Confessions of a smoker

We read a lot about victims who are addicted to smoking. Me too, a victim in a different way.  It was September 24th 2007, the day when India took on Pakistan in the World Cup T20 finals. I had traveled from Panjim to Vasco to board a train to Bangalore after covering Senior National Swimming assignment for Deccan Herald. After reaching Vasco railway station, I informed my colleague Vivek Phadnis that I would be back in few minutes, came out of the station and found a petty shop selling cigarettes, after buying a Gold Flake Kings, I started puffing away along with other smoking fraternity who were all around me.

Just a few more drags remaining, when I felt a hand on my back. Not patting, but trying to hold me. I was shocked to learn it was a cop. On asking him what's the matter, he promptly said that I am smoking in the railway station premises and asked me to accompany him to Police Station. I was sure I had come well away from the premises and was smoking near the same shop that was selling the cigarettes, and among scores of other smokers. But why me?

In police station I was made to wait for the Inspector who was to a take call whether I should be produced in the court or not. This, after I bragged about my PRESS credentials to the cop. The irony of my fate was such, I was made to sit next to another offender in the Police station. His offence? pissing on the railway station wall!

I was happy to learn that Inspector was a Kannadiga posted in Goa. But my happiness was short lived. This officer promptly told me that he is under pressure to produce at least two such offender to the Court on daily basis, and was in no way to help me out. Later, I was taken to the court that was very close to the railway station. The cop who caught me in the act, tried to make me comfortable by saying that it would take only few minutes for the honorable Judge to pronounce the verdict. "Oh, my god, verdict, will I be jailed, will I miss my train?". The train of thoughts already started sending alarm signals in my head. Since my mobile was asked to switch off by the cop, my colleague Vivek never had an idea about my disappearance.

Inside the court hall, a divorce case was on. The Judge was trying frantically to hear out the case and post it to further date, which took almost 40 minutes. But, those punishing moments looked like 40 hours for me. When the honorable judge was ready to hear our case, the pisser was the first one to stand in the box. Judge slapped him fine of Rs 100, but since he had no money with him, the verdict was, Pisser was to spend one night in police lock up and clean the premises before Police set him free. He was a local laborer and had to agree to the verdict. I was the next one to go to the accused box and face the Judge. I confessed to the crime and pleaded guilty (of smoking) as advised by the cop. Then came the verdict. For a moment I thought my whole world would go black, instead, I was urged to jump in elation, which was not allowed inside a courtroom. I was slapped a fine of 50 Rupees by the Judge before setting me to freedom. That was it. I came out of the Court, made sure I was nowhere near to any public place, purchased a cigarette and puffed happily, without the fear of getting caught. Because, now I was smoking near a Bar & Restaurant. With a cigarette in my hand, I feel like a Man.Anyone remember this song anymore? My colleague Vivek's anxiety turned into unstoppable laugh riot after he listened to my experience. I had no problems in catching the train and also the news of India winning against Pakistan was a welcome news to forget the sour experience. Oh, Sreesanth was not fixed to drop that famous catch, that enabled us the victory. For Pakistan what a MIS-BAH.

I decided to post this experience today because 31st May is

World Anti-Tobacco Day. It's been almost 7 months now that I have stopped smoking. And yes, Without a cigarette in my hand, I still feel like a Man!!

Bunch of Jokers v/s Millions of Idiots.

"Cricket is a game played by 11 fools and watched by 11,000 fools," said the famous Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw. But, his comments were limited to early 19th century and more so for English Cricket. If he was alive and to have witnessed how cricketers in India are revered, probably he would have declared himself a fool to have spoken such words on cricketers and and Indian Cricket Fans.

I am writing these words because, the dynamic Indian Captain, the most successful Indian Captain, the one who brought back World Cup in the last edition... oh yes, I am talking about Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who has become the new Mahatma Gandhi of Indian cricket. Of course, Gandhian policy was Speak no Evil, Hear no Evil & See no Evil. But Dhoni's policy is Don't Speak against fixing, Don't hear about fixing & Don't ever see through the menace.

When whole nation was hoping to hear from the man, MSD, on the scandal that is dogging Indian Cricket, this man's silence looks more like answers in favor of the fraudsters than to the accountability he owes to Indian cricket Fans. His aim is clear, to 'cement' his future safely than to talk against the system that is rotten for years now. Everyone knows what happened to Mohinder Amarnath for his 'bunch of jokers' remark. Or, Kapil Dev for associating with Indian Cricket League which was later buried by BCCI through IPL. Though, these same cricketers later re conciliated with BCCI for the sops doled out by the board to retired cricketers, is a different story.

Whenever India performs badly, the same cricketers including Dhoni has always blamed hectic schedule, but no one is ready to rest himself from IPL to prepare for Champions Trophy or any other major tours. Even Dhoni has expressed last year that he will be playing Test Cricket only for couple of years, indicating that he is more willing to play the shorter version of the game that is more cash rich and instant.

The dashing Indian captain cut a sorry picture on 28th May press conference. He looked like a mere office bearer of world cricket's supreme power ICC, that can be gagged, strangulated or raped by the cash rich BCCI headed by the likes of Srinivasans, Sharad Pawars or AC Muthaiahs, who have never played a game in their lifetime, but, best in manipulative tactics. With such people at the helm of affairs, Indian cricket Fans surely look like millions of fools as described by George Bernard Shaw.

PS: In the next edition of IPL, if strategic time out is extended to half an hour from present 7 minutes, don't be surprised. Vodafone is coming up with more Zumi Zumi kind of hits to keep you entertained.

ಸೂಂತಕ್ಕ ಮೂತ್ರ

I can talk English, I can walk English, I can laugh English because English is a very phunny language. Bhairo becomes Byron because their minds are very narrow-Thus spake the great Amitabh Bachchan in Namak Halal. Not only English, any language turns very funny if it's  miss-spelt.

Once I was traveling with my wife when I noticed 'ಸೂಂತಕ್ಕ ಮೂತ್ರ ' (Soonthakka Mootra) scribbled behind an auto. Mootra when translated to English becomes loo! My wife wondered what that particular message meant. In the very next junction I happened to overtake the auto before stopping as the signal turned red. The front glass of the same auto had a different message in English this time. 'One Use'. Again, One is vaguely related to loo when we speak casually. I even wondered that this auto guy should be having a in-built toilet or something when I realized the consistency of this guy in spelling mistake. The front glass message actually meant 'Own Use' which becomes 'ಸ್ವಂತಕ್ಕೆ ಮಾತ್ರ ' (Swanthakke Maatra) when translated to Kannada. 

A friend of mine had this to share. He had a friend by name Varadaraja Baanavara (ವರದರಾಜ ಬಾಣಾವರ) . Baanavara is a place in Arasikre Tq in Hasan Dt. So, this friend of mine had been to Udupi on some work and noticed 'ವರದರಜ ಬನವಾರ' outside a small eatery. He was not sure whether it was his friend's name. Anyways he tried to take a chance as he approached the cashier and asked whether he could talk to the owner? The cashier asked him to wait that owner would be back in 10 minutes. My friend still had a doubt that his friend from Baanavara was owning this hotel. He went back to the same cashier and asked for the name of the owner of the eatery. The cashier got pissed off this time and spat back the name Chandrashekara Pai, the owner. So, my friend asked the cashier, again, why they have a board of Varadaraja outside? to which the cashier said "  ಎಂಥದು ಮಾರಾಯ್ರೆ, ನಿಮಗೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ಓದಲಿಕ್ಕೆ ಬರುದಿಲ್ವೆ? ಅದು ವರದರಾಜ ಬಾಣಾವರ ಅಲ್ಲ, ವಾರದ ರಜ ಭಾನುವಾರ "!!! Which meant that is not Varadaraja Baanavara, but vaarada raja Bhaanuvaara, means Sunday Holiday.

Voluntary Retirement.

OK friends, with a heavy heart I have decided to voluntarily retire.... Wait, no, no... not from my profession, but retiring from being an active India Cricket Fan. Not because Chennai lost the IPL, oh no, not even because the cricket fans at Eden Gardens booed when Ravi Shastry took the name of BCCI chief Srinivasan's name in the presentation party. It is because the game itself has become so predictable and with the advent of leagues like IPL, it has become more like a soap opera where the organizers think that they are entertaining the crowd but that very same crowd is slowly but surely starting to see through the whole modus operandi that is the Indian Pathetic League. 

Memories take me back to my earlier days of cricket fanaticism and how it all started. In 1975, I was always intrigued with my elder relatives who were glued to radio throughout the day when India took on the mighty West Indies when they toured India. Though we use to play cricket on streets, I never knew to follow the commentary or the proceedings of the game. In fact again when Indian team toured West indies in 1976, I was the only boy in our 'vattaara' (group of small rented housing complex) to tune into BBC running commentary of the match, and at odd hours, and pretend as if I was following the match seriously. It was just a curiosity and the sense of achievement of patiently tuning in the Short Wavelength in our small Marconi Radio set. My ever complaining mother too thought that I have discovered something great that it deserves to be awarded the Nobel prize. My friends too thought it was a great achievement that I was actually able to understand English spoken by an English!!

By 80s I had quite a good knowledge on cricket, knew West Indies were most formidable team apart from England and Australians. Then came 1983 World Cup. I could not follow all the matches because we never had TV, but always aware of Indian progress. My happiness hit the roof when we defeated mighty England in their own domain to reach the finals of Prudential World Cup which was a 60 over per side affair. In our locality we had only three TV sets. And, the place where I saw each and every ball of that final match, was a small house with a Bharath TV and had accommodated 53 people, most of them strangers, but became friends in celebration after we lifted the World cup. 

1985, Mohammed Azharuddin, new kid on the block scored unbeaten 93 in their first league match to beat Pakistan, and India went on to win the World Series Cup with Ravi Shastri and Krishnamachari Srikkanth were at their best in providing great openings for the team. (The same Ravi Shastri who was literally booed out of cricketing arena by ardent fans. Such was the fan power in those days) In fact record of Azharuddin's Three consecutive centuries after debut in test cricket in 1984/85 still stands unbroken (And, the guy himself got fixed is a different story altogether). Later on, the Indian team was never the underdog in any of the major tournaments, but slowly the team graduated to under performers when it mattered. Even when Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja let us down on charges of fixing with most revered Hansie Cronje too jumping in the ring, or cowardly behaviour of Vinod Kambli and Eden Garden cricket fans during 1996 World Cup semi fanals against Sri Lanka did not affect my fan following towards this great game. Needless to say how the Master Sachin Tendulkar weathered the storm to demolish mighty Australian side to lift the cup in 1998. 

Let's discuss IPL. I not only followed IPL from it's first edition, but also covered the matches, it's cheer girls, after parties etc etc. And also enjoyed the matches watching it on TV, big screens with a beer bottle. But IPL 2013 somehow did not augur well from day one. When most of the betting mafia and punters were praising RCB, I told my friends that RCB will not go to the final four stage. It was just a honest thought, nothing more to it. And on May 19th when a friend of mine posted a question on FB asking whether will it be SRH & CSK in finals, I clearly told him that it would be MI who will be the champions this year. In fact, when the match started yesterday and Mumbai wickets started falling in a hurry, I still stuck to my guns and, yes, I also commented about Sachin's retirement much before the words came out from the Master's mouth. Again, a honest thought, no fixing in this. The only thing I failed to predict was, after all the muck, CSK winning the fair play award!!, no surprise here, because the award is sponsored by Kingfisher if I am right. So, it's just fair. 

This IPL witnessed almost 675 sixers being smashed. But please tell me, can any one of ardent cricket followers ever forget the last ball Six by Javed Miandad in Austral-Asia Cup in Sharjah in 1986? With that one hit, he not only broke millions of Indian hearts, but also made us neither forgive nor forget Chetan Sharma's folly. Let's discuss Chris Gayles' innings of 175 in 66 balls (100 in 30 balls). Sure it was superb innings, I happened to cover the match live (remember? I am a photojournalist too). Even if someone had fixed Pune to underperform, it takes guts to score in that manner. Now, let me talk about 175*  (138 balls) by Kapil Dev against Zimbabwe in 1983 World Cup. India were down 5 for 17 runs when Kapil Dev came in. And they were 7 for 78 and 8 for 140. Yet, India finished 266 for 8 wickets with Kirmani unbeaten at 24. Unfortunately no one can ever watch the footage of that great knock because of BBC strike on that particular day had kept the cameras away. I don't see any fixing angle to this though. Not only IPL, but even cricket in general now has become money oriented. Our cricketers can ship that day's practice, but they never will skip ad schedules. From toilet cleaners to ceiling fans, they are everywhere. We can only expect two things from Indian cricket now. They either win very comfortably or lose very badly. This has all become very predictable now a days. So what's the fun? Adding to this spot fixing allegations, or RP Singh's last ball no ball against CSK, which can easily put Pakistan's Salman Bhat's men to shame, or top class fielder Virat Kohli's mis-fields, so much muck. I have decided not to waste my time watching cricket anymore. Especially in a country where due to some minor mistakes medal winning athletes are pushed to work in brick kilns as daily wage workers and we elect cricket fraudsters to represent us in Parliament! It's too much. 

PS: My voluntary retirement of being cricket fan does not amount to me retiring from playing cricket or covering it. Because I too belong to a nation where Sachin Tendulkar is born. Oh, and N Srinivasan too, on a different context. But, on chosen occasions I might withdraw my retirement, i.e if Australia again sets a target of 435 against South Africa. 12 March 2006, when South Africa successfully chased the score. Can anyone fix such results? That is the fun of unpredictability. And, that is the kind of adrenalin pump every cricket fan loves to watch. Well, my predictions or intuition took me back to the days of mid 70s when it all started. Whether I won a Nobel or not for being fan, at least a Pulitzer would do for writing such a lengthy retirement letter. Time to sign off.

Your's sincerely

Anantha Subramanyam K.   

Nothing to crow about, watch these Urban Legends.

Many of us grew up with the famous story on how a smart crow quenched it's thirst from a pot that had water in the bottom. In reality, crows in Bangalore too are adapting to the change in order to survive. These crows seem to have realized that there will be hardly any trees left in this 'once' garden city. So they are bracing up for the future. They have made nests on mobile towers that is set to outnumber the trees in city in the near future. And these smart crows have gone a step ahead, they have started to use iron and plastic materials to build their nests foreseeing that twigs will be out of bound if thare are no trees. Probably these birds can find a way to survive tha radiation effect from these mobile towers, leaving the human race far behinf in implementing Darwin's theory, the survival of the fittest.

Photojournalits' woes... here to stay.

Photojournalist' woes    Photojournalists beware. There is going to be tough times ahead. Recently in Raj Bhavan, many of us had the taste of the days to come. Swearing in ceremony of 18 ministers. There was hardly any place for us as around four or five cameramen from almost all Kannada channels had fixed their tripods, while the

Information Department officials were very strict in issuing only one pass for photojournalist from the respective media. Few of our photogs was not allowed to even cross Capitol hotel. This was last week.

Today, 25th May, swearing in ceremony of only one minister  took place in banquet hall of Raj Bhavan. to our surprise, information officers and police stalled us from entering Raj Bhavan. Only electronic media cameramen were allowed! Even shocking was that only reporters from four 'leading' English dailies were listed, chosen by information officers again. It was not surprising that my newspaper name did not appear in the coveted list.

After lot of argument and counter attack by police, we had no other option to stop Information Minister Santosh Lad, who got down from his car, approached the police and Info officials, and went into Raj Bhavan with a promise of resolving the issue. In fact, he kept up the promise and we were finally allowed.

Issue here is not boasting about up-manship, but managing the show. Why information department officers did not advice Governor's about the  issue in advance. Or, they could have easily mailed us, or our offices that photojournalists will not be allowed. Simple. They always appear dumbstruck most of the time when it matters. And if we have to depend on the pictures provided by the department, can we expect anything apart from actual happening?

We have to find a solution to this problem quickly. Or else there will be no place left for photojournalist to capture that telling image which will have worth of a million thoughts.