And I am very angry. Not as much shocked or distressed, as angry! And this anger is caused by yet again being undermined by mindless acts of rotten souls.
And I hate it when people who-know-they-can’t-help-in-any-way try to show their ‘interest/involvement’ by giving verbal accolades like “…the resilient spirit of Mumbai…” et al.
What resilient spirit? Ask those for whom their social world is held hostage in those few minutes to hours till they hear about their near and dear ones. And ask those whose world collapses.
I have serious objections to the doling out of this phrase.
Contrary to the notion of ‘getting lost in the anonymity of crowds’ — I would rather Mumbai demonstrate the notion of ‘getting caught by the watchful eyes of the crowds’.
In a city of around 1.5 crores, with practically no isolated spaces, how can one get away with leaving bombs in crowded places? They say crowds are indifferent. I dispute that. Crowds are not indifferent, they are reassuring. An individual lets his guard down in the belief that the ‘crowd’ will provide safety. And it is this dropping of individual guard, that lets us down. If every person would take responsibilty of the few feet around him, there would not be an inch of space and a fraction of time vulnerable to such attacks.
Very angry. (And intolerably violated)
Update:
This story on Rediff pretty much summed up and put in better words (even though US analogy is a little weak), my thinking on the subject as well — including the headline.
Update 2:
And this piece of writing by Jeffery Rufus mocks the ‘resilient’ epithet so well. Exactly what I had wanted to say. He says it so well.
I had earlier (here) pointed out some of the search engine phrases that have led people to this blog. One search string that continues to send a few people here every day is “Shahid Afridi video”. So I decided to check out the videos available on Shahid Afridi.
Afridi no doubt is an explosive batsman. Even though I find him extremely unelegant, he surely is a very powerful hitter of the cricket ball. No surprises then that a lot of videos are about his exploits with the bat — world’s fastest century, world’s second fastest century (against India), 27 runs in a single over against New Zealand, 4 consecutive sixes off Harbhajan Singh etc. In a way it is only natural that these should be popular videos on the Internet. The kinds that Pakistanis and others — interested in cricket but neutral towards him — would send as email forwards to their friends. Just like we receive videos of spectacular goals scored in football every now and then.
This phenomenon of sports video forwards follows two conditions: 1.) the act has to be spectacular enough, and 2.) the length of the video has to be short enough so as to enable forwarding it across varied bandwiths.
Shahid Afridi videos often meet both these criteria. On the other hand, Lara’s innings of 375 or 400, no doubt spectacular, do not meet the second criterion. Similarly, the recent match between Australia and South Africa where both teams scored in excess of 400, while meeting the first criterion, does not meet the second. On the other hand Kumble’s 10-wicket haul, or Irfan Pathan’s hat-trick, or some of the dream leg-spin deliveries from Shane Warne meet both criteria.
But the video I want to share with you is of the ugly side of Afridi. And believe me, he has more than his quota of controversies — not the kind where the player ends up getting a lot of sympathy as well (a la Shoaib Akhtar — a confirmed chucker, who some see as a victim of race politics in international cricket) — but the kind that should cloud every sensible cricket follower’s impression of Afridi.
Click on the video below, wait for it to stream, proceed to the remainder of this post, come back to see the downloaded clip.
The first controversy surrounding Afridi had to do with his age. At the time of his debut (where he scored the world’s fastest century) he was reported to be seventeen. A lot of commentators doubted that. The most famous comment (which sadly I haven’t been able to reference) coming from Geoffery Boycott, who said something to the effect ‘…if he is 17, I am 21…’.
We know that a lot of players indulge in what has fashionably been defended as ‘gamesmanship’. Bodyline, negative line, ball tampering, and sledging are all manifestations of it. However, one of the worst examples of this was Shahid Afridi in the match between India and Pakistan in the 2003 cricket world cup in South Africa. In the course of his bowling spell (which as I had previously mentioned, includes a fair amount of chucking) he had an appeal turned down by the umpire. Afridi then hurled out the choicest of abuse towards the umpire. In this age of pitch microphones and close-up shots, everybody in the sub-continent would have heard and understood what he had just said. And it was disgusting especially now that cricket is a family sport.
Luckily, my friend Kapil Rampal didn’t just nod his head in disapproval, and continue watching the game. He immediately wrote to the ICC officials. Read here, what happened.
Afridi is no Miandad. Not that I anymore have any respect for Miandad as well — after I had seen pictures of him socialising with criminals like Iqbal Mirchi a little after the Mumbai blasts; and recently his son marrying Dawood Ibrahim’s daughter. And those who try and defend this behaviour using words like ‘combative’, ‘aggressive’, ‘street-fighter’, should really draw the line somewhere.
But the most ‘illustrious’ moment of Afridi’s ‘combative’ brand of cricket was when he was caught deliberately tampering the pitch with his boots while everyone was distracted by a blast in the stands in 2005, during a match between England and Pakistan. See the clip above to understand the ‘combative’ nature of this cricketer.
Like abhorring the use of products and services that involve some form of unacceptable input — child labour, cruelty to animals, harmful chemicals etc. — I have also given up on appreciating hard-hitting batting from this cricketer because of his integrity, or rather the lack of it.
In 1995 Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi was a reclusive figure
For Saurav Ganguly, playing test cricket seemed a pipe dream
Very few people in India had ever used email or logged onto the internet
We were not a nuclear-armed nation
India had 25 states. Kolkata was Calcutta. Mumbai was Bombay. Chennai was Madras.
Aishwarya Rai had acted in only film, in Telugu
There was only one life insurance company
There were no cellphones. No one had heard of call centres or Kargil
And till October 11, 1995, there was no Outlook
It has been along journey, these ten years. And an exciting journey, in a world transforming itself more rapidly than perhaps any other decade in human history.
To celebrate this journey, Outlook presents a series of 10th Anniversary Special Issues, looking back over the last ten years and looking forward to the next ten. Because we know, and you know, that the next ten years will be even more exciting.
And come to think of it, even in the last one year, a lot has changed indeed.
For Saurav Ganguly playing international cricket is yet again a pipe dream
We are on the verge of climbing down on our nuclear status
Aishwarya Rai hasn’t given a hit since Devadas (if you were to ignore Kajra re)
The first football World Cup I remember having followed was the 1982 Espana, which was won by Italy. This I followed through the colourful pages of Sportstar — arguably India’s finest sports magazine.
Fuelled by that and also the availability of matches on Doordarshan, I closely followed the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, which was won by Argentina who were led inspirationally by Diego Maradona.
I also followed the 1990 Italia World Cup which was won by Germany defeating Argentina in a reversal of the previous tournament’s final. I was rooting for Argentina and saw all their matches where their second-choice goalkeeper Goycochea (who had to play because first-choice goalkeeper Pumpido — who had blundered in an earlier match — broke his leg on the field) defended quite a few shots during penalty shoot-outs. For the final, while the teams were lining up, I dozed off in front of the television set, only to wake up just as they were showing visuals of distraught Argentinians and jubilant Germans at the end of the match!
The 1994 World Cup in USA was won by Brazil defeating Italy in the finals, with Roberto Baggio infamously missing his penalty shot! A moment I remember from one of the USA matches was their goatee-sporting player Alexi Lallas almost scoring a goal with a bicycle kick worthy of Pele!
The 1998 World Cup in France was my first experience of community football watching — in the hostel of IIM Indore — with Saurabh Prasad letting out the choicest of abuses every time Roberto Carlos delayed passing the ball onto the forwards! France led by Zinedine Zidane shocked the defending champions Brazil in the finals. Star player Ronaldo did not play in the finals reportedly suffering fits before the match. This undoubtedly gave birth toseveral conspiracy theories!
It was during the 2002 World Cup in Korea/Japan that I attained ‘nirvana’ of football watching by refusing to have any favourites, either expressed or supressed. Regardless of who won, it was football that I was watching and enjoying — all the more in the finals, where Brazil defeated Germany.
It is 2006-Germany, and the quarter-final between Brazil and France is going on even as I write this post. It doesn’t matter to me who wins eventually. (Update: France just won)
It was 1977 when the then President of India Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed died while in office. He was succeeded by Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy who was elected unopposed.
In their parents, children of doctors as well as people in the armed forces have natural role models at home. Wouldn’t the same then hold true for children of politicians as well? Yes. But what matters is the road walked by the progeny to step into their parents’ shoes.
The child of an army General still has to get through his Services Selection Board (SSB) interview to get into the National Defence Academy (NDA). Children of doctors have to slog through a minimum of five years of under-graduate studies (or more) — and this is true for even those who might have had the wherewithal to pay astronomical sums of money as capitation (or other creatively used nomenclature) fees.
The problem perhaps arises when the political scions get rewards too easily.
Leaving aside the Rahul Mahajan episode (where my only peeve is BJP president Rajnath Singh’s alleged announcement of planning to induct Rahul as an office-bearer in the party’s youth wing, when subsequent events have shown that his drug problems were common knowledge already), some other cases come to mind of sons of politicians who even when they had it all, lost it for themselves and for their fathers. And some who got away with it.
I say. Essay. Assay. ऐसे. 