh too good

The most striking part in his autobiography is that Steve Waugh was considered a super talent in his home land and was even compared to Don Bradman at one point of time. Such was the breeze of opinion that Greg Matthews apparently once said, “Steve Waugh has more talent in his little finger than I have in my whole body.” However to attain the consistency (forever the bane of free-spirits), at one juncture in his fledgling career, Waugh opted for a safer approach to not end up as another wannabe Mozart of batsmanship. Amazing as it might seem, he hardly ever played the hook shot once he decided to let go of it. It is one of the many examples that showcase his resolve. For, is the hook not the most difficult shot to avoid playing?
Out of my comfort zone is an apt title for this mini-epic of a book. Pages counting unto 720 are written by Waugh; his wife, Lynette, provides a refreshingly different perspective while Tim May and Rahul Dravid eulogise the former Aussie captain. The first thing you realize as each word leads to the next and one sentence passes the baton on to another, is that these are his words, and his sentences. His diary, a constant companion in his cricketing years, is conspicuous as the source even if invisible. Few cosmetic changes might have been necessary for the editor, but content-wise, it is entirely Waugh’s and given the colourful career he’s had, there wasn’t a dearth of stories to tell.
Coming back to the reason why the issue of his talent stands out in the book is largely due to the perception we have towards flair and the lack of it. Steve Waugh was always regarded the untalented brother of the supremely graceful Mark. While for his part, Mark Waugh was the terribly casual twin of the gritty, determined Steve. There is another perception which tells us that talent amounts to grace, elegance and, in effect, a thing of beauty. While anything that looks ugly and succeeds is pure hard work.
Steve Waugh debunks this theory (though it wouldn’t matter to him whether he does so or not) on two counts. Firstly, by detailing his schoolboy-reputation as being a gifted player, and two, promising that behind Mark Waugh’s careless expression lay a tense, contemplative mind.
There are only a handful of sportspersons who can extol their virtues in an analytical, yet fluid way so as to form a source of information which can become a guiding force for anyone who cares to read it regardless of his or her profession. Waugh was always known as a man with great awareness of the world around him. His charities and his love for the worn-out baggy green cap are well-known. While he recognized the value of history (once he took his all-conquering team to the site of the Gallipoli battle), believe-it-or-not, he was among the most adventurous of the Aussie cricketers, like his trips to dangerous neighbourhoods in the Caribbean and India might suggest. One aspect that would interest business and administration students is his detailed study of each player he played with, under or against. Even though he ended up part of a very successful team, he started his career, under Allan Border, in a very ordinary squad. Waugh is succinct in his descriptions of cricket matches, but makes a conscious effort to translate the unsaid words he encountered during his 18-year career. Thus it becomes fascinating to read when he lays bare much that he read between the lines and all that he saw first-hand. It becomes a roller-coaster ride where Waugh’s perception of people changes as time wears on and it is his integrity in telling his story which gives the book a rare depth that quickly-written, commerce-oriented showpieces would never have. For instance, Ian Chappell, a boyhood hero of his is a source of much-anguish with his “black and white” criticism, while Allan Border starts off as a role model, reveals his weaknesses and yet retains a special place in Waugh’s mind, until as a selector, he fails to inform him directly of his omission from the One-Day squad.
When Steve Waugh was captain, the most charitable a critic would be to his captaincy was that with the quality at hand, he better be successful. But, as with everything, there is a lot that happens behind closed doors where Waugh’s man-management skills were tested. The Michael Slater story is one such. Slater, with his mad-bomber attitude, was a match-winner of the highest order. But given his volatile temperament, handling him was never an easy issue. Waugh explains the finger-wagging outburst of his colleague against Rahul Dravid in the 2001 series and marks it as the first time he came to a stage where he couldn’t control a fellow player. Slater was going through a marital problem and according to Waugh, would just not accept his demotion to the bench.
On the lighter side, Waugh unearths plenty of anecdotes, quotes and wisecracks from his time at the crease. It includes everything from his abuses at Curtly Ambrose after which the quickie was just pulled back before he could commit a murder; to the Herschelle Gibbs drop at the 1999 World Cup (its official, Waugh said, “Do you realize you cost your team the match?” What is not known is Shane Warne had foreseen Gibbs' show-boating tendencies in a team meeting just prior to the match) and as far forward as to the time Parthiv Patel ribbed him. The red-rag of his made its debut in an Ashes Test at Headingley, while Warne cracked the jigsaw that Carl Hooper had become for him when he observed that the West Indian would charge down each time he stared at the bowler during his run-up.
Steve Waugh also does not forget the media and has reserved enough space for journalists. Yet again, he shows his acumen in judging people as he jots down the ones that most annoyed him and those he respected for the work they did. Much of his criticism of players, administrators and journalists is bunged with a degree of reasoning which makes his opinion all the more credible.
His family forms the basis for many a chapter as he paints an emotional picture of the difficult times away from his wife and children, even though they invariably were exhilarating ones on the field. At times, the book is a huge thank-you letter to his wife, and understandably so. A relationship in that milieu to survive for more than two decades is indeed a modern marvel.
It is tempting to look at this book as just a sports book and add another to the fairly long list of very good cricket writings. However, there is more to it. Every cricketer who walks in and out of this book has a character that shows through the protective equipment of his. It was just as well that Waugh is frank and forthcoming in his views, acknowledging his mistakes and coming tantalizingly close to calling himself a genius. Aptly titled, the book represents the at times gutsy at times out-of-the-box (left-side field as he calls it) approach of the former Aussie great. It is a monumental effort and a must-read for anyone who is comfortable holding that big book in hand. Or indeed for anyone who isn’t. Thank god, he kept a diary!

Signs of old

For the first time since watching him for the first time in 1998, I had decided that Zinedine Zidane was a spent force. So had I seen the fate of Sanath Jayasuriya as he handled Pakistan's bowling at home like he might have as a youngster in 1989. In a matter of days, it changed. Surprisingly with Jayasuriya, miraculously with Zidane.
When he went past three defenders against Brazil, my mind went specifically to Sachin Tendulkar. Maybe, this is the time for the older sportsmen to show how it is done - with flair, and experience.

Embarassment of ditches

This is my blogchalk:
India, Bangalore, Parangipalya (Papaya Village), Hindi, Vivek, Male, 26-30, Cricket, Photography.

Kandy has one of the most picturesque grounds in the cricket world, even if it is but owned by a college. When Pakistan toured Sri Lanka in March and April, they were scheduled to play here, which can surely hold no more than 10,000 (if that isn't an exaggeration in itself). Still, whoever walked into the stadium (they don't cram into Test cricket in Lanka), must have been to support the departure of one of their most celebrated stars, Sanath Jayasuriya. The match at times looked of secondary importance as Jayasuriya was feted, praised and bade farewell in the most respectable manner. So much so that even the giant screen carried a farewell message repeatedly, throughout the match. In a manner of speaking, this meant Jayasuriya got more screen space than the Man of the Match, Mohd. Asif. After all, the opener had chosen to quit by his own accord, or so everyone thought.
One might remember Asantha de Mel as a past World Cup participant who managed to get 5-wkt haul in the tournament in 1983. He is now a selector and one of the first things he did after getting the job was to re-instate Jayasuriya claiming he was pushed out of the team contrary to popular belief. This not only made all those involved in the sending-off party at Kandy stupid, it also threw Sri Lankan cricket into further turmoil. The situation now is such that the team management doesn't want him, but the administration, to score a few cheap points over their predecessors, have made Jayasuriya a pawn.
The worst affected is neither Sri Lankan cricket nor the viewing public, but the man in question himself. There couldn't have been a humiliation greater than this for this once-phenomenal blaster. Now, the past looks so far back that he might as well recall those days with sepia-tinted flashbacks. This is not how a player of his calibre is treated, at least not when, his younger replacements aren't setting the English grounds on fire. If he was asked to quit, the decision should have stayed. Since it was reversed, he should have played. Now, he is no man's land, pale, surely, with embarassment.

Help Libraries

Many are worried that Bangalore will lose its beautiful greenery and balanced climate because of the IT explosion. They needn't waste their time as the city has already shed its past for a glitzier era of lights and money. However, carelessness of the past and the burst of television in the '90s has certainly affected one of our valued heritages: government-run libraries.
As a child I remember going to the City Central Library in search of comics and detective novels. All I got were torn Tinkles and discoloured Tintins.
This was in the early '90s when satellite TV was just about making an entry into Bangalore. It wasn't long before I stopped visiting these libraries.
Believing that the City Central Library would cater to changed tastes, I visited it again after a few years, and this time as a collegian. Yet again, it was disappointing to find that there were hardly any good books on the shelves that once would surely have hosted the giants of literature.
Even when you managed to lay hands on an outstanding work, it would be soiled, torn or mutilated.
Years later I visited yet another library, this time near my workplace. I went in to get a membership without having a look at the collection, which was well stocked with bound books. The person in charge looked askance at me, and almost with pity told me to first have a look at the books there.
I complied and thanked him silently as it wasn't to be third time lucky for me. I saw the same imprints of mediocrity in this relatively new branch. There were books aplenty and in good shape too, but most were obscure and, I guessed, were of average quality.
My disappointment with the library is not a complaint against the people who run it. It's not as if these libraries don't get good books. They perhaps receive more top-quality books than private libraries do. But with the low membership fee and deposit, they are sitting ducks for educated thieves. Such is the pervasiveness of thievery in public libraries that the deed has an almost heroic ring to it.
With so many software companies making hay here, can't our IT czars adopt our public libraries, nourish and maintain them? We should safeguard books in the interest of honest readers and keep keep track of every book borrowed. Then my fourth visit to the City Central Library might prove fruitful, yet.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2005/09/12/stories/2005091201980400.htm

One woman show

Oruththi is a film by Amshan Kumar and is set in the feudal times of the19th century. Based on a novel, Oruththi tells the tale of a young woman from a lower caste who is unusually strong and independent for her time. The protagonist shepherds goats all day long. While doing so she falls for the village elder’s son, who too happens to do nothing more than looking after the goats. Even though this affair is not unknown to the villagers, the surprisingly open-minded citizens of the village react to it passively; despite their discomfort with the relationship.
What starts as a whisper gains force after a few goats run riot in a poor woman’s field. The village panchayat decides to take the help of a self-made detective to investigate the matter. He, while on his errand, finds out about the two love-struck young people. To avoid embarrassment, the village elder prepares to get his son married to someone in his own caste. Though shattered, the young woman stays true to her job and hopes to get married the village elder’s son, one day. As the story takes a turn, she gets an opportunity to impress the villagers.
The zamindar of that village is a reckless and dishonest man. He draws taxes from the farmers, on behalf of the English rulers, and keeps the money to himself. A young English officer, posted in that village seeks to know the reason as to why the taxes haven’t reached the government. The zamindar’s ploy of putting the blame on the villagers backfires as the young woman divulges the truth to the officer.
The officer, a good-natured man, makes sure that the zamindar is punished and the villagers are allowed to pay their taxes directly to the government. This makes the woman an instant heroine among her people.
However, for the elders, it becomes a complex situation as on one hand they are indebted to the woman, while on the other, the "prestige" of their caste is on line. To please everyone, they reach a compromise. The woman, for what she has done for the village, can marry her lover. But she has to leave the village. She declines.
Oruththi is by no means a great film. It is in fact, at times, unintentionally funny. However, what makes the film slightly different to other films based on the feudal period is the almost modern outlook of the villagers. Barring the zamindar and his cohorts there are no straightforward villains here. The village elders are scholarly at most times and the British too seem sympathetic. When the village discovers the inter-caste love affair, there is no attempt to lynch the pair. Any intention to subdue the affair is preceded with caution, so as not to harm anyone, at least physically. When goats destroy a poor woman’s field, the elders and the village in general rally around her to help her out of trouble. There is no effort to curb the naturally strong character of the protagonist; if anything, she is patronized for having that quality.
Somehow, the film reminds you of Lars von Trier’s Dogville. Both these films deal with the issue of power and its effect on people. While both films have women as central characters, the village they are in also plays an important role. If in Dogville, the village turns ugly on the woman; in Oruththi it is always friendly to her, except on one count: her marriage. Both women help their respective villages in different ways, and both are let down in the end. While Dogville presents a stark picture of the powerful, Oruththi is perhaps an appropriate comment on the workings of power, today.
The village elders have the power to take decisions. When the zamindar is punished by the British, they become even more powerful. They understand that they owe something to the person who gifted them this position. But they can bend only so far as they want to and not as far as they should.
Oruththi, as mentioned earlier, has many a loose end. It is more important to Tamil filmdom than it is to Indian cinema. While the money in Tamil cinema seems to overflow, the quality is generally poor. Even the customary efforts at offbeat cinema one sees in Hindi are absent here. This film, if made in Bengali or Malayalam, may not have meant much. But in Tamil, it takes some significance. Oruththi is a decent effort.

Forbidden Neighbourhood - VI

13-Feb-2006
Day-night matches are a lot better to work in. They start late, which means one can get enough sleep; and they end late in the evening, which means you can enjoy the floodlit atmosphere. But here, the difference being of just an hour and a half between day and day-night matches, there is not much time to stay cuddled in the bed. It must be because of the excessive dew that falls on the grass that the timings have been so scheduled.
India won the toss and elected to bowl, a trend which is pleasing in the sense that the team feels confident chasing; but which is disappointing for the reason that it doesn’t believe it can defend totals on flat wickets. Malik again played beautifully, and unlike the last two games, got out of the 90s to make a hundred. Razzaq too showed signs of going back to his hitting style with a 64. But a better innings was to come in the Indian chase. Sachin Tendulkar was playing like his younger self. A drive off Razzaq was so good that even Tendulkar acknowledged it by staying in his follow through till the ball reached the boundary. He would also be the first guy to tell you that Dhoni’s and Yuvraj’s 70s late in the chase was a stamp of class from the two young players. Dhoni came in when Kaif was out for a duck and played more with disdain than with caution. If Tendulkar’s innings was mesmeric and Yuvraj’s mature, Dhoni’s was a devastating counter-attack. 2-1 in the series is though an ominous lead. Last time, in 2004, Pakistan led 2-1 after three games as India won the next two.
Sometime during the first innings, two army helicopters whirred into sight, very close to the ground. After ten minutes of this Pervez Musharraf was in the ground waving at the Indian crowd after prompting from his right-hand men. He stayed back through the game and in the end advised Dhoni to keep his whacky hair intact. There were other rumours that Pakistan lost because he was present. Why? "Just feel so."
After the match, Rameez Raja and Arun Lal were at their program again at the NCA. Yet again there was the offer to join them. Yet again I wished Dravid and Tendulkar were in the discussion.
14-Feb-2006
The fervour of Valentine’s Day has been overwhelmed by the controversial Danish cartoons. Lahore is to go on strike today and we have to go to Multan. Luckily, Multan is on the way to Karachi, which means we would have traveled about five hours on road to the last match. This time, the trip is not so interesting as we have already traversed this road before and the mini-bus of ours has been packed to the brink with men and metal.
Multan is the home town of Inzamam Ul-Haq. Like him, the city, if one could call it, is languid. Hardly a house has gone higher than two floors. In fact, there is nothing here to suggest it is a city. No shopping malls, no road transport to speak of and no big buildings. We are told this is because the stadium is outside Multan and the area surrounding it is just village-ish in appearance. This is indeed true as we get to the stadium. All around the Multan Cricket Ground, there are farms and farmers. The ground itself is beautiful, to say the least. Each Pakistani cricket stadium surprises you with its appearance. But this is even beyond the expected mark.
You enter on the pavilion side, below the Inzamam Ul-Haq stand. From then on, you find inch-by-inch of perfect grass. Smaller than Lahore, but prettier, this ground has taken care of the basic comfort a spectator demands: a roof for every stand. The pitch is being cleaned as we get close to it. It looks like another 300+ score.
We have been accommodated at the academy dormitory just above the media box. Multan is not the best place to find good hotels close by and this residence in the stadium is again a gift from the heavens.
The rumour doing the rounds is that India will lose this match to keep the Karachi ODI alive. Sehwag isn’t to be seen and Afridi is a doubt for the rest of the series.
15-Feb-2006
We have been introduced to a cook in Multan, Mohammad Imran. The only problem I had after seeing was whether he knew anything at all of vegetarian food. He is built like an ox and his big beard gives him a scary look. But the moment you speak to him you realize he is a soft man. Soft-spoken and well-mannered, he has promised to cook us vegetarian food. To understand that difficult culinary concept, he made a major effort. "Bhaiyya, humko vegetarian khaana chahiye."
"Vegetables? Bana denge."
"Isme gosht nahi daalna."
"Nahi, nahi daalenge. Sirf vegetables daalenge, chicken vagera…"
"Nahi, nahi, chicken nahi chahiye."
"Achcha. Thoda sa daalunga bas."
"Nahi bhaiyya chicken daalna hi nahi. Maas nahi, machchi nahi, chicken nahi."
"Achcha…" and he went into his world of confused contemplation.
Today, I thought was the only good chance to get a few things done as a matter of remembering Pakistan. I took out my SLR and went into the ground. We had to meet Suresh to get a few photographs he had taken at Taxila. When we asked him for them, he said, "Don’t go out of the stadium’s premises for now. Two people have been killed in Lahore following demonstrations yesterday."
The cartoon controversy has only polarized Islam and Europe even more. There has been widespread condemnation of what is being viewed as an abuse of the freedom given to western press. Not just the fanatics, but even liberals have joined in the protests. Much of the news here is related to either this or Indian cricket team’s presence in the country: clearly two of the most important issues in Pakistan – religion and cricket.
It is only when it’s cloudy that a silver lining becomes important. Today, not thinking of stepping outside the stadium (we weren’t sure if there was much to see in Multan), I played photographer for some time. The nets were going on and the Indian team was in its final practice moments. Sachin Tendulkar was being bowled to by a local player and Sreesanth was a lonely figure outside Sachin’s nets. I sensed the latter was about to end his stint and waited there, trying to capture his drives. As if on cue, he walked out and went straight to the young fast bowler. He began explaining forward defence to him and I felt it was inappropriate to make a move then. Their conversation continued and I waited. Just then, the local players were asked to leave by an official. One of them had a mobile and he too was waiting politely to get a moment of time with Tendulkar. When he saw that the boy wasn’t going to leave without taking a picture with the Indian legend, the official walked up to him and broke his conversation. Tendulkar obliged and within minutes there were a dozen photograph hunters swarming around him. I was one of them. And I shall remember for a long time that Sachin Tendulkar spoke to me, "Careful, careful… kit pe mat pair rakhna." When I asked him for a photograph, he nodded and stood erect, with his eyes looking straight into the camera lens.
16-Feb-2006
His meeting with us seemed to have done Sachin Tendulkar a lot of good. In the fourth ODI he bowled beautifully. But that was all the luck he could carry as Sami’s fantastic spell got him out for a duck. Still, the 160+ scored by Pakistan was not going to stop the Indians from winning in front of a disappointed crowd. To their credit, Multan’s citizens were very fair during the match.
This must have been a huge disappointment for Shaharyar Khan too, who, after the match, went on a long walk around the ground, thinking perhaps of the match and the future of few players in that side. As is the case with Pakistani cricket, an embarrassing result is swiftly followed by knee-jerk overhauls in their system. Perhaps it doesn’t happen a lot with the composition of its team these days thanks to Bob Woolmer’s presence, but the others in their cricketing system might not have it so easy. Today in Multan, when the president of the PCB took long strolls around the boundary ropes, occasionally stopped by fans to shake his hands and talk a little, many in Pakistani cricket would have felt a trifle apprehensive about the future.
17-Feb-2006
Not so cold morning, early wake-up call, deserted stadium ruined by the carnage of yesterday’s multitude and a few early birds going about their chores; thus started what was to be the last of our road trips in Pakistan. This was also going to be a tightly scheduled ride as Karachi was prepared to host only a day match given the security concerns. It gave us only a day to complete the almost 1000km journey.
As we left the stadium and its surrounding farms for the highway towards Sindh, we realized for the first time why Multan was unashamedly referred to as a city. It indeed had its two-storied buildings and shopping centers, only that it was too far away from the stadium – or was it the other way round as the stadium was situated in the outskirts of this sleepy little town (that’s what I can settle for in describing Inzy’s hometown).
Day broke over the green farms of Punjab as the Coaster cruised on the same nice, smooth roads that had taken us to Karachi earlier from Lahore. Everything looked just as we had seen them then, except that there was a significant difference this time. Lahore had faced serious problems during the strike called after the cartoons row. Multan was on strike yesterday and Karachi was in trouble today. Karachi was living up to its reputation, we were told as vehicles that had belied the strike weren’t being spared from the mob fury. To give us a bit of confidence, Nasir had joined us on the trip, even though he had some serious business to take care of. "Kuch nahi hoga, yaar. Main tumhare saath aaonga," he had boasted, and couldn’t get out of the spot in the end and just had to keep us company.
Nothing happened through much of the journey. Nasir even stopped one of the many sugarcane-laden trucks and requested them to give us a few. We had lunch at a dhaba and I had settled for a roti with chutney after my earlier experience in dhabas of Sindh. All was well till we left Hyderabad, 150 kms away from Karachi, at night. A policeman stopped us to warn us of a possible violent rally in the vicinity of the city. He advised us to take a deviation and opt for a safer route. "Kuch nahi hoga, yaar," Nasir said. But the driver, Ehsaan, and even we didn’t want to invite trouble at the fag end of the tour. We chose the other route. Soon, we were in deserted territory; in what seemed like neglected areas of a barren jungle. It soon occurred to me that this place could be as dangerous, if not more, as the one we had just tried to steer away from. There, we could have been attacked, but that would be in the open, and they might not have hurt us. Here, anybody could spring up from the dead of the night with an automatic rifle and stunned us with his art of burglary. Anyway, that didn’t happen and we reached safely to the RCA. We had to prepare food as Dildar had not been able to get food because of the strike (which had affected Karachi for three days). It was back to normal business again as we hoped that the cartoons wouldn’t mess up our plans for the next few days in the port city.
18-Feb-2006
Karachi had seen quite a bit of trouble in the last three days and even today is a day of strike. But the players have come and done their bit of practice with the Indians taking it a lit easier. Everyone involved with the series seems happy that it is getting over soon. This hasn’t been the best of contests as was expected after the Ashes success. India and Pakistan had very good teams but somehow the quality has been lacking. The bowling and fielding has been a disappointment and like all good sub-continental stories, the batsmen have had a field day. The security has never been an issue and any off-the-pitch discussion has only centered on the omission of one or two top players.
I met a young guy who was managing a restaurant in Pakistan, called the Chicken King. He was a client of ours and after a bit of work, he offered to treat me at his restaurant. Immediately, I saw the same old story repeating. "I am a vegetarian," I said. "No problem. We also have chicken and fish," he said.
However, to spice the atmosphere up, there comes the news of a Muslim cleric’s murder. It isn’t clear who he was and who killed him, but the there is a sudden chill in the air. There might be a huge riot; there might be revenge… violence, clashes, arson…
19-Feb-2006
It turned out that there had been no murdered cleric in Karachi yesterday. Rumours have also taken a huge toll in the city previously and this was one of them. Nobody seemed to remember the issue when India won the toss and asked Pakistan to bat, again. In the last few months, Indian cricket has showed a fresh new approach. Earlier, any One-Day series would go to the last match when India was involved. In the series where Sri Lanka visited India, this changed. India won 6-1, and now, were leading 3-1, going into the last match.
Sachin Tendulkar and Irfan Pathan had been rested and their absence didn’t hamper India’s progress. Pakistan’s players didn’t have it easy with the crowd as Younis complained of unsupportive behaviour and Inzamam was repeatedly called, "Aloo" – a reference to those Toronto days. Dhoni was greeted vociferously and when Dravid got to his 9000th ODI run, he was given a great ovation. No wonder India won the match. Yuvraj had had a fantastic series and so had Dhoni. They shared honours and accolades as the strong Indian crowd over shouted the dejected Pakistani fans.
If Chappell and Dravid look back at this tour, they would reflect at the second hour of the Karachi Test as a point where if they had had a better display, this could have been the perfect tour. The lack of bowling power cannot be hidden by the One-Day win, but if the focus has shifted convincingly towards the World Cup, everyone will remain satisfied. But the Test series loss cannot be forgotten, just as the One-Day win cannot be underestimated.
20-Feb-2006
Nasir came to our room and literally dragged us to do a bit of shopping. He took us to a footwear shop of his friend who was selling Khussa, a kind of sandals. Made of leather and tyres, it is both good looking and sturdy. Then we went to a place where exotic watches were being sold. I bought none of it. We then went to a Shiva temple. It turned out to have idols of all the major Hindu gods – Rama, Krishna, Ganesha and Hanuman.
On a busy day, Saddar, the main market in Karachi, resembles Mumbai’s Dadar market. The same crowd, the same congestion and very much the same items to sell. There are not many things unique to Pakistan as one looks on at the materials on display. Cars won’t move an inch on its driver’s accord; innumerable motorists have to allow for it to get done.
Four of us buy a bag worth Rs.850 and return to our rooms. It then so happens that another set of our people who had been with Colonel Sayeed to shop, had got the same bags for Rs. 650. This becomes an issue of prestige for Nasir and he drags us again to those busy markets. When he tells the tale of the other bags, the shopkeeper immediately agrees to return the money as he feels he can’t give them to us at that low a price. We then go to the shop where the others bought the bag and get it for the same price. As the saying goes – Two hundred saved is two hundred made.
We then went to a DVD heaven called the Rainbow Center. This place has all the DVDs one could want – except good international movies. I asked for Iran’s art films and was answered in the negative. I asked for European cinema and was shown the door.
By the time we thank Nasir, Dildar and the others, it’s already midnight and there is just a few hours for our flight to take-off from Karachi, to Mumbai.
21-Feb-2006
The Jinnah airport in Karachi is designed in the same way as the Lahore airport. But to reach that we had to take a truly exotic local transport – a mini-bus that looked like a geared modern-art. The lighting inside was crazily photogenic and the comfort for seating was not a criteria for its design, it seemed. Still, it was one of the best vehicles to end the tour of Pakistan – unpredictable and endearing.
This tour had been a great one for us first-time visitors. It must be the demolition of myths which should interest the two countries. One hears a doctored, biased and unflattering view of the country. But it has to be through travel that one clears the airs up. People to people, Indians and Pakistanis have the understanding and aptitude to be friendly. It is thus a strong recommendation that Indians visit Pakistan and get to see, first hand, the people they are told to hate.

Forbidden Neighbourhood - V

06-Feb-2006
The stadium was full in no time. After a few more minutes, it looked more crowded. The reason was not hard to find. Peshawar’s bigger infamy comes from its unruly fans who made it a point to be at the ground, with or without a valid ticket. For a stadium with a capacity of not more than 15000, the gathering today looked so much more than that. The menace of ticketless entrants became so acute that valid ticketholders had to be turned away. Toofan-e-badtameez is how the aggressive crowd of Peshawar was described. "Pakistan Zindabad," they would shout, and then barge in past hapless policemen at the gates. Every time this happened, Arbab Niaz threatened to split at its seams. The match though was played under an overcast sky; something completely against the trend in the last couple of days with Peshawar’s weather. On a better day at the office, this would have been a day I wouldn’t have wanted to forget quickly. It had been a desire to watch a century by Sachin Tendulkar, live in a stadium. He had come close twice. Once in Bangalore, he got stumped on a rainy day against England for 90. At Nagpur, last year, he was out for 93. Here, he got to a hundred. But I hardly remember a shot he played. Just before the match was to start, one of our softwares came up with a problem. By the time I could set it to work, 14 overs had passed by. In the next few overs though, I did catch a glimpse of Tendulkar’s innings, but I remember nothing much. To add salt to the wounds, his hundred wasn’t quite enough, was it? Arbab Niaz was always under a cloud of grey sky that day. It looked nothing like the city outside where everyone looks sunny. Quite a lot of Kashmiris have made their homes here, thanks to the proximity of the two regions. One of the employees at the hotel here is from Muzaffarabad. Another has his roots in India where his father was a national champion in tennis in the 40s and many of whose family members are squash players. The only reason he himself didn’t take up sport was because his father left him and his mother long time ago and got married in the United Kingdom. Peshawar also is home to many Sikhs. In fact, many a Sikh pilgrim wishes to visit this part of Pakistan as it houses holy places.

07-Feb-2006

We left Peshawar for what was going to be the shortest of our journeys. It also meant we would be moving out of NWFP and go back into Punjab; this time, very close to the den of the government machinery, Rawalpindi. Islamabad itself doesn’t have an international cricket stadium. However, its twin city, Pindi, has one. This is the place where India won its first Test series against Pakistan in 2004. Dravid had scored 270 on this venue while Tendulkar’s 141 went in vain in a One-Dayer. Now, it would host a match where the Indian team wished to get off the mark on the tour. Islamabad and Rawalpindi are separated only by a milestone called the Zero Point. The two, especially the Pakistan capital city, is extremely clean. The long, deserted, clean roads confirm the strategic importance of the city. The rumour doing the rounds is about the impending visit of the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf. This is also a reason for the extra security around, and inside, the stadium. We are to be given another pass to go with the existing one. At least now, four days before the match, the Pindi Cricket Ground has not yet become the fortress it promises to be. The circumference of the ground is occupied by the Food Street. From dhaba-like establishments to good-looking restaurants, it has a concoction of many food tastes. The ground itself is a good-looking one, like every other Pakistani stadium. This is one of the grounds not in the PCB’s control, yet it is maintained impeccably. Pindi is also quite cold. Since its surroundings are crowded with mountains, it city itself is nestled amidst glorious view. Also close to this place is Kashmir, about 120 kms away. There is also a hill station, a la Ooty, called Murree, some 50 kms from here. With this game having more time than any other in the series, we have but this one chance to go out to have a look at the splendours of Pakistan. Murree is the likely destination. From Peshawar, a former Army-man, Colonel Sayeed, accompanied us. He has been in-charge of logistics concerning our project and this is the first time we have had time to speak to him in detail. The first thing we do in the conversations is to get a promise from him that he’ll take us to Murree. An amicable and straightforward man, he agrees to the proposal, provided the work given to him and us is finished in time. On the road to Pindi, he helps us with his vast knowledge of this land. We find a fort where Nawaz Sharif was held captive and so were a few other high-profile dignitaries. Few miles further down was the road built by Sher Shah Suri. There was a graveyard atop a hill and a few more exotic trucks on the road.

08-Feb-2006

In Peshawar, we had met a photographer from the Mumbai-based Mid-day group of afternoon newspaper. Suresh K.K. had come to us looking for a solution to his problem with the GPRS system in Pakistan. We couldn’t solve it but that meeting was enough to strike up a conversation with him on various subjects. Since he too was from Karnataka and spoke in Kannada, we got on well with him. He covered both sports and calamities; a strange combination one might say. Thanks to his experience in going after disasters like the earthquakes in Latur and Gujarat, he advised us to keep our passports with us all the time. In Rawalpindi, we saw him again, this time in the ground, with his heavy telephoto lens hung over his shoulder. We soon got to know that he had been to Murree already. In fact, we had gone in search of people who could join us to Murree. Having found Nasir Abbas (whom we persuaded to an irritating extent), we went browsing for more travelers. Suresh had been very keen to go and shoot around in Pakistan. In a newspaper article, I had read about the Indian team’s possible visit to Taxila (known to us as Takshashila from those history books of school days). I just mentioned it to Suresh. He soon caught on to the idea and within five minutes we – me, Kiran, Suresh and Nasir (who was surprised that someone could forego Murree for history) – were on the way on a hired taxi. Taxila is a seldom-visited tourist spot. The tales of Buddha and stories from the past do not interest many people. We were greeted by an adamant ticket seller at the gates of the Dharmarajika Stupa. Foreigners were to pay Rs. 200, while it was Rs. 10 for locals. It was the mistake that we made in letting him know our national identity. He wouldn’t let in for less than 200. Even though it seemed strange to go into a monument in Taxila as foreigners, we were ready to pay the money when Nasir walked in with his local bargaining skills. He simply refused to pay that much and reasoned that for an old ruin like that who on earth would shell out any money. That seemed to make sense to the ticket collector. After a lot of ranting, haggling and a bit of disappointing defamation of the place, we were let in for a combined fee of Rs. 40. A well-built, middle-aged man met us at the gate. He called himself the security guard of the place and took it upon himself to guide us through the tour. "I was watching you haggling with that guy. I kept shouting at him to let you in. After all, you are our guests," he said. I had sensed his presence at the gates, but don’t remember telling the ticket collector to let us in. Anyway, he became our official guide, since we felt we required one. I heard hardly a word of what he said as I was busy putting to use my new Minolta SLR camera I had bought a week before coming to Pakistan. I had spent just two rolls through that camera and was itching to click a few photographs. This was a perfect occasion. When else, I thought, I would come to a place like Takshashila. Within ten minutes, I had spent a 100 ASA roll. I took out a 200 ASA one and started clicking frantically. Just then I realized I was overdoing it as Suresh, with his DSLR was also clicking like a madman. Him being a professional, I let him take as many as he wanted and made a deal with him to give us the photographs on a CD. There were a few more ruins around the town which we set off to see. Here too, there was a security guard who became our guide and showed us through a stretch of broken Buddha statues. Some were reinforced by the archaeological department and some original sculptures had been sent to the museum in Taxila (this was closed on that day). Most of these statues were destroyed by the marauding Huns in 3rd century AD. Taxila’s university is supposedly the oldest in the world. Now, the odd structure of stone is a mere approximation of what might have been. The archaeological department has reinforced some parts of it, but it still is a truth that the education system hasn’t change much from those days; it only must have gone a lot dishonest. In a moment which converged the two different times was when the memory stick of Suresh’s DSLR filled to the brink. He immediately took out his laptop and placed it on what was once the dining room of the university, and copied the photographs onto the system. On our way out of the university, we saw a street full of orange vendors. They were selling by bags full and it was easy to see why. Right behind their stalls were orange trees, ripe with the freshest fruits. These oranges aren’t as easy to peel as the normal ones. In fact, here in Pakistan, these fruits are cut open. There is also the conventional orange that is available here, but the type which we later bought for Rs. 200 per 100 fruits, were hard to peel, like our mosambis. As our taxi made its way out of this historical town, we came across huge fields with scores of young men playing cricket. Other than that, one could take this for an ancient town. In about an hour’s time, we had reached Pindi Cricket Ground. It was about five in the evening and as we reached the gates, I saw the coaster with its engine on. Everyone else who had got themselves free from work some time ago was now preparing to go to Murree. Though barely eating anything solid as food all day, we joined them on the road to seeing ice for the first time in my life. Suresh, who had been there yesterday, had told us about the presence of ice in Murree. He had also warned is not to expect too much from the place which had been ridden by devastating commercialisation over the years. The innumerable days of inactivity in Pakistan had dulled me and this was a golden opportunity nonetheless. Much of the road to Murree reminds you of India’s ghat sections. Colonel Sayeed, who was keeping his promise by accompanying us, kept his stories coming in appropriate succession. Nasir too had joined us straight after coming from Taxila. We seemed to be right on time to see the beautiful sunset from the height of over 6000ft. But when you think you have gone a little closer to nature and all that stuff, industrialization reminds you that its there, forever, for you. Halfway up the mountains, traffic had stopped itself for some reason. Cars and buses didn’t go out of first gear and Nasir even got down from our vehicle to buy some vegetable pakodas and boarded the coaster in time with a bit of jogging. Sun set, frustratingly, over a valley of small houses and when we reached Murree, it was dark. There was a hint of ice somewhere as it was covered with mud. A little higher up, at the Mall road, young people seemed to enjoy their time at the hill-station. It must have been a psychological effect as there wasn’t much to enjoy at this place which looked like any other small town. We reached the end of our walk at the old GPO building and the Colonel took us to a place which he said would provide us with some vegetarian food. Something just wasn’t right about this place though for vegetarians. About 20 hens had just been killed, roasted and hung outside as advertisement. This was no place for me, and I had to make do with potato and roti. We walked out of that place and stopped for coffee. The Colonel and Nasir got into a discussion about a young girl and an old man walking together. "Do you see something strange there?" Nasir asked the Colonel. He thought over and said, "Yes. They seem to be newly married," he said. The couple then walked into a clothes shop and we took the opposite route still wondering of the Colonel was right; and what if he was right? Murree was the closest we could get to Kashmir. It had its share of ice, only that one didn’t feel like taking a handful; it was full of dirt.

09-Feb-2006

We have been lucky on this tour for having resided close to the ground, in all the venues except Peshawar. Pindi was no different as we had been accommodated in a hotel next to the stadium. There was a permanent fun fair on the other side of the ground, while opposite our hotel was a shopping complex. The Faisal Mosque in Islamabad is one of the famous monuments in the country. A few of our guys had been there in the morning and if one of our computers hadn’t conked, we might have visited a few other places us well. Food at the hotel was not bad as at least the mixed vegetable was available round the clock. In one of the hotels inside the stadium, we got hold of Sarson ka saag and makai ki roti. After years of hearing about this in Hindi films, this was the first time I had tasted it. For this too we had only Nasir to thank as he waded past a devastation of animal insides hung outside eateries to this hotel at the end of the food street. Like anywhere else close to a cricket stadium, he found a friend here too. This time it was a groundsman from Pakistan, now working at the Lord’s, Ashraf. Initially he seemed shy of talking to us but when Nasir introduced us as Indians, he caught on well. However, the conversation never quite touched cricket as Ashraf was happy to talk about Punjab and Indo-Pak relations.

10-Feb-2006

Much of today was spent in repairing a conked computer. This is perhaps the worst case scenario with computers when they crash a day before the match is to start. Yet again, one of Nasir’s friends comes to our help. He is the chief IT maintenance guy working for the PCB. But when one of our systems goes out of work, it goes with a bang. This was irreparable and a backup computer had to be summoned from Karachi, which sadly, would reach us in time for the Lahore ODI. So, as a temporary arrangement, I’ll have to use my DV camera for the purpose. There are new rumours surrounding Shoaib Akhtar’s absence from the ODI series. He might not play in any of the five matches. Some feel it is because of Greg Chappell’s comments on his action that the ICC has held him back from competing in international cricket while others in Pakistan attribute it to his irreconcilable differences with his captain, Inzamam. There are only very few people who bet it’s got something to do with a genuine injury. This series has been very disappointing so far in terms of India’s performance. No victories so far and Pindi looks like another flat, "good" ODI pitch which means the result is as much a question of who bats better. It is also surprising that Sami isn’t in the Pakistan team while Umar Gul and Rana Naved are being preferred. Well, there is the official word which says he is injured, but you never know with Pakistan cricket what the word injury really means.

11-Feb-2006

At last, a victory! There was a good chance that India went without anything to show for in the series. But with the rub of the green going his way, Dravid made sure he took advantage of the initial bowling conditions. This match must have been very disappointing to the crowd, especially the slightly rowdy kind amidst which we had to sit through the match. Right from the beginning, Pakistan had been grounded. Irfan Pathan took wickets for starters and despite Shoaib Malik’s successive good score, the 265 they posted was not good enough for the hosts. Like in Peshawar, quite a lot of payers had been duped with fake tickets. But there are a few die-hard fans whom nothing can stop. One such fellow, Ruhullah, from Swat (a beautiful valley that side of Peshawar) had been fooled with a "jaali" ticket. But the resolve which had brought him to Pindi from Swat came useful at the gates as he rushed in despite the police stopping him. He now had a story to tell the world, but by the end of the match he was crestfallen as Pakistan lost. The disappointment was made up for a little as he got himself employed with our people there. Pathan was given the Man of the Match award. Sehwag came good and Tendulkar continued his good run as Dravid and Yuvraj finished with good scores. It was the best possible batting performance under the circumstances as the top players got a go and made some runs. The plan for Lahore is all cut out. There is no time to lose as the Lahore match is only two days away and even though it is a day-night match, the difference between a day and a day-night match here is all of one and a half hours. We might have to leave late in the night on the five hour trip on perhaps the best road of Pakistan.

12-Feb-2006

Somehow, we contrive to leave only at ten today morning. I do buy two newspapers Dawn and the News to keep busy on the road as the DV camera seems to have a problem with its recording. The road from Pindi to Lahore is a motorway and is one of the best in the country. It isn’t hard to see why Pakistan is proud of this road. It is well-planned and like the Pune-Mumbai expressway, has all the facilities one can ask of a highway. In five hours, we were in Lahore. We went straight to the ground which looked magnificent under the lights. The Omar Kureishi Media Box looked over the pavilion as the grass at this end began to get wet from the falling dew. The advertisers, match officials and the pressmen went about their work with mechanical regularity. At the NCA, some things had changed. There were no caterers as a month back. It was generally more deserted than what we had known it to be. Not many recognized us on our return and to be honest, it was slightly awkward to be there. In fact, much of Lahore looked a little strange after touring places like Karachi and Rawalpindi. Thankfully, some of the regular NCA workers, like Zia Dar, recognized us and in the night there was to be a TV program with Rameez Raja and Arun Lal at the campus. This was a program for an Indian channel and the audience comprised of two sets of people – Indians on one side and Pakistanis on the other. One of the people at the NCA offered to help me get a seat in the audience chair. But somehow it didn’t appeal to me. If his earlier claim that Tendulkar and Dravid were to be on that show was true, I would surely have made a go for it. In the night, we had been to the nearby shopping center. Quite a lot of shops had closed for the day. But one selling gift items and books was still open. The rush for Valentine’s Day cards was on a high. The book section too was well-kept. I bought a book called God’s Own Land (Khuda ki Basti translated into English). The cover had a strange resemblance to Pather Panchali. This was the aspect that made me buy this over a few other good deals.

Forbidden Neighbourhood - IV

30-Jan-2006
The second day of the match was a lot easier for us working on the giant screen at the National Stadium. After being shell-shocked by Pathan’s hat-trick in the first over of the first day, today was a quieter day. The crowd though was unexpectedly high for a Test match on a Monday. They cheered every Indian wicket, but when Dhoni walked in, you would have thought this was the Wankhede and not a ground in Karachi as the crowd went – "Dhoni, Dhoni". He too was perhaps taken aback as he, and the rest, just crumbled, seven runs short of Pakistan’s first innings total. In just over four sessions, we were into the third innings. One of the groundsmen, who was also our neighbour at the RCA, came up to us regularly, promising that the pitch would play no differently than it had done. A three-day Test was very much on the cards. But once Pakistan came into bat with the sun majestically drying any ounce of moisture on the pitch, the Indian bowling problems surfaced again. As they made easy runs, one just believed that the pitch had changed overnight – in fact, from the time Akmal ran riot in the first innings. Then it became a rather disappointing day for India with Pakistan going ahead by 170-odd runs by the end of day’s play.
The story that made the rounds was the lack of communication between Rahul Dravid and his former captain, Saurav Ganguly. People here saw nothing cordial and questioned Dravid’s repeated consultation with Sachin Tendulkar. "Why is he not talking to Ganguly for ideas?" "Dono aapas mein baat nahi karte," they said.
If one takes out Bengal, I suspect there are more Ganguly fans here than in India. Everyone who spoke about him called him a great player, and wondered at the audacity of Chappell and Dravid to drop him from the second Test. "You cannot treat a player of his class like that."
I had read before coming to Pakistan that the media here was making hay over the Ganguly selection. It must have been from this barrage of reporting during that time which must have educated the public here in such way. But that is akin to insulting the intelligence of genuine cricket followers. They were here when India beat Pakistan 2-1 in 2004’s Test series and they seem to remember that. It has to be said that people here have good powers of memory. They also go deep into the nuances of the game. Everyone earlier talked about how the pitch was and why it was a disaster. Now, they talked, quite passionately, about a man they know not much of, and someone who in his own country is not very popular.
31-Jan-2006
The third day of the third Test was very much in keeping with the first two boring Tests. Everyone who came into bat got good runs and just three wickets fell in the whole day. The match referee was keeping himself very busy. Since there weren’t many flashpoints in the game except when Afridi and Kumble had a go at each other, Ranjan Madugalle heaped scorn on the National Stadium. A couple of interruptions because of disturbances in front of the sight screen were among the events that displeased him. The police control room is right opposite one end and occasionally a policeman would open the glass door when the bowler started his run-up. The lights were supposed to be unsatisfactory, even though unlike Lahore, much of the match was played under natural light.
Tariq Road in Karachi is a hotspot for clothes and jewellery. It is an expensive place where one has to buy something just to keep a souvenir of Karachi. But there is hardly anything that looks distinctly Pakistani here. People dress the same way as in India and shops sell the same clothes, footwear and jewellery. There are sandals that look traditional, but even they are visible in India. This is Karachi, a cosmopolitan city keeping in mind the Islamic dictates – at least to some extent. T-shirts and jeans are a way of life, even though the number of girls wearing modern clothes is minimal.
Girls here seem to spend a heavenly amount on their make-up, in a hope to look heavenly of course. Sometimes, you think she is a blonde wearing a salwar, but it turns out that she has spent much of her money at a beauty parlour colouring it. Some wear lipstick in layers which borders on the gaudy, while others are restrained. Some wear burkhas that cover everything but their hands and eyes, while some are a lot more considerate. We are forewarned that our next stop on this tour – Peshawar – is Pathan territory and everyone is well-advised to keep his own counsel.
At Tariq Road, I looked for T-shirts. Most of the shops were highly priced and but for an Adidas or a Nike (whose T-shirts were priced sensationally) showroom, there was no branded stuff around. There was a good-looking bookstore where I asked the person in-charge to show me books by Pakistani authors. Well aware of the rampant piracy, I was circumspect about buying any books here. But one look at the shelf convinced me that it was a genuine bookstore with original books. Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice Candy Man was an original copy, and so was her anthology of writings on Lahore. Bina Shah and Tariq Ali were other writers introduced to me by the shopkeeper. It was a toss-up between the three writers as I wasn’t prepared to buy too many books when unsure of their quality. I was aware of only Sidhwa because Deepa Mehta made 1947-Earth from the Ice Candy Man. Shah’s and Ali’s were new names to me, but I felt that was more so because I had not come across their books in Bangalore. Sidhwa was far more popular, and maybe her books are widely available. But Shah and Ali, I wasn’t sure of, and I just had to get a decent Pakistani book. I settled on Ali’s Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree. This was supposedly a historical book which depicted the confrontation between Islamic and Christian civilizations in Spain. One of Shah’s books was in fact a lot more about Pakistan, but somehow, this appealed to me more. Also, Shadows… is the first in the quartet of books that Ali would write on the subject. It was also published by a local publication and not by someone like the Penguins, which meant it was for a very specific market here.
The disappointing part was the lack of cricket books. Sachin Tendulkar’s and Saurav Ganguly’s biographies sat with Javed Miandad’s book. A book by or about Geoffrey Boycott was also around and that was about that.
Dildar, who is now regularly bringing us breakfast and dinner, is more and more fascinated by his old city. He chats with us for quite a long time trying to tell his story, even though it seems he doesn’t want to divulge more depressing part of his life. His food is perhaps the first in Karachi which everyone liked. He makes rasam, sambar, chapatti (the softer Indian ones), poori, upma and even gets the smaller, Indian kind of rice. He overdoes the food part at times by bringing more than what is sufficient.
He says, a lot of his customers have told him to get a restaurant of his own. But finance, as for so many, is the problem. Sometimes I feel he isn’t entirely open about his story, but again, it is his story. Still, to hear someone talk about Bangalore, Chanpatna and Mysore, here in Karachi, is dumbfounding.
At the dinner table at the RCA, we were joined by two of the PCB officials – Muqaddar and Ali. These were the first people who spoke as if they knew a lot about India, especially Ali, who could talk on length about India’s economic policy, comparing it with Pakistan’s and acutely dissecting it. I must admit, I was taken aback when he started by complaining about growing privatization in India and its unabashed aping of the west. I couldn’t defend the second part, but at least told him about the menace that was corruption in government circles. "That is there," he said with the nod of the head. His long beard, T-shirt and trousers made him look like a discerning man who would accept only so much of modernity. "If I go to my village with these clothes, I won’t be received that well," he said. Unlike other Pakistanis we have met, he isn’t embarrassingly friendly to you. He can go on end talking about Pakistan and even the rest of the world and is cordial, but there is no unnecessary "Bhai-yaar" talk from him. It is only later I got to know that this scholarly confidence in his knowledge of the sub-continent comes from his journalist father who had been to India, and who, on that trip, had written a book on the country. Ali himself was a journalist in a leading organization. Later, having quit the post, he has joined the PCB, where he even bowls in the nets.
Muqaddar, on the other hand, was taken aback by the vulgarity of Indian cinema. I have to tell him, as I had done so many times before to so many other people, that what he sees is what is not, at least not entirely. He also asks about the cities of India, as to which is the most beautiful of them all. Now, it is a tough scale to rate Indian cities on their beauty quotient. But I took a call and said "Chandigarh."
"Among Delhi, Mumbai and the rest of big cities?" he asked. That was a little tougher. "Bangalore is better than many… well… maybe not anymore… Mumbai… maybe not… Delhi… not sure…" I simply wasn’t prepared for it. And I realized that even if I thought about it for ages, there was no easy answer to it.
01-Feb-2006
It was almost a certainty that India won’t last two days on the Karachi pitch, trying to save a match. In the first over that Shoaib Akhtar bowled, he got the only player who had the capacity to go close, Dravid. With two in-cutters, Mohammad Asif rocked the Indians further and when one of his straighter ones kept low, Tendulkar saw his wicket wheel out. All the while, the Karachi crowd was boisterous, and well-prepared for a victory bash. For many, the only consolation was Yuvraj’s century. But there was a period before lunch when Tendulkar played Akhtar in his old carefree spirit. A pull off a fast ball was the highlight and so were two of his stunning drives past either side of the wickets. But it was too good to last for too long, especially when the old prolific self refuses to rise back for Tendulkar. It has indeed been a long time since he played an innings which was made of daring batting. The 55 against Australia in Mumbai was as big an innings as his 155 against Australia at Chennai in 1998. But there hasn’t been many more. Surprisingly, the support that Ganguly gets here, Sachin hardly does. He still is the curly-haired baby boy who shocked the fans of Abdul Qadir and co, in 1989. He still is "one of the greats", as they call him. But he is lower down in the pecking order after Dhoni, Sehwag and Dravid. Ganguly is almost a sentimental favourite with many here. Tendulkar is a figure they need to respect for what he was and not for what he can do.
The pitch in Karachi must have brought relief to the cricket board. After Lahore and Faisalabad, there was no way the two teams could play out another dull draw. The amount of money that goes into staging a tournament of this nature is huge and pressure on the PCB was on from various quarters. Thankfully, there was a result, even if India might wonder as to what happened to the pitch when they batted for the second time.
The crowd had a great time at the stadium as our giant screen displayed live pictures throughout the day. The slo-mo camera showed (agonizing for the batsmen) the gradual movement of the stump going for a walk.
Tomorrow, in all probability, we will begin our long drive to Peshawar. 28-30 hours is what it might take. It is a small city, where "Pathan’s can be a bit cold to foreigners," said Ali. "But they are peace-loving people," he added as consolation.
02-Feb-2006
Like the Indian team, I am also looking forward to Peshawar. From every quarter of news that has come my way, it seems, at last, like something foreign for an Indian in Pakistan. Nobody is though sure of the time it might take to reach there from Karachi. They just gape at you when told about traveling by road. It is slightly scary given the fear of dacoits in a few of the highways.
Pakistan is divided into four provinces – Punjab, Sindh, North Western Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan. Of the three Test venues, Lahore and Faisalabad are in Punjab, while Karachi is in Sindh. Rawalpindi and Multan too are in Punjab, which is the most prosperous of the provinces thanks to its agriculture and relatively modern outlook of people. Sindh is full of dry areas and is a hotspot for robbery. But Karachi being a port city, the province is the second in the list. NWFP is the land of Pathans and much of it is covered by migrant Afghans who have made Pakistan their home over the years. Peshawar is the biggest town in this province. Close to the Afghan border, it is also one of the most sensitive ones. It may be recalled that during the last tour of India, Peshawar, along with Karachi, were discussed heavily to make sure they were safe venues. After that success and the spotless Karachi match this year, Peshawar too promises an uncontroversial game. The final province, Balochistan, is the biggest in terms of area covered. Quetta is one of the cities to have hosted a cricket match from the Balochistan area. Now though, there has been tension in the region.
While Lahore resembles Delhi and quite a lot of Punjab resembles north India, Karachi and much of Sindh look very similar to western India, especially like Gujarat. Peshawar, from what I have heard from various people, looks entirely different. The principle language here is Pashto, while Urdu too is spoken widely. Pathans are strong and combative, but generally peace-loving, I am told. They are extremely protective of their women who are covered from head-to-toe in cloth. Foreigners generally do not warm them, and they are sticklers for custom and orthodoxy. Since the match is going to be held during the Moharram days, we have been advised not to play music of any kind in the stadium before, during or after the match. This is also the reason why Peshawar’s hosting the game was in doubt and eventually, a four-day gap was decided on between the first and second One-Dayer.
One of the groundsmen in the National Stadium, Karachi, comes from the Peshawar-Rawalpindi area. As he talks about the nature of the journey that might be, he mentions the destruction caused by the earthquake in areas adjoining the hills. His house too was destroyed in the disaster. This is supposedly a reason why dry fruits from those places have failed to grow.
Like many in the PCB, he too is impressed by our work and suggests we cross Sindh under sunlight as the stretch near Mirpur and its surrounding areas is infested by dacoits. "Policemen might stop you on the way as they normally make movies of passengers traveling by road in the night. It helps in future investigation if something happens during the journey," he says. "Once when I was traveling by bus, seven of the forty-eight passengers stood up and took out their guns. You never know what can happen there," he added. This was something which didn’t surprise us. Even during the Lahore-Karachi journey, our mini-bus driver, Ehsaan, had advised an overnight stay as we had approached Sindh. Here too, he suggested we leave early, maximum by about three in the afternoon, as to cross Sindh, it would take close to ten hours. He also said it should take around 24 hours to reach Peshawar from Karachi, only that, "Insha Allah."
In the afternoon, as we waited for everyone to finish their packing-up chores, it became clear that our start would be a lot later than what was hoped. "It might be around six in the evening," Ganesh had said. This indeed was a difficult situation. We had to reach Peshawar by noon, on the fourth. But starting so late meant that we would need a night to while away, just to be away from any risk. That would mean around three-four hours of travel today. Why not take the day off, and leave early in the morning, Irfan, the online ticket sales man had wondered. This seemed to be the best idea of the lot. From Ehsaan’s admission, if he could drive non-stop, we’d reach Peshawar by four in the morning on the fourth. In fact, if his calculation was right, we might as well rest for a couple of hours during the journey and still reach in time. It was also much better in the RCA than in a run-down hotel on the highway. So, it was decided that we would start at four in the morning tomorrow.
Meanwhile, we had asked Dildar to pack food for the journey. He had run around the city like a madman in order to make Lemon Rice and Curd Rice. When he arrived huffing and puffing to give us the food, he was surprised to find us in no hurry. It must not have been entirely disappointing to see that his effort was in vain as he sat down to chat for a few hours. During the conversation, he appeared to tell the entire truth. He had earlier said that his uncle had adopted him. Now, he told me that his story was a little more filmy. He had fallen in love with his uncle’s daughter, who was a Pakistani, and against his mother’s wishes, had come to Pakistan. His mother, a strong-willed woman, had denounced him since then; so much so that till now, she doesn’t send him mail. His father though is a very soft man, "henpecked," he says. All this drama has put him in such a state that he wants to return, but cannot, given his obligation to his wife and children.
"Why don’t you just visit India once and come back?" I had asked.
"See. I have met you guys in the last week. And I find it hard to go out and not speak Kannada. If I go to India and meet my friends and family, I am sure I won’t be coming back," he said. "But it will be very difficult for my wife and children to get a hassle-free stay there."
03-Feb-2006
We are just twenty minutes late to our planned departure time. Everyone in the Academy, including the ticket distributors have left for Peshawar. We leave the RCA deserted, but for a PCB employee who stayed back only to shut the door after we left. This time, the journey starts off uncomfortably. The Coaster, our mini-bus, is overloaded with luggage. Even the roof is packed to capacity. There is just enough space now for seven of us to sit tight, for a journey promising to cover just 1500 kms.
Ehsaan warns us we might have a problem with the vehicle somewhere in the highways given the enormous load mounted on it. But the luggage has to travel and that too, in the given time. Everything is set and the Coaster weaves and wobbles on the dirt tracks of the RCA and hits the deserted roads of Karachi rather smoothly. The clock below the mirror in front of the driver shows the time as 4:19. I tried to make myself as comfortable as I could but not many mini-buses are made for long legs like mine.
Peshawar is to the west of Lahore and Rawalpindi. There is something called the G.T. Road in Peshawar which was a subject of an interesting discussion that Ali had started a couple of days back. When I asked him to suggest a good book that can tell me about Pakistan, its history and people, he had instead taken it upon himself to tell me the story. "70% of Pakistanis are refugees from the carnage of Partition, while the rest are migrant tribes from Afghanistan. It is perhaps the only country which doesn’t have people of its own," he had said. As he went on about the country and its people, he mentioned the G.T. Road. This was the road which originally connected Calcutta to Kabul, he said. It was indeed a fascinating detail which when thought of in today’s times, puts politics in proper perspective. There was a mutual affinity among Afghans and Indians in the past, but thanks to various turns of events and simple politics, it is hard to imagine the two criss-crossing borders. Peshawar was as close as I could get to Afghanistan.
We would not take the long route the trains took from Karachi. They went straight to Lahore and from there, via Pindi, reached Peshawar. If one went by road taking this route, it would take longer than what Ehsaan had in mind. He felt going the Sukkur, Kashmore Gate, Rajanpur, D.I. Khan route was the best drive possible. All we wanted was to reach Peshawar as early as possible and it was to be the route we decided to take.
It was a mundane journey till Kashmore gate. There was occasional traffic and no policeman had stopped us. It was at Kashmore gate that we were stopped for the first time. Now that Ehsaan had a card, he spoke in Urdu and showed it to the police. Everybody respected someone related so closely to cricket, it seemed. Some of the cops offered us tea, while some pleaded for tickets. Nobody harassed us.
The landscape hardly interested me anymore as it was the same muddy houses-parched lands of Sindh that I had seen in the earlier travel. Now, added to this was the weather. It was scorching hot. As the afternoon went by, Sindh began to fade as Punjab took over. And as if by coincidence, the green fields returned. The heat stayed though. Somewhere, a milestone read, "Quetta, 380 kms". Balochistan would be the only province where I wouldn’t be traveling to. What made it an even more enigmatic province was the decoration on the trucks from that place. As the evening wore on and the sun set, the trucks was still visible. The artwork was with fluorescent material, and the owners had made sure that his expenditure would not go waste at dark. The aerodynamics would put any formula one engineer to test. The front part of many trucks has a raised hood which can at times be used for extra passengers. Some of the vehicles are hardly visible from the back thanks to the huge weight on them. Onions, buffaloes and cotton are few of the frequent travelers.
It is difficult to choose between the North West Frontier Province and Balochistan for the most enigmatic places one can visit. With its proximity to Afghanistan, NWFP carries with it its stock of rumours. But more immediately for us, it was the difference in the kind of people that we were to meet which was intriguing. Peshawar was always a dicey venue for cricket matches for some reason. The image one gathered was that it was not safe for tourists; the Afghan connection only reinforcing the belief. As you enter the province though, you find the same hospitality that you met in Punjab and Sindh. People look a touch different, but not too much out of sink with the rest of the country. The first important sounding place we enter in NWFP is Dera Ghazi Khan. This was named after a leader of a Kabila in the times of the tribals. A few scores of miles later, you get into a place named after his brother, Dera Ismail Khan. Number plates on vehicles originating from these places say, D.G. Khan or D.I. Khan. Nothing much happened here, but the names are worth remembering.
04-Feb-2006
We reached within striking distance of Peshawar by midnight. Taking a break of around three hours at a petrol bunk proved a good idea. For all the traveling that you make on some of the most improbably difficult stretches on this route, a good view of Kohat, some 50 kms from Peshawar, is well-deserved. It is the quintessential sleepy-little town (at least at 6 in the morning) amongst the majesty of large, commanding mountains. To take you to Peshawar from these exotic surroundings, a top-class tunnel has been built in this area. Resembling the tunnels of Mumbai-Pune expressway, it is the pride of this place. "Aisa tunnel aapne nahi dekha hoga," you are told. "No, there are many such beautiful ones in India," you say. "Achcha. Aisa nahi hoga lekin," they come back.
At last, we enter Peshawar by 7:30 in the morning. It is school time in this conservative city. Everyone’s looking at our mini-bus; old Pathans, burkha-covered ladies, young men, plump kids. By the time we make it to the hotel, Peshawar has looked a lot different than Lahore or Karachi. It has also sounded a lot different. Pushto is the major language here and every starts off in it. "Urdu, Urdu," Ehsaan urges them. They immediately talk with a heavy Afghani accent while directing us. Feroz Khan comes to mind. Suddenly you realize there is a distinct look to the Peshawar people. Now it becomes obvious to imagine Umar Gul and Younis Khan as players from this place (Yasir Hameed doesn’t seem to have such features though).
As we reach the hotel, from inferred history and doctrined current-affairs, we are extremely cautious. It becomes more uncomfortable when the hotel authorities ask for our passports. But we soon get it back which is a relief. However, being the Moharram month, we contemplate, for the first time, the appropriate dress to wear. "Jeans might not be proper," is one of the verdicts, "No ogling at girls," is a widely accepted mantra. No loud music, no unnecessary camera-work, no arguments with locals; no this, no that; the enigma that is Peshawar has indeed begun to change us.
In the evening, we decide the long stay indoors is getting too claustrophobic despite the uncertainty of night-life in the city outside. We venture out to the right of the hotel and find what we expected. Long-bearded guards with automatic rifles and empty streets. There is hardly any sign of women on these streets. A few old men walk silently and just a few vehicles seem ready to use the roads. We decided to beat a quick retreat. This does look ominous; no wonder there is a safety issue here. As we make our way back, the area on the left of our hotel looked to more populous. Here, there were shops, lights and people. There were also a few women with there faces uncovered. This only put us into a dilemma. You weren’t advised to stare but you couldn’t help staring. There was a mosque nearby with tall, stern men looking all the more serious. This put us off a little bit more. We marched on a few paces and found a few CD shops. We marched on a little and found a couple of men wearing jeans. We marched on a little and found young couples, walking laughing, and joking. We marched on a little and found a shop with a glass window, having a huge cut-out of a red-coloured heart, wishing us, "Happy Valentine’s Day". Hell, no wonder there is a safety issue in Peshawar. It is a land of the conservatives; of Muslim orthodoxy; of intolerance; of illiteracy; of violent tribals, etc. Well, we were in Peshawar, and it looked like Brigade Road on a Sunday.
This was a welcome dose of confidence. From then on, much of Pakistan has looked familiar. Further down the street, we found a book and CD shop which was selling a Viv Richards autobiography. There was also a very run-down copy of Shahid Afridi’s 37-ball hundred in Nairobi. This was an innings which is strangely absent from TV screens. I only remember this from a next-day newspaper. Afridi, a 16-year old, had made this world record against Jaysuriya’s Sri Lanka. Never have I been able to believe that Afridi’s reported age is accurate. As a corroboration of that idea, the graphic introducing him to the crease on that day shows him to be a 21-year-old!
05-Feb-2006
Peshawar is the only place so far which has provided me with easy access to newspapers. So what if they are priced exorbitantly. The cheapest English newspaper here is the Frontier Post. With strange news and even stranger English, it is an amusing compilation. These days a few cartoons in a Danish newspaper are being protested against and this city is in the forefront of the agitation. There are stories on tribal leaders not feeling comfortable with each other and also of a wanted man in these areas called Akbar Bugti. Somewhere in the sports page of one newspaper, there is an article, apparently taken from Cricinfo, which quotes Rahul Dravid as wanting to find a bowler who could take 20 wickets in Test matches! The amazing part of this piece of reporting is that other newspapers too carried the news, saying the same thing. Either Dravid missed an "s" after "bowler", or Pakistan’s media did.
Peshawar’s Arbab Niaz Stadium is a small ground when compared to the Gaddafis and the National Stadiums of Pakistan. Starved of international action for some time, this stadium is expected to be full for the first ODI between the hosts and India. The players had been to the Khyber Pass area. They had been kept largely inaccessible to the local tribes there. One report spoke about the disappointed locals who feared they were bound to be misunderstood as uncivilized goons thanks to the behaviour of security-men.
Around the hotel, we have been warned of the dangers lurking nearby. A few kilometers from here would lead us to a place where strangers are shot without warning, we are told. Some parts of the city are notorious for robberies. But there is not much time for us to go around looking for trouble what with tomorrow’s match promising to be an interesting one.

Forbidden Neighbourhood - III

23-Jan-2006
Thanks to the lack of television in the rooms in the RCA, we had to spend time in the mini-bus which had the television set. With the Pakistani driver and his attendant as company, it made for lively atmosphere. Dhoni’s hundred might be recorded as one on a flat batting surface, but the time at which he got it and the time in which he got it has to be admired. For a batting line-up, with a batsman short, and with half the side out, he and Pathan played beautifully. The pulled six of Shoaib Akhtar when Dhoni was new at the crease has to be one of the best shots of the tournament. It has been a long time since an Indian batsman has played that shot to a fast bowler. Tendulkar tries that occasionally in One-Dayers and Yuvraj and Dravid normally play the ball down, while Ganguly took apart medium pacers. This reminded me of Lance Klusener’s six against Akhtar in the 1999 World Cup. It was similar as it was flat and against a fast, rising ball.
Outside the National Stadium in Karachi, the shops and hawkers infesting the area give it a feel of a good, proper sub-continental city. Few second-hand book-sellers placed their carts for full display and exhibited the latest of Harry Potter books and a few everyday bestsellers as well. On closer view I found the Harry Potters to be pirated. That didn’t surprise me as much as to find Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice Candy Man. The back-cover had the proper Penguin logo with the price mentioned as Rs.250. As I walked a few yards ahead, there was a book fair on. Here, much of the books were by Americans and Indians. Shobha De and Khushwant Singh were prominent, and so was Vikram Seth. But no, there were not many Pakistani writers o the shelves. There was a sports section where biographies of Arthur Ashe, Bjorn Borg and even Glenn Hoddle were neatly laid, but no, there weren’t any books on cricket. This was a slightly better collection of books than in the normal book fairs in Bangalore. Here, at least, over-published and under-par American books were accompanied by under-read English and Indian books. In Bangalore, there are piles and piles of poor quality American books, and nothing much else.
After buying nothing there, I went to a proper bookshop which seemed to have original books of various kinds. But even here, Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice Candy Man was a pirated copy. At least, her memoir on Lahore was an original copy. Another country which had a major presence in this bookstore was Afghanistan. I bought a copy of My Khyber Marriage, a book I hadn’t heard of till then. It is a story of a British woman’s marriage to an Afghan Pathan and even though it looks almost like a pirated copy, I took the risk of buying it anyway. One of my friends, an avid reader of books, once told me that buying pirated books beats the very purpose of reading them. It is something which I too began to feel. Firstly, it is cheating the writer and his publisher. Secondly, the price advantage that a pirated book has over its original can be overcome with a bit of browsing at a second-hand bookshop.
Strangely, the only piracy that makes news in India is that of commercial films. Nagesh Kukunoor, in a seminar, had been scathing in his attack on the film-makers who complain about piracy. "When you can’t make an original film, how can you expect others to be honest?" Pakistan has a huge market for pirated films, and it does rouse suspicion as to why, in this time of cordiality, the cinemas here are prohibited from screening Hindi films. The argument that Indian cinema eats into the Pakistani market is valid; but so it is now, with video parlours openly selling Indian films, and the average movie-buff making no bones of his liking for Bollywood and its stars. One DVD-seller promised me that Rang De Basanti (released on the 20th in India) will be out on DVD here by 27th!
24-Jan-2006
I found the reason why English newspapers in Pakistan aren’t omnipresent. They are priced at ridiculous rates. The Dawn and the Nation go at around Rs. 15 per copy and even if they do have a few supplements to claim, it still is a huge amount when you consider the Indian market where newspapers are slashing prices to survive the intense competition. Even Urdu newspapers are said to be priced at over Rs. 5 per copy; some costing around Rs. 8. In many ways, Pakistan’s is a small market, where the demand is far lesser than India’s and the supply is limited. This being the case in almost every category of business, the cost of many products is on the higher side. But a newspaper for Rs. 15 has put me off the business of getting to know the world.
At Faisalabad, meanwhile, Dhoni, Pathan and much of the Indian lower-order showed precisely why the pitches here are costing so much to the bowlers on either side. Sometimes, in the sub-continent, the fear of losing on a fast pitch sends teams down the safe lane. On a green-top, either team can win, but on a flat track, everybody goes home happy.
At the National Stadium in Karachi, the practice pitch looks green, alright. As hard as conventional One-Day wickets, but it has quite a growth of grass, whatever that means to the teams.
25-Jan-2006
The second Test at Faisalabad was as much a dull draw as that at Lahore; this being a trifle more embarrassing for men who have been asked to answer. After the Lahore Test, almost every expert was sure that Faisalabad was to be a fiery wicket. Imran Khan drew an analogy to 1978-79 when after a terribly boring first Test, two green-tops were prepared. But as the wish-list showed only one necessity the curators at the Iqbal Stadium still looked perturbed by the sheer helplessness wrought by the cold weather. More than one person, in defence of the curators, has come out and said that it was next to impossible to prepare any better wickets given the weather conditions in Punjab. When asked as to how England makes seaming tracks, they say there is a difference between the climates in the two places. Whatever the reason, this cannot be an excuse for the curators at Karachi. This port city is burning hot during the day and gets cold as the sun sets.
The pitch has been covered with sheets of water-proof material. Sarfaraz Nawaz, the former Pakistan fast bowler, and now an expert with the local PTV, felt, the grass that has been left on the pitch at Karachi might actually die out before the match starts. He said the water-proof material which has been put on the pitch will suffocate the grass and unlike the mobile, ventilated coverings in places like England and Australia, there might not be much as has been so believed by few.
Sarfaraz was quite a standout in the studio-discussion for the cricket match on the PTV. The impression that he is a terminally ill patient of the foot-in-mouth disease is not entirely true. Accompanying Mushtaq Mohammad and an insufferable anchor, he displayed commonsense with his talk. The anchor, Mohsin Khan (is he the cricket player?), spoke as if he was the successor to Richie Benaud, and worse, as if people wanted to listen to him. At one point, during a replay of one of Dhoni’s innings, the graphic on screen showed only the runs and the balls taken. Taken up a non-existent case onto himself, he called for his studio mates, "Minutes dikhao, Minutes hai?" clearly audible to the viewer. After getting the answer in the negative, he added, "Oh theek hai." At times, when Mushtaq would go back in his time machine to draw out a story from the past, our anchor would repeat the whole thing in his customary all-knowing fashion. Before you knew, and he knew of course, the lunch break would be over and for once, the cricket felt better. In all this mental disintegration the anchor caused of such an epidemic nature, Sarfaraz would end up answering just one or two questions. With the discussion completely concerned with Pakistan’s day in the field, Sarfaraz and Mushtaq would make an effort or two put things into perspective; with the former hailing Dhoni as a true batsman and Mushtaq giving India due credit.
26-Jan-2006
There were more witnesses today who were prepared to wager on a three-day Karachi Test match. The pitch is taking up so much of the discussion here that people looking for tickets at the ground too have made sure the subject isn’t confined to the experts’ domain. The effect of the two horrible Test matches can be seen here. 15,000 free tickets have been announced for the third Test and the pitch, though shrouded by cover (and in partial mystery), has taken huge importance. Some people, expecting free tickets, went back when told that the only ones available in the counters today were of the Rs. 100 denomination. While the public and the media have been scathing in their attack of the curators, some officials are certain that they aren’t to blame.
Irfan, an employee of the PCB and a man looking after the online ticket bookings, was sure that the only reason for the poor quality of pitches was the weather. He also promised, as have so many in Karachi, that the third Test will not be a drawn match. There have been about 100 tickets bought by Indians online today and there are few more expected, he said. It isn’t just fans who are attracted to the contest, films stars are flying here for the One-Day series. "Aishwarya aa rahi hai," he added.
It was Irfan’s presence though which helped us play a game of cricket on the RCA grounds today. With the manual scoreboard as the wicket-keeper and the three boards displaying the runs scored in the last match played here as the wickets, it was a painful afternoon of cricket. Empty spaces on the leg side just wouldn’t help as an odd ball connected with the bat and there being just one fielder, there was a lot of running and throwing to do. It was with the tape-ball that we played and this one had white cellophane tape pasted precisely on it. The seam was made of a layer of such tapes. In Lahore, I had an opportunity to just bowl medium-pace. But here, I tried spinning it and the result wasn’t as good. It spins very much like a new leather-ball does; an almost obligatory deviation to acknowledge the bowler’s effort, unlike the gripping and spitting of the rubber balls. But thanks to the smoothness of the surface, you cannot grip it as well as the cricket balls. I wonder if the lack of spin bowlers in Pakistan has something to do with it. "Shoaib Malik hai naa," said Irfan, when asked about the next spinner after Danish Kaneria that Pakistan has. When told that he is a batsman now, he said, "Arshad Khan." "He is old, any new ones around," we asked. "Not that I know of," he said. However, if we ask the question to ourselves, we would realize that there isn’t much after Kumble and Harbhajan. It looks even grimmer when you consider that Harbhajan has gone without a wicket in two successive Tests and Murali Kartik, the next in line, is close to thirty.
27-Jan-2006
It is believed that Karachi is very close to Mumbai because of the cosmopolitan nature of the city. Quite a lot of Sindhis, Gujrathis and even South Indians live here. It is also one of the more open cities of the country. This is also one of the reasons why the Mumbai-Karachi analogy gains credence. Both cities are fast, industrious and modern, but both are weighed down by intense nationalists. Also, both have been subject to violence in recent times. It is said that there is a very good chance one can get mugged here if one flaunted his affluence. The city is notorious for its thefts, which invariably are achieved with guns in hand, pointed on the temple of the victim. Now, many say, it has reduced, but the fear is predominant. We have been told to keep away of a few areas, just in case. We have also been told to keep our mobiles firmly in our pockets and not to display them in the open, as it attracts evil eyes. But so far, as much as I wanted not to use the cliché, Karachi looks and feels like India; even though I am not sure it is a Mumbai.
There is the first sign that work will start for the first time since arriving in Pakistan. Somehow the legalities have been put in place and it looks that there is, after all, a chance to do something.
Sehwag was overheard saying to someone that the Test would last not more than four days. The pitch is green on the surface and every bowler is just licking his lips at the prospect of getting his own back on this tour.
28-Jan-2006
Every ground that you see in Pakistan bears a neat look. Unlike plenty of poorly maintained, but hugely prosperous, Indian stadiums, here, Pepsi’s sponsorship has played a big role. Everywhere there is a Pepsi logo, but the grounds are in top shape. The National Stadium at Karachi is no different. Well-kept seats, with ample space between the stands and the fences separating them from the ground, very good outfield and hopefully a good pitch, too.
The Indian walked into the National Stadium for practice after a day out at the Sea-side. Somewhat along the lines of the Marine Drive in Mumbai, the Sea-side is a famous spot for the city revelers. Inzamam has a very small chance of playing tomorrow and I have absolutely no clue of who is going to replace him in that eventuality. India might play Ganguly as the sixth batsman and given the confidence among groundsmen here, that sixth batsman might be extremely important.
At the stadium, I, for the first time on this tour, meet people of similar age and occupation. Engineers and advertising professionals are among them. All of them are curious to know about India, and for once, they are aware enough not to ask basic handshake questions that during a long tour can exasperate you with its monotony. Quite a lot of them have a good idea of various states of India and wish only to know the kind of people that there are. Some have even graduated to that level with their keen interest in chatting. Some wanted to know the kind of softwares that are being used in India. And nobody ever talks about Pakistani movies. Movies, to them, start and end with commercial Hindi cinema made in Mumbai. With them though, unlike their slightly older compatriots, there is a firm feeling that they would visit India. So much so, that they talk about it without the slightest of doubt in their minds. Their desire might stem out of various factors – tourism, sentimentality, adventure or even professional, but visiting India is just another journey for them.
However, in all the time that I have been in Pakistan and met its peoples, everyone has grabbed on to that part of Indo-Pak relations that presents a fantastic, emotional, friendly relationship. Nobody has, understandably, spoken about the bitterness that exists between the two nations. It does get a passing mention, but is a convenient rejection of politics spread by "siyasathi taakatein".
And even in the third week of our stay in Karachi, it is hard for people to understand the concept of vegetarianism. With our cooking in full throttle at the RCA, the new inmates from the PCB find it hard to get used to it. Thankfully, they have restricted their cooking to bread and toast.
29-Jan-2006
This was the most eventful day of the tour so far. The day started with Rahul Dravid winning the toss and electing to field. It was also the day when we were to start working for the first time, inside the National Stadium. And it was also the first time I saw a hat-trick live. When Pathan got those three wickets in the first over, who would have thought that Pakistan could get out of jail. I did. It was not very far back in history when Pakistan, 26/6 at the Eden Gardens, clawed back into the match thanks to their wicket-keeper Moin Khan and Salim Malik. Here, it was the present ‘keeper, Kamran Akmal, who did the trick. Yet again, Sachin Tendulkar was out to Abdul Razzaq, and it was another of his inside-edges. The huge crowd that had gathered at the National Stadium could not believe that from 39/6, Pakistan could get to 245, and take four of Indian wickets. My presence at cricket grounds hasn’t been lucky for Tendulkar and some day, I hope to see a century from him. This wasn’t the innings, though there was a good chance on a pitch that was getting better by the day. The four-day Test theory was looking all the more acceptable, only that some had prepared themselves for a third-day finish.
If the first day of the Test was dramatic, we weren’t prepared for the major surprise that awaited us. As packing up after the match took some time and with nobody in a mood to prepare food, we were off to Ponderosa. But on the way, we saw a roadside stall claiming to make "Bangalore’s real masala dosa". The idea that one could even make such a claim was intriguing. So, taking an about-turn, we went to the stall owner and asked for masala dosa. As it turned out, that guy was from Bangalore, spoke Kannada and was a fan of Rajkumar. The first thing that struck me was that, of all the people in Karachi, we were to find a man who from Ulsoor and who had his roots in Krishnagiri (hence, spoke passable Tamil). As we made small talk with him in Kannada, it became apparent that his was a story the kind of which I had only perhaps read in books or watched in movies.
Dildar Ahmed was born and brought up in India. He lived in Bangalore with his parents. At some point (he wasn’t clear as to when), he was adopted by his uncle, who was childless, and brought to Pakistan. Since then, he has been to the gulf, but not to India. A man still longing to visit his old home, family and friends there, he has been craving for an opportunity. The moment he heard two of us speak in Kannada, he was stunned. His joy knew no bounds and his hands prepared the dough and put it on the stove, but his mind was flying through recalling old experiences, reviving past memories and remembering forgotten friends.
As the twenty dosas we ordered came one after the other, his mind would simply not rest. Bangalore had suddenly become an exotic place with so many things he wanted to enquire about and, it seemed, wanted to overcome the backlog of 15-odd years away from the city. He had known something about the city from his relatives, who had visited him recently. But still, there was something more to know and he had time only till the twenty dosas were gobbled-up. With tears in his eyes, he went back in time to tell us his bizarre fate which landed him, of all places, in Pakistan. Here, he had no friends and not even any frequent relative. His uncle, who had brought him here, had long died. It was his uncle’s daughter, to whom he was married to. He spoke Urdu at home, and everywhere else in Karachi. On a good day at the office, he might get a Kannada-speaking customer; on a good day at home, his radio might catch a Kannada station. But that was as much as was allowed to him as part of his past. When he met us, it was a bolt from the blue, an opportunity, rare as it might be, to see those days from our eyes.
There was more to his story. He had been to the gulf and had learnt cooking through various classes. He owned a car in which he sold food. He said, "One night, when I was returning home, robbers accosted me, put a gun to my head, and took away all my money." Now, he had this stall. He wasn’t quite clear as to what happened to his car. But that wasn’t a question that could be easily asked on the day. There was so much he wanted to know. "I heard that Rajkumar was kidnapped by Veerappan," he said.
After getting married in Pakistan, he has four children, all very young to share in his disappointments, and all too young to understand his melancholic nostalgia.
Very soon, it was apparent that there was a deep deposit of bitterness in him, at the detachment from his parents, and at his inability in going back to India. "I want to go back to India. If I go there, I won’t come back," he says, as he deals rather brusquely with few other customers. "But now, it is not possible. I might not have a problem, but my wife and children will have a tough time to go back with me," he added. Almost instantaneously, he asked, "Do you have any Kannada songs of old?"
To us, me and Kiran, it was unbelievable that someone could stay out of Karnataka for close to two decades and still speak Kannada when all this time of his was spent conversing in Urdu. It is a lot easier for someone to remember Tamil and Malayalam, but not Kannada, and that too at a time when Bangalore itself is using less of the language.
As we left his stall, after ordering tomorrow’s breakfast, and went towards Saddar, a busy marketplace and then to our rooms, the meeting with Dildar looked all the more surprising. The odds on us finding such a man in Karachi was indeed very high. But it had happened, and when we saw the effort he put to contain his tears, I could understand, the trauma of such detachment; a detachment, though basically between people, but which appears to have severed everything else that surrounded them.
Saddar is a place where one can find all kinds of merchandise. From clothes to CDs to photo shops to carpenters, it has everything. The only problem is that much of it is closed by 9.30 in the night. CD shops here have a collection of Hindi and English films. I am told that there has been a raid on piracy of late and hence, the newer Indian films haven’t made the market yet; at least they aren’t on the shelves, in the open.