Harder than arabic

HTML wasn't a tough language to learn, from what I recall. Typical of a school subject to fail you when you need it most. I give up modifying this template.

Ps. The white bar on the right? It's not by design.

Red channel

Starting today, this very moment, I've decided to have an on-and-off column right here for all the interesting news and innuendo heard in conversations, but can't use. It won't be regular, and I'll make full use of this format. And since being sued isn't much fun, the language will be indirect at times (This writing style will be familiar to readers of this blog, who wander in to read about things like clouds and the futility of driving).

Adam Gilchrist's retirement makes me sad. It was all so sudden, and just after a few disappointing Tests. But at least the timing's great, right? Because isn't the BCCI about to enforce a ruling that retiring players can't participate in the IPL for at least two years?

Absolutely sinister news dept: Is Lalit Modi's little monster, the IPL, about to affect the international cricket calendar? Word is, yes. We can't verify whether the West Indies Cricket Board has been approached (and whether other boards have been contacted) to not schedule any cricket between March/April and May/June from this year onward after their existing cricketing commitments are met. The ICC's looking more and more like the damn UN.

Boots pic by Dragass on Flickr

Truth in journalism

Lately I've had the sort of rough time I didn't quite anticipate. At Mint, when a story had to be written by the end of the day, I presented everyone's view - in cable operator versus broadcaster stories the views were diametrically opposite - and moved on to the conflicts between the two. Partly why I left the paper was because publishing everyone's views in a story doesn't qualify as the truth. And the satisfaction at having handed in a story is offset by the usefulness of the piece. In fact, as I'm finding out these days while I do my own research, a whole bunch of views are just lies told to journalists who should have found the time to do more.

The problem is, I now have the time, and it still isn't getting any better. The lying has reached new dimensions, because the stakes are higher due to the fact that a journalist has more time on his hands. As a result, I'm going to go mad by the time 2009 comes along.

A cricket historian digs up the past

And what results ain't pretty.

In a classy denunciation, Gideon Haigh sticks it to Sunil Gavaskar for his divisive column, in which Gavaskar breezily surmised that since Sachin Tendulkar's version of events had not convinced the match referee, his reputation was in doubt. First the provocation:

"This is what has incensed the millions of Indians who are flabbergasted that the word of one of the greatest players in the history of the game, Sachin Tendulkar, was not accepted. In effect, Tendulkar has been branded a liar by the match referee."

And Haigh's response:

"Again with the "millions of Indians"! It's not me folks - it's those "millions of Indians". In fact, this debating point is a much less impressive notion that it seems. India has a population of 1.13 billion. There's probably at least a few million who believe in flying saucers. Should we really pay them serious heed?"

The part of his response I've posted isn't the best bit, but it highlights Gavaskar's manner of presenting his opinions and biases. It's something I've noticed about Gavaskar on television - he says things you've heard before, things that are safe, things that fit in with the sensibilities of a majority. Case in point, the first day's play at Perth, and Sehwag on strike. Gavaskar: "There's no footwork there." Heck, I'm a half-assed cricket writer and even I could tell you that Sehwag doesn't have footwork in the traditional sense, but then, surely, we could be told how exactly he plays. But no, don't expect much insight, because for that a commentator needs to think about commentary and put some work in to it. The last time I spoke to them, the folks at ESPN-Star weren't happy with Gavaskar's work ethic.

Anyway. Haigh goes on to say, quite rightly, that Gavaskar's role as a columnist is at odds with his post as an administrator for the ICC. He also picks up a few passages from a book by Gavaskar to illustrate the man's own thoughts on race. Here's one bit:

"To call the crowd a 'crowd' in Jamaica is a misnomer. It should be called a 'mob'. The way they shrieked and howled every time Holding bowled was positively horrible. They encouraged him with shouts of 'Kill him, Maaaan!' 'Hit im Maan!', 'Knock his head off Mike!' All this proved beyond a shadow of doubt that these people still belonged to the jungles and forests, instead of a civilised country.... "

Read the whole thing. It's excellent. Reasoned, well-researched cricket writing like this is pretty rare today - is there anyone but him and Guha? - and, additionally, this particular piece is more satisfying because it delves on an issue Indian administrators studiously ignore: precisely what value does Gavaskar bring to the administration and growth of cricket?

A note on the reader comments in Haigh's article. What is it about Indian comment posters? You'd imagine that these are the "millions of Indians" Gavaskar talks about - a witless mob led by a crank. Haigh'll probably cry himself to sleep beside Trumper after reading the comments, because it's all so pointless in these message boards.

Sigh

Slow, quiet evening. Crap on the radio. I miss Dubai. (Photo from here.)

Away from it all

Elsewhere, on this calm morning, India have gone to the beach. After days of fury, it's comforting to know that they're by the sea. There are others making noise for them, burning effigies, posturing, and drawing boundaries. News channels are pulling out old footage to show us that obnoxiousness is an old Australian trait. Historians are apoplectic to the point of madness. Our news anchors look grave and ask questions that are pointed only in appearance. Rajiv Shukla, a politician, defends 'our players'. A great bowler returns to say Australians play hard and fair. Everywhere there is affront and offence. Everywhere there is patriotism of some kind.

A wasteful bowler, the man at the center, becomes a 'Sikh warrior'. Australia's cricketers are called wild dogs, besides much else. What does this say of our ability to transform normal men in to something else? Every flaw has disappeared, and these are either men undone or a pack of dogs.

The umpires too are not spared. A cricketing nation rages around them, trying to have them sacked, demoted, or disappear. Flaws are charming, it says, but not so many. But we cannot have technology doing the job either. So good luck to these umpires, who get 96% of their decisions right, and let us hope for them that god is on their side whenever India plays.

I can think of several people who'd be well-served by a trip to the beach during high tide.

Boria for president

The highlight of this fabulous day was Boria Majumdar blowing a gasket on Times Now. Here was the angriest man on television demanding that the board back its players to the hilt. "What use our economic strength, our clout," he spat in to the phone, "if you don't support your players?" (He said something like it.) Pity these orphans - abandoned by the match referee, the umpires, and all Australians. Speaking of which, Boria was pretty certain Australia were given a fair hearing and India weren't. It's great to see an intellectual giant like him contribute to all this in a meaningful way. And he wasn't done yet, by the way. He dusted off the old administration for show. Remember 2001, he said, when the board didn't go through official channels, and used its clout to have its way. That was legendary. 'And all this board can say', he spluttered - turning red - 'is no comment?!' Boria, if nothing else, we love the way you scream on television.

Waffling around

I wrote this piece for Mint to coincide with the Boxing Day Test today. Two ideas: balls haven't changed much over the course of the game; second, these measures to have day-night Tests and pink balls and whatnot are just diversions from where cricket might actually be headed - the league format.

Go beyond repackaging

India is due to start its cricket campaign against Australia today. Test cricket’s audience has dropped for years. Could day-night Tests be the answer?

They could be a brilliant spectacle and will attract a larger audience, as Cricket Australia officials recently explained. The opposition from cricketers and most media has been intense. The fear: Test cricket is about to lose its sanctity by being tied to commercial needs.

But is it? For years, Tests, as we know them, have evolved from even, balanced competitions to encounters where batsmen celebrate on flat pitches. Bats have evolved, bouncers have been checked, but the science of cricket balls, around which the game revolves, has not advanced beyond minute tinkering. This, in effect, makes it a batsman’s game, with the bowler severely disadvantaged (Is there any other sport where the balance between contestants is so unequal?).

Whether due to boring encounters or other choices on television and in life, people have steadily trickled away from Test cricket. One-day cricket, while still popular in India, is saturated elsewhere. Cricket’s response to this has been Twenty20, and we all know how that’s gone. But cricket is headed somewhere else, somewhere obvious, and these innovations seem like bells and whistles. A prototype of its future lies in leagues such as the Indian Cricket League (ICL) and Indian Premier League (IPL).

When players aren’t represented by countries, the market gets to work. It chooses players from everywhere, whether a Canadian batting talent or a freakish leg-spinner from Chad. Where the player comes from becomes irrelevant because he isn’t held back by the limitations of his national side. Had market forces been at work, a very capable bunch of Zimbabweans and Kenyans would have had extended careers and more games to play. And would anyone recommend Brian Lara continue playing for West Indies instead of a Galacticos equivalent? Would there be no takers for Mark Ramprakash? It would also be ruthless. Great players in poor form would be dropped with fewer reservations.

Right now, all cricket is doing in the name of progress is playing with uniform colours, and timing and scheduling—apart from Twenty20, which has so far been as much a bowler’s game as a batsman’s.

Administrators hold on to their territories with a vice grip, ignoring the fact that cricket’s growth requires something more meaningful than playing in Disneyland or Abu Dhabi. Unless local talents are involved extensively, cricket, as it is now run, remains open to the whimsies of local administrations and political imbroglios, such as the Zimbabwe situation. Private leagues remove regionalism. They actually make things fairer.

Zee’s ICL venture was less than successful, but it set in motion a concept Lalit Modi had only spoken about for a while. The IPL was a reaction to this threat, but it was inevitable. The cricketing world is only so big. And its largest audience, India, finds its attention drawn to more diverse things every day. Cricket could survive without changing, and probably remain healthy, but it cannot grow without proliferating and entering the vocabulary of newer, more diverse, audiences.

If day-night Tests take off, we’d do well to remember that it’s only a repackaging served to the same audiences. Compared with where cricket could be, it’s actually quite traditional.

Garbage Unlimited

Vic Marks, in the Guardian:

"On this tour only Alastair Cook scored more Test runs but Bell has received the most criticism. So he must be a good player. The problem is that he has seldom changed the course of a match throughout his Test career. One consolation for Bell: they used to say the same about Sachin Tendulkar."

With a few nifty jabs, Marks manages to appear sympathetic to Bell while relating him to Tendulkar's predicament without being offensive to either. He's being thoroughly dishonest, and very slithery about it. "They used to say..."? Oh, come on.

Marks' piece, by the way, isn't a particularly good bit of writing. The chief criticism about Tendulkar is that he hasn't won enough matches for India single-handed. This is what I think Marks actually means. Even then, the assumption is simply incorrect. The image of the hero in sport is of a single person battling or blazing away to victory, etc. Is this what Marks subscribes to? When we talk of a batsman winning it, in our minds he has finished the job or nearly completed it. This involves the batsman being present in the second innings, where Tendulkar has been less good (avg: 42.98) than in first innings, where he averages 61.75. Surely Marks knows that to define a batsman by his being there at the end is to shortchange him considerably. What about the set-up, which Tendulkar has done many times? Or snatching the initiative, which is a characteristic attributed to men such as Gilchrist and Sehwag now, and Tendulkar earlier? Statsguru shows us that Tendulkar was often in the middle of India's larger first-innings scores, and often the only person between a decent score and a bad one.

What about presence and averting embarassment? Tendulkar, at a time, made a difference by simply being there.

In first innings where no one else scored a hundred, Tendulkar averages 121.63. The average team score is 322.75. This is against meaningful opposition. Dravid, in comparison, averages 179.83. The avg team score for Dravid's sole-hundred innings is 456.

But take a look at this. In each of these innings (there are six in all), each of Dravid's ten teammates have averaged: 23.3, 20.8, 22.8, 24.7. 30.1, 26.1.

In Tendulkar's eight innings, this is what his mates have averaged: 13.5, 10.7, 22.6, 10.5, 34.8, 17.3, 20.3, 16.9. (Where does Bell fit in here?)

The extras scene is revealing too. In Dravid's case, there are nearly 30 extras per innings added to the Indian total, which tells me the bowlers weren't exactly all there to begin with, or that Dravid drove them to distraction. In Tendulkar's case, the fielding side would concede less than 18 runs on average, which tells us that bowlers kept things quite tight.

Anyway, I meander. I could keep looking at stats all day but there's other work to be done. So Mr Marks, in a nutshell, the damn comparison's all wrong. I'd love to go on but I'd go bankrupt if I kept this up. Thank you for wasting half my day because of one half-wit paragraph.

The fiction in travel writing

Given a chance, a travel writer is capable of misreading entire cultures. But this genre of writing is not journalism, and so the rigorous standards of journalism do not apply. You only have the writer’s piece as proof. Ask anyone what they expect of travel writing and you will receive many answers, but most will demand accuracy and an interesting story. But is travel writing seriously read for its accuracy? I don’t think so. To be a travel writer is to allow yourself to be taken in by the stream of events around you, like a twig in a river of raging currents. You speed by actual happenings, capturing only their echoes. Try this: sit in a speeding vehicle and, staring at one spot ahead of you, describe the countryside. This is what writing about a place can be like.

Our times require precise information quickly, and travel writing unfortunately cannot be entirely accurate nor on demand. The result would be equivalent to: “8.15am: Woke up. Brushed teeth.” It is a loose form of non-fiction and fiction: It is likely, in an extreme case, to contain imaginary incidents and conversations that could have happened. These things are difficult to verify for all you have is the writer’s word. We know this and, as we do with all single sources, accept their word with a little skepticism. The instinct to not be fooled is strong in many of us, but I suspect deep down we’re wired to like good tales. That is what travel writing is, and will remain at its height. It cannot influence international events, and cannot change the course of history anymore. Once, people who brought news of foreign lands were, in all likelihood, travel writers. There is no need for them anymore. Reporters specialize, travel writers generalize. This is Paul Theroux from The Great Railway Bazaar:

The Singhalese…turned on the fan, sat on one of his crates, and began eating a stinking meal out of a piece of newspaper – the smell of his rotten onions and mildewed rice was to stay in the compartment for the remainder of the journey.

A fact-checker for the New Yorker would have quite a task with this: Was he Singhalese, did he turn on the fan, was he on a crate, did it stink, were the onions rotten, was the rice mildewed, and did the smell really stay for the rest of the journey? I lived with a Korean in New York who stank up the fridge, but the smell was offensive only to me. He ate his food without fuss.

This is Camilo Jose Cela, in Journey to the Alcarria:

The girls are young, very young; but they already seem to have in their eyes that special patient sorrow that one sees in hired animals, dragged hither and yon by bad luck and evil intentions.

This is precisely the kind of matter that suits travel or fiction. A journalist or historian looking for the feeling of the times will find value in the sentence.

William Dalrymple’s books contain the right kind of dialogue in the right kind of places. From an “unshaven, shambolic and friendly” tailor in In Xanadu:

“We live here under an undeclared apartheid.”

The last lines of the book, featuring a Chinese communist party official:

He grunted something in Mongol. Then he translated it for us: “Bonkers,” he said. “English people, Very, very bonkers.”

This is unreal. The comments are perfectly placed, the words strikingly lucid. There’s no reason to doubt Dalrymple’s conversational skills, but who can ascertain whether these things were really said to him, or whether these are recollections of broken conversations which, when remembered, the mind makes complete?

And yet there is an audience for this stuff because good travel writing takes you somewhere, as good fiction does. The truth cannot be completely sacrificed, but it can be subverted to make the story better. This is not to excuse writers who aren’t truthful. I have my doubts about a number of travel writers. But given the distance from editors, and the fact that travel is a very personal experience, it is possible to bend the truth. It’s why we don’t take travel writing seriously anymore. Our perceptions of it have changed. We don't want it to inform, just evoke. The genre has found a new place for itself.

Sisyphus - right arm fast-medium

The gods have got nothing on today's cricket administrators. First, the free hits. Then cancel reverse-swing. At the same time, refuse to change the ball's dimensions, which would allow it to bounce or swing more. Now, day-night Tests.

Do bowlers need a union?

Numb to niceness

To drive in Mumbai is to become numb to niceness. From the first hesitant laps onwards, drivers quickly learn that it is better to snatch from others, for others will snatch from you too. If you choose to not snatch, it is assumed that you have parked the car. But this niceness, when it arrives, is so strange and unfamiliar that drivers will be momentarily stunned. The giver is preening; his magnanimous gesture elevates him beyond the classless masses. The recepient is taken aback by this generosity. How should he react? Is it some kind of trick? Today a recepient stood still, even as this driver furiously gestured to him to come forward and complete his U-turn - that the offer was genuine. He didn't buy in to the niceness. He inched forward with trepidation, wondering when I'd fuse my car with his. I waited. He waited. He came forward and stopped. I waved at him. His girlfriend looked at my fender with fear. He looked concerned. Two blocked lanes of cars began to honk. He advanced and stopped, still unable to believe his destiny. I gave up and drove by. No more generosity. It slows down everything.

Bearable happiness

There are some kinds of happiness I can deal with, and others I can't. My own happiness is easy to comprehend. The happiness of others is another case. This isn't against people being happy; I'm all for the joyous. This is about the kind of happy state that leaves me completely clueless, and I wonder what the hell's going on. I'll sketch out the meaning for you. When a happiness can't be related to, or there is a fundamental disconnect between the reason for joy and the response, it's confusing.

A kid with connections

Freaking hell.

Delhi nights

Everything is dark at six. People have returned home, industries have shut down for the day. The cold pricks my knuckles and neck. I inhale something sharp and odorless. Bombay's air carries a hint of where it came from. This stuff is cold and unfamiliar. I like Khan Market because there is human activity. Somewhere inside there are warm bookshops, elsewhere there is steam rising from dinner. A bright place in what is otherwise a damn quiet place. Is it any wonder that everyone's trying to be part of one club or another in this city?

A rickshaw driver asks where and the extortion begins. It is late, roads are empty, so who cares how much? On the way there are beautiful parks without people. Intricate and firmly shut gates. Clean and high walls. Beggars ask only once.

Excuse the mess

Sorry about the way all this looks. It'll be fixed soon.

The Rest is Rubbish

After much haranguing, Landmark finally gave up and got me a copy of Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise, a delightful book about 20th century classical music. The first few pages have been pure oxygen. The language is so light and lyrical. I've needed this. My daily reading has otherwise constituted of sentences such as:

"The Central Government may specify penalties to be imposed, including suspension or revocation of licence, permission or registration, for violation of various terms and conditions as may be specified under section 3, subject to the condition that amount of a pecuniary penalty shall not exceed one crore rupees..."

Yet again The New Yorker and its writers come to my rescue. I truly dread reality in the form of government documents.

Falling out of love with a love song

When I first heard Mitwa, on the Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna album, I listened to it over and over again to understand why it was so haunting. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy had last constructed songs so meaningful many years ago with Dil Chahta Hai, so this was a seriously welcome return to music that lasted. The song's opening, a delicate strum, wasn't new for the instrument - you hear beautiful guitar openings so often these days, few more evocative than Thakshak's Khamosh Raat - but the rise and fall in key as a musician barely plucked at strings slowly and deliberately, conveyed the message that matters of love can indeed be quite delicate. A female chorus rose then, singing in the voice of angels, "Love will find a way..."

I understood this much later, for upon hearing this song for the very first time, the words that registered in my head were, "Love me. Find a way..." I fell for these words more than the song, taking them to be a lover's plea to choose her over the other until a hunger had been sated. Frankly, it was magnificent. It was one man's wife telling another man to love her, and she didn't care how he did it. Alas, this impression of the lyrics was crushed one morning, and I was left with "love will find a way...", which is good advice for those without a plan, but not very encouraging for the realistic.

Update: Wife says "until a hunger had been sated" reads like a terrible line from M&B. I am inclined to agree, as all good husbands do.

Pearl, Kaplan, Packer, Wright, and Khaitan

Earlier today I watched A Mighty Heart, sharing an entire hall with eight others. I walked away a little shaken, for I had a back story to Daniel Pearl's drive to uncover links between the ISI and Al-Qaeda. As I have, anyone who has ever read The Journalist and the Terrorist, Robert Sam Anson's moving story in the August Vanity Fair issue the year Pearl was murdered is unlikely to forget. We learn that Pearl may have been spurred on by the irrational motivation journalists use to justify their doings. That his stories not making it to the front page may have added to it.

I came home and stared at my books, at Lawrence Wright's Looming Tower, at The Assassins Gate by George Packer, and remembered Robert D Kaplan's book where he hung out with militants. It's hard to describe the feeling. Not just an overwhelming sadness, or an admiration for what these guys do. A bit of a mix, you know? Ashish Khaitan has great courage, but the Tehelka investigation for me lacked something more lasting, something that carries on week after week, pummeling the rioters and instigators. Something that explains in detail what happened and when, and all the characters involved. Above all, something that has balance.

I'm afraid this has been one big ramble, but I guess what I'm trying to say is this: when you put your life at risk as a journalist, do you seek instant sensation, or do you, in your own little way, change the world you live in? Pearl, had he succeeded, would have certainly made it the the first page in a different way, by proving what people will say they already knew. But it would have changed people's positions slightly, now that they had proof. Khaitan has a wife and child too, and he probably knew of the danger he was and still is in. The outcome of his investigation has had its effect, but now what? Now what?

Secret Dubai

From Secret Dubai, a very serious blog about life in the UAE.

"Hooray! Streets in the sandlands are finally getting names. No more endless driving around obscure areas of Jumeirah 2 looking for 19c street, only to realise that you actually need 19c street in Umm Seqeim 3, and it leads off 2 and 4b street before the junction with 12.75q street, rather than 19a street, which is actually somewhere in Al Quoz.

Does this mean streets will finally get interesting, evocative names? Such as "Old Camel Street", "Red Desert Road", "Palm Oasis Avenue" and "Stinking Fish Lane, Karama"? Or will we be stuck with several thousand more "Sheikh Ibn bin Khalid bin Al Waleed bin Talal Al Ziyad al Zayed"-type roads, all mispelt in every possible configuration on every map and road sign, with the result that most people end up in Abu Dhabi before they finally find anywhere?"

Ps. Also provided elsewhere on the blog, a UAE press release generator.