Sunday, February 19, 2006

Wild about the Oscars

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)

L Suresh comes up with some original killer plots that will bring in the Oscars next year…

#1 La-gone
It was Pommie bashing and cricket that brought us closer to the Oscars. Obviously, while the yanks understand the former, they don’t follow the game that we hold so close to our hearts. Perhaps we could try out tennis, with the storyline revolving around this girl Basanti who is not allowed to play on center court at Wimbledon (this is where we could cash in on the Sania Mania). Since she gets no support from her fellow-villagers, she hires Leander Jai Paes and Mahesh Veeru Bhupathi to help her out. The grand finale could be the two teaming up and winning the men's doubles.

#2 Kramer vs Kramer vs Kramer
The Oscars might give Hollywood the big O, but it’s the K factor that gives us Indians our kicks. What we need to win at the Oscars is a Rakesh Roshan meets Karan Johar meets Ekta Kapoor plot – it’s about this hunk who thinks he’s a little boy who thinks he’s found an alien who’s thrown out of Mars by his parents because he married a poor she-alien who gets harassed by evil in-laws wearing ghastly bindis and sheds buckets of tears. What do we call it? Kyunki… Mars be kabhi bahuth hai (Because… sometimes Mars is also a bit much).

#3 Titanikki
If anything that sinks can be a surefire Oscar winner, then there’s still hope for our producers who are all at sea, looking for their movies that have sunk without a trace. But if it’s about a guy (Neal) who wants to hit it off with 21 women in 21 days and decides that a ship would be the best place to do it, a shark that’s hell-bent on smashing the ship to smithereens before an iceberg can do it and a push-up bra that eventually becomes the last straw that breaks the ship’s back – we have a potential winner with a bit of wreckage and lots of cleavage.

#4 The Lost Emperor
Monumental flops are always in the race for awards. This has an emperor who is inspired by the pyramids and decides to build one in Agra. But his architect couldn’t get it straight and even as the emperor was willing to settle for a sphinx, the creation becomes a jinx. As expected, Shah Jahan loses his marbles, the architect loses his life and the industries in the vicinity lose their license for fear of pollution. That’s when an entrepreneur parts the red sea and blames it on Shah Jahan, who gets imprisoned. A rescue team builds a bridge on the river Kwai to save him, his son Aurangzeb blows a fuse and sets off a time bomb. Everything is in flames as the film climaxes in a grand chase with several chariots on fire. As you can see, there’s a potential Oscar hidden in every twist.

#5 Good Fellas
Love, betrayal, death and all associated ingredients go into the making of this real-life drama about three men who are gunning for one another. The first throws his weight around, the second throws a tantrum and the third, in sheer disgust, throws in the towel. The Chapell-Ganguly-Dalmiya drama is based on an incident involving three men, each of whom narrates it from his point of view. (The original, Amores Perros, loosely translates into Love's a bitch, so we can call our tale 'Love's a pitch'.) Stands a good chance for best movie and best supporting actor – for the effigy that gets burnt right through the movie.

And if none of these works, we could see if our luck gets any better by numerologically changing the awards to Auscaars or Ohskaurs – who knows, it could change our destiny!

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 19 February, 2006)

Spears Speaks…

(Image courtesy: Corbis)
Ever since that fateful morning when Britney woke up with a terrible hangover and a terrified husband, it dawned on her that she had been blessed with an extraordinary power – of starting an agony aunt column for the broken hearted. L Suresh ghostwrites…


Hi Britney, sometime back, this girl at college asked me if I’d be her Valentine. But she didn’t even bother to wait for my answer. By the time I got back to her, she had gotten married to her hairdresser and had two daughters. In fact, her first daughter is already married and has a kid. I am truly disturbed - women are so shallow and they don't believe in waiting for a man to make his mind up. My question is this - should I let my opinion of women come in the way of asking her second daughter out for Valentine’s Day this year?
- Lee Shur

Britney says:

Dear Lee, remember, the only thing in the world that women can’t seem to afford is patience. Besides, most women think that a good man is hard to find, but a good hairdresser is next to impossible - so don’t blame her. But isn’t 20 years a bit too long for you to hold on to one single thought? (Gee, I couldn’t hold on to a marriage for 55 hours!) Anyways, don’t waste any more time. Speak to her pronto - or you’ll be singing one of my favourites, “Oops! I did it again”.

Dear Britney, after nursing a secret crush on my neighbour for over three years, I finally decided to ask her out for Valentine’s Day. But being an extremely shy guy, I have always avoided meeting her or speaking to her. But this morning I realized that I have a huge problem - my neighbour happens to be a guy and not a girl! So what do I do this Valentine’s Day?
- Gay Mad Don Ritchie

Britney says:

Hi Gay, I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill. Take my advice – if this guy turns out to be like Justin Timberlake, you can hang out with him for four years. If he’s more like Jason Alexander and reminds you of a childhood friend, get in and out of a marriage in 55 hours. If he’s like Kevin Federline, he’s for keeps. But if you still insist on making a mountain of this issue, make sure it’s Brokeback Mountain – get a couple of tickets and take him out this V Day!

Dear Britney, I’m dating a woman who is older than I am. But I have a problem - every time she finishes dinner, she insists on removing her dentures and dropping them into a glass of water. I feel terribly embarrassed to take her out for Valentine’s Day. What do I do?
- Man D Bill

Britney says:

If she happens to be a Karan Johar fan, go down on your knees, take her dentures in your hands, look into her eyes and tell her that though you love her toothless smile, you only want to see her khushi, but not her gums. That should do the trick. But if she doesn’t get the hint, stand up and announce to the world that there’s a new striptease routine in town where the teeth come off first. She might bare her fangs at you, but at least it will take care of all your teething troubles. Chew over it for a day and you’ll get the drift.

Dear Britney, I had this god-awful nightmare about DD beginning Valentine’s Day celebrations on the lines of New Year’s Eve special programmes – with old reruns of Usha Uthup’s ‘Pop Time’, a countdown to midnight and red heart-shaped balloons being released skywards, with the whole world screaming ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’ to one another. My boyfriend seems to be having the same nightmare too. What do we do?
- Lu Rid Teevee

Britney says:

Dear Lu, it’s human to have nightmares. I have nightmares too – of Christina Aguilera winning a Grammy, of J Lo winning an Oscar and of Paris Hilton winning the style icon of the year. The idea is to bash on regardless. Remember, one girl’s dream is another’s nightmare, so don’t worry about it. The best way to get rid of a nightmare is to imagine a happier ending – like the power going off, your TV blowing up, a short-circuit in your building or the TV channel being taken over by ex-college students. Happy Valentine’s Day!
(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement as 'Ask Britney' on 12 February, 2006)

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

An SOS for an SMS

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)
How did news channels survive before cell phones were invented? L Suresh seeks answers – via sms.

"Should young couples (read boys and girls) be allowed in parks?" Now tell me - honestly - how many of you sms-ed your answers to the news channel that came up with this beauty of an opinion poll? You didn't? Spoilsport! And what about that time when a channel was dying to know your answer to “Should boys and girls be allowed to exchange cards on Valentine’s Day?” You didn’t get the signal that day? (Or is that the story of your life?)

Keeping in with the popularity of game shows that are doing the rounds, news channels have taken care to structure their poll questions such that they can all be answered without seeking lifelines. The final answer is always A or B - even if the right answer happens to be C. (For instance, take a question like “Is this the end of the road for Sourav?” The answers could be a. Yes, b. No, c. What road? & d. Sourav-who? But as you see, the options are limited.) Another disgusting thing about these polls is that most of them do not cater to those of us who have mastered the art of bringing high-flying opinion polls crashing to the ground by marking ‘don’t know/can’t say’ or ‘none of the above’.

But if you are amongst those who have never attempted to respond to any of these exciting polls, here’s a list of question you can practice with. Just SMS whatever answer to whichever news channel whenever (don’t worry, even they wouldn’t know the difference).

1. Will Greg Chappell show his you-know-which finger again when he visits Kolkata?
2. Did you spot Mallika Sherawat in The Myth?
3. Should Virendar Sehwag follow Warne and go for laser hair treatment?
4. Will KANK (Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna) conk?
5. Should students buy exam papers that have been leaked?
6. Should remix albums carry the eco-friendly tag because they have been recycled?
7. Should game show hosts be given IQ tests before they are chosen?
8. Should park benches in Meerut be made single-seaters?
9. When Inzamam mentioned green tops, was he referring to his team’s hats?
10. Do weepy soaps start with K as a tribute to Kleenex tissues?
11. Is ‘phone tapping’ a new sound that can be downloaded as a ring tone?
12. Will Sanjay Gupta rip off a Harry Potter movie in Hindi with Sanjay Dutt?
13. Should they have ‘bid and win’ one-buck tickets for auto rickshaws too?
14. Should remotes have control-alt-del buttons so that we can erase ads on TV?
15. Should the dress codes enforced by universities apply to music videos too?

But beware, news channels that are vying for your attention and dying to hear your opinions are going all out to get you to respond. Rumour has it that some of them are tying up with cable operators and making it mandatory for you to send at least one sms per week - if not, your cable connection gets cut. Considering the fact that they are your biggest source of entertainment, this can be a serious threat. Some of them are even joining hands with cellular operators and are planning to offer innovative packages – free download of the signature tune of their channel when you send them an sms. So, every time your cell plays the channel’s tune, the ‘classic conditioning’ syndrome will occur - people around will whip out their mobiles and get ready to respond to another opinion poll.

But before they do that, there’s something you need to do – start sms-ing.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 29 January, 2006)

The war of the willows

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)
L Suresh profiles a battle where the loser has no place to flee to – least of all home.

“In terms of the number of people following it, think of an Ashes series and multiply it by 100.” That coming from a man who has fought the battle for the urn seven times indicates the kind of pressure cooker situation that 22 men shall be finding themselves in for 44 days as they get under a large microscope, with two nations coming to a grinding halt and watching their every move. To add to what Greg Chappell said, just think of the hands that applaud each run, the voice that lustily cheers the fall of a wicket, the eyes that light up with each win and the anger that manifests itself into a burnt effigy or a broken glass pane – and multiply each by a billion. That’s possibly the closest one can get to describing what an India-Pakistan series is all about.

As the series gets underway, one man will be looking up at the heavens, thinking of a story that he possibly read as a kid, and wondering lay in store for him. He would now understand the plight of Trishanku, the King of the Solar Dynasty who wasn't allowed to enter the gates of heaven because he was, well, cursed to become an outcast. Through his penance, he beseeched Sage Vishwamitra who gave him a special place in the skies and created a heaven around him. This came to be known as Trishanku's Heaven - a metaphor for a situation in which one is neither happy nor sad.

Sourav Ganguly could well empathize with this story as he finds himself in no-man's land. Out of the team because of power play and back into the team thanks to Pawar play, the man who was once lucky for India now considers himself lucky even to be in the team, forget the playing eleven. With Laxman, Dravid and Sachin sealing their places, the Prince of Kolkata will be seen vying for a place with another prince - another southpaw, a younger, more stylish and currently-in-better-form Yuvraj - unless yet another piece of experimentation sees one of them open the innings. The Pakistani cricketers, present and past, are already into mind games, banking on the fact that it would suit their purpose to see him in the team and then psyche him out, innings after innings. And the fact that the whole of West Bengal has forced itself into the selection committee will not help his cause any. Decades ago, Hollywood promoted Greta Garbo's Ninotchka with the tag line 'Garbo laughs', it being her first comedy. One will not be surprised if, on hearing the news of Sourav’s inclusion in the eleven, posters spring up all across Kolkata, screaming, 'Ganguly plays'.

Another old warrior who will find himself weighed down with great expectations is Anil Kumble. They said he couldn't win matches outside India, that he was past his prime and that he needed an SG ball and crumbling pitches. He proved them all wrong. SG or Kookaburra, Kumble holds the key to India's bowling performance and possibly a series win. While Pathan shall be at his fire and brimstone best, drawing customary first blood, the team will depend on Kumble to orchestrate that phenomenon made popular by teams in the sub-continent - a batting collapse.

India has long been advocating the blend of youth and experience - to the point of reducing the phrase to a cliché. But with experience leading the way and youthful exuberance conjuring delightful magical acts, we seem to have a winning combination - and about time! But so does Pakistan, answering to that very description that fits India like a glove. Both teams have plenty of batting and bowling options - and both have seen merit in turning their finest one day specialists into test players - Yuvraj and Dhoni for India and Razzaq and Afridi for Pakistan. While the last two series between the two sides always had one team with a slight edge over the other, this series will be a battle amongst equals. A strong middle order, a wagging tail, a good wicket-keeper batsman, a destructive pace attack, wily spinners... and two captains who never seem to lose form with the bat.

If one has to nitpick, one could point to the fact that Pakistan will have the home advantage. And that they've just pulled off a convincing test and one day series win against a more powerful opponent - England. Moreover, their pace attack of Shoaib Akthar, Sami, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan and Umar Gul is decidedly better than our own combination of Pathan, Agarkar, Zaheer Khan and R P Singh. But then, if Pathan and Balaji could do it for us once, there’s no reason why the current crop can’t repeat the 'yank the rug from under their feet' act all over again.

But one thing that goes in India's favour is that we have played against a quality spin and pace attack in two successive series - we took our blows, we went down, but we beat the count as we stood up to deliver. And in the end, we not only performed creditably, but also discovered talent that would otherwise have remained hidden in the dressing room - Pathan's allround abilities, Dhoni's Gilchrist hangover, Yuvraj’s coming of age, and Kumble and Harbhajan's latest spin twin act.

All is not hunky dory, however, with the Indian batting line-up. While on one end, there is this toss-up between Gambhir and Jaffer, with neither of them able to convince us that they would handle Shoaib Akthar and co. confidently, at the other waits Sehwag, for resurgence and for rank long hops that can be dispatched to the fence with ease. Runs have not been easy to come by and the occasional early mistake has now degenerated into an assured early break for the opening bowlers. And while the planet Saturn seems to avoid positions 3, 4 and 5, it settles back to haunt us in position 6, where it will be either Yuvraj or Ganguly. This uncertainty surely won't do any good for both batsmen and at the end of three tests, Kaif could well be licking his lips, waiting for his turn at that spot.

Having said that, recent performances indicate that Yuvraj holds the key to converting India's 200 plus scores to respectable 300 plus and match-winning 400 plus totals. A healthy average of over 69 in the one-dayers against South Africa and an average of over 50 in the test series against Sri Lanka not only indicate a man in form, it also indicates the potential of a player who excels equally in both versions of the game – and against both pace and spin. The ability to score off Pollock, Ntini and Nel, and play Muralitharan on spinning tracks reaffirms Chappell's faith in him. But if there's one thing that'll please Yuvraj, it's his vindication from the ignominy of being a spinner's bunny. Murali and Bandara will testify to that.

However, the comfort levels against pace and spin aren't the same for a few other star players. A fact that went largely unnoticed was that Dhoni couldn't play his usual hammer-and-tongs innings against the South African quicks. An average of around 14 from three innings at a strike rate that just managed to cross 50 indicates a player who's clearly uncomfortable against genuine pace. Compare this to an average of well over 115 just a couple of weeks before against the friendly medium pace and part-time spin attack of the Lankans and there's no room for speculation about the kind of attack he prefers. Let's just hope, for our own good, that he bats in a Lankan frame of mind.

On the other side of the border, Pakistan shall continue to resemble a bunch of extremely talented youngsters expertly led by their big brother into a series of adventures. Much as Inzamam denies it, he is the central force, the avuncular figure and the calming influence who gets the best out of his hot-headed teammates. India can safely assume that with him out of the way, the rest of Pakistan will be easier to deal with, despite the presence of veterans like Mohammed Yousuf and Younis Khan. That perhaps will be the Achilles heel of Pakistan – their Indian counterparts show far greater maturity and application during a tight situation – one can assume that a Pathan or a Yuvraj will be a safer bet than an Akthar or an Afridi to get their team out of a mess.

And like India, it is the emergence of the fringe players that is making Pakistan a force to reckon with. Like Dhoni, Kamran Akmal has shown great potential with the bat. The top order, starting with Inzamam, Mohammed Yousuf and Salman Butt blunted the fantastic pace attack of Harmison, Hoggard and Flintoff. But it was the bowlers who won the series for Pakistan – led by Shoaib and Kaneria who, between them, grabbed 28 wickets in the series. (The fact that there was just one five-wicket haul in the whole series also indicates how well the other bowlers pitched in. Compare that with India’s three 5-wicket and two 10-wicket hauls – Kumble and Harbhajan netted 34 wickets between them, with Pathan and Agarkar managing just 10.)

While the teams slug it out on the field, to the two coaches Woolmer and Chappell, however, it shall be a larger-than-life game of chess – with the squares and the coins in blue and green. Each has tasted success and faced criticism – now comes the moment of reckoning. Both know that a win here can wipe out any subsequent loss – even that of the World Cup 2007.

It is said that the next dreadful thing to a battle lost is a battle won. Just think of the war of the willows as an exception.
(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement as 'The wind in the willows' on 08 January, 2006)

Whose party line is it anyway?

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)
L Suresh corrects the perceptions of those who believe that the best party lines begin with 1-600…

It’s sad to see how many partygoers end up stone sober after a New Year party. Blame it on the ‘foot in mouth’ syndrome - most spend all evening removing one foot from the mouth to make place for the other. With this amount of sole searching, it’s not surprising that the most voracious party animal ends up feeling like a heel.

Keeping in with the spirit of deep introspection that happens before a new year hits us, let’s face the truth - it doesn’t take a hidden camera and a voyeuristic team of journalists to perform a sting operation and expose our ignorance. We just have to open our mouth – and it’s bliss.

So why make a fool of ourselves in front of all and sundry, when we can do it in the confines of our homes, making New Year resolutions? Here are a few tips on the art of conversation at a New Year bash.

Problem: You can’t make out the difference between white bread and brown bread (especially if they’re both toasted black). And you think the Gaza strip is an exotic belly dance act performed to Arabian music. But there’s this woman who’s holding court on Palestinian cuisine, with her Hummus bi Tahini and Baba Ghanoush.

Solution: Proclaim loudly how organic food is ‘in’ and with all these stupid wars, you can imagine Palestinian food to be full of chemicals. And if she innocently mentions Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah, you’ll do well to realize that she isn’t talking about another appetizer, but is referring to the terrorist outfit Hamas – the guys who’re likely to have you for dessert.

Problem: F1. You don’t know a thing about the Grand Prix and you think everything about it, from the Indian way of pronouncing it to terminology like pole position, is laden with sexual innuendos. The person next to you begins a conversation to no one in particular, “Hey, did you check out the race yesterday?”

Solution: Switch the conversation to a different channel – like Animal Planet and talk non-stop about the most awesome gecko racing you’ve ever seen. That should drive him up the wall – with no gecko pads.

Problem: Technology. You haven’t progressed beyond chatting and sending mail. And here’s this techie who’s expounding on EBGA Model APM/CBAM Setup in thermal analysis using a constrained object browser.

Solution: Complain to him that your computer works like an air conditioner – it stops working every time you open Windows – and ask him if his thermal analysis can locate the thermostat problem. Now excuse yourself quickly – he’ll be itching to do the Control-Alt-Del on you.

Problem: King Kong and the Goblet of Fire is as far as you’ve got on the movie scene. And there’s this guy trying to impress everyone with his take on Polish movies.

Solution: Stare at him until he stops mid-sentence and ask him how he pronounces Wladyslaw Pasikowski, Krzysztof Kieslowski and Andrzej Kondratiuk. Better still, laugh loudly and say how he just reminded you of a Polish joke about this guy who tried to count till 11 and was arrested for indecent exposure. You can bet your last Polish zloty that it will be the last you’ll hear of parallel cinema – for 2005.

Just remember, the harder you try to conceal the sources of all your one-liners, the more original you’ll sound. Just go for it – and have a blast.
(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 25 December, 2005)

In celebration of mediocrity






(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)
L Suresh looks back at a year when more people tuned in to news channels than sports channels for the latest in sports.

What’s it about Indian sports that we seem to be doing so well on just about every turf? Sportspersons (other than cricketers) have finally begun their journey from the sports page to page 3 and along the way, have been stopping at page 17 (for a product endorsement), page 12 (for a controversial statement that's now providing editorial meat) and page 5 (for supporting a social cause). Small wonder that, considering the kind of successes they've been having for a year now. Winning a cricket series abroad (Now that Chappell's here, we will), a grand slam singles title (not yet, but it’ll happen), an F1 championship (we're getting there), a chess title (well, almost), a hockey gold (hold on, we'll be right back)... Wait a minute - what exactly have we been celebrating all year?

2005 was a year when the magic of marketing, media and megabucks finally caught up. As a nation, we stopped looking for success - who has the time for it when we're busy looking for icons? It was the also year of spats- Sourav vs Chappell, Baichung Bhutua vs East Bengal, Gerhard Rach vs the Indian Hockey Federation... While the stars shone for the likes of Sania and Dravid, others like Sourav found themselves in an elevator headed towards basement parking - the most convenient place to begin a ride into the sunset from.

Let’s take a quick look at what 2005 had in store for Indian fans:

Tennis – love all, conquer none

There's something that happens to our boys and girls who win junior grand slams - they don't grow up enough to win the senior editions of the same. Instead they deftly sidestep and shift to tag teams, comfortably winning doubles titles and Davis Cup ties. Now, there has been another shift - to mixed doubles, and no, we shall not look down upon it, because that's where our grand slam titles for 2005 have come from - two to be precise, in Wimbledon and the US Open, thanks to Mahesh Bhupathi. (In India, a ‘grand slam’, until recently, was when a player hurled the racquet in disgust onto the court after losing a match.)

As for Sania, she became the first Indian sportswoman to feature on the cover of Time magazine and ended 2005 with a WTA ranking of 34. In a country where a star's pout can send millions into raptures, imagine what reaching the third round of a grand slam can do.

Football – getting a kick out of nothing

If there ever was a similarity between us and the US – it’s football. Both versions are limited to the country, are not followed outside and in both cases, the teams think the world of themselves. One can’t help but wonder about the 'Closed User Group' mode of the game, where crores of rupees change hands as clubs battle it out for God-knows-what, with none of them managing to reach Asian standards, leave alone the bigger league.

Today, we’re a country ranked 135th in the world, struggling to find a place at the top even in the SAF games and the SAFF Cup, with Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan giving us a run for every goal. (If India beating Bangladesh in the 2005 SAFF Cup is news, so be it.) That’s why, it doesn't come as a big surprise that the biggest football event of the year was India skipper Baichung Bhutia's 'spat' (by now, the most popular word in Indian sport) with East Bengal and his subsequent signing up with Malaysian outfit M K Land.

Hockey - past perfect, future tense

The story so far – Coach Rajinder Singh is thrown out just a month before the Athens Olympics begins. German-born Gerhard Rach is appointed Coach and after a series of debacles, Rach resigns. Rajinder Singh Junior takes his place and gets to hold his place till the 2006 World Cup.

With such a stormy start to the year, it was only natural that each day was a rocky ride through turbulence. We came fifth in the six-nation KT Cup women's hockey tournament held in Seoul, finished fourth in the junior world cup in Netherlands, stood last in the eight-nation mini world cup, managed only a 11th position in the junior women's world cup at Chile, finished seventh out of eight nations in the Rabo cup and fifth out of seven nations at the Azlan Shah Cup. And in the recently concluded Sahara Champions Trophy, we finished last. Not surprising if past performances are anything to go by - all we've managed so far is one bronze in 17 years.

F1 – all gas, no speed

India's first Formula One racing driver. The Fastest Indian in the World. 2005 in F1 was another year where the journey became the destination itself. Finishing 15th in the Australian Grand Prix, Narain Karthikeyan notched up his first points in the United States Grand Prix, finishing fourth as most teams pulled out for safety reasons. Otherwise, his best race position has been 11th,at the Malaysian and the Belgian Grand Prix. If the whole year can be captured into a frozen moment, it is the unfortunate incident of Karthikeyan crashing into the wall at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai. He was fortunate to escape unhurt, but it signified a dead end for India in 2005, as far as F1 was concerned.

Golf – Gentlemen only, losing forbidden?

2005 ended with Jyoti Randhawa heading the league of global golfing Indians with a world ranking of 123 and the rest following - without trying to crowd those before them - at a leisurely pace. We have, for long, celebrated the first Indian golfer on the PGA Tour, the first Indian to win a European Tour Order of Merit event and the first Indian to qualify for the British Open. Sometime in the future, we shall also look forward to celebrating victories.

Cricket – a nation’s drug

Is there a word that remains to be printed or said on the game? Thanks to over-zealous news channels, irate Ganguly fans and poor performances abroad, 2005 saw cricket remain a hapless housewife – bearing the brunt of the common man’s pleasures and pains. And at every available opportunity, he took to the streets - to celebrate or to condemn.

While the country was sent into raptures by emerging stars like Pathan and Dhoni, old warhorses like Sachin and Kumble reasserted their dominance over the game. India continued to be Pakistan's bunny in one-dayers and continued its poor run of tournament finals as it slipped to its 12th defeat in the last 16 finals. A pressure cooker situation built up at the BCCI and when it predictably blew up, Ganguly bore the brunt of it. East made way for the West as Dalmiya and his trusted lieutenants were ousted in India’s most elaborately covered election (thank you news channels, we don’t know what we would have done without you), by Powar and his men. In came Dravid as captain and a team of youngsters was quickly whipped into a winning combination, with Coach Chappell. The nation gave Dravid a hand, Chappell gave Kolkata the middle finger and Ganguly fans slowly realized that it would take more than an arm and a leg to see him back in the team.

Leaked e-mails, undisguised discrimination, political power plays... With the kind of rumours and controversies stirred up by the media, it was not just a team that needed the showers after every match. Every time one watched the sports news on TV, one longed for a cleansing experience soon after.

2006 – what’s in store

As for 2006, our chances of winning are most likely to be the same as they were at the beginning of 2005 – let’s just hope the results vary.

There are two other things that aren’t likely to change. One, the media shall continue to glorify mediocrity and deify players based on a single performance. So as a nation, we shall continue to cheer individual performances than team victories. And two, the star-struck fan shall continue to let his heart rule his head, which explains the reason why he loses his head, every time he loses heart when his team does badly. In both cases, the immediate option is to take to the streets and create a spectacle. It may not help soothe one's anger, but it sure as hell makes for chart-busting television rating points.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement as 'Hungry for icons' on 25 December, 2005)

Battling Allrounder

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)
L Suresh uncovers a macabre tale of blood, gore and revenge in Indian cricket.

Long before the Indian Idol burst into the scene, the country had its own desi version of the talent hunt - the Indian Idle. But in course of time, the name was changed to the BCCI Presidential Elections as it was found that the man at the helm, contrary to his job profile, became rather active in the seat of power. But there was another loose end that lay unthreaded, despite many state cricket associations pulling strings and despite fans giving their cricketing heroes a long rope – the search for an allrounder.

That was when the selection committee, buoyed by Coach Chappell’s De Bono theories, sat up to do some lateral thinking. And from this process emerged not one, but the magnificent seven, with Ganguly and Sehwag as batting allrounders, Yuvraj and Kaif as fielding allrounders, Irfan and Agarkar as bowling allrounders, Dhoni as the wicket-keeping allrounder.

But this was just the sub-plot. The main story was one of ‘try hard - with a vengeance’, with so many twists and turns that it took an RVBMS (Relational Vendetta Base Management System) to put it all together, as each man tried to outdo the other.

Sourav settles a score
Sourav: “Zaheer should have known better than to dismiss me for two consecutive ducks in the Duleep Trophy Final. I might have a string of low scores, but that doesn’t mean that I will take to zeroes like a duck to water. After all, I have scored over 10,000 runs in one-dayers. (Don’t ask me what this has to do with my selection in tests. I have been told to say this at least once a day to the press.) I’ve settled scores magnificently, but the sad part is, I can’t get them into the record books.”

The Patron Saint Payback
Patron Saint: “How dare Chappell show his you-know-which finger to the Kolkata crowd! I am waiting to show all five fingers – and wave him good-bye. The first step towards that obviously was getting Sourav back into the team. But I just can’t understand one thing – why is everyone picking on poor Sourav? When Mr. More called him a batting allrounder, what he meant was that Dada is a batsman who could bat ‘all around the wicket’, contrary to popular belief that Sourav could play only on the offside. Besides, hasn’t he scored over 10,000 runs in one-dayers? (Don’t ask me what this has to do with his selection in tests. We have a pact – we say this at least once a day to the press.)”

Atapattu Attacks
Atapattu: “I’m still smarting under the 1-6 drubbing we received in the one-dayers. That’s why I strategically stated that Ganguly’s inclusion would add more teeth to the Indian batting line-up. It didn’t matter that I was lying through my teeth, as long as it makes them bite the dust. And since Sourav said that he would treat his comeback match as his first test, I’m hoping that he would play it like I played my first test – a duck in each innings. Anyways, hasn’t he scored over 10,000 runs in one-dayers? (Don’t ask me what this has to do with his selection in tests. I was asked to say this to the press.)”

In the end, Dada was back in the team and India's longstanding problem of looking for an allrounder was solved. The selectors thus killed two birds and a billion hopes with one stone. And everyone lived happily ever after.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 04 December, 2005)

Bonding with the bad man

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)
It has become an ‘everything or nothing’ gamble for Gulshan Grover as he battles Bond and rumours of him playing Le Chiffre, the Russian spy, in the latest Bond flick, Casino Royale. The Bad Man of India is so much into method acting that he’s even been practicing Russian roulette to gear himself up for the role. We got a psychic to read his thoughts.

Well, I have no choice but to...

…keep calling myself a bad man
Over the years, the bad guys of Bollywood - from Pran to Amrish Puri, from Amjad Khan to Kader Khan have all turned good and have become 'character actors' (Hence the Indian definition of a bad guy as someone who is a 'characterless person')

…look for roles abroad
Seen the latest villains? Amitabh in Ram Gopal Varma's Sholay. Ajay Devgun in Khakee. Hrithik Roshan in Dhoom 2. Abhishek Bachchan in Yuva. By God, if the heroes are all turning villains, where do the villains go? The younger generation - Sayaji Shinde, Ashish Vidyarthi and Atul Kulkarni has headed down South to play the baddies in Telugu and Tamil flicks. So I decided to go west.

…accept my role in a Bond film
I was okay with seeing the likes of Kabir Bedi, Vijay Amritraj, Amrish Puri and Om Puri go to Hollywood. But Anupam Kher changed my ‘don’t care’ attitude - I read that he has auditioned for a Woody Allen film. He has been giving me grief for a long time about how his Dr. Dang role in Karma is second only to Dr. No. To me, that’s an absolute no-no.

…accept defeat like an extraordinary gentleman
It is a fact that Naseeruddin Shah beat me to Captain Nemo's role in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. A couple of days later, I received a call from someone asking me to audition for Finding Nemo. Thinking that it was a sequel, I was thrilled. Imagine my trauma when I figured that it was an animation film about some clownfish! Later on, I figured that it was a crank call. If I find out who that was, by God, I’ll feed him to the sharks!

…refuse my role in a Bond film
Obviously I was miffed when they refused to name the movie after me and instead decided to name it Casino Royale – sounds like a paint! If Dr. No and Goldfinger can be named after villains, why not call this one ‘Bad Man Grover’ or something like that? I can even have an opening dialogue like “Main hoon BMG mere yaar! Aur yeh hai BMW, mera car.” Forget the BMW, they aren’t even giving me a chance to be a cultural ambassador.

…speak to Prince Charles about this
With a film like Casino Royale, who better to speak to than someone who is royalty? But all he could promise was a walk-in role as a dabba wala. By God, I’m a bad man, I can only have others for lunch. Frankly, I wanted to give this Bond film an Indian flavour, but I really can’t think of myself as the man with the golden dabba.

But these are just rumours. And as rumours go, even Dame Judi Dench has been put on the bench, according to sources. So, beware - I may be shaken, but I haven’t yet stirred - from the audition queue.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 27 November, 2005)

The Gauls are coming

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)

L Suresh narrates the adventures of a rejuvenated Indian team that’s just discovered a druid and his magic potion.

England will beat the Aussies and win the Ashes. Chennai will record snowfall this winter. Hollywood to ban sequels to blockbuster hits. India will beat Sri Lanka 6-1 in a one-day series. C'mon, confess, which of the above would you have dismissed as the most improbable a couple of months back?

Experimentation seemed to be the most-used word in Indian cricket for some time (besides ‘spat’, ‘tennis elbow’ and ‘effigy’) and the end-results seemed far from encouraging. And then, something happened. The cauldron that was simmering with discontent and leftovers of previously failed recipes was cleaned up and filled with new ingredients. Experience was replaced with youth, records were substituted with performances and the concept of playing for one’s place in the side was exchanged for that of playing for one’s team. And viola! Druid Chappell had concocted his famous magic potion that would now power the Indian team.

It’s difficult to figure out exactly how long the effects of this magic potion will last, but one sincerely hopes the brew is potent enough to help us take on the four infamous Roman garrisons that could stand between us and the World Cup – Australia, England, Pakistan and South Africa. Anyways, if the Indian team continues to play like this, the only thing they need to fear, in true Gaulish spirit, is that that the sky may fall on their heads tomorrow. But since tomorrow never comes, all should be well as long as performance levels can be maintained.

And some performance it was! While the hapless Sri Lankans ran helter-skelter like Roman legionaries who were being whipped, thrashed and flung into orbit, the Indian team resembled a bunch of merry Gauls on the rampage, licking their lips at the very thought of bumping into ‘some friendly neighbours’. The choice of adjectives normally used to describe the lead character in the series of adventures – agile, clever and good-natured – accentuate the striking similarities in approach and demeanour between Rahul the Wall and Asterix the Gaul. And the other hero of the story had to be Dhoni, who obviously didn’t need any magic potion for his 17 huge sixes – he probably fell into the cauldron when he was a baby.

Now that takes us back to an old question - why did the experimentation process that failed so miserably in Sri Lanka and in Zimbabwe become a raging success here? The answer is equally simple – when conditions are alien, never bring along a twist to the tale because there are already enough unknown parameters to battle against. Never the best of performers on slow, dying pitches or in seaming conditions (a cursory glance at the Vitalstatistix of the team would have revealed that), the Indian team was saved of utter humiliation by a second-string West Indies team in Sri Lanka and by the rapidly deteriorating home team in Zimbabwe. And that’s when Chappell modified the first chapter of his coaching manual - practise and perfect things at home before you get on to the big stage and perform.

Amongst other key decisions made by the team’s think-tank was the one to stick to the basics rather than stick to the rules. And in the process, the team broke virtually every conceivable rule that was inscribed in the cricketing gospel in the ‘so shall it be written, and so shall it be done’ mode of authority.

* You shall not change a winning team
Thanks to the SuperSub rule, every match saw the team take on a different composition.

* You shall not tinker with the batting order
Just ask the Lankans how they felt on seeing a different No. 3 walk out every time!

* You shall not experiment with the opening pair
Sachin-Sehwag, Sehwag-Gambhir, Sachin-Gambhir... it's a fact that we ran out of matches before we ran out of opening pairs

* You shall not touch the untouchables
Well, Dravid and Sachin missed out on a match each, Sourav didn't play all seven and contrary to popular belief, the end of the world didn't come about.

* You shall not have a woman who knows her cricket in the fourth umpire panel
Strictly speaking, this has nothing to do with the team management. But since no one else thought it important to talk about this, I thought I should go down on my knees and doff my hat to Doordarshan for taking a revolutionary step and bringing in a member of the fairer sex who knew her cricket and didn't keep Charu Sharma on standby to cover up for some terrible gaffes and the resulting guffaws. It is not known whether Anjum Chopra is, by 'popular opinion', a worthy successor to the noodle-strap brigade, but cricket fans now have fewer reasons to feel insulted and intellectually assaulted after every match.

And every time a rule was broken, the results showed. The ease with which India won is apparent from the fact that right through the series, the tail didn't have to wag - Harbhajan and Sreesanth played 10 one-dayers between them and didn't have to bat even once. Of the 25 appearances made by Harbhajan, Sreesanth, Murali Kartik, Ajit Agarkar and R P Singh, only on four occasions did one of them have to go out to bat! If the batting was on overdrive, the pace bowling department decided to corner a bit of the limelight for itself. In Indian conditions, when was the last time a ‘pace battery’ wreaked havoc on the opposition, claiming 37 scalps in a seven-match series, with the spinners managing just 16?

And when was the last time India didn't have to depend on one man to do the demolition act for them? Five Indians figured in six of the Man of the Match awards won by the home team - Dravid, Pathan, Dhoni, Agarkar and R P Singh. And none of them were without competition - Sachin, Yuvraj and Gautam Gambhir staked their claim as well. Add to this Sehwag's starts, Harbhajan's consistency and Raina's icy-cool composure, and you get the complete Indian team – without a weak link!

The last time an Indian team played this well as a unit was in the World Championship of Cricket, in 1985 where the top order always clicked, the opening bowlers always drew first blood and the spinners always throttled the exposed necks of the middle order until the team was left gasping for runs. But Chappell and his new-look Gaulish team didn’t stop there – they upped the bar a couple of notches, through ceaseless experimentation that left the opponents totally confused, with breathtaking fielding that would make Jonty Rhodes sit up and take notice, and by handing out individual responsibilities, so no man was baggage and each player had a role to perform.

It’s way too early to compare ourselves with the superpowers, but isn’t that how the Aussies play their cricket? They made the world believe that anyone who wore the baggy green was a match-winner. They never needed to look up to a hero who would come and save them - they were heroes themselves. They talked about rotation at least four years before the rest of the world woke up to it. The Ashes defeat notwithstanding, Team Australia had become such an efficient piece of machinery that Chris Cairns felt his mother could lead the side.

While we displayed shades of the golden glitter of the Australians, the Lankans played like a tired Indian side. Remember the times when the Indian innings would fold up once Sachin was gone? That's exactly where Sri Lanka found itself. For over a decade, bowlers shuddered at the thought of the ball meeting Jayasuriya's bat. But the minute the home team realized that the momentum given by Jayasuriya was no longer there, even the cats sharpened their claws and charged in like tigers. The figures say the story better - when was the last time Jayasuriya stood 11th in batting averages in his team?

Atapattu's captaincy decisions didn't help the cause of their team any. Be it choosing to bat first when there was dew on the pitch, holding back his key bowlers – Vaas and Muralitharan – and letting India run away with the match, making the wrong choice of SuperSub or ill-timing his Powerplays when they had little on board to defend, numerous strategic and judgmental errors were made. India capitalised on each one of them.

While things do look rosy on hindsight, there were enough conspiracy theories doing the rounds, to begin with. The most popular of them of course, was the master plan to appoint Dravid captain of a team whose morale was so low that they would have to dig deep below to unearth it. If India had failed again against the Lankans in this series, that would have been the end of Dravid’s innings as a captain. Questions would have been asked of Chappell. And it would have synchronized well with the approaching BCCI elections as well. If Dalmiya and Co. were back at the helm, India would be taking a relook at its most successful captain ever.

But then, who was to know that in the process of taking their team forward, Chappell and Dravid would go back in time to 50 BC, and seek inspiration from a little Gaulish village and its happy inhabitants? It has to be said that the duo have luck on their side. The next month and a half have matches – tests and one-dayers – that will be played at home. The process of experimentation can continue. So can the hunt for Roman helmets, or scalps in this case.

While our series with the Lankans ended like a good Gaulish adventure – on a happy note – there was only one sequence where the Indians deviated from the typical Gaulish finish. After each match, the grand banquet was held amidst great celebrations, but one wonders why Mohinder Amarnath, unlike Cacofonix, was allowed to break into song.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 20 November, 2005)


Five point something

(Image courtesy: Corbis)
Five things you will need in 2010

1. A personal Call Center – to handle banks calling to find out if you want a credit card or a loan
2. A loan – if you have foolishly taken one of those calls and bought a Credit Card
3. An iron curtain for your computer – two different spywares will be running a spy vs spy war on your motherboard
4. Virtual marriage halls – so that you can get married from your office cubicle or workstation
5. A Diploma in Accent Management (DAM) – you never know if you’re going to become a VJ or a call center employee

Five things you won’t need in 2010

1. A day off to watch cricket – you can’t bear to see what’s happening
2. Coffee breaks – every company will give its employees a coffee strip to chew all day, thus increasing productivity
3. Savings Accounts – because interest on your money will hit zero and then, you will be paying banks to keep your money
4. Road roko agitations – the roads will be so bad that the traffic will come to a halt by itself
5. Movies – because mega serials will be such a hit that they’ll be playing in theatres

Five people you might not see in 2010

1. The Indian cricket fan – he’ll be an extinct species
2. The doormat housewife – after years of watching soaps, she’ll be scheming and screaming
3. The auto driver – his antics on the road will see him renamed as autopilot
4. The biscuit bandit – trains will be so crowded that he won’t remember who ate the biscuits
5. The porter – families will travel with so much luggage that they will be using packers and movers even for weekend getaways

Five headlines of 2010

1. Mumbai bans SMS between couples on Valentine’s Day
2. Petrol bunks tie up with pawn brokers to help vehicle owners who can’t afford fuel
3. “I can make movies on a shoestring budget of 100 crores” – Sanjay Leela Bhansali
4. Coach sacks captain, selectors sack coach after India lose cricket series to Argentina
5. Temple built for Indian Express writer for making true predictions about 2010 in 2005

Five top films of 2010

1. James the Fifth - The fifth remake of James by RGV after the first four flopped
2. Kabhi Kindergarden, Kabhi Cop – Karan Johar’s remake of Kindergarden Cop featuring Shah Rukh in a ‘back to school’ role
3. Abhi To Main Jawaan Hoon – featuring Dev Anand and Sneha Ullas
4. Haryana Hurricane – featuring Mallika Sherawat, Jet Li and Kapil Paaji in a guest role
5. Garam Hawaa – the traumatic story of four nubile women whose clothes get blown away in a cyclone

Five ways to spot a South Indian

1. He’s got a ‘Texas State University’ sticker on his windshield to tell the world that his kid is in the US
2. He wears a t-shirt with formal trousers or a formal shirt with jeans – his idea of casual wear
3. He writes letters to the Newspaper Editor, typically beginning with ‘Apropos your article in the…’
4. He carries a yellow cloth bag that says ‘Shri Venkateswara Ponni Rice’ wherever he goes
5. He has a ‘brother’s niece in Infosys’, a ‘neighbour in TCS’ and a ‘co-brother’s daughter in Wipro’

Five ways to spot a Malayali (as different from the South Indian)

1. To spot one Malayali, look for a tea shop
2. To spot two, look for a Malayali Association
3. To spot three, look for a Union
4. To spot four, look for a Political Party
5. To spot five, look for a theatre screening an Adoor Gopalakrishnan movie

Five top cricket commentators in 2010

1. Sourav Ganguly (when Dalmiya chooses the commentary team)
2. Rahul Dravid (when Sourav’s out with a tennis elbow)
3. Parthiv Patel (when Sourav’s doing the commentary)
4. Anil Kumble (when Sourav’s out with what-ever)
5. VVS Laxman (only for Tests)

Five ways to save a marriage in 2010

1. Log on to www.savemymarriage.com and ask for ‘save my marriage’ funding
2. Read Arindam Choudhary’s ‘Count your wives before they scratch’
3. Promise her a divorce after Kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi gets over – your marriage will last forever
4. Send her a (spam) e-invite addressed to ‘Mr. And Mistress Kashyap” – she’ll stick to you like superglue
5. Tell her that India has also begun naming tsunami waves after women – she’ll give you less trouble

Five ways to woo a woman in 2010

1. If you have 100 bucks – buy her a cell phone with an ‘I love you’ ring tone
2. If you have 1000 bucks – take her to a multiplex movie
3. If you have 10000 bucks – take her to a candle-light dinner
4. If you have a lakh – take her shopping
5. If you have a million – tell her this is her last chance, there are others waiting

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement as snippets on 30 Oct, 2005)

Friday, February 03, 2006

Breaking news

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)
2010. News channels have come of age. All 129 of them. L Suresh reports…

22 channels featuring sports news. 13 for fashion news. 53 for entertainment news. 40 for movie news. And the exclusive Page 3 Network (P3N). Ah, to think that two decades ago, ‘news’ was a 15-minute dinner break before a primetime serial. How primitive!

Today, newspapers offer news. News channels make news. Kareena and Shahid are waiting for the news channels to tell them which way their 87-day marriage should go. (So if you think they should head for splitsville, SMS NDTV KK 01 and if you’re old fashioned, well, SMS NDTV KK 02.) The success of Walk the Talk has expectedly spawned a legion of imitations - Jump the Gun, Run the Rerun, Crawl the Drawl (the last mentioned featuring interviews with NRI directors). The Current Affairs channel covers the latest electrifying, whirlwind romances. The Sports News channels in recent times have been full of Sachin Tendulkar's son playing an under-12 tournament for his school. Interviews with his neighbours, his school principal, his teachers and the school watchman have received high TRPs (Television rating Points). The Technology News channel is obviously a big hit as leaked e-mails and tapped phone calls are not only telecast, but can also be downloaded from the news channel’s website. (Local rates apply.) StarTalk is another popular news channel that features phone calls from intoxicated stars to their girlfriends. (Mild abuses can also be downloaded as ringtones.)

But the luckiest are those who watch the MMS News channel regularly, for they can take part in umpteen contests with prizes that range from a trip for two to Singapore to a Mercedes C Class. All they need to do is to identify if the person in the porn clip is really an actress or just a look-alike.

But the recent curb on live reporting from disaster areas is mounting pressure on news channels to come up with something new. Ever since there were widespread protests against news reporters asking earthquake survivors and accident victims how they feel, a legislation was passed in 2007 by which a victim can be asked the 'How do you feel' question just once and then given a 'How do you feel' badge that he/she needs to wear. This means only the news channel that approaches him first can pop the question. Any other news channel found approaching a badge-wearer will be exempted from all further BCCI press meets for the year. So no cricket controversies - hence no viewership, no TRPs, so no ads and soon, no channel. This not only saves the survivors from repeated harassment, but also ensures that the viewer does not feel that all the news channels are beaming the same footage into his living room.

News anchors being poached by other channels has reached its peak as one popular news anchor was found missing during a commercial break on Headlines Today. As the team in the studios went berserk trying to find her, viewers who tuned in to NDTV found her continuing the same news there. To avoid this, the news channels have a picture-in-picture on screen, so that the newsreader is forever in focus. Viewers may recall that a few years back, a news channel did a ‘Truman Show’ on a newsreader – basically, installed cameras all around. A few explicit scenes found their way to ‘The ‘X’ Factor’ and the incident rocked the country as most working men took to the streets, claiming that they were away at work when the clip was shown and demanding a rerun. The programme was subsequently renamed the XXX Factor and enjoys a midnight slot, not to mention high TRPs.

In fact, news channels have become so popular that ex-wannabe actresses have all jumped on to the news bandwagon. This has led to a new, but ugly trend in the news circle – the auditioning armchair – the television equivalent of the casting couch. (Since newsreaders don’t sit on couches and stuff like that.) While most channels have gone to town denying the existence of such primitive practices, NDTV has featured the topic in its Big Fight – The Casting Couch or the Auditioning Armchair? Needless to say, Mahesh Bhatt and Shakti Kapoor were at their best, the former because he had an audience and the latter, because he was simply relieved that he had nothing to do with news channels.

Meanwhile, live coverage of dressing room brawls in cricket has become a huge hit. Last month’s TRPs went through the roof when the nation watched spellbound the spat between Coach Lance Klusener and captain Mohammed Kaif, with live audio commentary by Sourav Ganguly from the studios. The Hindi channels too went berserk with the 'K2G (Klusener, Kaif aur Ganguly) saga - it's all about loving your sponsors'.

If all this has made you salivate for some news, don’t miss out on the live coverage of the fifth anniversary of Harbhajan's Beauty Salon. Ganguly and Chappell are both expected to play a major role in it. The words ‘patch up’ did crop up a few times, but apparently the reference was to hair-weaving, to cover the ample bald spots in their scalps.

However, Chennai is finally having the last laugh - who needs a set top box when one can get all the entertainment from free-to-air news channels for less than 100 bucks a month? And as for the regular channels, the popularity of news channels has caused them to reduce their telecast timings to 3½ hours a day - between 6.30 pm and 10 pm everyday. Apparently 35 years back, that was how much television people had each day, from a channel called Doordarshan. Talk about life coming a full circle!

Obviously all these don’t leave the news channels with much time for trivial matters. So you would do well to catch up on all the political, business and international news from the newspapers. And for the latest in the weather, just open your window and look out.
(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 30 October, 2005)

Water, water, everywhere...

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)
L Suresh reviews Dan Brown’s ninth book ‘The Celestial Deluge’ and warns readers not to forget to breathe.

The master is at it again, with his famous hero who seems to have a whirlwind romance with anything that takes him centuries back in time. The ninth in the series and the sixth featuring Robert Langdon, The Celestial Deluge is a tale crammed with intrigue and imagination, as we are taken on a high-voltage rollercoaster ride – one minute on the high seas and in the next, plumbing the depths of the ocean.

This one begins in Carlsbad Cavern in New Mexico, with Jesse Jessop found in a foetal position, all rolled up and sucking his thumb, suspended from a stalactite that had gone through him, and covered by seaweed that stank to high heavens. Near him is a life-jacket with Robert's Langdon's name scribbled on it with indelible ink. And a blood-stained copy of The Daily Republican, dated January 24th, 1909.

The story picks up speed and in a matter of pages, we realise that Jesse Jessop is the grandson of Violet Jessop, who was a survivor of the Titanic. And of the Olympic. And of the Britannic. The seaweeds point to the waters and Langdon finds that almost each of the White Star Line's ships that have sank have had Violet Jessop on them. The newspaper and the date on it point to the fourth of the disaster liners - the RMS Republic - that sank near the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts. But what makes this ship different is that it had a US Navy Payroll, 15 tonnes of gold bars and a five-ton shipment of mint condition American Gold Eagle coins - all worth around US$15 billion.

Did Violet Jessop have a hand in each of the disasters? Or did she know something that the rest of the world didn't - the map to a US$15 billion treasure? Langdon finds himself in the company of Rose Jessop, great-granddaughter of Violet Jessop and an instructor in a scuba diving school.

The action shifts underwater as Rose and Langdon scour the seabed for the Republic - and out comes what looks like the prototype of a ship, measuring 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet deep - the exact measurement of Noah's Ark. It is here that Brown plants another of his conspiracy theories that is sure to raise the hackles of several countries and communities. Was this truly THE ARK?

What follows is an unbelievable tale of vicious twists and turns as Langdon debunks the original cause of the great deluge. The Black Sea flood wasn't caused by rain - so what could have caused it? What was the origin of the great disturbance in the seas that, like a giant motor that churning the oceans, created a multitude of pressure points?

The answer lay in the clamour for power and immortality that resulted in the fiercest display of strength – the churning of the ocean by the mighty Devas and the Asuras. And that was what caused the great deluge, prompting Noah to set out on his Ark.

Religious leaders, historians, researchers and believers have already slammed the book for its blasphemous content which they feel, is trying to unite religions when they should actually be kept apart. Efforts are on to ban this book in India and in Vatican City. So if you are planning to read this book, pick up your copy fast.

Brown however, seems to have anticipated this and has built his defences halfway through the book where he states that the wine that Noah got drunk on after seeing the various life forms to safety was actually the amrit that was obtained at the end of the churning. The Ark is also stated to be the giant turtle shell that was used as a ship.

The book does have its inconsistencies. While the Celestial Churning happened over 300 million years ago, the Great Deluge was a more recent occurrence, according to some believers. Moreover, if all the life forms were on board the Ark, how did the Devas and Asuras find a serpent in the seas? And when they were using the serpent as a rope and a turtle as a pivot for the churning, what were the animal rights activists doing? Sadly enough, these and more unanswered questions plague what could have been a fine example of pacy storytelling.

The narration too, resembles a badly-knit sweater with too many loose threads. What happened to the search for gold that Langdon and Rose embarked on? Is Violet Jessop vindicated of the accusations that she was guilty of sabotage? Does Rose become Roshni after being inspired by Hindu mythology?

Brown is also guilty of turning Langdon into a larger-than-life character, a superhero, who is a Harvard symbologist by day and a trouble-shooter by night. And after years of seeing Tom Hanks as Langdon, one will have to get used to seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger in the role. Rumour has it that Arnie found a strong connect with Langdon as both of them favour the “I’ll be back” line and sequels.

Each of Dan Brown's books has a code that is deciphered by taking the first letter of the number of the chapter mentioned in the code. In this case, the number at the back of the book is 9-23-39-18-1-19-27-51-32-28-44-3-11-5-12-20. The resulting text is arranged into a matrix of 4 x 4, using the Caesar Square cipher. Reading the message top down, we get 'LANGDONFORUSPREZ'. Adding spaces at the right places, the message is clear - 'Langdon for U.S Prez'.

Whether this is Brown's sense of humour at work or he is seriously approaching senility is anyone's guess.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 30 October, 2005)

Can’t stop this thing we’ve started

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)

L Suresh welcomes you to an era where short-pitched bowling and tournament finals don’t scare us anymore.

The year: 2010. The venue: BCCI HQ. The large neon outside screams out the famous BCCI motto, ‘One for all and all for one – we’re the one’. (An adaptation of a quote by Jagmohan Dalmiya, the Patron Pope of Indian cricket.)

The game has not changed much. Australia is still the world's best team. England is still on the lookout for that elusive Ashes win. (The last one was five years ago, in 2005.) Coach Inzamam-ul-Haq is still trying to sort out Pakistan's 'running between the wickets' problem. However, as Richie Benaud once used to say, it's all happening in India.

2008 was a watershed year for Indian cricket, when the Board became extremely conscious that the game was losing not just its glitter, but also all that gold it used to mint a decade ago. To arrest this slide, it formed a committee comprising two icons who didn’t know much about fast bowling, but were experts when it came to money-spinning - Karan Johar and Ekta Kapoor. While Ekta recommended that cricket matches start being played as episodes rather than as a series, Karan Johar suggested that a song and dance be created for each match to attract sufficient NRI funds. But both of them agreed on the point that with Saturn having changed its position from 2006, the name ‘cricket’ wasn’t lucky for the game anymore and hence suggested the new name ‘Kkkricket’. The Board wasn’t exactly kkkicked with the idea, but has sent it to the ICC for approval.

The captaincy issue has finally toppled water shortage and unemployment as India’s biggest concern. For almost six years now, the Board has been saddled with the problems of dislodging a captain, especially when he is backed by certain heavyweights in the administration. To solve this issue, a two-member committee comprising Sourav Ganguly and Dalmiya instituted a captaincy clause in 2008 that the team will have a separate playing and non-playing captain for both Tests and ODIs. (That makes it four in all.) This will ensure that Powerplay will continue to imply fielding restrictions for five overs and not a tussle between the captain and his detractors.

The team will also have individual captains for batting, bowling and fielding as this format had worked well for the team during the 2003 World Cup, where we reached the finals. Add to this list a vice-captain and one has five captains and a vice-captain for each version of the game. And to put an end to the constant demand for the best player to be made captain, the Board has wisely decided to select the captain from match to match, with the highest run-getter or wicket-taker in the previous match made captain for the next.

Meanwhile, Rahul Dravid, Chief Consultant to the BCCI, has stressed on the need for players to look well-groomed as opportunities were a lot more in modelling than in cricket. Hence it has become mandatory for coaching camps to have individual training sessions on fashion, personal grooming, ramp walk and acting.

To facilitate this exhaustive agenda, individual coaches have been appointed for each - Manish Malhotra for fashion, Javed Habib for personel grooming, Milind Soman for modelling and Naseeruddin Shah for acting (the last after his success as a coach in one of his earlier movies titled Iqbal). These are in addition to the chief coach, Lance Klusener, the batting coach, VVS Laxman, the bowling coach, Jason Gillespie and the fielding coach, Herschelle Gibbs. (Gibbs' appointment became a sticky issue as the CBI still wanted to question him on the match-fixing scandals of the last decade, but things were cleared after he submitted a medical certificate stating that because of old age, he had forgotten what had happened so long back.) As a result, when the Indian team lands at the airport, it takes two coaches to transport them to the lounge - a coach for the players and a coach for the coaches. (The last time Mr. Nair got into a controversy when he was searching for a coach at the airport, he clarified that he was just ‘looking for the damn bus.’)

India has also made an invaluable contribution to cricketing jargon with a euphemism that means that a player was gently (or rudely, as the case may be) ejected from the team.
So these days, when one says, “He was tennis-elbowed”, what one means is that the selectors showed him the door. The phrase has caught on like wildfire, across all the cricket-playing nations. We have also replaced the word juggernaut – originally an Indian word meaning the unstoppable force – with Jagmohan, another Indian word.

The Board has also been working hard to keep the spirit of cricket alive in the country. Considering the fact that we have been playing terrible cricket for almost a decade now, the BCCI has decided that India shall henceforth be touring only non-cricket playing countries. This move highlights India’s stellar role as a goodwill ambassador of cricket around the world. It also keeps fans happy with impressive scorecards from our successful tours of France, Austria and Spain in 2008 and their return tours of India in 2009. Finally, the stands are getting filled up again, the sponsors who were ignoring the game for some years now have returned with renewed vigour and the television channels are battling it out for telecast rights (Followers of the game will remember how all the sports channels backed out in 2006 due to the poor performance of our team and left Doordarshan holding the can.) More importantly, effigies are no longer being burnt, slipper garlands are passé and the cricketer's homes aren't being stoned.

Despite these changes, there are some of you who feel that things were better in the ‘good old days’ when Sachin was playing. In which case, don’t raise your hopes if you’re hearing a nation chanting Sachin ala re. You are just listening to a remix.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 30 October, 2005)

Classified Disclosures


(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)
Why look for a broker when real estate classifieds are enough to mess your life up? L Suresh elaborates…

New to Chennai? Looking for a house? Here’s a crash course on what the classifieds generally say, but what they actually mean…

Copious water available 24 hours
Note: The word ‘copious’ is used only in two contexts in Chennai. One – to express emotion, such as, “He shed copious tears.” And two, to conceal deceit, such as, “Copious water available 24 hours”. Invariably, both mean the same. Which is, first you get ripped off and then you cry - copiously. Another point that becomes clear is that the flat is located near the sea, because the beach is the only place in Chennai with ‘copious water supply’. So don’t fall for this trick, for if you do, there’ll be enough salt in your water tank to rub into your wounds.

Park area with plenty of greenery
There are only three parks in Chennai that are popular – Nageswara Rao Park, Panagal Park and Linkin Park. While Linkin Park went eco-friendly when they sang, “I have a dream of a scene between the GREEN hills”, the other two seem to have hit a plateau in their journey towards going green.

Ample parking space
It means that there are several by-lanes around your place where you can park - without paying for it. And one fine day, when you find your bike under a car, you realize that you have neighbours who quite haven't understood the concept of double parking.

Centrally located
Even if there is not a drop of water in the house, you are within reach for a water tanker to come home and fill your tank with coloured water of dubious origin. Even if there are colonies of mosquitoes around, you are saved because there’s a hospital nearby. In other words, you are centrally located.

Brahmins only
This polls second in the list of the most-found phrases in the classifieds in Chennai. (The first of course, is ‘copious water’.) This means no non-veg, no smoking, no drinking, no bringing friends home, no late night binges or weekend parties. In other words, you are in queue for sainthood, salvation or a flat – whichever comes first.

Rs. 12,000 negotiable
Warning - most owners will drive a hard bargain. So do all you can to avoid a negotiation. There are two simple ways of doing it. One, tell the owner how Ganguly should be chucked out and Dravid made captain so that more ‘South Indians’ will get into the team. (He’ll probably cut a zero out of the rent.) Better still, tell him how well Chandramukhi is doing in a theatre in faraway Siberia. You’ll get the flat for free.

Vaasthu constructed
Okay, this one is fairly straight. Literally so, because all the doors face east, all the windows face south, your bedroom faces the loo and your living room faces the neighbours – so you face dire consequences should you play North by Northwest on your DVD. Not only will it upset the vaasthu orientation of the house, but will also make your neighbours dial M for murder.

Fully furnished apartment
Get wise. Now, who would want to leave behind all their furniture in an apartment – unless it’s bulky as hell, ugly as sin and would cost more to lug along than to leave behind? So you are not only stranded with a house full of furniture that you don’t particularly care for, you also end each day on the same bed on which the owner must have tossed and turned, night after night, plotting how he would get a sucker to pay for his mistakes.

Happy house hunting.
(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 16 October, 2005)

Star-studded dud

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)
L Suresh suffers through a multi-starrer that even Manmohan Desai couldn't have salvaged.

If you were brought up on a staple diet of the multi-hero masala mixes of the 70s and their insufferable imitations in the 80s, it’s time for a trip down memory lane. Take a lost and found plot of a band of brothers separated at birth and reuniting before the last reel to batter the baddies. Throw in the magnificent setting of an indoor stadium, complete with a retractable roof. Bring in oodles of glitz and glamour. And of course, an array of stars. Now sit back and watch it all go wrong.

For those who were just able to catch snatches of all the inaction that happened during the three one-dayers between Australia and the World XI, the despondent look on the faces of two men in a moody shade of blue as they struggled in the middle, with the scorecard reading 110 for 6, must have brought back reruns of some old nightmares. It was all so frighteningly reminiscent of the numerous lopsided India vs. Australia one-dayers that we have played and lost.

But for those of you who missed out on the whole series, you would do well to pick up a DVD of Rocky III from your neighbourhood library and watch that half-hour sequence where Stallone and Mr. T train – the former, the star, basking in media adulation and pampered by an entourage and the latter, a man on a mission, pushing himself, with a killer instinct and a point to prove. The match that follows is obviously a mismatch as Rocky emerges without a pumped up background score and without the American flag draped around him, his body bruised and his pride battered beyond recognition. This sequence aptly sums up all that transpired in three rounds - the World XI found itself pounded to pulp at the end of each day and had to be scraped off the canvas, to be revived and brought back for the next round. The saving grace was obviously the fact that there were only three such matches to be played. Verdict: The World XI looked like a bunch of men on a strict diet, invited to a run feast. Forget the main course and the dessert, they didn’t even want the starters.

Sunil Gavaskar, Mike Atherton, Sir Richard Hadlee, Clive Lloyd, Jonty Rhodes and Aravinda de Silva comprised the selection panel nominated by the ICC to choose from the world’s best players. But add Dennis Lillee, Michael Holding, Rodney Marsh, Abdul Qadir, Kapil Dev and Imran Khan - and you can't help wondering if this line-up would have made a better World XI (read 12 with the Super Sub) than the one that took the field. (Surely the result couldn’t have gotten any worse!)

There is no doubt that the selectors had noble intentions when they shortlisted 30 players for the one-dayers on the basis of several factors - their overall record, their form in the last 12 months, their record against Australia, their ICC ranking and the characteristics of the Melbourne venue. But then, the more important factors of sponsorship, ticket sales, media coverage and other business aspects came in and that was when the selectors decided that the series needed stars more than players. And in came the likes of Lara, Pollock, Gayle, Ntini, Kallis, Afridi and Shoaib Akthar, none of whom had played any form of international cricket in over four months (if you leave the Afro-Asian circus and the benefits matches out). The records preceding this long period of inaction don't exactly succeed in warming the cockles of one's heart. Lara averaged a little over 15 in his last six outings until May. Kallis put his detractors in a quandary as they couldn't quite figure out which was worse - his batting or his bowling. And Trafalgar Square, the open-top bus tour, innumerable bottles of champagne (not to mention the warm wine at No. 10 Downing Street) and 25,000 cheering, hysterical fans were moving images that were still in the process of doing a slow dissolve in the minds of Kevin Pieterson and Andrew Flintoff, for the only time they came around during the series was when they were facing injury scares. Dravid and Sehwag, the No. 2 and No. 3 contenders for the most lucrative job in India obviously had serious thoughts that prevented them from leaving their mark on the series. Of the lot, only Sangakkara, Muralitharan and Vettori stuck to their jobs and served as ice packs that kept the swelling down as the World XI found itself brutally assaulted three times in a row.

Stars look good in the skies, but never inside a closed dome. One would never know if the result would have been any different had the selectors chosen players like Shoaib Malik, Sanath Jayasuriya, Chaminda Vaas and Yousuf Youhana. These are men who, almost all their cricketing careers, have lived under the shadows of their more illustrious teammates. But they are all smart players, from the Robin Singh school of thought - men who know their limitations and play well within them. Most importantly, they are all triers. But one man who would certainly have made a difference to the brittle batting line-up is the man whose departure to Australia for the Super Series resembled his call for a run - a yes-no-maybe-never-yes followed by a start-stop-slip-scramble-dive - Inzamam-ul-Haq. If you can think of a more suitable candidate to continue a run chase in a one-dayer after a team is down 70 for five, chances are, you are thinking of Michael Bevan and sorry, he doesn't qualify.

So, while the selectors of the World XI chose a team pretty much the same way most Indian companies choose their brand ambassador - on star value - the Australians were busy scripting a do-it-yourself manual for every cricketing country on how to win with a young, cocky outfit that had simplified cricket to a game that was played to be won.

It's amusing to run through the statistics that, until a few days back, had suggested what a one-sided one-day series this would be – in favour of the World XI! The visiting team had players who had played almost twice the number of matches than the Australian team, had scored almost twice the number of runs and had taken more than twice the number of wickets. But then the Australians decided to rewrite a bit of math and have their own fun with figures. In three matches, they scored 304 runs more than World XI and lost 13 wickets lesser. And in a fitting finale, they thrashed the visitors by 156 runs in the last of the one-dayers – eight runs more than the combined victory margins of 93 runs in the first match and 55 runs in the second. If at all any positives can be taken from this miserable series, it would be the free lesson that was handed out by the home team - the Aussie Axiom that suggests that while 'records speak for themselves, only current performances count'. (Hope the famous five who comprise our Selection Committee panel had tuned in.) But what rubs ample salt into the visitors' wounds is that Australia had the arrogance to cap two new players against what was considered the best side in the world.

As the World XI shuffled onto the stage and back to collect their medals – and a couple of them even managed to smile – one couldn’t help but wonder what these medals would remind them of. Like Pakistan in the 1999 World Cup and India in the 2003 World Cup, they had to be content with just reaching there and taking part. (Ah yes, isn’t that what matters more than winning?) In the end, the Aussies had pinned the poster boys of the world in positions familiar to them - with their back to the wall. For a few more days, this would be the Wailing Wall of cricket as fans from the world over unite and pour forth their anguish.

Possibly the only advantage of seven countries coming together to assemble a line-up for the World XI is the fact that there is an exponential increase in the number of people who could be blamed for the team’s poor showing – besides the coach, the captain and the selectors, of course. But before the blame game begins, let’s add to the list of usual suspects by pointing a finger at the venue as the main culprit for such a disaster. It was an indoor stadium – that could explain why we didn't see the stars.
(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 16 October, 2005)

Who spat first?

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)
Dalmiya narrates a nightmare that he had on the night of September 26, to his shrink L Suresh, who promptly leaks it out…

The huge contingent of the press and officials from the Board waited with bated breath. The Committee meeting, like the elections, stood postponed and instead, the press was going to be treated to ‘Look Who’s Shaking Hands - II’. News had it that the Patron Saint would be joining Sourav and Chappell. As on cue, Sourav and Chappell posed with their cue sticks. You could hear a pin drop as everyone waited for India’s Saint No. 1 to make a dramatic appearance. And in jogged the Patron Saint, wearing his swimming trunks and warming up vigourously.

One look at the crowd gaping at him and his shrewd cricketing brain realized that something was wrong. “Nair!” he bellowed. The man appeared before the echoes died out. “S-Sir, the plan was to take photographs by the pool table, not by the pool.” A blue robe that said ‘BCCI rocks’ came out of nowhere and cloaked the Patron Saint before one could say ‘Team India’. He addressed the Press.

“Arre Baba, Ganguly-Chappell spat or Chappell-Ganguly spat – what finally matters is who spat first. That’s the reason why we have appointed a six-member enquiry committee to look into the whole thing. It will have Sunil Gavaskar, me, Ravi Shastri, me, S Venkataraghavan and me. Together, the six of us will probe into it and the findings will be placed before a three-man committee comprising me, Mahendra and me, for a final spit-and-polish before it can be lea… presented to the media.”

Nair mumbled his apologies. “Sorry Sir, what do we do next?” The Patron Saint was deep in thought. “Call all the news channels and give them footage of my Sourav scoring his 10000th run. We’ll use his past records to show what a fine player he is and how he truly deserves to be in the team.” Nair hesitated. “Sir, sorry, the channels are already jammed.” The Patron Saint was surprised. “With what?” Nair explained. “With footage of Ravi Shastri’s six sixers, Kapil Dev’s 434 wickets and Sunil Gavaskar’s 34 centuries. It seems that everyone wants to get back into the team by having their past records continuously played on all the news channels.”

The Patron Saint thought furiously. “Okay, ask everyone from Team India to give sound bytes in support of my Sourav.” Nair shook his head. “Sorry Sir, but that won’t happen.” The Patron Saint grinned. “Why, do they really believe that we’ve gagged them?” Nair’s eyes were moist. “No Sir, but Team India seems to have changed to skirts and nose rings. I made the mistake of asking the real Team India to stand up – while our boys were busy with their ads, Sania Mirza, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Anju Bobby George and Mahesh Bhupathi stood up and glared at me - and none of them seemed to give a damn about our Sourav.”

Nair was now sobbing profusely. “Sir, we need to save our skins now. If we don’t win the November elections, we won’t have a Diwali, we’ll only have a diwala.” The Patron Saint sighed. “Okay, issue a press release.” Here is an extract from the release. “…After a six-hour enquiry, the committee realized that Sourav, being a Bengali, had the habit of eating paan and hence it was he who spat first. Meanwhile Chappell has been severely reprimanded for constantly chewing gum - it was because of him that the Indian team was living in a bubble.” (The secret of trousers sticking to chairs during every meeting for the past two months also came to light – you see, the issue couldn’t be stretched any further.)
(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement as 'Men in spats' on 02 October, 2005)

Thursday, February 02, 2006

From champs to chumps

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)

Cricket scribes across two countries are having an exclusive binge where the password is 'Slam Oz'. L Suresh gatecrashes into the party.

The sparks are still flying. The embers are glowering like an angry pair of eyes. The burning cinders are simmering at the surface, as if some unfinished business awaits beneath. The charred remains of hopes, ambitions, dreams and vanquished spirits of a visiting team remain as a motley crowd stares in disbelief, expecting an Aussie hero to rise from the ashes and change all that had transpired in the last couple of months. Sorry folks, the script’s changed.

As the grounds get cleared of the tension and the trash left behind by exhilarated crowds at the end of a fiery series of heart-stopping cricket, an Australian team makes its way back home. For most of the team, this is a plane ride into the sunset. Some of them will land in the wilderness and some others, in the ex-players lounge.

But it shall be a mournful journey back for the Aussies as they have just lost their most precious piece of baggage – a tiny urn filled with some ashes of dubious origin. But one man will be wearing his cloak of silence in the singular hope that it would make him invisible back home. Glenn McGrath had a higher batting average than Hayden, Katich, Gilchrist and Martyn. He had two five-wicket hauls to his credit. The pigeon had just delivered a new word to the dictionary of clichés, with the word metronome celebrating its two billionth appearance in the sports columns, thanks to him. And yet, his name will be found in the opening pages of this Ashes series for an entirely different reason. Before the series began, he had done a Shoaib ‘Motor Mouth’ Akthar by claiming that Australia would win the series 5-0. He then went on to add injury to insult by stepping on a cricket ball before the second test and then injuring his right elbow before the fourth test. (Had he been a player from our subcontinent, he would have most certainly been accused of match-fixing because England went on to win those two matches and hence the series.)

Rewind to a not-too-distant past. John Buchanan had been entrusted with the job of producing another utterly predictable blockbuster. He decided on a rather simple script, as is the norm with every hit. It was about a bunch of cowboys from the outback who would talk fast, talk dirty and shoot from the hip. The plot was like this. Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne would pick up around 40 wickets each and leave the rest for Lee and Gillespie. The batsmen would then come in and take turns scoring centuries. At the end of 25 days, the Aussies would yawn and walk back with the Ashes, a routine that was no different from a swaggering stroll to the nearest bar.

The opening sequence dutifully featured a bar – and that’s when things began to change, as a little boy crashed into the scene and whispered to his weathered grand-pappy that there was a stranger on horseback in the neighbourhood. As if on cue, the old man proclaimed, “Folks, a man just rode into town!” Freddie ‘I am not Botham’ Flintoff had decided to step in and make the Aussies an offer they would find hard to refuse – a 2-1 verdict and a safe journey back home. (If the weather Gods hadn’t interfered, it could have been worse – perhaps even 4-1.)

Looking back, limiting the series to five tests was the best thing the ECB could have done - a sixth one and two countries would be outsourcing their medical requirements for coronary care from Bangalore with renewed vigour. Beauty salons would have closed down their manicure sections for lack of customers. And most importantly, the English Premier League would have had to release full page ads announcing that their ‘schedule remains postponed until the Ashes get over’.

To the discerning cricket fan, the first Test should have hinted a thing or two about what was going to happen through the rest of this series. Australia were sent packing for 190 in less than 41 overs. Seventeen wickets fell on the first day. Three of the Aussie top order had to receive medical treatment on the field thanks to Harmison’s killer spell. The whole of England must have resounded with a collective ripping noise as the Barclays Premiership itinerary came off many a wall and the first day’s score card of the first test got taped on instead. This was just the beginning. In the course of the series, as English batsmen began to see the ball like a football, the football fans trooped into cricket grounds to witness this curious phenomenon called reverse swing.

And if Day 1 began with the Aussies getting rattled by a four-pronged pace attack, Day 25 ended with Kevin Pietersen playing the innings of his life, scoring 158 with seven 6s and England putting on a century partnership for the eighth wicket. If the series started with Pietersen dropping Michael Clarke, which possibly cost England the match, it ended with Warne dropping Pietersen on the last day of the last Test when he was on 60. By the time the second Test had started, Lady Luck, Dame Fortune and every other metaphor for providence broke away from the Australian camp and moved in with the Poms.

Finally, Australia found out what it felt like to be human, to have fate conspire against them, with key players losing form, star bowlers getting injured, age catching up with the side, important catches being dropped and strategic errors being committed. As eleven men trudged in and out of the grounds day after day, only to be completely dominated, they would have given anything in the world to exchange their kits for a park bench where they would rest their weary limbs and wonder what had gone wrong in the last few months. They had lost the Ashes after 16 years. They had been made to follow on after 17 years. They were hit for 36 sixes in the series – a new record against them.

But one amongst them was the odd man in the gathering – he was the only one who had not failed. Just add a beard and a horned helmet to the portly figure and permit yourself a tiny gasp as you realize the striking resemblance with Hagar the Horrible – the Viking who always came into form when it came to doing what he loved best – looting England. He was as incorrigible in his behaviour, eating, drinking and making merry with the women around, as a Viking would. He was as ruthless on the field, his rippers and flippers creating carnage at the other end. And regardless of whether he was batting or bowling, Shane Warne took the field with a sack – and refused to leave until he had plundered at will and had got his share of scalps and runs. 40 wickets in the series, two 10-wicket hauls and 249 runs to his name. If one thought controversies and a messy personal life would whittle him down from his superstar status, one thought wrong.

And as for the rest, they would be wondering where they went wrong. Gillespie must be invoking the spirits of his warrior ancestors from the Kamilaroi tribe, trying to gaze into the crystal ball to figure out if he has a future with the cricket ball. Kasprowicz must be hoping that his nickname Kasper doesn’t come true and that he doesn’t become invisible to his selectors. Gilchrist must be getting online frequently with Parthiv Patel, the two sharing notes of woe on what it feels like to slip up both behind and in front of the wicket. While Damien Martyn would be hoping for another quick trip to India, Michael Clarke and Katich would be wondering how they grew up without ever hearing about reverse swing.

But the biggest telltale sign of the downslide of the team from Down Under came from the Australians themselves. As performance levels went down, decibel levels went up as the Men from Oz chose to vent their ire on everything from crowd behaviour to substitutes taking the field. Talking of substitutes, the day Jonty Rhodes decides to publish his ‘in-flight’ manual on how to effect a run out, Gary Pratt will be called in to add a few chapters to it. Never in the history of Test cricket has a direct throw at the stumps mattered so much as it did when he knocked down Ricky Ponting's stumps in the second innings of the 4th Test at Trent Bridge.

Meanwhile, news from the Indian camp has it that the Indian team, when not scoring hundreds against a bunch of hapless schoolboys posing as a Board XI team, was taking time off to watch the Ashes. If only Greg Chappell had put on his thinking hat, he would have let them do more of it – even if it meant not playing an inconsequential triangular series. It would have been a fitting reminder of the opportunities squandered in the recent past.

And for those of you who, like me, always felt that England would win this series, just reach out for a chilled can and begin the celebrations. (Who cares if it’s a Sunday morning? It’s always sundown in some part of the world.) And those of you who cheered for Australia, you are hereby sentenced to some rigourous watching of the complete India-Zimbabwe or the Sri Lanka-Bangladesh series – take your pick.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 18 September, 2005)