Watched this movie ‘Taare Zameen Par’ twice already. I think it’s a movie worth watching on the big screen. Don’t watch it for Aamir, don’t watch it for Darsheel (the kid), watch it for the issue that it handles – dyslexia. The way the society looks at it or rather overlooks it in the race to be the best. As Nikhumb (name of Aamir’s character in the movie) says, “Agar race main daudaana hi tha, tho breed race horses damnit, bachche kyon paida karte ho?” (If all you wanted was someone to run in races then breed race horses, why give birth to children?) The movie is a fantastic take on how we as human beings want our children to fall into the framework that the society has derived and push them, knowingly or unknowingly, into it. I am in love with the movie. And recommend that everyone watches it. On my scale it is a * * * * *

Coming to what I am, and the rest of the country apparently is, following now, almost obsessively, the Indian tour of Australia. The Sydney test was a fatal blemish on the so far good resumes of Benson and Bucknor. I think they will meet the same fate as Darrell Hair did. In my personal opinion, the ICC needs to atleast ask for an explanation of their decisions. But what has happened is there for all of us to see. Their explanations can almost be anticipated. “I didn’t hear the nick because of the crowd”, “I didn’t think it was necessary to check with the third umpire because I was sure that Symonds’ foot was inside”, and so and so forth. So, what is the solution to this? Nothing. We must stop venting our anger on these umpires and just carry on as if it was a bad day at office. That will really put us up there as the only team to have played in the ‘spirit of the game’.

And the ‘monkey’ issue. I agree with what Steve Waugh says. It is a culture issue. Here, in India, we just can call anyone a monkey and that wont mean anything offensive on the contrary might be taken as a jovial remark and laughed away. I think what Symonds wants here punished is the ability to talk back to him. He admits to having provoked Bhajji and Steve Waugh says that Australians always thought that he was the easiest to get a response from. So, what we are seeing here is actually a well-laid trap that Bhajji has walked into. I am not getting into whether he said “monkey” or not, all I am saying is that the Aussie players could have very well evened the matter out on the ground itself, as they usually do, rather than crying out to the umpires and the match refree about it. This act of ganging up against a single player of the opposition combined with the royal ignore that Sachin got during the hearing simply points towards the disrespect of the opposition team down under. And I don’t know who the legal counsel was for Mike Procter. He/she must have been sleeping during the hearing. There is something called conclusive evidence that needs to be produced for a decision that extreme to be taken. Obviously, they haven’t heard about it. Neither has anyone. So, what’s the fuss all about? Just carry on.

Here is what the Indian team should do now. Play the practice match at Canberra and the Perth and Adelaide tests. I don’t see them winning at Perth going by the tradition of bounce that the pitch has. Adelaide has been a happy hunting ground for India and we have done well there. Maybe we should look at coming back with a 2-2 scoreline but if it was not Perth in the way I would have said we could do it. But still, with these kind of things running at the back of the players’ minds I don’t think we will be able to avoid a 4-0 whitewash either.

News just trickling in suggest Bucknor being pulled out of Perth test. That should increase our chances by 50% ;-) Am just being nasty here. The nature of the pitch is going to be such that we will have a tough time negotiating it rather than thinking about umpires and such. We should include VRV Singh and drop Ishaant Sharma for this test. And maybe try to get Pathan also in at the cost of Jaffer. That would widen our bowling and batting options as well. I feel sorry for Jaffer if this happens, but then we need to have our best bowlers at Perth. We need to get Australia out for less than 300 in any one innings if we want to stand a chance of winning.

And if the board decides to abandon the tour, for whatever reason, then it would be the saddest thing to happen. According to the ICC, Indian board will have to pay USD 2 Million for not abiding by a pre-signed contract. Well, it should be the National honour on which the boards makes a decision and not money. It already has a lot of it! :)

It’s either reality or it’s a show – it can’t be both! Whatever these American or Australian channels call their TV shows becomes a mantra for us! Suddenly, we have launched into all kinds of those shows (I refuse to use oxymorons as long as I am not aware of them!). But Indian television screen is a kind of used-scripts market. Any successful foreign show is just copied and pasted onto the Indian screen with even the same sets. The only Indian shows (reality or otherwise, but involving real audience) that did really take off were “Antakshari” and “Sa re ga ma”. Apart from that, every other show was a straight adaptation of the foreign original.

Anyway, I am not here to talk about the Indian shows that are doing the rounds and which ones are copied from where kind of an investigative study here. I was just wondering what’s happening on this ‘Big Brother’ show? Why is there so much of coverage on Shilpa Shetty being called all four-lettered words?! What is the whole issue? And is it an issue at all? These news channels seem to be relaying it on their main news headlines so much that you would begin to wonder if Shilpa Shetty is some official diplomat of the country?!  

To begin with, these 24/7 news channels have not much to cover till a ”Saddam is hanged” or “Abhishek gets engaged to Aishwarya” or “Why Afzal should be hanged?” or some such thing. So, when Shilpa is being called names on live TV it needs to be shown, right?!

Racist slur – they (the news channels) call it. Clash of cultures and class – the programme owners call it. Quite obviously, both trying to increase their respective viewership base. To damn with Shilpa Shetty.

Coming back to the real world (not the reality show real!) racism exists. Look at this post, now that’s real life. People want to be racist only to ‘certain ears’ and not to everybody. Sadly, on ‘Big Brother’ I guess the contestants forgot that they were being caught on camera like Gibbs was caught by the stump microphone.

Further, when you talk to people who return from UK and USA you get to hear so many stories of direct racism, but they bear with it and come back because they went there for a purpose and always want to come back to their own country. 

One of the CEOs of a top organization in India who has worked for 30 plus years in the US and came back once told me that it is impossible to grow beyond a certain level in an American company. They always prefer the American over you in case both of you are tied on performance for the next promotion. Now, that’s racism. And for real that too! So, the CEO came back to India and decided to settle down here for good.

A horde of my friends staying in the US and UK are constantly telling me about the racist attitude they need to put up with. That is reality. Nobody shows that. Because they say their society is tolerant and they will not tolerate such racism. If they pinch themselves they will also know that’s not the truth!

Unwittingly, ’Big Brother’ has brought to the surface what was always below the table. Raising a storm in Indian media, Governments are discussing what to do next (maybe a nuclear attack would have happened if we were US and the show was Iraqi!), Shilpa Shetty’s family doesn’t want ’unnecessary politicisation‘ - maybe their payment terms with Big Brother are 80% post-completion of the show, the sponsors are busy protecting their brands and the police has just arrived on the scene. In the meanwhile, Channel4 continues making money, Indian media piggybacks on this trend as usual. This is the reality and I am showing it to you!

The spectators were troubling Gibbs’ teammates and he did the right thing as any team-man (especially senior ones) would do by pepping his teammates up with a little language and attitude. In fact I have no idea what he said except that it was “a bunch of bloody animals” plus some more racist slur as they chose to call it. If team SA got fired up that way then good for them and those of us who are intellectually inclined can go on for hours trying to debate the positives and negatives of that strategy of inspiration.

What the cricket authorities miss out on is the fact that the same racist comments are bestowed upon the cricketers that belong to the non-white skinned humans category. And if it is zero tolerance then they should really look into this aspect more seriously than Gibbs shouting helplessly at a group of the spectators to his teammates.

When you see umpires standing mute spectators to Andre Nel’s sledging but reporting Sehwag for over-appealing, it is only natural that you think about racist tendencies. When Glenn McGrath walks upto Rahul Dravid at his batting crease and gives him a mouthful of something-that’s-definitely-not-exchanging-pleasantries and you see Dravid getting fined for not being able to control his players on-field, what else can be a reasonable explanation? When Darrell Hair accuses Pakistan of tampering with the ball and it is finally proved that the Pakis haven’t done anything with the ball, still Inzy is banned for 4 test matches. Darrell Hair calls Muralitharan for throwing even though he is cleared by the ICC and Murali is rested by Sri Lanka in order to avoid more confrontations. During the ugly fight between Ramnaresh Sarwan and Glenn McGrath, it was just a case of warning given to both the players because an Austalian was involved in the bragain. Otherwise, Sarwan might have been banned for I don’t know how many matches! What is the explanation for all these?

And where is the ‘zero tolerance’ policy of the cricketing authorities here? Munching groundnuts I guess. Even with the power shifting towards the Asian bloc, there has been no change in the racist attitudes of the ICC. England, Australia, SA (non-blacks part of this team, Gibbs is a non-white and that’s why there is so much of problem with him always. Even Greame Smith doesn’t support him most of the times!) and NZ can get away with murder, while anyone else who even gets caught running their fingers over the ball can be banned for ball tampering! Shame on you ICC!

Giving Mr. Geelani the benefit of the doubt, a Bench consisting of Justice P. Venkatarama Reddi and Justice P.P. Naolekar said his conduct at the time of the attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001 was disturbing and created a serious suspicion about his role as he reportedly approved the terrorist act. Further, the Bench referred to Mr. Geelani’s untruthful pleas about his contacts with Afzal and Shaukat and said the needle of suspicion pointed to him. However, “suspicion alone is not sufficient to convict a person.”

In a press conference shown on Headlines Today News Channel, Mr. Geelani was stating how happy he was to be proven innocent especially after being convicted (and given a death sentence) by a lower court. His happiness is understandable. And my hearty wishes to him for his acquittal.

My discomfort arises from the last statement with which the TV coverage ended. “I realise I was convicted earlier only because I am a Kashmiri Muslim”, said Mr. Geelani. He was not responding improptu to questions from reporters. He was reading out from a paper which probably had the statement on it. All the National newspapers have rightly kept the statement out of their stories. But I am unable to shrug it off.

If he was convicted earlier just because he was a Kashmiri Muslim, the judgement of the Apex Court also shouldn’t have changed. Afterall, he didn’t change his religion before this judgement. He was hurt by the judgement of the earlier court. Anybody would have been. You punish an innocent person, the innocent person will obviously be hurt.

Being a professor, who teaches in a famous University, making such statements don’t suit his demeanour. Going into your lecture with the attitude that I am not treated on par with the others because of my religion, you will only end up poisoning more minds than teaching them to live in harmony with other people.

Have our tolerance limits really gone up to such an extent that we take such statements in our stride too? It’s a pity that such a statement was made in the first place. And despite getting justice, if this is the stand that a person takes then its dangerous to the society. I consider that statement as unnecessary. It is an open attack on the Indian tolerance levels.

By acquitting Mr. Geelani, now it’s unclear as to who we have acquitted. A Kashmiri Muslim who is such a danger to the country that he was once awarded a death penalty? Or an Indian who is living under a free democracy and an effective juidicary?

Tomorrow: The discourse at Ramakrishna Ashram