We Are Better As A Nation Of Cricket Fanatics

In the past decade or so I had lost that passion for Cricket. Though statistically I read a lot and love to discuss cricket at social gathering it never entered into the intimate corners of my heart. I clearly remember those days of waking up early during India-Australia cricket series in early 90s to watch ball-by-ball updates, and then there was this particular world cup match where India lost to Australia and Pakistan own the world cup ultimately.

Then there was this sad dismissal of India world cup semifinal against Sri Lanka in 1996 at Kolkatta. Those were the days of passion. But then it eroded gradually with the infamous match fixing scandal in late 90s and early part of this decade. Sourav Ganguly with his attitude and aggression revived the passion amongst many Indians including me. Premier League and 20-20 brought the love back for cricket but the as a form of entertainment.

In the past decade as a human being my perspective towards life has also changed significantly which means cricket was losing its priority in life.

The only man who has kept cricket alive for this 1.2 billion strong nation for the past two decades is Sachin Tendulkar, who is getting widely known as the God of Cricket.

This world cup offered a different side of India. The day India beat Pakistan or Australia or for that matter even West Indies, it was mostly a psychological win. We have survived almost every match but ultimately have won.

Largely because we always played till the end and as they say you have to be in the game to win it.

This time cricket touched the corners of my heart. It has shook me. It has given me goose bumps. It has made me feel like a fanatic of cricket. I have discovered how easily we melt as a nation of cricket lovers. We understand each others' needs of knowing the score, watching the cricket match, or celebrating after each win.

I live in Mumbai, which is a multi-cultured metropolis, but at heart people are loyal only to two things —-their profession and the sub-urban train lines -– they travel in.

But every night India won. The city had a commonality. East or west side of the sub-urban train line, it didn’t matter. Mumbaiah or Jaunpuria it didn’t matter. Investment banker or panwalla it didn’t matter. Hindi or Marathi, the language didn’t matter. Muslim or Hindu, the religion didn't matter. Cricket is the only religion and it does matter. We are better as a nation of cricket fanatics. Because as cricket fanatics we understand each other. We have only one Team India to pray for, we have only colour (blue) to be loyal with. And we have only one prayer – Indiaaah…Indiaaah – to recite.

Note: While the whole Indian win is shadowed by 20-year old Poonam Pandey's going nude challenge. Though it opened the average lecherous Indian man to think of a nude woman and talk loosely about her, we must admit her patriotism and her ability to unite many for the sake of the country. But I wish she doesn't actually go nude and make the World Cup victory a shallow event. God bless her and she deserves more dignity than being just remembered as a stripper.
(Photo Courtesy: Poonam Pandey in Cricket gears by Vasant Sawant, Sachin Tendulkar as a child)
Trivia: The author of this post has grown a moustache after India's win against Pakistan to meet a prior commitment.

The ideological crisis: The hunger in the eyes of the baby

I was alone and was going through a phase of ideological crisis in life. And it is widely know when you are exhausted in a mega-city battle; the heart craves for small town social ideologies and niceties. Though Utopian they make you feel good about yourself.

I dreamt of equality for everyone, while enjoying the comforts my education brought to me, I cherished the dreams of no slums, good education and income for everyone, while deciding on which income funds to invest in to get maximum returns for funding my early retirement.

I knew I was the paradoxical educated Indian young man that fruits of economic liberalization have produced. Men and women like me have tasted the fruit and in their heart wish to give back, but in a free economy which churns out constant growth and social changes, equality is the last word. It makes everyone wealthy, but the magnitude varies and it never lets you unwind, because the constant asset bubble and inflationary pressure keeps you on tenterhooks.

These thoughts were crossing my mind every day, when something was going to happen in my life.

It was a dark, rainy night in Mumbai. Trains were late. After two hours of drudgery between Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, I reached the station of this satellite town, where I live. It was about eleven in the night; I was hungry and feeling a little feverish and had no intention to cook at home.

Hence I went to one of the Udupi inspired south Indian restaurants inside the station compound to have Masla Dosa, Vada-pav and cutting chai. Engrossed in the ideological crisis I was sipping the sambhar soup, when suddenly I discovered a tiny, chubby baby doused in dirt and rain caressing my feet. That sudden moment I felt a rush emotions in my faltering body and picked her up with all compassion. I looked around and found no one claiming the baby.

Not older than two years, this baby was weeping silently and had hunger in her eyes. She wanted the food and I was more than happy to see her having the food. My chest was swelling with motherly affection and everything seemed so superhuman at that moment. Just when all seemed at peace, the trouble began.

A group of restaurant employees came charging and took the baby away from me and threw the Bada-pav from her hands. While I fought with the employees, she licked her hands furiously to have the last trace of food in her tiny fingers. I was angry and frustrated and wanted to see the baby having her food.

But they took her outside the restaurant premises and threw her to a dilapidated young woman who seems to be in her late teens, may be her mother. I ran after them wishing to buy them food and forget the hunger in their eyes. But the woman ran faster with her kid. And soon they slipped into the labyrinth of the nearest slum to the station in the dark of night.

I was exhausted and lost. I looked back at the restaurant with a wish of burning it down. Not possible. I laughed at my naïve citybred socialism. But my heart cried loudly for the helplessness.

I walked three kilometers back to home with utter discomfort; getting drenched and being barked at by dogs on the way seemed a perfect way to punish my discontented heart. I couldn’t sleep and tried to watch ‘The Simpsons’ and 'How I Met Your Mother', expecting to lighten my mood. But that didn’t work.

I read Emily Bronte’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ to get into further depression with the lonely, dark and windy moors of English countryside. I listened to the supposedly hilarious and foot tapping number ‘ni woofer tu meri main tera amplifier’, just to get over the sadness, but it also sounded so melancholic this time. The hunger in the child’s eyes haunted me and it still haunts, whenever I eat good food alone in a restaurant.

(Photo courtesy: Sandeep Malkania, Delhi)

Unseen colours of life

Two years ago I survived an attack on my life at Leopold Cafe. Within a span of three days I discovered the finest people in my life and an angel. Saw humanity, friendship and hope in action. It changed my whole perspective of life. I realised life is indeed beautiful if you want it to be. There is nothing in your control except your own mind. You can travel in a jam-packed train while immersed in beautiful thoughts or fight with the pushy co-passenger.

You may enjoy the small cutting chai with absolute strangers in the hackneyed by-lanes of Parel and may not like the finest liquor in the unreal atmosphere of an expensive Lower Parel restaurant. It’s all about the state of your mind. Life is kaleidoscopic with beauty lurking at every other corner. You just need to have the time and interest to observe it. Life is not fast as many say. It gives you time to understand yourself and others. It is we who run away from the wisdom and openness for what even we don’t know.

We think we compete with the world, with others. We struggle day and night for little niceties of life. The truth is we miss millions of niceties every other moment by putting ourselves under an undue pressure psychology. We must respect time and the power of the unknown, because we don’t have any control over them. But our mind is our own. Our thought process is our own. Our dreams are our own. People who love us are our own. And there is no perfect day or way to start life in the best way.

The very next moment is the best moment of ours.

After two years of the 26/11 attacks I feel wealthier for I have real friends and I can own millions of little good things in life just by smiling, writing, painting talking and listening to others.

Following is a quote I have always tried to remember after 26/11.
“We should all start to live before we get too old. Fear is stupid. So are regrets." - Marilyn Monroe

Let's pray for very innocent human being who have lost their lives and every angel who has tried to keep hopes of humanity alive across the world. Amen....

(*PICTURE: I made this acrylic-on-canvas work named "The Sorrow of Mumbai" in September 2009.
I want to portray the pain and grief of this mega-city accompanied by tranquility indicating hope and stability. The work was presented to the organisation I was working with and is presently at the Reuters News Room in Mumbai)

On a spirited October Monday I reported, danced and got drenched

Today was like a good old Monday, when you plan for the week and get every story you wanted on day one. There was no blue feeling about the day. It was all bright and cheerful. Your sources call you early in the morning, when you are still in a jam packed train. You get your first quote while inside the cab and when you reach office your other source confirms. You feel that adrenalin rushing.

You stop for a while, look around, walk like James Bond on the arched corridors of your swanky office, chew the coffee stirrer in a rustic Hindustani style and sip the coffee, again with English sophistication.

You are on a roll and think you can do things the way you like. You quit a relaxed discussion on the canteen table and suddenly rush to your desk. "I have to file the story soon." Just another confirmation needed. And yeah! You get the story.

Too much on my plate, but good it’s ready to be eaten. These are happy days for a good reporter. Years of source building, meandering in the dilapidated alleys, where most of your sources lived and still do. And it’s only on days like this you get a big, breaking story at the comfort of your air-conditioned surroundings and a few phone calls.

The story that you live through the day is like a movie, where you are the chief character. Its box office success depends on the follow-ups the competitors do, the publications that carry it. When you know you are being chased. It’s a very good feeling. Very celebrity feeling.

The good day ended. Time to go through the travel travails. You come out of the palm tree planted neat multi-storied office campus to meet eyes with the revelers of a couple of Durga Puja processions through Parel village.

No taxis to be found you have to walk fifteen minutes change two trains to reach home. What you do? I joined the revelers. Danced to the tune of popular Hindi numbers like bidi jalaile, munni badnaam hui.

I drank some buttermilk supposed to be laced with bhang. I danced for a while and felt melting into the sea of people, who actively led me to the Currey Road station, which always sounds like an Oxymoron to me.

The dhol-beats, genuine excitement and prayers it seems invited the Rain Gods at a short notice and look at me I was completely drenched before reaching station. I, however, discovered I was walking properly and was in my senses. Seems the buttermilk was pure.

Mr Roy and 'Front-page Journalist' syndrome

Mr Roy was not a journalist, he was the journalist. Mumbai media world swore by his news gathering capabilities. He was bespectacled not for an eye disorder, but to spot news from a distance, he had an extra long nose just to smell news ahead of others.

He loved the sweet, intelligent bird like chattering psychiatrist Chirpy Bose, just in order to understand how an investment banker can reveal the biggest trans-national deal by committing some Freudian slip over an extended drinking session in some exorbitant Bandra pub.

Roy had developed a punch after guzzling hundreds of glasses of alcohol and overeating chicken platters every other day in the company of investment bankers. Mumbai media didn’t consider his sagging punch as an ordinary 'beer belly' but adorably termed it as the 'Roy belly'. The belly of dedication and journalistic excellence. The hundreds of alcohol glasses produced thousands of breaking stories on the number one financial daily that Roy worked with.

Mr Roy was courted by the editors of all top media houses with lucrative offers every weekend at the quaint, overcrowded Press Club near Azad Maidan, while the management of all top corporations wooed him with fancy dinners and other recreations at the finest luxury hotels and spas in and around Mumbai.

Roy stood like a granite rock, unfazed, not corrugated by any of the temptations. His only aim was to be on the front page of the number one pink newspaper. The pretty, bubbly Chirpy Bose sensed Roy is near the last leg of ‘Front-page Journalist’ syndrome, a thesis on which she did her post doctoral research and won many accolades across the world.

As Roy was close to insanity he found solace in football and as the world cup was on, he ignored Chirpy to such an extent that Chirpy stopped loving him and called him a nikamma old rooster. Roy, the rooster became a lonely man. His only friend was the front-page of the number one newspaper he worked for. As time passed, loneliness and alcohol consumed his passion, he missed his name on front-pages.

He still was considered the king of reportage by most of the media, but his happiness lied on the front-page appearance only.

After disappearing on the front-page for a consecutive five days Roy lost it. Roy tore all the fond photographs of Chirpy and David Beckham and also the numerous front-page cutouts he had pasted on his spacious bedroom wall. Roy was defeated, dejected and all very sad.

The blank looking Roy one day discovered a poster on the first-class train compartment he was travelling. It read, “108 times Chamatkari Baba Bangali Benareswale”..Mahayogi, mahagyani sare kaam sambhale. Pyar mein dhokha, bibika bhagna, jamin ka jhagda ho ya souten, chhudel ki samasya..baba sabarega bhag tumhara... kya stock market mein maal dubaya ya padosan ko dil de dia....sare uljhan ka haal jhatpat baba dega...chamatkari baba bangali...aaj hi ao taklif se niklo. To chup kyun ho aaj hin ao ya phir call karo 022-22222XXX , 10 lines. Credit card suvidha bhi uplabdh hai, milne ki dakshina sirf 1000 rupaye.

Milne ka pata Suite No 1001, Hotel Super, Kurla (East), near Champa Original Desi Bar, Police station ke baju mein.

Roy, though hesitant about confiding his problems of insanity and frontpage syndrome with such a hindustani speaking baba, but nevertheless he managed to call and take an appointment from Monika, baba’s personal secretary.

Batak Mian's story must be told

Batak Mian’s story must be told to every Indian. Despite the unfamiliarity of the name, the absence of his story in India’s history, Batak Mian cannot be ignored. One Indian mainstream news paper recently took the pain to digging out and publishing the story of this extra-ordinary Indian, without whom India’s independence might not have been possible.

The story goes back to 1917 British India. Mahatma Gandhi was visiting Bihar’s Champaran district where he started his career India’s politics, supporting the cause of the local indigo planters.

Batak Mian was serving as a cook with a British indigo plantation manager who apparently instructed him to offer Mahatma poisoned milk. Mian disclosed the plot in front of Mahatma and Rajendra Prasad, who became the first President of an independent India later. Result Mahtma’s life saved and the rest is history as we all know.

I understand the story sounds loose and slightly heroic. Even as an objective writer I find despite the folklore involved in glorifying Batak Mia’s role, it’s worth remembering. And at least his grand children shouldn’t earn their wages as daily labourers.
Here is a link to the original story http://www.hindustantimes.com/Family-of-Mahatma-s-saviour-in-dire-straits/H1-Article1-500334.aspx

What went wrong: another life lost

As I reached office today, the colleague next to my cubicle informed me about the sad demise of an ex-colleague.

Shocked we remembered her. She was one of the sweet young women full of life and attitude. One who always puts a smile on her face, genial, helpful and gorgeous.

Her love for life was personified in her blog which was titled She loves life. What went so wrong that she let go the very life she was so passionate about. Prayers her soul rests in peace. Amen....

Why good people suffer?

Last week I was asking myself a question. A question that has stayed with me since my childhood but rises to my conscience on certain occasions leaving me bewildered.
The question is –“Why good people suffer?”
And I know no one has a satisfying answer.
It’s both difficult and dangerous to be good. Being good gives us simplistic happiness, honesty of purpose etc. But it needs courage to remain good.
I have seen people who practice good going to jail, losing in relationship at workplace, money and health wise. Though not all of them, but many of the good suffer. So do many of the bad.
But the problem is both good and bad exist. And the fine things in life come to both of them irrespective of their purpose in life.
Picture this: A teenager like Ruchika who lost her mother as a kid was harassed by a senior police officer and saw her family being harassed for years. While the police officer who has got everything in life does this act and has woman, his wife, to protect him all the way.
How could one justify this situation? Nothing asking from the government or judiciary....asking God if such a situation exists. Then why?
Ruchika never had the option to enjoy life while this old man has lived his life to the fullest. Even if the case progresses against the alleged culprit and he’s convicted punished. How much harm will it do to him?

Ruchika’s story is just a case point there are many such instances where injustice is inflicted upon the good. And we have never found an answer why?

The decade ends; remembering poppy flowers, ghats, rock pythons and friends

In past few days, I had a sudden consciousness about losing or going past another decade, the third one in my life.

When you think voluntarily, the recollections become vivid, unpredictable and leave you with sighs and mild laughter depending on what situation has appeared from memory lane like calling up a rare video from YouTube.

It comes up in your mind all the time. While preparing a cup of pepper-mint special tea for yourself on a Sunday morning, while jogging inside the small park in your locality, while travelling in a jam-packed Mumbai suburban train or even while chewing a Kalkattia mitha paan from the local cigarette and paan vendor in posh south Mumbai after office hours are over.

The first memory I had was of the undergraduate university days in eastern Uttar Pradesh. My university consisted of large colonial academic structures, a whitewashed small Chapel and vast stretches of green farm land and Orchards spread over 600-acres on the banks of mighty Yamuna River.

The 100 year-old campus was secluded from the crowded Allahabad city, separated by an old dilapidated Naini bridge that officially expired in 1970, but was able to support five-million-strong city populace, hundreds of passenger trains and every logistics carrier on its way from the north down Madhya Pradesh.

The winter months of December 1999 and January 2000 were full of hope and hesitation thanks to the the next century will be India's optimism, world will end fear, Y2K buzz etc. Those were also the months of floriculture practical classes for us. We were given small plots to grow and identify flowers. There was faint love affair with the delicate flowers in an otherwise boring and secluded campus. Three flower patches -- gladiolus, carnation and poppy – were in my kitty.

I loved of all, the bulbous red and pink poppy flowers which belonged to the Papaver genera popularly known as the Oriental or Opium poppy . When I remember how I welcomed this decade and millennium, tossing poppy flowers on windy wintry evenings instantly appear on my mind.

The early years of the decade also remind me of the morning and evening Yoga classes in another University in neighouring city of Benares, the mindless but spiritual wanderings on hundreds of ghats of the 3000-year-old settlement, the occasional association with bhang and regular listening to BBC Radio to improve English pronunciation and soft old Bollywood songs on Vividh Bharti to get a nice sleep.

The long hours spent in the huge lighted central library of the university, where I was the only one reading The Economist, Times and The New Yorker always taunt my present day painful reading adventures on a bean bag in my small sub-urban apartment balcony in Mumbai.


The memory lane also took me to my early days with the Indian Express newspaper in Delhi. The support from the Police, the threat from a builder and the protection from another bigger builder while doing a particular story was interesting.

A year in solitude, when I dared to craft a dream livelihood intervention project in southern Jaharkhand districts, and failed against the system touches me till date. I still remember the early morning trips to impassable villages crossing torrential rivers and rock pythons with a passion to connect with village women and build self-help groups for them.

The passion that forced me to try for cheaper innovations for the villagers.... How aggressively I fought with the local bank employee, when he passed lewd comments against my clients a 27 year-old Oraon tribal woman, whom I called didi, and her 14 year old daughter Chini, when they had approached the bank for a loan to buy a goat to sustain their six member family. There were many haunting moments that come to the memory but I have no words or intention to shock myself or readers.

The later half of the decade showed me journalism of different shades. Investigative, page 3, human, colourful and business. I travelled across many parts of India, exposed to its diversity and unique blending propositions.

Living in two megacities -- Delhi, followed by Mumbai – has been less than fun but an immersing affair. Witnessing the mindless terror acts and being a victim of one left me a changed person, almost like a new born.

The greatest discovery of the decade for me, were friends, who stood by me at all costs involved. That was the most permanent and satisfying discovery precious than hitting crude oil blocks or gold mines or even being nominated for a Nobel.

Idiots sell in India

I am an idiot and following is my analysis on all kinds of idiots that rule India. The grading of the idiots is inspired from Chetan Bhagats's novel 'Five Point Someone'. The grade points are between zero and ten.I'm posting this analysis after my comment on facebook attracted good audience so thought of sharing with blog friends.

"Idiots sell in India never the talented ones.
The zero point no ones become the policymakers.
The one point someones become historysheeters.
The two point someones grab land for SEZs.
The three point someones become kingmakers.
The four point someones become successful filmakers.
The five point someones like Chetan Bhagat become bankers and successful authors. The six point someones like me do facebooking and tweeting to get attention.
The seven point someones teach the nation. The eight point someones protect and build the nation.
The nine point someones treat and cure the nation and the ten point someones take orders from the zeropoint nonones. Cycle completes.

PIS (Post Idiotic Script):The above description is not to be taken seriously, This is for pure fun and fiction similarity with any person's name is purely coincidental.

Orissa, mining, marriage and smartphone

On an early December evening two news agency journalists and an investment banker were travelling in a crowded intercity train into the mining and industrial belt of Orissa. The three hour journey seemed longer than usual.

It was pronounced winter, cramped train coaches and jostling of people from all walks of life - executives, government employees, fruit/chat vendors and daily labourers – catching the last train to the mining hinterland of Orissa. The three from Mumbai were on a their way to a journalist friend’s wedding in Angul, industrial capital and the most centrally located city of Orissa.

The immobility inside the train forced them to converse relentlessly in order to evade the drudgery of the small yet tough journey. Topics discussed varied from whether to sell gold just when it has hit the peak to the charisma of Obama that was worthy a Nobel. Heated arguments followed and the intellectual cells of the brain were stimulated.

The concentrated intellectuality was also lightened by some talk of women, i-pod and twitter, but it couldn’t beat the pursuit of talking about money and economy. The three realised they despite there humble background were talking something incomprehensible to their fellow passengers, who were dumbfounded.

The three realised exposure to metro-life and education has already created a water tight compartment between them and their own people who are pressed against them in this cramped coach, who speak their own language and about their own region.

A quick realisation was enough to stop the discussion about stock market, 8 percent growing economy, mergers/acquisitions, investment banker fees and switchover to local issues. The three spoke to their co-passengers in Oriya about the best trains in the route, new industrial development coming up in their neighbourhood and how is the government paying after the sixth pay commission report was implemented. It was relaxing to all of them.

The three finally reached their friend’s wedding reception and joined the celebration dinner. Here they were surrounded by locals, many of them related to the the hundreds of small and large neighourhood industries.

They overheard two of them talking in distress about China’s pressure tactics about lowering the offer price of some commodity.

One of them soon recalled a coverpage story he did about black gold (iron ore) and China some years ago. The three soon discussed how thousands of small time exporters have turned rich overnight by exporting minerals primarily iron ore from Orissa to China, world’s biggest steelmaker. However, with insatiable demand and import monopoly Chinese authorities are deciding prices in the past few months.

While chatting over Orissa's mineral policy and unknowingly meandering through the large open air banquet space the three spotted the glowing faces of the bride and groom which reminded them of their own families.

The gorgeous pink designer lehnga and neatly tailored western suit was making the couple look like one of those from the Shahrukh Khan starring Bollywood movies. Both of them were sitting on two large princely chairs, ususal in most Indian weddings.

At the entry of the marriage hall there was red ticker going on intermttently --Devidutta Weds Purabi-- all in capital letters. The guys joked, it looked a ticker on a television set or a news platform.

The groom, a telecom reporter and the bride, an engineer were trying to hold eachothers' hands in the absence of few attentive eyes but had to soon stay away from eachothers like a playful couple in a garden.

The groom, 48 hours ago on his wedding day amused everyone by his typing skills on the his smartphone. The instrument was in his hands even as he was tying knots with the bride. Whether it’s his affiliation to technology or effort to update his status on Facebook, the invasiveness of the tech revolution was loud and clear.

The bride also earned some reputation 48 hours ago by beating hands-down the technosavvy groom in a thousand-year-old game of finding the cowdy. The groom complained about the sharp nails of the bride going against him.

The three idiots had a nice wedding experience afterall.

(all characters here are fictitious and don't bear any resemblance with anyone living or dead)

Bhubaneswar Post

Early December I had to plan a quick holiday to my home town Bhubaneswar to be a part of the mostly unplanned year-ending weddings of friends and relatives. The sojourn was demanding from the beginning as I had to opt for the 40-hour long train journey from the west-cost to east coast of India with air tickets suddenly out of reach after the wedding rush began.

As every unwanted event in life provides us with some pleasant surprises, this laborious journey provided me with the opportunity to finish ‘Sea of Poppies’, a five-hundred page long novel by Amitav Ghosh, which I had my hands on for the last six months.

Bhubaneswar, the capital city of Orissa state in eastern India, is a large, expandable and beautiful settlement but without the million plus population that every large Indian city possesses.

As the wedding season was in progress I had move throughout the city which exposed me to the newly developed roads, malls and hospitality infrastructure in the city. It was a surprising and refreshing moment to discover the beauty of your hitherto neglected sleepy town after struggling nearly a decade in the dismal infrastructure of some supposedly largest and most developed cites of the world.

I understood the with population just under a million, radius stretching over fifty kilometers and initial town planning by legendary Le Corbusier, Bhubaneswar remains one of the best definition urban cities in India along with Chandigarh, also designed by the French architect.

The largely unmanaged yet clean structures of hundreds of Shaiva temples, Jaina and Buddha caves surrounded by numerous water bodies and greenery intermingle gracefully with the clean, western swanky buildings. The good thing is that most people of Bhubaneswar can still see the sky in the morning and evening, get their vegetables from the garden and buy their grains annually from villages in the outskirt to beat inflation.

Middleclass, confident, moderate and aspiring is how the city represents herself in the first decade of the new century. All is well in the political and administrative epicenter of this small eastern Indian state. But like acid test paper a certain part of the city its changes colour everyday to showcase the distress in the hinterland. The road stretching from Bhubaneswar station to the legislative building always hosts quiet protestors of various sort amid small policy cover.

Most protestors are people from the tribal dominated non-costal parts of the state where world’s largest miners and steel makers are waiting to set shop. Most protests are about losing land, insufficient compensation and rehabilitation. As mining related protests dominate, real issues like malnutrition, hunger, lack of health facilities and illiteracy take a backseat.

Some of my friends from Delhi and Mumbai made some passing comments at the hoardings across the town. “Like brokerages, asset management companies grabbing every corner of advertising place in Mumbai … steel, ingot and billet companies do the same in Orissa.

Soon I discovered the truth in their observation Bhubaneswar airport there are two-dozens of hoardings of natural resource firms. One of the most controversial projects had a large hoarding depicting a happy tribal family with a caption larger that the photograph saying, “Mining happiness for the people of Orissa.”



My neighborhood pan shop endorses ‘Surana billets’, my dilapidated primary school walls had ‘Vijay saria’ asymmetrically painted on it and to my horror I discovered the lichen adorned walls of my boundary bears the names “Too Strong saria,” written in cheap brick colours. I quickly removed the stains and breathed easy.

As mining advertisings are creeping on everything in this coastal city discontent and people’s war is creeping in the vast tribal plateaus of the state.

26/11 Survivor's Account: Painting -"The Sorrow of Mumbai"

I made this acrylic-on-canvas work named "The Sorrow of Mumbai" in September 2009.
I want to portray the pain and grief of this megacity accompanied by tranquility indicating hope and stability. I dedicate the painting to my organization for the effective care it takes of its employees across the world in times of crisis.

26/11 Survivor's Account: Good News 6-The Company

"You are known by the company you keep". Quite literally I think I’m in good company.

Company means my workplace my coworkers and my bosses across the world. Till the day I was injured I knew this company is very dedicated to its professionalism and serves its employees the best it can, but as it happened with me I could know the truth.

We had instances of people being given special armored vehicles for news coverage; they have been airlifted from conflict zones all at the company’s expenses. I used to think this must have been a mechanical affair. But I was wrong, the whole company was worried, the leadership and coworkers across continents and departments were worried.

I received hundreds of well being messages, e-mails and personal visits. Besides Charlotte, Rosemary , Phil, and Ramya, along with other editors based in Mumbai personally met me at the time of crisis.

The global editor David and chief executive Tom mentioned their concerns taking time out of the Thanks Giving holiday in 2008.

The company also tried providing the best medical services it could have been also a month’s off to recuperate. Though I was out of the crisis with simple medical surgery the gesture was heartwarming.

A year after the gesture continued I received well being messages from my editors.

26/11 Survivor's Account: Good News 5- Friends: The gems I have discovered

I never thought of living life without friends. I have been gregarious all my life, but never did I have to discover who’s a real friend or not. The events of 26/11 taught me everything. More than the survival I was happy with the discovery of the gems who were always with me.

The night Mumbai was attacked and by coincidence I was injured my friends and coworkers most of them journalists were shattered. Most of them stayed awake in the night or tried their best to reach me breaking the security cordon across Mumbai. My colleagues and friends across the world at different time zones were trying to find more about me.

My younger sister, the only relative in Mumbai, was well protected by my friends and their families during the uncertain night. At the break of the dawn, my friends Feroze, Geetha, Ankur, Piyush, Debiprasad, Mehul, Anup, Keshab, Abhishek, Dhananjay, Abhineet assisted in my smooth transition to a private hospital, which brought me a speedy recovery and prevented any possible infection from the bullet wound.

Rama, Narayanan, Arshad, Sumit, Devidutta, Swati, Nandita, Rouhan, Samrat, Shubha, Himangshu, Krittivas, Archie, Raghu, Shubhra, Trupti, Radha, Hari, Durgashis, Balaji and many others made me feel good through their constant assuring presence both physically and over phone.

Hundreds of friends also reached me over social networking sites like Facebook and Orkut. And believe me every wish had healing power and made me positive.

The days of healing and surgery was special with friends always around. Geetha, doing special cooking for me everyday and Feroze doing the extra work to get back early in the evening.

Mehul bunking office in an impossible situation for being present with me.Narayanan and Piyush bringing me delicacies of south and north India, and Ankur zipping around in his car for every small need made things so good for me.
The instances of Feroze, the coolest man I have ever seen, fighting with the government hospital authorities for discharging me and Geetha fighting with the insurance company will alway be remembered.
Despite mentioning only a few instances I have vivid memory of the gestures everyone made during time and will remain me forever.
Wish Lord everyone earns such great friends.
I think knowing Kishor and my friends is the greatest happiness I have in this life so far.

26/11 Survivor's Account: Good News 4 - In Mumbai for hundreds of victims, there are thousands of volunteers

Injured and helpless I was, yet conscious and watchful of the movement around. With hundreds of victims pouring in there were thousands of volunteers ready to help. From carrying, cleaning and fetching water, donating blood there were thousands of good souls around to help the victims.

Troubled they look yet confident of their self-taken responsibility and the attempt to let people live another day. That was overwhelming.

I remember the volunteers escorting the ambulance I was carried in while being transferred from St George hospital to JJ Hospital.

The act of young medical students was also worth mentioning. I remember a moment when two thin and teenage girls were trying to carry an obese old man to an emergency ward in absence of as stretcher how they one of them fell, but immediately stood up and ran to the emergency.

Students got water bottles from their own hostel rooms to serve the victims. I distinctly remember the hospital staff putting their best efforts to help the victims while the politicians were obstructing the work.

Most of the staff was ignoring the local politicians and most of them along with volunteers were shouting to the politicians to stay away from obstructing their work.

(The above photograph is sourced from V Nayak's collection on Flickr.com)(For more phograph pool on 26/11 you can visit http://www.flickr.com/groups/mumbai_terrorism/pool/)

26/11 Survivor's Account: Good News 3 – Charlotte Cooper

I never talk about my office people in my personal blog but this is a one-off event where humanity was involved, and the story was about human spirit and needed to be told.

Charlotte, the then Mumbai bureau chief of the news agency I work for was somewhere in the roads of south Mumbai, when the attacks were taking place. Daring as she was always, drove on the abandoned and terror struck roads of Mumbai to reach me, a fellow colleague and a fellow human being.

While the Police was cautious after anti-Terrorist chief Hemant Karkare and other senior police officials fell to terrorist’s bullets, Charlotte, her husband Peter and driver Francis drove across and reached St George Hospital.

She waded through dead bodies to finally discover me among the survivors. Her presence lovely, renewed my confidence and belief in the good news.

While I grew more confident, she got back to her job of reporting the horror to the world. Peter and Francis helped injured ones with water, connected them with loved ones using their phones.

26/11 Survivor's Account: Good News 1- Kishor Pujari

The best news for me was Kishor Pujari, the twenty-year-old shopkeeper on the Colaba Causeway, who took me to the Hospital. Blood dripping, breath choking, I was aware of the goodness Kishor was showering upon me. The effort he made in finding a taxi and rushing me to the hospital, the fight with the hospital authorities who took me for a gangster and were hesitant in treating.
Despite the chaos, police scrutiny, Kishor stood by me. After recovery, when I asked him what prompted him to help me, he said, “I just thought it’s my duty to keep another human being alive, whoever he may be.” Kishor, born and brought up in a small village in southern Karnataka state said it was his mother’s teachings that that forced him to act naturally during the occasion.
Kishor confessed, he also thought I was a gangster and had a gun with me like most fellow shopkeepers around. The Police questioning at the hospital was more about why I was shot and why Kishor brought me for treatment. There was no hurry in treating me though I was the first to reach the St George hospital.
I faintly remember the sleepy looking policeman, whom the hospital staff summoned for recognize whether I’m a gangster or not. He said, “Madam isko to nahi janta tab bhi puchhna padega control room (Madam I don’t know him..will have to ask the control room)
It was a piece of a puzzle for the thin exhausted policeman and hospital staff that had associated clues happening elsewhere in the city, which was to soon answer their questions.

Remembering 26/11: The dark side and the good news

I want to dedicate my postings on November 26, 2009 to every innocent life lost on the same day a year ago.

Every dark event in life has some positives attached to it. Like the discovery of great human beings around you, true character of self, development of sensibility and absence of fear. The events of November 26, 2008 provided me with similar experiences.

I was lucky enough to survive the horror, unlike many fellow human beings and discover my share of goodness in life. I sometimes feel writing the goodnews about my survival is selfish considering many others didn't see the good news. But I think I want to make a point how good human beings exsists on this earth irrespective of ethnicity religion and circumstances. I would like to contribute this positive piece of literature to every fellow human being who is hopeful about this world.

Do we need to make our children prisoners of out-of-fashion value education

There are times when you become a storyteller. You may or may not believe in the stories yourself, but someone else does. The moment you know others believe in the story, your skills imrpove. The stories on truth, happiness, wisdom are always disputed. Real world experiences don't let you agree with a old Panchatanta story you heard years ago as a child. yet you impart the same story-based value education to your child. Why? Don't you have an alternative?

I can cite one example to make things a little clear.
We are trained to worship our teachers. Many stories in support of the great guru-sishya tradition. As children we agreed to every word. A woman friend recently told how she was mentally and physically abused by a old male teacher as a child only because she was taught the teacher is to be worshipped and she can be taken for granted. And as a child she had little idea about what's happening with her.

Don't know if I make sense or not.... but I think making our children prisoners of out-of-fashion value-based-education is immoral and criminal on our part.
Let us tell them the old stories blended with enough real life examples..... I know the fantasy of the old stories will evaporate but at least they know the truth which will make their lives less miserable.

(This beautiful photograh of a shoe-flower is taken by my friend Feroze Ahmed Jamal)