2015 : A Space Odyssey

Of course we all need our space. Anybody squeezed into the middle seat on an aircraft will tell you that. Particularly if he happens to be squeezed between Oliver Hardy and Hulk Hogan!

I first realised I needed space when appearing for my Part `B’ exam, and the guy behind me kept kicking me on my calf, wanting to know the full form of the acronym LASER. I tried to stage whisper `Light Amplification by Simulated..’ but he cut me off with a `Chhod yaar, zara multiple choice bata!’

He happened to be my neighbour, and had burnt the midnight oil in gallons preparing for the exam, while I had spent the hours pacifying a wailing, bawling six month old daughter! So one would have thought it would have been me seeking his help, but then he was a true blue Infantryman!

Growing up in a household of five siblings in two rooms, space was not a luxury one could even think of. And I’m sure that if I had ever asked my parents for `space’ they’d have wondered what that was – O ki hunda ae??

So when a precocious 13 year old Cherie puts up a poster on her Facebook page asking for - what else, space - I’m more than delighted! Of course, her dad, the man mountain Sid Khullar is busy rolling up his sleeves, ready to pounce on the first `guy’ who trespasses into the space little Cherie’s screaming for! But that’s another story, dads will always be dads!

Would Sid, I wonder, be tempted into taking a peek into Cherie’s WhatsApp timeline, to `monitor’ the goings on in her life? You know, just in case? Being protective, right? I mean, surely that would be ok? No??

I should think not.

In a similar scenario, I once found I had access to my daughter’s laptop, and she happened to be going through a rough patch. God, how I wanted to protect her! Yet, I had steeled myself, and refrained from taking a peekaboo. If there was something she wanted me to know, I reasoned, she’d tell me herself!

But let’s be honest, that’s more the exception than the rule these days. Suspicious spouses thrive on opportunities to grab smart phones that have been carelessly left lying around, and gleefully pounce upon messages that have been left carelessly undeleted.

The more despicable ones even hire professional hackers to hack into their spouse’s e-mails and chats. The fact that they’re actually killing the very relationship they’re trying to `protect’ is of little consequence to them!

Most of them have a `dog in the manger’ attitude. If not me, then nobody else!

Most of my generation, of course, are technologically challenged. In the days of NSA level snooping, and sophisticated privacy invasion techniques, the simple expedient of passwords, and `touch ids' no longer guarantees you space.

So what’s the solution?

Simple. Either be very careful, or adopt a `hell with you’ attitude to all invasions into your private space! Remember that people will hurt you only if you give them the capacity to do so!

My first advice to little Cherie is, welcome to the real world, my dear! What you ask for is a commodity that’s scarce to come by. These days. But the very fact that you ask for it is heart warming. It gives me hope. It bodes well for the future.

For if you ask for it, you will surely give it to others, will learn to respect it.

And the chest thumping pride with which your dad has posted your plea on his Facebook timeline shows that his heart’s in the right place too!

There’s no denying it. My generation screwed up big time, what we handed over was far from perfect. The generation that followed did a much better job, and I’m sure that when the torch passes on to your lot, things will have improved to an unrecognisable degree!

Take all the space that you want, dear Cherie! For it is in people like you that the future rests, that’s where true salvation lies..

To the future, Onward Ho!!

Faiz Translated, Part 2..

To the handful of you who have been following these chronicles (and may the Power be with you for doing so), the fact that translating Urdu poetry into English has been an enduring passion with me is a known fact. 

Urdu poetry, of course, defies translation, and no attempt comes anywhere near the original in its form, rhyme and metre. Yet, the passion endures..

Among the greats, Iqbal is arguably the most obtuse, and I gave up my attempts at translating `Shikwa' long back. Faiz is sheer poetry, and one can lose oneself in his sublime imagery. I had posted my attempt at his `Soch' as `Reflections' some years ago. One could look it up at 

http://hbpuri.blogspot.in/2012/05/faiz-translated.html


Here is my attempt - I use the word `attempt' advisedly, for that is precisely what it is - a feeble attempt) - at translating his `Tanhaii'. It was done in a dash, when I was feeling particularly lonely (Ah, the travails of creeping age..)

TANHAII

- Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Phir koi aayaa, dil-e-zaar! Nahin, koi nahin;
Raah-rau hoga, kahin aur chala jayega.
Dhal chuki raat, bikharne laga taaron ka ghubaar,
Larkharaane lage aiwaanon mein khwaabiida charaagh,
So gayi raasta tak tak ke har ek rah guzar;
Ajnabi khaak ne dhundlaa diye qadmon ke suraagh.

Gul karo shamiin, barhaa do mai-o-miinaa-o-ayaagh,
Apne be-khwaab kivaaron ko muqaffal kar lo;
Ab yahan koi nahin, koi nahin aayega!

SOLITUDE

- Translated by Harish Puri

Hark, is that a footfall I hear?

Or is it just my sobbing heart?

A vagrant, he’ll soon be on his way

This slender hope too shall depart..

As night falls, and stars, like clouds

Scatter across the crimson sky

And worn out lamps, like broken dreams

Shall flicker dimly, before they die

Soon sleep shall overcome these lanes

Weary with wait, with misery

As dust that mercilessly blows

And obliterates each memory

Blow out the lamps, empty the wine

Bolt all doors, forego all dreams

Now solitude and loneliness are mine

For none, just none shall come this way..

Sage Words at 64? Hardly!

My annual birthday piece on `Mitti Pao!’ has almost become like the Pope’s Christmas message, or Bal Thackrey’s Dusshera diatribe. So how can I disappoint the millions (ok 47, give or take) who hang on to my every word? So here goes.

Yesterday, Wasim Akram, or rather the Mercedes he was travelling in, in Karachi, was shot at by an idiot in an apparent act of road rage. Thankfully, the Sultan of Swing was unhurt.

But what sort of an idiot would want to shoot at Wasim Akram?  Wouldn’t you rather shake his hand, ask for an autograph, maybe even plead that he take over as India’s bowling coach. Please, Wasim bhai??

But the world is full of idiots.

In the 2004 US Presidential debates, Senator John Kerry faced the incumbent US President George W `Dubya’ Bush.  Kerry was erudite, lucid and succinct, whereas Bush was his bumbling, incoherent self.

Yet, the polls continued to show Bush ahead. In spite of Kerry’s brilliance and his eloquence, he continued to trail Bush in the ratings. “I can’t understand it,” Kerry wondered, “I’m losing to an idiot!”

Anybody who has had occasion to argue with an obdurate traffic cop, or a dim witted booking clerk, or even a swarthy jat driving an SUV along Karol Bagh’s congested streets, will readily empathise with Kerry’s plight.

The world, of course, is full of idiots! And they’re everywhere, including, sadly, the cyber world, where I mostly reside.

So, I recently decided to give myself (and the world) a birthday treat by going off social media completely! I de-activated my Facebook account, went off Twitter, even gave `Mitti Pao!’ a much needed break. I thought I’d connect with the real world for a change!

I felt free! In the first few weeks of being `liberated’, I managed to read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, scale Mount Kilimanjaro, straddle the Great Barrier Reef and trek through the great Inca trails at Machu Pichu!

Well, not exactly. All I actually managed was to get into flaming rows with my course mates (over OROP, what else?) convince my kids that I was finally `losing it’, and generally piss off anyone who came within pissing off range.

My last post `The Hen in My Backyard’ upset a lot of people, including the hen in my backyard, and everyone I had mentioned in the post, including the descendants of Graham Bell, Edison, Einstien and Bhimsen Joshi! So here’s an unqualified apology to all those illustrious folk, along with a single word of advice – Chill!

My `Parenting 2.0’ post rendered me persona non grata to that venerable establishment and its global ambassador. Once more, an unqualified apology, once more the advice to simply Chill!

We are simply too old to carry grudges..

All that I’ve learnt of life, said Robert Frost, can be summed up in just three words – it goes on.

Any sage words of advice on turning 64? I’m hardly qualified to deliver any homilies, except to say, just count your blessings.

Don’t rock the boat. Unless, like the legendary Ship of Theseus, it needs to be restored, plank by rotten plank. And after every plank has thus been replaced, it no longer remains the same vessel to mourn, does it? So learn to let go.

Don’t get too bogged down with outward impressions, or what people might think. Stop trying to prop up facades that cannot or will not stand up on their own.

When one is young, the opinion of ones peers, of the `world' at large, of what that amorphous entity called `they' will say, matters a great deal, and even dictates ones behaviour and ones reactions to situations.

But as one grows older, the wheat begins to separate from the chaff, we begin to recognise and isolate people whose opinions really matter to us. The old adage reveals its innate wisdom - those that matter don't mind, those that mind don't matter!

And know this - even an ageing heart will not be denied its dreams, so dare to dream, look ahead, for even for us sexagenarians, there is a future out there, and the future is, who else, US!

As only the great Faiz Ahmed Faiz could have put it,

Nahin nigaah mein manzil, toh justaju hi sahi

Nahin visaal mayaasar, toh aarzoo hi sahi..

Cheers folks, and a here’s wishing me a Happy 64^th!! 

The Hen In My Backyard..

So there’s this saying, that home cooked chicken (Ghar ki murgi) tastes no better than ordinary lentils (daal barabar)! Wonder if Daniel Weber would agree. Or Amey Gosavi..

But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.

I had just received a mail, extolling my blog posts, and generally going ga-ga over what a `wow’ writer I was! Admittedly, the adjectives used to describe my turn of phrase were way over the top, and much more than the blog deserved.

It’s not to say I wasn’t pleased as punch. Of course I was blown away, and asked the wife and kids why they didn’t offer similar praise. Their reactions varied from a derisive snort (no guessing who) to a coquettish `Aww’ (Sowmya) to his signature shrug of the shoulders (Sid). Puja said she’d read the mail and revert.

Translated into plain English, that only meant that while the posts were no doubt good, they were, for them, in the end, no more than home cooked chicken – ghar ki murgi!

Can’t blame the poor sods. Remember Mrs Graham Bell? Her reaction to Alexander announcing that he had just invented telephony was an exasperated “Put away those toys dear, and come to bed!”

You think Edison was feted as the `Wizard of Menlo Park’ at home? Perish the thought! He was curtly told to switch off the incandescent lamp that he had just invented, and `come to bed!’

Mrs Einstein, on seeing the magic formula E=mc², merely wondered how any man could earn a living through the haphazard scrambling of just three letters of the alphabet! ‘Whatever, dear, just come to bed!”

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, arguably the greatest vocalist of his generation, had just composed a new raga, and offered to hum it for his son. “Dude, maybe some other time?” said Joshi Junior, not taking his eyes off his iPad.

So I was actually in exalted company.

Of course, like all wise sayings, this one also originates from the kitchen, and the culinary skills of the `hen’ in question.

Is there a man with soul so dead

Who, to his wife has never said

When Mrs X cooks, only then I be fed…

So here I was, at this friend’s place, slobbering over the prime ribs Mrs X (name changed to protect her well being) had conjured up. Along with the creamiest mashed potatoes, a few stray greens, and a barbeque sauce that was to die for!

The `Oohs’ and the `Aahs’, the wows and the whistles as I licked my fingers, swooning in delight, were sounds one normally associates with low grade porn movies! I kid you not, I was in epigastric heaven!

My wife kicked me under the table. I ignored her. Mr X (name changed to protect my well being) glared at me across the table. I ignored him. It was me, and the ribs, one on one. We had established a connect, and would brook no intrusion!

Mr X, to whom the whole meal was no more than `home cooked chicken’ (or in this case, pork) couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about. Snorting, in between generous helpings of the mashed potatoes, he roundly chided me for going overboard.

I continued to lick my fingers. Nary a trace of the barbeque sauce was spared. When they were as clean as to have made my mother proud, only then did I deign to look up.

“You were saying?” I said.

Then of course there are the vegans, or even some die hard Punjabis who love their `mah-di-dal’ - slow cooked overnight over a charcoal angheeti, then smothered in cream and butter – as the ultimate companion to the ubiquitous tandoori roti, with slivers of onion and mooli that pass for salad (`slaaad’ lyaayin, yaar!) in the dhabhas that dot Sher Shah Suri’s Grand Trunk Road.

Yes, the chicken versus daal debate is real. So the Parsis, geniuses that they are, simply merge the two, and come up with `Chicken dhansaak’! Makes us all feel rather silly, doesn’t it?

An aside here. We were attending Amrita’s wedding reception at JW Marriott, and happened to share a table with the delectable Sai Tamhankar (of `Hunterr’ fame). Seated next to her was a dark, dishevelled, uncouth looking guy with a straggly beard. Dismissing him as no competition whatsoever, I chatted up Sai, turning up my charm to overdrive, when she waved her pretty hand expansively “Meet my husband,” she says pointing to the guy in question.   

Turns out he was Amey Gosavi, a rich money-bags from the Marathi film industry. If looks could kill, I’d have decimated, decapacitated and de-boned the guy in five seconds flat. Talk of life being unfair! Talk of home cooked chicken! Talk of `ghar ki murgis’!

Which brings me back to the question I started with. Does the `ghar ki murgi’ always taste like daal? Would Daniel Weber agree?

Daniel who, you ask? The hen in his backyard, the murgi in his ghar happens to bear the name Sunny Leone!

I mean seriously, where’s a rope and a ceiling fan when you really need one??

Horn NOT Ok, Please!!

After the ban on beef and the insistence on screening of Marathi movies, the Maharashtra Govt has now banned the ubiquitous `Horn OK Please’ that stares at you from behind most trucks!

Reason? It makes people honk all the more! Seriously! What will they ban next? `Buri nazar wale, tera muh kala!’ because it’s racist??

Of course, we honk like our lives depend on it. We are truly the `horniest’ nation on earth, going by the incessant cacophony on our roads.

An aside here. Durex, that maker of luxury condoms, in a recent survey, has ranked India the 8^th most `sexually satisfied’ nation on earth! How the f@£$ did they arrive at that dubious conclusion? By totaling the sales of their products plus pills plus spermicidal creams?? Am I missing something here??

There, now I’ve gone way off topic! Horny so-and-so! Come back, you ill begotten son of a what-not…

No `Horn OK Please’ now? Seriously?? After the decades it took me to figure out what this pithy slogan really meant (Want to overtake me? Horn loudly as you do so, ok? - Please!).

Good men have made hobbies, even careers out of recording, if not actually authoring the verses one sees behind trucks, busses and rickshaws.

If any of you have seen the hilarious, rib tickling, rip roaring Pakistani stage drama `Bakra Qishton Pe', you will remember Professor Nizami’s sher-o-shayairi competition  with his neighbour Mirza.

Mirza asks him "Tum ne kitne deewan padhay hain?"

The professor replies "Sher-o-shaiyari jaan ne ke liye deewan padhna zaroori nahin hai - truck padho, rickshaw padho, bus padho!"

Of course, Delhi is the most culturally bereft city in the country. Sad, considering that the likes of Meer, Ghalib and Zouk once habited its courts. The hordes of Punjabi jats that descended on it after partition completely crushed its fragile culture beyond recognition.

So once where you reveled in a

Zameen-e-chaman gul khilati hai kya kya

Badalta hai rang aasmaan kaise kaise,

behind a truck, today all you get to see in Delhi is a `Sonu te Pinky di gaddi'.

Where indeed have the mighty fallen..

Yet, here are some gems that I’ve managed to pick up in my travels – mostly along Sher Shah Suri’s Grand Trunk Road..

`Ameeron ki zindagi, fruit aur cake pe,

Driver ki zindagi clutch aur brake pe!’

Anyone familiar with Delhi’s traffic and obnoxious drivers will easily identify with

Kaun kehta hai ke maut aayegi aur main mar jaoonga,

Main toh Dilli ka driver hun, cut maar ke nikal jaaonga!

And here are some from Pakistan..

Yeh jeena bhi ko jeena hai? 

Jhelum ke aage Dina hai!

(Dina is a village about 20 Km ahead of Jhelum)

Itna dubla ho gaya hun sanam tumhari judaai se

Ke khatmal bhi kheench le jaate hain mujhe chaarpai se

Kis kadar khush nazar aate hain mere shehar ke log

Aaj akhbaar na padhaa ho kisi ne jaise.

Ya Ilahi kya ghazab hai, khat ka aana bandh hai

Ya mohabat kam hui hai, ya dak khana bandh hai

Ya Ilahi, tujhe maloom hai, nahi dekh sakta apni biwi ka bewa hona

Wo jo mar sakti hai mere liye, mujhe manzoor us ki khatir randwa hona

Aadmi aadmi ko dans raha hai

Saamne saamp baitha hans raha hai

Kismat azma chuka hun, kismat azma raha hun

Kisi bewafa ki khatir rickshaw chala raha hun

Na jawan hotay na dil lgatay,

Na karte muhabbat, na rikshaw chlatay

Sawaari pichhay Kareena Katrina,

Driver aggay Paseena Paseena

Or the simple but oh so effective `Aag lawaan teri majbooriyaan nu!!'

Professor Nizami was absolutely spot on. For true shayari, you don’t need to pore over the deewans of the greats. Just read buses, trucks and rickshaws!

Irrespective of what Mr Phadnavis decrees, Horn will always be OK, Please!!

A Faustian Bargain??

I love my iPhone 5S, I love my iPad2 (both 64 GB), and I love my Mac Book Pro. Thanks to Puja, we are an Apple family. From the 4S to the 6, we cover all models of the iPhone.

I also have a Kindle e-reader, and the Kindle App on all my devices. I read my book on the Kindle, enjoying Pune’s evening breeze on my terrace. When it gets too dark, I simply switch to the iPad, which remembers exactly where I left off on the Kindle. Sitting in the ECHS Waiting Room, I switch to the iPhone, and of course he too knows exactly which page I’m on!

I pay my bills, check my bank accounts, transfer funds from here to there, chat with my friends, electronically check in, update my fb status, tweet to all my 165 followers - all in this wonderful digital maze. It is choc-a-bloc with its wow moments.

Travelling from Poona to Bombay on the Expressway, I realised it was the last day to pay my Credit Card bill. No sweat. I whipped out my iPhone, and in a matter of 45 seconds flat, the HDFC Bank was thanking me for my prompt payment. Via an sms, naturally!

Using Face Time, Puja was laboriously hand walked through the intricate steps of the sabudana khichdi that she was attempting to whip up - in San Francisco! Why anyone in SF would want to eat sabudana khichdi is the subject for a separate post!!

So logically, God should be in Heaven, and all should be well with the Earth, right? Not if the likes of Edward Snowden are to be believed.

The digital processes that make life such a breeze also mean that we now live in an Orwellian world, that `Big Brother’ is watching every move, reading every mail/sms, scrutinising every tweet that we make!

Every digital platform that we use can be tracked. Every document, every mail, every sms, every conversation can be seen, heard, listened to, and spot lighted.

So has technology actually freed us, or bound us in chains? We hear of phone hacking scandals in UK, Snoop Gates, Wiki leaks, and the NSA even hacking into Angela Mercel’s phone!

The world’s most famous whistle blower, Edward Snowden, blew the whistle on NSA’s `snooping’. (Do watch `Citizenfour’, the  Cinema Verite style documentary on Snowden, it is compelling). Along with Julian Assange, Snowden must count as the biggest heroes/traitors of the digital era – depending on which side of the prism you look at them from.

9/11 obviously turned the entire security paradigm on its head. Ethical questions began to take the back burner to the more important security concerns.

So are we really better off in the digital age? Anyone who has stood in the serpentine queues to pay BSNL or MSEB bills would obviously scream in the affirmative.

Progress is inexorable, it is relentless, it will brook no hurdles. You cannot wish it away. An Arnab Goswami may make you yearn for the good old Doordarshan days, but let’s face it - his obnoxious, high decibel, in your face persona is here to stay.  

And security issues should, of course, trump all other concerns. Removing your shoes at London’s Heathrow airport can be irksome, but if you’re confident your socks don’t have gaping holes in them, you bear it with a grin.

Personally, I think the Americans are taking this `privacy’ angle way too far. The only eyes I’d want to keep squarely away from my phone would be those of my spouse! Otherwise, how does it matter if the Government of India, or even USA’s National Security Agency knows the details of my Credit Card bills, or who I message in the darkness of the night?

An aside here. A friend had just bought a smart phone, and being rather technologically challenged, asked me to set it up for him. To pull the wool over the prying eyes of his extremely inquisitive spouse, his Contact List was full of codes, ie James for Jyotsna, and so on. Great, until he received a WhatsApp message from `James’. To his utter horror, there was the delectable Jyotsna, smiling oh so provocatively at him through her Display Picture!! He promptly switched back to his primitive Nokia! 

To Jennifer Lawrence and her ilk whose nude pics were hacked from iCloud and spread all over the internet, my simple rejoinder – why would you do something so silly in the first place?

So it’s progress on the one hand, and loss of privacy on the other. With the need for Security looming over both. It is a Faustian bargain as some would have us believe?

Hardly. Keep your house in order, keep your nose clean. The Government can watch, no problem. Big Brother can scrutinise as much as he likes to.

Of course, your spouse is a different matter altogether!!

Pakistan - A Sporting Nation No More...

Umar Akmal is not the best wicket keeper in his country. Hell, he is not even the best wicket keeper in his family! Why in God’s name would Pakistan, therefore, choose him to keep stumps in a crucial World Cup tie against India?

Nasir Jamshed averages an incredible 102 as an opener against India. Why, in God’s name, would Pakistan sideline him and opt for the ageing warhorse Yunus to open the batting??

Asif and Amir already stood banned for spot fixing in 2010 (surprise, surprise, Salman Butt now confesses to the crime!), Ajmal has been banned for bowling like a baseball pitcher, Hafeez and Junaid were out due to injury.

So Pakistan was already on the backfoot. Then they go and shoot themselves in the foot through selection blunders! Had they lost the match even before the first ball had been bowled?

Yet, when India seemed to lose their way in the last few overs, I shuddered.

“We’re thirty runs short,” I told Sid, “they’ll make it!”

“Not a chance!” he dismissed.

“The pitch is flat” I warned.

“It’s two paced” he said.

“Our bowling is weak” I shook my head.

“Their batting is even weaker!” he countered.  

His confidence in their penchant to self-destruct was unshakeable!

As things turned out, he was spot on. Pakistan committed hara-kiri as only they can. From a comfortable 90/1, they went to 100/2, then slipped to 104/5! Sohail, Shahzad, Maqsood and Akmal left in the space of a few overs.

The firecrackers in Karachi, as the Star Sports ad suggested, would have to wait another day.

In the sixties and the seventies, Pakistan was the cynosure of all eyes in the subcontinent. Their GDP was way higher than India, PIA was among the best Airlines in the world, and they justifiably preened themselves as our rich and glamorous neighbours.

The old PIA ad

The liberals in Pakistan today wax lyrical about those `good ol’ days’. They post old black and white ads of PIA on Twitter, showing smartly dressed stewardesses, frolicking hand in hand with the male cabin crew, and no eyebrows were raised. Glory days indeed!

On the sports field too they were way ahead. Of the top five squash players in the world, as many as four were Pakistani! Their hockey and cricket teams were world beaters as well.

On the ‘79 tour to Pakistan, Bedi’s India was roundly thrashed by Mushtaq’s Pakistan. Zaheer Abbas, with his silken artistry, had single handedly drafted the obituary of India’s famed spin quartet.

And they were gorgeous, boy were they gorgeous! From Fazal Mahmood to Imran to Majid to Sarfaraz, they were all Greek Gods!

Then Muhstaq went and ruined the moment by declaring “Muslims all over the world will be thrilled by our win!” I was astounded. Didn’t that jackass know that there were more Muslims in India than in Pakistan??

I think that one sentence summed up everything that went wrong with Pakistani sport. And in a sense, Pakistani sport became a just metaphor for the Pakistani nation. That’s when things really started going south.

PIA became `Please Inform Allah’. (To be fair Air India, at `Already Informed’, is no better!)

Today, while India is the fastest growing economy in the world, Pakistan is still struggling to come to terms with its `Muslim’ identity.

And Mushtaq, sadly,  wasn’t the only one. Years after his asinine comment, Shoaib Malik, who I cringe to refer to as India’s `son in law’ (Sania Mirza, seriously, what were you thinking?) remarked before a match that Pakistan was bound to win because Allah was on their side! The fact that they then went on to lose that match was probably because of the three Muslims in the Indian side!

There was a time when Pakistan’s sportsmen came from Aitichison College Lahore, or Oxford. Today they are picked off the streets of Rawalpindi, Gujranwala and Sialkot. They come from humble backgrounds, lack basic education, have no access to the lucrative IPL, and so fall easy prey to temptation or worse, radicalisation.

Eight of the players in the current World Cup squad are fined 300$ each for breaking the curfew. News just coming in speaks of Afridi, Ahmed Shahzad and Umar Akmal `misbehaving’ with the fielding coach, and the chief coach Waqar appears to have his hands full.

 

Yousuf Youhana (Joseph John) becomes Mohd Yusuf, grows a beard, swaps his `cross’ sign for a `dua’ in the hope that he will get to captain the side. Inzamam makes namaaz compulsory for the players, in the middle of the Lords ground, mind you! No wonder they slowly drift into the tableeghi fold.

In Sri Lanka, Ahmed Shahzad guarantees a place in Heaven for Dilshan if only he converts/reverts to Islam.

Surely Heaven can wait. Shouldn’t he try and win the World Cup first?

Today, no country tours Pakistan, and they’re forced to host their `home series’ in the UAE!

In a country ravaged by terror and internecine warfare, power cuts and dharnas, eleven men in `water melon’ green, playing cricket ten thousand kilometers away, offer the only hope for any cheer. Sadly, those men aren’t playing ball!

PS – Both Sid and I used to be fervent Pakistan supporters, but the behaviour of the Pakistani hockey team at the Champions Trophy dented that considerably.