BOONS OR BANES?

All of us are quite familiar with people performing abhishekams or archanais in temples to various deities, or homams in their own houses, to propitiate some God or other with a view to seeking favours from them for better health, more wealth, higher position, greater status, progeny and whatever else. Broadly the objects of these prayers can be classified as benign or malignant in character. Mostly they are of the benign variety where people seek to get their basic needs filled to have a reasonable life-style, or want to have a child when they have none and so on. But there are people who seek favours of the malignant type, where they already have all that they need and more, but are so driven by greed, arrogance and so on that they want more of this and more of that so as to have power and control over people and society as a whole, and seek Divine help in fulfilling their ambitions which turn out to be antisocial in character. The favours that people seek through their prayers used to be called boons in earlier societies where we are led to believe that the Gods, pleased by their prayers, appeared in person before the supplicants, and bestowed the boons on them.

For the purposes of this discussion we are concerned more with the malignant type of boons with great propensity to cause enormous harm to society, and how the Gods dealt with them. The story of King Midas and his golden touch, one supposes, is very well known the world over. When Midas did something which pleased the God Dionysius, he appeared before Midas and granted him a boon. Midas thought for a while and decided that if everything that he touched turned into gold, he would become the most powerful person on earth. Dionysius heard the request and, with a thoughtful frown, asked Midas whether he really wanted it. On his confirmation, Dionysius granted the boon and vanished. Midas was in cloud nine at his achievement, and tested it out by touching a plant here and some flowers there and see them all turned into gold. Soon he became thirsty and took a glass of water to drink, only to see it turn into solid gold. He grabbed a fruit to eat and it turned into gold. In this somewhat confused state, he hugged his daughter who came along there, and she turned into a golden statue. It was only then his thoughtlessness in asking for this boon hit him like a ton of bricks. He immediately prayed to God Dionysius and asked him to take back his boon and return everything to normalcy. Dionysius of course knew what would happen and hence his initial hesitation in granting the boon. Obviously the Gods know what they are doing, and they put a twist in the tail.

Of course Hindu mythology has its quota of such boons and what sort of escape routes the Gods had provided to finally overcome them. Take the case of the demon king Hiranyakashipu. He had performed a severe penance and had earned the boon by which he will never be killed. The conditions were: he will not be killed by a human being or an animal; nor with any weapon; neither on the earth nor in the sky; neither inside the house nor outside; neither in daylight nor at night; and his blood should not be spilled on the ground. What a formidable list!! Well, finally after he had had his quota of time to throw his weight about and play havoc, God appeared in the form of Narasimha, with a human torso and lion’s head and claws, dragged the demon king to the doorstep between the house and outside, in the twilight period between day and night, placed him across His thighs, tore open his abdomen with His claws and drank all the blood without spilling a drop on the ground, thereby fulfilling all the conditions. The moral of the story: Don’t tangle with the Gods; they know how to twist you around their little fingers.

In Hindu mythology we believe that Goddess Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge and the arts and speech, gets into the tongue of the seeker and makes him/her say things slightly differently from what they intended to say, thereby getting a distorted boon. Demon King Ravana’s brother Kumbakarna performed a penance to earn a boon of permanent everlasting life or nithyathva. But at the right moment Saraswati stepped in and made him say he wanted Nidrathva, or a state of sleeping always. The boon was granted of course. Ever since, he was sleeping all the time. Even during the war between Rama and Ravana, Ravana’s men managed to wake him up with great difficulty and he came to the warfield, only to earn his permanent sleep.

All of this is a preamble to a story I recently heard. The ants all over the world got together in a massive rally to air their major grouse. When a snake or scorpion or some such creepy creature bites a human being, most often the human dies. But when an ant bites a human, the human does not die. This is a great injustice done to the ant community. So the ants resorted to mass prayer to Lord Shiva. Finally Shiva’s mount, Nandi, appeared before them and said Shiva was mightily pleased by their prayer, and was ready to grant their wish. They wanted to say that when they bit a human, “it should end in the human’s death”. Saraswati intervened at this point and they said “it should end in death”. Nandi said Thathaasthu (so be it) and vanished. So since then, when the ant bites, it ends in death – of the ant.

So, whenever anybody seeks a boon with ulterior motives, it ends up as a bane or curse for the seeker.

“God’s in His Heaven, and all’s right with the world” as P.G.Wodehouse used to say through Bertie Wooster.

Jai Gurudev

JUST LIKE YOU.

Yesterday a friend of mine called and said that he had met a person who looked very much like me, a spitting image. I replied that there is a belief that at any point of time there are seven persons, spread all over the world, who are look-alikes. He said he too has heard about that. We started thinking about it. What happens if one of them passes away, leaving the look-alikes one short at six? What happens to the long held belief then? Is it possible that all the seven die at the same time? Or, is someone else suddenly created out of thin air, looking just like them, to fill the gap? Some food for idle minds, indeed.

Jai Gurudev

PRESS ‘1’ FOR ENGLISH.

September 29, 2011, was designated as World Heart Day of the year. One report in the Times of India said, “This year the theme "One world, One home, One heart" focuses on how the whole world is at risk of cardiovascular diseases and how all countries must join hands to prevent and control the risk of non-communicable diseases together.” The Indian Express pointed out that the Geneva, Switzerland, based World Heart Federation is keen on individuals and families becoming proactive about reducing heart diseases and strokes. There is an urgency injected into this problem as it is estimated that by 2020, India will have the largest cardiovascular burden globally and account for 1/3 of all global deaths. As of now, cardiovascular diseases collectively form the number one worldwide killer, claiming 17.1 million lives a year, 80 percent in the developing world.

Among the numerous risk factors for heart disease, one’s age, gender and ethnic origin are non-modifiable given factors. Modifiable or controllable risk factors include Hypertension (or high Blood Pressure), Diabetes, Obesity, Physical inactivity, High Blood Cholesterol, Stress and Tobacco use. Out of all these various risk factors, special mention need to be made of two items – hypertension and stress.

Hypertension, high blood pressure, is the most common risk factor, which can be prevented or controlled through diet, exercise, weight management and if needed, medication.

Stress: Poorly controlled stress and anger can cause heart disease and stroke. Stress and anger management techniques should be adopted to protect oneself from heart disease.

Plenty of newspaper articles would have been published and many symposiums conducted all over the world on World Heart Day to highlight how the families can play an active role in managing the heart condition of everyone in the family so that heart attacks and strokes can be kept at bay.

But none of them will ever talk about the single major aspect of our present day environment which is enough to shoot up the Stress levels and BP levels beyond bursting point and drive everyone up the wall – the Automated Interactive Voice Response System used by all organizations now-a-days to answer the customer’s queries, which is a euphemistic way of saying that the customer will be kept going on a great big merry-go-round till he/she falls down foaming in the mouth and gets out of the hairs of the organization.

Have you ever had the misfortune of contacting the Customer Care unit of any organization? It is immaterial whether it is a public sector or private sector or manufacturing sector or service sector or banking sector or any tom-dick-and-harry sector. A silky smooth voice will greet you with a “Welcome to XYZ company. If you want Dept ABC, press 1. If you want Dept DEF, press 2” …….. and so on till 6 or 7 or more. By the time the voice reaches 5 or 6, you have already forgotten 1 and 2, if at all you had got it in the first place. In case you somehow got it right and pressed 1 or 2 or whatever, the cycle starts again with a fresh list of 1, 2, 3 to 8 or 9. After 3 or 4 rounds of this run around, when you are confused about what to press, the voice will smoothly say, “Sorry. You have exceeded your time limit for your query. XYZ company thanks you for calling”, and cut you off. If anybody checks your Blood Pressure then, it will show 250/150. If your spouse or children see flames coming out of your ears and nostrils, and call the fire service, they cannot be blamed. You may be blood-red in the face and raving mad for the next 3 or 4 days. But they will be just happy that your heart was still strong enough to carry you to the next encounter with Customer Care.

Here is an actual experience I had with Tata Indicom whose Wireless Internet USB modem I am using with my computer. They had overcharged me for one particular month. I calculated the correct amount, paid it and wrote to them that I am withholding the balance pending an explanation from them. Their Customer Care does not care for the customer. They promptly disconnected their service to me. After trying to contact their Customer Care, I wrote them a letter from which here is an extract.

“I contacted your Customer Care on 9244000121, and this is what transpired.

“The Voice gave a ‘welcome’ message and asked me to press 1 for English, or 2 for some other language and so on. I pressed ‘1’.

“The Voice: If you are an existing Tata Indicom customer, please enter the ten-digit Tata Indicom Number, (and then continued with some other options). I entered 9282215495.

“The Voice: You have entered 9282215495. If it is incorrect, please press ‘1’ and re-enter the correct number. Otherwise please wait. I waited.

“The Voice: Your service has been disrupted for non-payment of outstanding dues. Your uncleared outstanding amount is ZERO.

“WHAT A SCREAM!!!!! Your own FACELESS SOULLESS AUTOMATISED VOICE says my outstanding amount is a HUGE BIG ZERO, and you, BRILLIANT FOLKS, have disabled my connection. HOW FUNNY!!!!!!!!!!!! EVERY ONE OF YOU SHOULD DIE LAUGHING AT SUCH FUNNY BUSINESS.

“RESTORE MY CONNECTION IMMEDIATELY, AND THEN WE CAN DISCUSS ABOUT THE PROBLEMS I HAVE FACED FROM THE SUPERMEN IN YOUR CUSTOMER CARE AND ACCOUNTING/BILLING SECTIONS. You owe me compensation for this disruption.”


Writing such letters with bold face and All-capitals is all supposed to be bad etiquette. But so is all this ring-around-the-roses idiocy adopted by the corporates with their nonsensical Automated Interactive Voice Response Systems. And those Bold faces and All-Caps were my only way of showing how much I was burning inside with anger and exasperation at my helplessness to deal with these people. One need not be surprised if someone bursts a blood vessel and collapses.

The World Heart Federation should take urgent steps to ban such systems as a serious health hazard.

Jai Gurudev

Gods and their Assignments.

The Hindu pantheon of gods consists of a vast number of gods and goddesses. The primary concept of God in Hinduism, as spelt out in Vedic scriptures, is that of the One and Only ultimate Truth which is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient, the all-pervading, all-powerful, all-knowing force or energy which governs the entire universe. However as the Vedas say, “Ekam Sath Vipraah Bahudhaa Vadhanti”, meaning that the Absolute Truth is only one, but the learned people call IT by various names. Why?

The main problem seems to be that the human mind, in the case of the general multitude of people, is unable to conceive of such an all-embracing energy which remains invisible in the background but carries out all the activities like creating the entire universe, making everything work in unison according to certain set rules, and periodically causing them to be destroyed and recreated. The human mind can more readily understand and accept the physically formed administrative structure consisting of the King with his council of ministers and numerous other officials, or a corporate structure with a Managing Director assisted by various managers and other officials and workers to make the company perform properly its functions like producing the goods and services and supplying them to the customers. So there has to be some “persons” in charge of creating/generating, operating/preserving/maintaining, and destroying/regenerating the various things in the universe. Some interpretations define the term ‘GOD’ itself to represent Generator, Operator and Destroyer. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva were conceptualised for this purpose.

Well, does the matter end there? No. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva alone, by themselves, cannot be trusted to do everything that we humans as well as the animals, birds and marine creatures need to live on this earth, just like the Chairman and Managing Director cannot act in a vacuum without other managers and executives to carry out the jobs further. They need assistants to do the work. Having been born on this earth, we need something to eat to survive, grow and perform our various activities. The earth has to produce things for us to eat. Bhudevi or Bhoomadevi or Mother Earth was entrusted with that job. But earth by itself cannot produce the vegetables and fruits and so on, without proper heat and synthesizing energy. The Sun God fitted the role. Well, is heat and light alone adequate? Water is also an essential requirement. Varuna Bhaghavan stepped into that role. However, after a hard day’s work, we human beings need something to cool us down. The Moon God came in for that. We need air to breath as well as some nice breeze to make us comfortable. There we have Vayu Bhaghavan. Don’t we need fire for cooking our food? Agni Bhagavan is there for us. Continuing along the same lines, we have Saraswati as Goddess of learning, knowledge and fine arts like song and dance, Lakshmi as Goddess of wealth and Parvathi/Durga/Sakthi as Goddess of power, and many others.

Of course we humans are experts in preparing administrative structures, or Organisation Charts, and assigning tasks to various gods and goddesses. But do they conform to the system designed by us and act out their roles according to that? It does not seem so. It looks like it is much more chaotic in their world than in ours, and they violate the borders and meddle in someone else’s jurisdiction left, right and centre. For a start, even though the preservation/maintenance job assigned to God Vishnu should naturally include the health aspects of the people, for some reason God Shiva has been given the name of Vaidyanatha, the Lord of healing. In addition Dhanvantri, who appeared carrying the pot of nectar out of the churning of the milky ocean, is considered as the physician of the gods, and hence the chief healer of all creation too. But we find other contenders too for this job of healing.

Let us take a detailed look at the royal, or Divine, mess that has been created.

Take the case of Goddess Lakshmi for a start. In her avatar as Ashta Lakshmi she has grabbed eight roles for herself. As Dhana Lakshmi, the bestower of money and gold, she is into her primary task as the giver of wealth. As Dhanya Lakshmi, the goddess of grains, she takes charge of all agricultural produce including vegetables and fruits and so on, which are all primarily the responsibility of Bhudevi or Mother Earth who brings them all out of her bowels. As Gaja Lakshmi, where gaja the elephant stands for the animal world, she is the one who populates the world with all animals, which brings her into direct clash with Brahma who is supposed to be the creator. As Santaana Lakshmi, the bestower of progeny or off-spring, she is again into conflict with Brahma. As Veera Lakshmi, she claims a double role of providing people with good health (for which already Vishnu, Shiva and Dhanvantri are in contention) as a necessary precondition for equiping them with valour and courage, which is essentially the job of Shakthi/Durga/Parvathi. As Vidhya Lakshmi, she spreads knowledge, education in all aspects, arts, sciences, including fine arts like music and dance, all of which belong in the domain of Saraswati. As Vijaya Lakshmi, she is the giver of victory, not just in battles in the war-front but against all sorts of hurdles in one’s life. Isn’t she again in conflict with Shakthi/Durga/Parvathi? Then finally as Adhi Lakshmi, the Primeval Lakshmi, she goes overboard claiming superiority over all the above Lakshmis, and by extension, over all the gods/goddesses with their allotted duties in the Organisation Chart. She is not totally out of justification though, as each and every one of the topics considered above is an aspect of wealth.

Healing

Let us take the case of healing. Generally when we, Hindus, take our medicines, we are supposed to recite a sloka which ends with “Vaidhyo Narayano Hari”, which means Hari, Narayana, Vishnu is our physician. But as we have already seen, two more contenders have come into the picture, namely Shiva and Dhanvantri, apart from Lakshmi as we saw above. Are there any more gods in the fray? In comes Lord Subrahmanya or Kartikeya or Swaminatha, to mention only three of his names. The sloka in praise of Subrahmanya which starts as “Hey Swaminathartha bandho” carries plenty of passages with this theme. “Roudra rogam harathwam” means one who kills even severe diseases. “Maam paahi rogaath agorath” – please protect me from severe illnesses. “Sadhu sangasya rogaan sadha samharantham” – one who is busy all the time destroying the illnesses of pious disciples. Of course Dakshinamurthy being one aspect of Shiva must be expected to be proficient in healing as Shiva is Vaidyanatha. It is confirmed by the following hymn in praise of Dakshinamurthy which says:

Guravae sarvalokaanaam,

Bishajae bhavaroginaam,

Nidhayae sarvavidhyaanaam,

Dakshinamurthaye namah.

It means salutations to Lord Dakshinamurthy who is the Guru or preceptor for all people of the earth, physician for all diseased persons and is the treasure-house of all knowledge. Well, well, his being the physician for all ill persons is quite fine. But is he not crossing the borders, and trespassing on someone else’s territory when described as teacher of all people, and depository of all knowledge? Brahma whose four faces are said to represent the four Vedas, the sources of all knowledge which He Himself created, should be the logical repository of all knowledge. Similarly Saraswati, Brahma’s consort, is said to be in charge of all learning, wisdom, knowledge. How come Dakshinamurthy is described as the storehouse of all learning, as well as the Guru of all people? This gives rise to the question of how many gods are involved in this field of knowledge, education, learning and fine arts like music and dancing.

Education

Of course for a start we have Goddess Saraswati to whom everybody prays for proficiency in any field of knowledge like literature, science and technology, secular as well as spiritual knowledge and also fine arts like music and dancing. But even Saraswati cannot succeed in filling one with knowledge and wisdom unless one has initially propitiated the elephant-faced god Ganapathi or Ganesa in the form of Vidya Ganapathi. Of course no enterprise of any kind can succeed without invoking the Grace of Ganapathi or Vigna Vinayaka. Then in comes a familiar face, Subrahmanya, who has already poked his nose in the healing field. The same sloka cited earlier has some passages like “Brahmaadayo asya sishyaah” (Brahma and other gods are your disciples) and “Omkara tatwam vadantham Sambhu karne” (who taught the essential principle and significance of the primordial sound ‘OM’ in the ears of His father Shiva). Not to be outdone, Shiva himself as Dakshinamurthy is said to be “Guravae Sarva Lokaanaam” meaning the preceptor for all the people of this world. Hayagriva is an important deity in the Vaishnava tradition and is considered as an aspect of Vishnu. Depicted with a human body and horse’e head, he is also worshipped as the God of knowledge and wisdom. He is generally depicted as Lakshmi-Hayagriva with Lakshmi as his consort. However, to my knowledge, in at least one temple in South India he is paired with Saraswati as His consort. What a logical representation, both standing for knowledge and wisdom! Then of course Bhagavan Vishnu’s credentials as a great dispenser of knowledge is beyond question as it was He, in His avatar as Krishna, who taught the Art of Living to everyone in the form of Bhagavad Gita.

Of course learning is not restricted to the literary field alone but embraces music and dance as well. Saraswati is always shown as playing the veena. But as far as I know, She is never shown in a dancing pose. That is reserved for Shiva as Nataraja, the king of dance. Ganesa too is depicted as Narthana Ganapathi in many temples in South India. Can we ever think of the flute without immediately thinking of Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu?

Destruction

Shiva is said to be the God of Destruction. By destruction it is not meant to be the final annihilation and total devastation after which nothing exists any more. Destruction is followed by reconstruction and rejuvenation. This is not a difficult concept to understand. Our own physical body consists of millions and billions of cells. The cells one has today are not the same as what one had at birth, and will not be the same at the time one comes to the end of life. Every day thousands and thousands of cells in our body die and new cells are created. In a sense we die to some extent everyday and are regenerated. The same thing happens with towns and cities all over the world over a period of time as archaeology tells us. In World War II London, Berlin, Hamburg and many more cities in Europe were destroyed and then were rebuilt with much superior town-planning with much better facilities. The ultimate destruction took place in Hiroshima and Nagasaki which were devastated by two atom bombs thrown at them by the Americans. Today they are totally new, very vibrant communities. The same thing seems to happen in a much greater scale to the entire world, and the universe. But Shiva does not seem to have any monopoly in this destruction business.

The Dasavathara stories tell us that Vishnu periodically appears in the earth whenever demons proliferate and threaten the entire creation. He destroys the demons and protects the poor suffering mankind and reestablishes the just rule of law. This is what Krishna specifically says in the Bhagawad Gita. But are Shiva and Vishnu alone in this activity? We have Krishna’s consort Satyabhama destroying Narakaasura, Parvathi as Kali or Durga destroying Mahishaasura and so on. In any picture or idol of Kali/Durga/Shakthi, the Goddess is shown standing on the head of Mahishaasura or buffalo-headed demon. Similarly the idol of the dancing Shiva as well as Dakshinamurthy show the right foot of the God trampling a demon called Apasmara. These representations take us back to the topic of education.

The buffalo is eminently noted for its brute force coupled with brainlessness and thoughtlessness. Apasmara represents ignorance or non-learning or negative learning, which translates to qualities like lust, hatred, miserliness, greed, arrogance and so on (kama, kroda, lobha, moha, madha, matsarya) which leads people to behave like demons and cause great havoc to society. Demons are not a separate species with horns and other appendages as depicted in pictures. We see them daily in our own lives in the form of corruption-ridden politicians, profiteers, drug and hooch peddlers, arms dealers and all such anti-social characters. The destructive aspect of God is seen when casualties on a mass scale take place in events like wars in which a big bunch of such ‘demons’ get eliminated along with a large chunk of apparently innocent folks too, which leaves a sobering effect on the rest of the people so that they tend to go straight for a while before the cycle starts again.

Wearing different hats.

The concept of wearing different hats is quite familiar in the corporate sector now-a-days. The Chairman-cum-Managing Director of a company has to wear different hats when he interacts with different departments of his company, like the research scientists, design/development engineers, production personnel, marketing and sales folks, purchase department, finance and accounts staff, customer care and so on. He has to deal with the different set of concerns and problems each one of these activities has, and strike a balance between all of them to ensure cohesive functioning of the enterprise. He is said to wear a different hat when dealing with each one of them.

How an ordinary working woman is involved in such a situation is brought out very well in the blog reproduced below.

Blog on Relationships and the Different Hats We Wear

12 May 2008

By Dr. KC Kelly, Ph.D., LMHC

http://DOCintheBiz.com (http://docinthebiz.com/blog/relationships-and-the-different-hats-we-wear/)

“We all have many different relationships in our lives. Each one is unique and all of them are ones in which we “wear different hats”.

“Let’s say a woman is a mother, daughter, sister, wife, friend, co-worker, and teacher. That’s an awful lot of hats to wear!

“As we know from our wonderful William Shakespeare, “All the world’s a stage” and this woman mentioned above certainly takes on WELL more than five completely distinct roles. Even within her classroom and with her co-workers, she maintains different rapports with each and every person. She will certainly act differently with the principal of the school than she will with any of her students. Even each student sees a varied side of her personality as she shares connections with each one differently.

“So, let’s quickly follow her day. When she leaves work (her 25 or so students and all her co-workers from other teachers to administrators), she may stop at the small convenience store and converse with the same lady who checks her out each time she’s there. She then goes home and calls and relates to her mother, sister, and perhaps a friend or two. Her three children enter the home from their day at school and she spends time with them. Then when her husband arrives home from work, she will spend her time with him as well. I felt amazed when I actually began to think about how much of ourselves we exert and give to others in a single day!

“Doesn’t it almost seem as though we have to maintain MANY separate and distinct personalities to have all the different relationships we have in our lives? But somehow, we remain ourselves and all the different facets of what make us who we are shine through and make us the person we need to be for all these important people in our life.

“Each relationship we have demands and necessitates different requirements from us. Many times we find ourselves juggling our emotions and our time. The key to staying fulfilled and whole ourselves is to learn how to maintain balance in trying to make time for everyone in our lives and make them happy. All the while, we must learn our limitations, when to say no, and take care of our own needs. We need this inner strength and fortitude to be able to keep giving to the countless people with whom we are in relationships. This does not make us selfish; it makes us emotionally healthy!”

This is the situation of an ordinary woman who may have to deal with a 50 or 100 or so people on a day-to-day basis. The CMD has to wear a dozen or two or more hats to manage his limited enterprise. Then how many more hats should God wear to deal with 6 billion people, 190+ countries and country heads and their innumerable assistants, a 1000 religious and political parties and so on in this planet alone, leave alone the entire universe which is His Empire.

These 3 crore or 30 crore Gods of the Hindu pantheon are just the numerous hats that the One and Only GOD wears to handle His Empire.

Ekam Sath Vipraah Bahudha Vadanthi.

Jai Gurudev

ON ZULFIQAR ALI BHUTTO

Here are a couple of interesting tidbits about Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto from an article Remembering a Governor by V.K.Kapoor (http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20040817/edit.htm -- AUG 17, 2004). Mr.Kapoor was ADC to Mr.B.N.Chakravorty who was the Governor of Punjab at that time.

Mrs. Indira Gandhi was on her way to Shimla for a conference with Mr ZA Bhutto. On landing at Chandigarh she was informed by the IAF that her helicopter can’t take off due to bad weather and she’ll have to wait for 3-4 hours. The Governor persuaded her to come to Raj Bhavan for a cup of tea. On the way to Raj Bhavan Mr Chakravorty related to Mrs Gandhi when Bhutto had used the expression “Indian Dogs” in the UN. Mr Chakravorty was then India’s permanent representative to the UN. Mr Chakravorty recounted that Mr Bhutto had conveniently forgotten that he had an Indian “Hindu” mother. And by using this expression he had qualified himself to what the Americans gleefully call ‘S O B’. Mrs Gandhi clapped her hands and laughed heartily.

Many years later when I went to Lahore I heard another story about Bhutto. Bhutto’s mother Nirmala, a Hindu dancing girl, who became Khurshid after marrying Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto, was extremely worried about her very sick child’s survival. She asked a Hindu astrologer to cast Bhutto’s horoscope. The astrologer after reading the horoscope told her that for the coming 50 years there was lot of brightness and sunshine but after that there was complete darkness. The relieved mother remarked that she would not be around after 50 years. After 50 years General Zia-ul-Haq put Bhutto in a dark cell from where he never came out.

HINDUS - PACK UP, LEAVE INDIA AND GO TO USA OR THE MOON.

Is the Subject line shrill, alarmist or sensation mongering? Read the following two articles published by Time Magazine within the last few months, and form your own judgement.

The two articles are captioned "Pakistan: Divided by Faith" (Thursday, Aug. 02, 2007) and "India's Muslims in Crisis" (Thursday, Nov. 27, 2008) (just a day after the Mumbai terror attack began). Anybody who is conversant with Carnatic music knows every song in the Carnatic style has three parts - Pallavi, Anupallavi and Charanam. Using the same analogy, these two articles dealing with 'Faith in Pakistan' and 'Indian Muslims' have different Pallavis (a couple of paragraphs) dealing with the specific topics, followed by almost identical long Anupallavis and Charanams extoling the status of Muslims during Mughal rule of India and bemoaning their current position after India's independence. I will reproduce below the Pallavis of the two articles and then give a bit of Anupallavi and Charanam.


http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1649060_1649046_1649032,00.html
Thursday, Aug. 02, 2007
Pakistan: Divided by Faith
By Aryn Baker


http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1862650,00.html
Thursday, Nov. 27, 2008
India's Muslims in Crisis
By Aryn Baker


Pallavi for "Pakistan: Divided by Faith".
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A few weeks before Abdul Rashid Ghazi died in a shootout with Pakistani special forces, he told me about a young woman who had asked him to make her a suicide bomber. I was drinking tea with Ghazi, the deputy leader of Islamabad's radical Red Mosque, in his small office just off the mosque's main entrance. Outside, a man — a boy really, with barely a beard — paced nervously, an AK-47 gripped tightly in his hands. Inside, one of Ghazi's assistants updated the mosque's website, which promoted his campaign to spread Shari'a, or Islamic law, throughout the land. Another assistant was affixing labels to a stack of newly burned DVDs portraying American "aggression" in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was these heinous acts, said Ghazi, that inspired his young female acolyte to seek martyrdom. "Had I wanted to use her, I could have, because she was completely ready. But I sent her back, saying we don't need her, inshallah [God willing]."

On July 3, Pakistani forces laid siege to the mosque complex, which had housed some 5,000 students, teachers and clerics — plus a host of heavily armed militants. On the eighth day, after many had fled or surrendered, the soldiers raided the compound. Ghazi was killed, along with 11 soldiers, some 80 militants and a dozen women and children who may have been used as human shields. (The Red Mosque remains a magnet for violence: last Friday, a suicide bombing at a restaurant behind the mosque killed at least 13.) After the July 11 assault, the President, General Pervez Musharraf, addressed the nation. This was not a day of celebration, he said: "We have been up against our own people ... They strayed from the right path and became susceptible to terrorism." Then Musharraf posed wider questions meant for Pakistan but relevant, too, to the rest of South Asia: "What kind of Islam do these people represent? What do we want as a nation?" Today, 60 years after partition created Pakistan and India, Islam on the subcontinent is in the grip of a crisis whose central dilemma is the religion's place and role in modern society. It is a crisis 150 years in the making.


Pallavi for "India's Muslims in Crisis".
---------------------------------------

The disembodied voice was chilling in its rage. A gunman, holed up in the Oberoi Trident hotel in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), where some 40 people had been taken hostage, told an Indian news channel that the attacks were revenge for the persecution of Muslims in India. "We love this as our country, but when our mothers and sisters were being killed, where was everybody?" he asked via telephone. No answer came. But then he probably wasn't expecting one.

The roots of Muslim rage run deep in India, nourished by a long-held sense of injustice over what many Indian Muslims believe is institutionalized discrimination against the country's largest minority group. The disparities between Muslims, who make up 13.4% of the population, and India's Hindus, who hover at around 80%, are striking. There are exceptions, of course, but generally speaking, Muslim Indians have shorter life spans, worse health, lower literacy levels and lower-paying jobs. Add to that toxic brew the lingering resentment over 2002's anti-Muslim riots in the state of Gujarat. The riots, instigated by Hindu nationalists, killed some 2,000 people, most of them Muslims. To this day, few of the perpetrators have been convicted. (See pictures of the terrorist shootings in Mumbai.)

The huge gap between Muslims and Hindus will continue to haunt India's — and neighboring Pakistan's — progress toward peace and prosperity. But before intercommunal relations can improve, there are even bigger problems that must first be worked out: the schism in subcontinental Islam and the religion's place and role in modern India and Pakistan. It is a crisis 150 years in the making.


Beginning of the Anupallavi
---------------------------

On the afternoon of March 29, 1857, Mangal Pandey, a handsome, mustachioed soldier in the East India Company's native regiment in Barrackpore, near Kolkata, attacked his British lieutenant with a musket, then a sword. At his trial Pandey swore that he acted alone, but his hanging a week later sparked a subcontinental revolt known to Indians as the first war of independence and to the British as the Sepoy Mutiny. Retribution was swift, and though Pandey was a Hindu, it was the subcontinent's Muslims, whose Mughal King nominally held power in Delhi, who bore the brunt of British rage. The remnants of the Mughal Empire were dismantled, and Bahadur Shah, the last Indian Emperor, was exiled to Burma. Five hundred years of Muslim supremacy on the subcontinent was brought to a halt.


Final stanza of the Charanam.
-----------------------------

Still, many South Asian Muslims insist Islam is the one and only force that can bring the subcontinent together and return it to preeminence as a single whole. "We [Muslims] were the legal rulers of India, and in 1857 the British took that away from us," says Tarik Jan, a gentle-mannered scholar at Islamabad's Institute of Policy Studies. "In 1947 they should have given that back to the Muslims." Jan is no militant, but he pines for the golden era of the Mughal period in the 1700s, and has a fervent desire to see India, Pakistan and Bangladesh reunited under Islamic rule.

That sense of injustice is at the root of Muslim identity today. It has permeated every aspect of society, and forms the basis of rising Islamic radicalism on the subcontinent. "People are hungry for justice," says Ahmed Rashid, Pakistani journalist and author of the seminal book Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. "It is perceived to be the fundamental promise of the Koran." These twin phenomena — the longing many Muslims have to see their religion restored as the subcontinent's core, and the marks of both piety and extremism Islam bears — reflect the lack of strong political and civic institutions in the region for people to have faith in. Pervez Musharraf asks Pakistanis what they want. But the real question is what they, as well as Indians and Bangladeshis, Muslims and non-Muslims, believe.

HOW ARTFUL FOR THE ARTICLES TO SAY THAT THE PAKISTANIS AS WELL AS INDIANS AND BANGLADESHIS, MUSLIMS AND NON-MUSLIMS, BELIEVE THAT THEY SHOULD ALL BE UNITED AGAIN UNDER ISLAMIC RULE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please read the two articles in full to get the full import of what they say. Is the Time Magazine reporting news or acting as a Muslim Mouthpiece, Pakistani mouthpiece to propogate such pernicious thoughts?

PAKISTAN DOES NOT SPONSOR TERRORISM? WHAT A JOKE!!

Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari has said it. Pakistan's Prime Minister Gilani has said it. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Qureshi has said it. Now Pervez Musharraf has said it. Pakistan is more innocent than the just-born baby even. Pakistan does not know what terrorism is. Pakistan has nothing to do with any terrorist activity going on in this world. In fact Pakistan is an innocent victim of terrorism. Pakistan is unfairly accused of sponsoring and exporting terrorism, instead of getting appreciation for their role in the 'War On Terror' mounted by the USA.


Haven't we heard the ultimate TRUTH? What a great joke this is!! Well, Pakistan may well be justifiably banking on the USA standing by it in making such assertions. After all the Americans have had at least half a hand in the creation of such terrorist entities in Pakistan. For example, let us take a look at how the Taliban was created. This is from a "Special Report: From Cold War, Afghans Inherit Brutal New Age" by JOHN F. BURNS dated: February 14, 1996, in New York Times.(http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE3DB1239F937A25751C0A960958260)

"The other macabre twist is that in Afghanistan this hostile force (Taliban) is a mutation of American cold war politics. For the Taliban emerged from the chaos of a war between American proxy warriors and Soviet troops, and is still supported by the arms network of American allies created to challenge Soviet power. ................. The name Taliban was taken from the Arabic word for students, a reference to the fact that the core group of Taliban came together at Muslim religious schools known as madrassahs in Kandahar and, before that, during the Soviet occupation, at similar institutions across the border in Pakistan. ................... Reinforced by defectors from the Communist Government's armed forces, and backed by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan -- American allies -- the Taliban thrived on popular disillusionment with the war. ..................... From the outset, the Taliban have been strongly backed by Pakistan, a fact that has prompted Iranian religious leaders to denounce the Taliban as part of an American plot to encircle Iran."


Here again as brought out by Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban):

"The overwhelming majority of the Taliban movement were ethnic Pashtuns from southern Afghanistan and western Pakistan, along with a smaller number of volunteers from Islamic countries or regions in North Africa, the Middle East and the former Soviet Union. The Taliban received valuable training, supplies and arms from the Pakistani government, particularly the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and many recruits from Madrasahs for Afghan refugees in Pakistan, primarily ones established by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam JUI. ....................... Although there is no evidence that the CIA directly supported the Taliban or Al Qaeda, some basis for military support of the Taliban was provided when, in the early 1980s, the CIA and the ISI (Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence Agency) provided arms to Afghans resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the ISI assisted the process of gathering radical Muslims from around the world to fight against the Soviets. Osama Bin Laden was one of the key players in organizing training camps for the foreign Muslim volunteers. The U.S. poured funds and arms into Afghanistan, and by 1987, 65,000 tons of U.S.-made weapons and ammunition a year were entering the war."


Centre for Research on Globalisation, Montreal, Canada, has published a paper by Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa, captioned "Cover-up or Complicity of the Bush Administration? The Role of Pakistan's Military Intelligence (ISI) in the September 11 Attacks" (Posted at globalresearch.ca 2 November 2001) (http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO111A.html)

It says:"The existence of an "ISI-Osama-Taliban axis" was a matter of public record. The links between the ISI and agencies of the US government including the CIA are also a matter of public record. The Bush Administration was fully cognizant of (ISI Chief) Lt. General (Mahmoud) Ahmad's role. In other words, rather than waging a campaign against international terrorism, the evidence would suggest that it is indirectly abetting international terrorism, using the Pakistani ISI as a 'go-between'."


Well, what does all this have to do with Pakistan's terrorism against India, or America's tacit acquiescence to it?


So far India has fought 3 wars with Pakistan. It is very significant that (1) none of them were initiated by India, and (2) Pakistan always started them by infiltrating India with irregulars, like Pathan tribals and other civilians, and then following them with its regular army. When they did not get any purchase out of these adventures, they decided to give up any frontal confrontation and instead bug India with proxy war through terrorists.


The reason for Pakistan's insane hostility toward India is quite apparent, but it is not acceptable or excusable. Even though their focus is currently on grabbing Kashmir by hook or crook, their ultimate aim is to destabilise India internally using the substantial Muslim population still in India, and grab India as a whole to 'reclaim the glory of their Mughal rule'. It was not a casual or loose statement that the Pak Foreign Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto made in the UN when he referred to Indians as 'Indian Dogs' and said that they (the Muslims) had ruled over India for a thousand years and they would do it again. But the Americans too had developed an antogonistic attitude towards India and had joined hands with the Pakistanis in playing their game against India's interests.


After India won independence from British rule, the Americans tried to enlist India as their front line partner to contain any Soviet expansion in this region. As India did not want to make such alignments with anybody and wanted to chart out its own course in such matters, like a jilted lover on rebound the Americans transferred their affection to Pakistan who welcomed them with both hands. Maybe they were also influenced by the British assessment in this regard. "Convinced by the British, Americans subscribed to the thesis that while Islam would bind Pakistan (a state carved out of India) firmly, India—with its inherent diversity of languages, culture, and religion— would not be able to keep itself united." (USAWC Strategy Research Project. From Estrangement To Engagement: Threats And Opportunities In Indo-U.S. Relations And The Roles Of Their Armed Forces ... by Brig. Anil Chait --- 2006 -- www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/ksil303.pdf)


Even though India did procure some of its weaponry and armaments from the US also apart from other sources, it was nowhere near what the Americans poured into Pakistan, in quantity as well as sophistication, of course with the eyewash of a condition that it was all for use against the Russians and not to be used against India. But what happened in reality was something else.


Look at this report from K.Subrahmanyam, an expert commentator on Indian security aspects, in his article in Rediff.com about the 1965 war. (http://www.rediff.com///news/2005/sep/06war1.htm -- 1965 decided fate of the subcontinent -- September 06, 2005)

"The Americans were well informed about the possibility of Pakistani infiltration into Kashmir and the subsequent offensive months in advance, as has been recorded by the then Central Investigative Agency operative in India, Duane Claridge, in his book A Man for All Seasons.

"The American military and political establishment had concluded that in case of a war, Pakistan would win.

"The Pentagon and Harvard University played a war game at the Institute of Defence Analysis, Washington, DC, in March 1965. The war game and its results were available in a book, Crisis Game by Sidney Giffin, by the spring of 1965.

"The total failure of the Kashmir uprising, the complete destruction of the Pakistani Patton Armoured division at Khem Karan in Punjab and the Pakistan Army running out of ammunition and being saved from total humiliation through the UN ceasefire constitute a turning point in the history of India-Pakistan relations.

"Islamabad's use of American arms against India was against the assurances given by President Dwight Eisenhower to Jawaharlal Nehru that in case Pakistan used US-supplied arms against India, necessary corrective action would follow.

"Though the US bureaucracy and the Pentagon were prepared to look the other way if Pakistan had won the war, they found it difficult to overlook the miserable performance of Pakistani armour at Khem Karan."


This is the sort of perfidy, treachery that the US has been practising against India all the time.


Can the UK be far behind? After all, it will be appropriate to modify a Nursery Rhyme as follows:
Mary (US) had a little lamb (UK), whose fleece was white as snow;
Wherever that (US) Mary went, the (UK) lamb was sure to go.

I was in England at the time of the 1965 skirmishes and I can very well remember the anti-Indian reporting in the UK newspapers. Particularly one Earl of Arran used to spew venom on India liberally. They were reporting with glee that Pakistan was dishing it out to India in full measure, and they were almost knocking at New Delhi's doors. I landed back in Bombay on the day the UN mediated cease-fire was to take effect. Only on reaching India I got the true picture that the Paks were on their knees, and the cease-fire rescued them from further destruction.


If this was the treachery of the Americans before and during the misadventure, what about after the war was over? The same report from K.Subrahmanyam continues:

"Pakistan drew correct lessons from the failure of Operation Gibraltar when the Kashmiris did not rise against India in consequence to large-scale infiltration of Pakistani commandos into the Kashmir valley. They bided their time and in the late 1980s trained disaffected Kashmiris, who crossed over into Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, in arms and infiltrated them back.

"That this strategy too did not wholly succeed is a different story but it did begin the prolonged proxy war against India in Kashmir.

"Pakistan also discovered it was not difficult to run rings around the conditions of American arms supplies and hide things from US inspection teams. They were able to covertly raise a second armoured division in 1965. Unfortunately for them it did not give them the victory in Punjab they expected. The second armoured division met its defeat at Khem Karan.

"Pakistan used this experience of getting around US procedures in the 1980s to divert American arms -- meant for Afghans fighting Soviet forces -- to arm the various jihadi militias and to install the Taliban regime in Kabul."


Was this all done without the knowledge of the Americans? How naive should one be to believe such a thing!!


Subsequently any amount of Pakistani terrorist attacks in Kashmir and in the rest of India has not elicited any response from the Americans to pull up their protege and make them behave. For these Rip Van Winkles of America, terrorism was born in this world only when a gang of terrorists hoodwinked the Americans, hijacked some planes from American airports and flew them into the twin towers of World Trade Centre in New York. What sweet Divine justice!! These 'Christian' Americans should be aware of what their own Bible says: "For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind". Maybe the 9/11 experience was not the full whirlwind, but just a sample, an advance warning.


However, as part of their consequent 'War on Terror' they forced Pakistan to ban the Lashkar-e-Toiba and some other terrorist outfits. But the Paks made it clear that the ban applied to all of Pakistan except the Pak Occupied Kashmir where their anti-Indian activity will go on as usual. Why? Did the Americans take note of it? Did they care? India, and the Indians, can go to hell for all they care. Isn't that the message they are sending? The USA is Pakistan's accessory before, during and after the fact of every Pakistani terrorist activity against India.


Why, in the aftermath of the Mumbai terrorist attack, have they suddenly started 'acting' tough against Pakistan and getting a UN Security Council resolution passed banning the Pak terrorist units? "Elementary, my dear Watson", as Sherlock Holmes would say. The non-stop TV coverage for 3 days of the Taj Hotel burning has caused a world-wide revulsion on par with the revulsion created by similar TV presentation of the WTC collapsing. Even the Americans cannot ignore this. To compound it further for them, the list of casualties included half a dozen Americans and, more than that, half a dozen Jews. The Americans can ignore this only at their peril. Obviously it is time to jettison the Pakistanis at least temporarily, for a short time.

SHAME ON THE CONGRESS/UPA GOVERNMENT

A team of FBI officials from America have landed here to 'help' Indian intelligence units with the investigations on the recent terrorist attack on Mumbai. A team of Scotland Yard sleuths have also landed here for the same task. A team of intelligence experts from Australia also seem to have arrived. So also a team from Israel.

WHAT IS HAPPENING? Has the Government of India decided that Indian intelligence personnel are not capable of carrying out this investigation? If that is so, it is a recent development which is very worrying.

We cannot easily forget the investigation of the 1995 Purulia Arms Dropping case where the British operative Peter Bleach and 5 Latvian crew of the aircraft were successfully prosecuted and jailed. Subsequently the 5 Latvian crew were pardoned and released in 2000, and Peter Bleach himself was given a Presidential pardon and released in 2004. However one more operative, Kim Davy from Denmark, had escaped and was absconding. The latest news seems to be that he has been caught by Danish authorities, and he is likely to be extradited to India to face trial.

Then again it is the alertness and pioneering investigation of the Delhi Police who smelled a rat, which was followed by a CBI investigation, that exposed the match-fixing scandal involving players of all major cricket playing countries, leading to many of them being banned from playing.

Just take a look at this 03FEB2005 report in
http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/02-03-05.asp captioned:
"Remote viewing Indian intelligence makes India withdraw from SAARC meet in Bangladesh all of a sudden to protect India’s leaders from Islamic militants" by Kiran Chaube, Special Correspondent.

"India all of a sudden decided not to attend the SAARC meeting with the seven South Asian countries next week. Expressing shock and dismay at India's decision not to attend the SAARC summit, Bangladesh on Wednesday accused New Delhi of holding the seven-nation club "hostage to bilateral onsiderations." ................ According to sources in New Delhi, field intelligence, remote viewers in India’s military intelligence RAW and satellite feed from communications channels confirmed that Islamic militants were planning a major strike against Indian leaders during the SAARC meeting. Bangladesh has harbored Islamic militants and has secret training camps to train them .................... According to field intelligence and remote viewers, militants were well positioned to strike a major blow of catastrophic nature against India in Dhaka. A team of security experts who is in Dhaka investigated the suspected breach of security and possible means by which the Islamic militants can attack the Indian leaders in Dhaka. They were surprised at the pin pointed source of problem provided by the remote viewers and field intelligence. .............. India had no plans to cancel the plan of attending the meeting. As a matter of fact some solid breakthrough in relations between India and Pakistan was expected in the meeting and India was looking forward to the same."

That is how alert and effective our intelligence community has been.

Here again is another report Dated:02/03/2007 from:
http://www.thehindu.com/2007/03/02/stories/2007030204681400.htm
"Indian intelligence had warned about attack on Musharraf"Amit Baruah

"NEW DELHI: Indian intelligence had warned Pakistan about the first assassination attempt on President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003, claims a new book by a senior Pakistani journalist Zahid Hussain.

"In Frontline Pakistan, Mr. Hussain claimed that the December 14, 2003 attempt to kill Gen. Musharraf by blowing up a bridge used by his vehicle in Rawalpindi was the work of the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), a group formed by cleric Masood Azhar, freed by India after the IC-814 hijacking in December 1999.

""Ironically, it was Indian intelligence that had warned Musharraf of the first attempt to kill him by blowing up the bridge," the book said, stating that some two dozen Pakistan Air Force personnel were part of a clandestine JeM cell to assassinate the President."

"(Top Indian officials, familiar with the events of December 2003, confirm that Mr. Hussain's account of a warning being passed on by Indian intelligence agencies to Pakistani authorities relating to Gen. Musharraf, is accurate)."


Here is another report dated 03APR2002 on: http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=8901, captioned:
"Indian intelligence wiretap identified 9/11 hijackers"

"Washington, April 3: Indian intelligence agencies helped the US to identify the hijackers who carried out the deadly September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, a media report said here on Wednesday.

"The new probe began after US officials learned that intelligence agents in India had wiretapped the telephone of a Pakistani charity funded by the Saudi government and discovered the transfer of 100,000 dollars to Mohamed Atta, one of the 19 hijackers, the paper quoting US officials said.

"The information helped US officials identify all the 19 hijackers -- 15 of whom were Saudi nationals, the officials said."

This has basically been the calibre and pedigree of our intelligence establishments. It is such a set-up which finds itself degraded, depreciated and reviled to the extent that, in the wake of the terrorist attack on Mumbai, the Congress/UPA Government at the centre has invited, or at the least allowed, the 'experts' from the USA, the UK, Australia and Israel to investigate this terrorist action. What a shame!!

One has to wonder whether this Government will go one step further now and outsource our intelligence/security/defence activities to the Americans, Britishers, Australians and Israelis. What a shame!!

'Cowards can't run cricket, I'll return to India'

That's what Kevin Pietersen, the captain of the English cricket team, says, hiding behind the skirts of his wife in his house in England after he and his team of cowards ran away to the security of their wives' bosoms as soon as they got news of some gunshots and bombings in some part of India far away from where they were.

The press report from London, datelined NOV 30, 2008 says:

"Most of his teammates may have developed cold feet but England captain Kevin Pietersen said he would return to India for the Test series, provided security adviser Reg Dickason okays the tour. Back in the comfort of his family, Pietersen said he could not sleep since terror struck Mumbai but asserted terrorism should not be allowed to play spoilsport.

"We can't allow these cowards to run our game," Pietersen wrote in Sunday's News of the World. "It puts it all into perspective when you see blood on the streets. But if Reg gives us the OK, then I'll be back for the two Test matches and complete the tour. He has been around the block and I trust his judgement 100 per cent. If he says it is safe to go back to India for the First Test in 11 days, then you can count me in," added the England captain. 

"Pietersen, however, made it clear that he would not force any teammate to join the touring party."

Very brave words indeed!!! If KP really meant what he said -- "We can't allow these cowards to run our game" --  he and his team should have stayed put, thumbed their noses at the terrorists and carried on with the tour. Well, it is not to be. Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison have announced they will not return to India for the rest of he series. Maybe other players have also said so in private. Oh! What brave souls!! The Government of India should invite KP & Co as special guests for the Republic Day function in January 2009 and give them Bravery awards.

It looks like the ECB has said that the senior players are not ready to make the tour, and they will send a 2nd string team for the 2-Test series. Is the BCCI shameless enough to accept this, or do they have the guts to tell the ECB and the ICC that it is not acceptable?

Contrast this with the reaction and response of some people who were trapped inside the hotels during the stressful encounter, literally staring down the barrel of the gun. In TV interviews after their rescue, there were a good number of them who said they are not planning to leave India immediately because of this bad experience, They said they like India and they will continue with their tour. In fact a group of people from South Africa, who had booked for a 3-week tour of India, canceled their booking as soon as they heard about the terrorist attack. But when the crisis blew over in 3 days, they have immediately revived their plan and reinstated their bookings.

These are brave people. Not this bunch of English cricketers who are as cowardly as the terrorists whom KP calls as cowards.

Thanks, Shane Warne, For Your Candid Admission.

The caption of the article in the Indian Express says:

Aus lack the edge without aggression: Warne
(http://www.indianexpress.com/printerFriendly/264297.html)
Posted online: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 at 1434 hrs IST
Melbourne, January 22:

"Legendary leg-spinner Shane Warne has said Australia cared too much about their image in the Perth cricket Test and lost the edge without their trademark aggression.

"Warne said the main weapon for Australia was their aggressive body language on the field and by being careful of their conduct after the Sydney fiasco they found it difficult to curb the Indians.

"There have been some suggestions that Australia lost their edge and were too concerned about their image going into Perth. Sport is about passion and attitude and knowing yourself. Australia play best when they get in the face of the opposition and are very aggressive," Warne wrote in his column for The Daily Telegraph.

There, the cat is out of the bag. Thanks, Warne, for your admission that Australian cricket thrives not due to the cricketing skills of the players but due to their "aggressive" behaviour (read provocative, abusive, intimidatory, insulting behaviour) on the field. On the face of it, they are "aggressive" against the opposing team, but in reality, the umpires sub-consciously fall prey to this provocative, intimidatory behaviour, and tend to rule more in favour of these street bullies than the opponents. This is more so in the case of the Third (TV) Umpire who is an Australian who most often rules against the opponents; the most recent case is when Bruce Oxenford ruled Symonds not out to a stumping appeal in the second Test at Sydney when the entire commentator fraternity of the world, including Aussie commentators, were of one mind in declaring him out.

What is this "aggressive" attitude that Shane Warne is talking about? There is a very sad report in the Sydney Morning Herald about how this is poisoning the young minds of Australia.

(http://www.smh.com.au/news/cricket/badmouthings-best-sharpen-their-tongues-in-juniors/2008/01/11/1199988590657.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1)

Badmouthing's best sharpen their tongues in junior
January 12, 2008

"If you think the on-field behaviour of Australia's Test cricketers is bad, consider the following.

"t was a Green Shield match for under 16s between Manly and Fairfield-Liverpool last weekend. Manly's ninth wicket had just fallen. As their last batsman prepared to make his way to the crease, one of the Fairfield-Liverpool players left the other fieldsmen to run over to the gate to meet him. Former Test player Peter Philpott, who happened to be Manly's coach, described what happened next.

"As the batsman walked out, this other kid walked along with him, verbalising him all the way from the gate to the wicket," he said. "The batsman was a 12-year-old kid, and the player verbalising him was a big, strong 15- or 16-year-old.The boy tried to avoid him, but the big bloke kept walking around him, so he could keep hammering in his ear."

"Philpott thought he had seen everything, but this incident broke new ground. It showed you no longer had to wait for a batsman to arrive at the crease before sledging him; you could start as soon as he set foot on the field.

"Philpott belongs to a generation of cricketers who regard sledging as the worst of evils. He played his last Test in 1966 when sledging was not an issue."

Isn't it great how the teenage Aussie cricketers are groomed first into sledging techniques!! The next thing the Aussies will device is to prepare a special training programme to be played to every Aussie pregnant woman regularly so that the foetuses in their wombs will absorb all that is needed and come out fully prepared to take on the world. How great!!

Chief of Cricket Australia, Sutherland, says this is how Australia has always played their game right from the beginning, and he defends their horrid behaviour. Don Bradman must be turning in his grave many times over on hearing this. What a shame!!

STEROIDS? SLEDGING? -- THEY ARE ALL THE SAME

Here is a short description of what steroids can do.
"Do you know that steroids can also be good for you? Doctors give them to you for rashes and allergies. Did you know that asthma is the most common kid disease in the whole world? Five million kids in the U.S. get it. Certain steroids are a safe way to treat asthma in kids, but they do have side effects ........ There are some good things about steroids and so many bad things. A good thing is it can treat asthma safely. A bad thing is that your kidneys, liver, and stomach can be destroyed. Too many steroids can destroy your mind. If people take illegal steroids, they will have mood swings. You can be very violent or depressed so much that you might kill yourself. Steroids are taken to strengthen muscles, but they can damage them, too. Steroids can cause heart disease and cancer. They can also make a young child stop growing." (http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112390/steroids.htm)

Use of steroids in sports is covered under the generic term of 'doping'. "In sports, doping refers to the use of performance-enhancing drugs, particularly those forbidden by organizations that regulate competitions. Doping is considered unethical by most international sports organizations and especially the International Olympic Committee. The reasons are mainly the health threat of performance-enhancing drugs, the equality of opportunity of the athletes and the exemplary effect of "clean" (doping-free) sports in the public." (Wikipedia)

Recent spate of doping scandals show how much this scurge of drugs has invaded the field of sports, particularly athletics. The ideal for athletes was set by Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the modern olympic movement, with his Olympic motto -- Citius, Altius, Fortius, which is Latin for "Faster, Higher, Stronger." A more informal well known motto, also introduced by De Coubertin, is "The most important thing is not to win but to take part!". The idea is that the athletes should strive to improve on their own performances from day to day, year to year and so on, in a natural way through proper nutrition and exercise, and not really compete in an aggressive way to win at any cost.. However, athletes being human beings with the attendant weaknesses, began experimenting with chemical drugs to build their muscles, improve their physique, acquire some strength artificially and so on, so that they can perform better than their competitors. Even though this went against the spirit of the atletics movement, the administrators turned a blind eye to it initially till they began understanding the deleterious effects the drugs had on the health of the athletes, as well as the unfair advantage it gave them over other athletes who were not contaminated. Since then they have started clamping down heavily on such unhealthy and illegal methods. So much so they have even altered the Olympic oath taken by athletes at every Olympic meet to include a clause against drug usage. The revised oath reads as, "In the name of all the competitors I promise that we shall take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by the rules which govern them, committing ourselves to a sport without doping and without drugs, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honour of our teams."

Well, what has all this got to do with 'sledging'. The simple fact that both sledging and doping have the same end result in view. "I must win at any cost. I must put one over the opponent, by any means, fair or foul." In doping one increases once own strength and performing ability by unfair means so that the opponent is not able to compete on an equal footing. In sledging one uses abusive and aggressive language and behaviour against the opponent so that he is mentally upset and is not able to perform normally to his true potential. It is in effect equivalent to injecting a poison in the opponent's body and mind, and so affect his ability to perform. This is in fact worse than doping.

Isn't it a pity that Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting and the entire Aussie cricket team and their administrators are so pessimistic about their own skills, so unsure of their own ability to win, so scared of the skills of the opponents that they have decided they cannot win on the strength of their own skills without resorting to such underhand methods like sledging? Isn't it Steve Waugh who defined sledging as the art of causing "mental disorientation", "mental disintegration" of the opponent? What a glorious aim!! And what an ignominious admission that the Aussies do not have the cricketing skills to win the matches without using such base techniques!!

There is another aspect which has not been talked about openly. What sort of effect does sledging have on the umpires, even though sledging does not target them directly? All said and done sledging is bullying and no less. When the Aussie bullies or the South African bullies (just look at Andre Nel) indulge in sledging and their respective cricket bodies or ICC do nothing to control that, the umpires will subconsciously submit to that bullying and rule in their favour rather than be fair to the victims. This is what happened in Sydney when decision after decision went against India.

How can this scourge be eliminated?

Athletics administrators have shown the way already by their strong action against the doping culprits, many of them quite high-profile athletes. The Canadian sprinter, Ben Johnson, had set a couple of world records in 100 metre sprint in 1986-87. Then he won the 100 m sprint in the 1988 Olympics ahead of Carl Lewis of USA and Linford Christie of UK. However he tested positive to some banned substance. Immediately he was stripped of his title, and Carl Lewis and Linford Christie were awarded the first and second places. Ben Johnson's earlier world records were also removed from the records.

Floyd Landis won the 2006 Tour de France cycling competition. But then his doping test showed positive. He was stripped of his title and was banned for two years.

Justin Gatlin set a world record for 100 m sprint (9.77 sec) in May 2006. He too tested positive subsequently. His world record was annulled and he has been awarded a 4-year ban.

The most high-profile athlete to get caught is Marion Jones of USA who won 5 medals (3 gold and 2 bronze) in the 2000 Olympics. She has recently faced her punishment and had to surrender all her medals and the monies she earned out of that. She is also banned for two years and has to undergo 6-months jail sentence.

That is the way to go to kill the scourge of sledging. Sledging became a high profile technique ever since Steve Waugh, the high priest of sledging, took over as the Aussie captain. So the clean-up also should begin from that time. All the test matches won by Australia, against whatever country, should be reviewed from the point of view of how sledging impacted the result, and wherever a reasonable link is seen, the result of that test match should be annulled. It will be interesting to see how many matches they really won using their skills alone. For a start, the second test at Sydney should be declared a 'No Result'.

MENTAL DISINTEGRATION, MENTAL DERANGEMENT

Steve Waugh doesn't believe Australia should apologise for their attitude in the second test match against India at Sydney (02 to 06 JAN 2008) which Australia won through unfair means. He says, "Teams playing against Australia fail to understand that banter, gamesmanship, sledging or whatever anyone would like to call it is just the way Australian kids joust and play in the schoolyard and backyards. On the other hand, Australian teams can't stomach time-wasting and perceived manipulation of the rules, including calling for runners, over-appealing and the alleged altering of the condition of the ball." (http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/ausvind/content/current/story/329710.html)

Very interesting, well-researched(!), scholarly comment, but with a rather substantial gap between his perception (and understanding), and the reality on the ground. Tim Lane has this to say in The Age of Australia:
"Apart from the fact that distinguishing "legitimate banter" from "sledging" might test the best legal minds, how do you define the spirit of a game? This is what has brought Australian cricket undone this week. It has been playing by its own book. It lays down its rules and then stretches them. The events in Sydney that sparked the week's crisis are but manifestations of an established attitude. An example is the matter of appealing. The Spirit of Australian Cricket refers to the acceptance "of all umpiring decisions as a mark of respect for our opponents, the umpires, ourselves and the game". But what of the matter of appealing for decisions players know, or at least suspect, would be unjust? Did the Aussies really believe Rahul Dravid edged the ball to Adam Gilchrist on the last day in Sydney? It might have won them a 16th straight Test but was it worth it?


"The other matter that has inflamed India is Ricky Ponting's decision to report Harbhajan Singh for using racist language. The Australian captain did as he had been encouraged to do by officialdom. ......... Presumably, Ponting failed to realise that within such a volatile environment this could have serious consequences. How the hard-nosed Aussies would look complaining against their underdog rival appears also to have escaped the skipper. Being an international cricket captain these days requires some sophisticated thinking."
(http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/01/11/1199988590209.html)

How does all this gel with Steve Waugh's position that it is the other teams that manipulate the rules, and indulge in over-appealing?

Here are some more interesting facts. The following is from Brendan McArdle a former Victorian all-rounder and club cricket stalwart, writing in The Age of Australia again.
"But, for those who have followed his (Ponting's) on-field actions closely, particularly on overseas tours, there have been terrible moments when things haven't gone Australia's way. The turning point for Ponting as captain was the loss of the Ashes in 2005. Since then he has led by his own instincts rather than by consensus, and has taken no prisoners. During that 2005 series we saw the irrational side of Ponting when he blamed England coach Duncan Fletcher for his run-out by the substitute fieldsman, rather than the terrible call of his batting partner Damien Martyn.
There have since been instances of toes being trodden on in the pursuit of success, sometimes involving the unbecoming sight of the Australian captain remonstrating with an umpire. Two seasons ago, during a one-day series in New Zealand, he had a slanging match with Billy Bowden when a no-ball was called because he had insufficient fieldsmen in the inner circle. In Bangladesh, on the way home from a wearying tour of South Africa, he badgered the umpires until he got his way. This against cricket's minnows. Like many of his teammates, he consistently pressures umpires with his aggressive appealing and he often ignores the edict that is supposed to prevent fieldsmen from charging at umpires during their appeals.


"As a batsman he has always found it difficult to accept line-ball decisions; it was no surprise last week when, despite his earlier reprieve, he showed his displeasure at wrongly being given leg before wicket. At the Headingley Test of 2001 he stood his ground after appearing to be caught in the slips for a duck. He won a reprieve based on inconclusive television evidence and went on to make a hundred.

"The issue for Ponting is not how he reacts to Tony Greig's comments, whether he gives some lip to Duncan Fletcher as he leaves the field, or what he did at the Bourbon and Beefsteak bar in his younger days. It's about how he and his team interact with umpires and opposition players — whether it's in the true spirit of the game."
(http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/01/11/1199988590215.html)

Can there be a worse indictment than this about the behaviour of the Aussie captain Ponting and his players? Does any of this description gel with Steve Waugh's perception that the Aussie players are paragons of virtue and it is the others, particularly the sub-continent players, who are the scum of the earth? If and when Steve Waugh hears or reads such indictment of his Aussie team, does he rush to the Bondi Beach in Sydney and do what their national bird, the ostrich, is said to do?

Is it possible that, far from achieving the "mental disintegration", "mental disorientation" of the Indians, Steve Waugh and his proteges have themselves got "mental disintegration" and "mental degeneration" to the extent they are living in a state of illusion, deluding themselves that there is nothing wrong with them and they are behaving perfectly alright, even though the bulk of the world is faulting them?

On the other hand, while the match officials are ready to shoot from the hip whenever they think some player, particularly from the Indian sub-continent, has "misbehaved", they have again and again and again kept quiet and submitted to such rowdy behaviour of the Aussies. Why?


Maybe we have to express our grudging admiration for something else Steve Waugh, his successor captain Ponting and their team appear to have achieved. Rather than the Indians suffering "mental disintegration", it is the arbitrators who have fallen for it and become mentally disoriented and doing the bidding of the Aussies, as can be seen by the plethora of perverse decisions given by Steve Bucknor, Mark Benson, the third umpire and the match referee Mike Procter. As Steve Waugh and his proteges are influencing and altering the condition of the minds of the arbitrators, why should he bother about "the alleged altering of the condition of the ball" by others?

RACISM -- ALIVE AND KICKING IN AUSTRALIA

Racism in cricket has been brought alive in the second cricket test between India and Australia (02 to 06 JAN 2008) with Andrew Symonds alleging that Harbhajan Singh made a racist comment about him, and match referee Mike Procter passing judgement against Harbhajan based only on the words of the accuser Symonds and a couple of his team-mates, without any concrete evidence.


This is not the first time India has had to face non-white cricketers. Apart from playing against the West Indies for a long time, we have had non-whites in the England team such as Dean Hadley, Devon Malcolm, Phil DeFrietas, and in the Souh African Team like Makhaya Ntini, Paul Adams, Nicky Boje, as well as players in the Kenya and Zimbabwe teams. Never in all these years has there been the slightest whiff of racist comment from the Indians against any of these non-whites, or even against anyone else for that matter. If Australia suddenly puts up a cry against Harbhajan and gets a three-test ban passed by Mike Procter in a Kangaroo Court fashion, there is something perverse and sinister about it.

Andrew Symonds happens to be the first, and one and only, non-white player in a team of pure-white Australians in whom the "White Australia" blood still is in full flow. Apart from Evonne Goolagong Cawley in tennis and Cathy Freeman in athletics, not much is known about other original inhabitants, the Aborigines, in Australian sports. One wonders what sort of equation or relationship Symonds has with the "whites" in the team. Having moved from the Caribeans to Australia, he has to constantly prove himself to be more loyal to Australia than the Australians themselves. He is in a very vulnerable position to be 'used' by the racist elements in the team for their own benefit.

Indians have been some sort of a thorn in recent times in the path of the 'all-conquering' Australians and they have to be stopped in their track by hook or crook. Isn't it the easiest thing in the world for the racist Australians to 'use' Symonds to plant a racism charge against India and "mentally disintegrate" them, in the words of their great master-mind Steve Waugh who shaped their sledging practice in this direction?

As a result, we see the 'white racism' of the Australian players (and English umpire Mark Benson) along with the 'black racism' of the West Indies umpire Steve Bucknor, who seems to have taken a visceral dislike for the Indians as seen by his many recent bad decisions against them, aided and abetted by the 'apartheid racism' of South African Mike Procter in his totally one-sided judgement against Harbhajan throwing into the winds any semblance of natural justice, coming together like a ton of bricks on the Indians. And this is what Ricky Ponting and his brand of fellow-Australians call playing "HARD AND FAIR".

Looks like we have to fall back on good old friend Mark Anthony to describe the situation. "Andrew Symonds says he is not overly sensitive about racism but considers comments unacceptable when they come from opposition players with whom he has no friendship," says a report from Cricinfo. So there it is in black and white; Harbhajan is no friend of Symonds, so whatever he says becomes racist.
(http://content-ind.cricinfo.com/ausvind/content/current/story/330663.html)
So this wound to Harbhajan and India was caused by Symonds. But Symonds is an honourable man. When Harbhajan said something to Symonds in response to a provocation from him, Ponting runs to his mothers, Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson, and complains, "My Mummies, this fellow hit me back first", which finally leads to a three match ban. This wound to Harbhajan and India was caused by Ponting. But Ponting is an honourable man. Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson did not see any of this evil, and did not hear any of this evil directly, but still they carried the complaint to Mike Procter the referee, which resulted in the three-match ban on Harbhajan. But Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson are honourable men. Mike Procter admitted in a TV interview that the umpires did not hear Harbhajan uttering any racist comments, but he still accepted Symonds' complaint at face value and dumped Harbhajan's defense into the sea in the Sydney beach, and slapped a three-match ban on him. This wound to Harbhajan and India was caused by Mike Procter. But Mike Procter is an honourable man.

Yes, all these racists are honourable men indeed.