You Can with YouTube

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)

L Suresh explores the world of Vlogging, citizen journalism and the online video phenomenon.

A few days ago, Jamal Albaughouti was one of the many students pursuing his undergrad course in Virginia Tech University. A crazy shooting spree by a trigger-happy, mentally disturbed student led to an event that would put him in the limelight for the entire world to see. Jamal was the first to shoot a video of the scene of the crime at the Virginia Tech University. In minutes, he would send it to CNN. In half an hour, it would find its way on air and online. Over two million people would see the video in the next 24 hours.

Jamal is amongst the first of the breed of I-Reporters - a term coined by CNN - and the next in the line of citizen journalists who have been instrumental in bringing the incident to the notice of the world. Suddenly breaking news is no longer for the people – it is by the people. Their biggest weapon – the camera phone. Shoot videos, grab images, get online, host it on community vlogs, and send it to thousands - all from the scene of action. In a matter of minutes, news has been captured, processed and broadcast to the world - in a fraction of the time it would take a media house or a TV channel to do so.

Decades back, daredevil reporters crouched behind sandbags to get images of the war even as they risked their lives in the process. Just replace the sandbags with cars, buildings or a tree, and the flash bulb cameras with hi-tech mobile phones that let you shoot, surf and share – and you have a new generation of reporters who have no formal qualification for the job and yet are more than equipped to do it.

That’s why it doesn’t come as a surprise that the world’s most dramatic events in recent times have all been broken to the world by citizen journalists. From the time when an amateur videographer filmed the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers, to the subway bombings in London, the tsunami in Indonesia, the firing at a Montreal school, the hanging of Saddam Hussein and now the Virginia Tech massacre – photos, videos and blog posts from cellular phones have opened out a new dimension of reporting that one didn’t credit today’s technology with.

Youth power, the internet era and mobile phones - together, they represent the holy trinity that guides the world of citizen journalism. According to a recent study by Pew Internet and American Life Project, 57 percent of teenagers who are online, create content for the internet. Another study determines that more than 79% of U.S. broadband Internet users watched video in 2006. Not surprising, considering the fact that it makes a lot more sense to follow a story on the net, through a blog or a vlog that updates news with clippings, images and points of view from all over the world in a matter of minutes – than wait for your favourite news channel to beam its coverage across, which is not only dated, but also ends up being repetitive for hours until the next feed comes in.

A 2006 survey conducted by GlobeScan has people rating news sources in order of importance - the television (56 percent), newspapers (21 percent), Internet (9 percent), and radio (9 percent). That the internet, a recent phenomenon, has caught up with the century-old radio speaks volumes of its fast-gaining popularity. Even as blogs began gaining in popularity, Tom Vilmer Paamand added a new dimension - and a new prefix – to the concept by updating his online diary from a cell phone. The moblog had come to stay. The evolution process had begun, to vlogs and all the other buzz words that we can learn from teenagers today – podcasting, phonecasting and video sifting.

This is where sites like YouTube have made a huge difference, making collecting, swapping, creating and hosting videos the flavour of the year. And as its tagline says, it’s all been about ‘broadcasting yourself’. Viral videos became the in-thing as each day saw over 65,000 new clips being uploaded and over 100 million clips being viewed.

Just how much of a good thing is YouTube? Take a look at the burgeoning competition and you’ll find out. If YouTube specializes in short video clips of a duration of 10 minutes or less, Joost, a website created by the team that founded Skype and Kazaa, offers television programmes on the net. Likewise, you could switch on to blip.tv to watch whole episodes online. Or download free software from Katch TV to watch your favourite channel. There are also the me-toos, like Metacafe, Dailymotion, MSN Soapbox, PhotoBucket and the Innertube from CBS. Plus the ones with a difference, like GoFish that specifies the kind of videos it would accept and the teen wonder Facebook, a favourite with college students, having over 19 million users and about 1.5 billion page views a day.

While the internet made rapid strides in the tech age, the third pillar of the triumvirate - the fancy gizmo that was, not too long ago, simply referred to as the mobile phone – had its own spot under the sun.

Because of their proliferation and greater reach than the internet in most countries, mobile phones have found various innovative uses amongst people. SMS messaging has become an important activation tool to organize petitions and demonstrations. The governments in Cambodia and Iran shut down messaging servers to foil the campaigning attempts of demonstrators. Zimbabwean journalists have been using sms to circulate news after other electronic forms of communication were banned by the government. To complete the video angle came the camera phones - billions of them clicking away and spewing images and video onto the net, making sure that information was never this instant ever.

So the holy trinity has been leading citizen journalism into the future, where greener pastures beckon. ‘Citizen journalism outlets’ like topix.com and BostonNOW have begun mushrooming, the former customizing itself to each town and allowing users to be the editors, and the latter, offering condensed versions of the story in the print edition and the full-length version online.

The trends for the future have already begun to set in. Online networking is changing the concept of socialising. Podcasting is threatening radio in a big way. The other wave that has been looming large over the shores of technology is Web 2.0, a fancy name according to some for a bouquet of interactive applications that let users collaborate and share information online. To be ‘in’ with Web 2.0, you should necessarily be seen at the right places – like Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, Flickr, a photo sharing site, Facebook, a social networking site, Digg, where you can select and prioritize news stories, Squidoo, that lets you put up a page on any topic of your choice, and Zebo, where you can ask for advice on shopping and products, both from friends and experts.

It’s not over yet. Bluedot.us lets users click on a blue dot on screen when they find a page they like or find useful. The page is now stored and can be shared with the rest of the community. Loopt.com causes cellular phones to relay a signal every 15 minutes, thus conveying where exactly the owner is, to anyone who is looking for him/her. Pandora.com helps you match any song with others that are similar in rhythm, lyrics or melody and lets you listen to it for free. Yelp.com lets you review any topic under the sun – people, places, services – so when you search for a place, you not only get the map, but also feedback on the same.

Even as the world is trying to come to terms with Web 2.0, sites like Powerset.com are ushering in the next generation of interactivity – Web 3.0 that ‘thinks’ and searches qualitatively and semantically, rather than just look for words functionally like today’s search engines. Web 3.0 will do what its predecessors couldn’t – understand, be intelligent and do its own homework before it provides an answer.

Lawsuits, copyright fiascos and inflammatory videos be damned - YouTube and its cousins are here to stay. And the big names think so. As the world’s oldest cliché goes, ‘When you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em.’ That has been Plan B when legal warfare is proving to be too expensive and futile. Channels like the BBC have decided to use the power of YouTube to their advantage. Now promotional clips of their news and entertainment shows will be available on the site.

Meanwhile, CNN has launched CNN Exchange, a user-created content site that would take on YouTube and OhmyNews. News Corporation, NBC Universal and Comcast Corporation are looking at a network that would offer premium (read pay site) content that would offer video within 15 minutes of live broadcast on television.

The direction that video sharing and citizen journalism is heading in is apparent from the fact that the Person of the Year for 2006 – as selected by TIME magazine – was ‘You’, the general public for its role in generating content and ‘advancing the information age by using the internet’. And TIME’s Invention of the Year for 2006 was YouTube. Above all, when a smart cookie like Google invests 1.65 billion bucks on a bunch of hipsters hosting close to 3000 video clips every hour, you know where the future lies.

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DON'T PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM
Here’s a list of famous ‘controversies’ that video-sharing sites like YouTube have found themselves in, in recent times…

July 2006
No blogs please, we’re Indians
The Indian government bans several community sites likes Yahoo Groups, Blogger and Orkut.

October 2006
Bolt from the blue
Universal Music sues Bolt.com and Grouper a possible $150,000 in damages for every copyright infringement made.

January 2007
Sex, lies, but no video tape
Brazilian supermodel Daniella Cicarelli and her boyfriend get YouTube temporarily shut down in Brazil for violating their privacy.

January 2007
Disrespect to the Father
The Government of India takes exception to a clip on YouTube showing a man dressed as Gandhi performing a pole dance.

March 2007
Say no to cricket
The ICC orders YouTube to remove World Cup clips claiming copyright infringement.

March 2007
Can’t thank no one
The Academy objects to YouTube running unauthorized Oscar award video clips.

March 2007
The Aussie boomerang
The state of Victoria in Australia ordered YouTube blocked from 1,600 government schools after a gang of male students used it to circulate their videotaped assault on a 17-year-old girl.

March 2007
Turning cold turkey on clips
Turkey blocks access to YouTube for featuring clips that were seen as insulting to its founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

March 2007
Hunting down the hunter
Activist groups sue Viacom for asking YouTube to remove a parody of The Colbert Report.

March 2007
No clips via Viacom
Viacom files a $1 billion copyright infringement suit against YouTube, even after 100,000 clips were pulled off the site.

April 2007
Royalty down the tube
The Thai government blocks access to YouTube because of a video clip that was disrespectful to their King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement as YouToo.com on 29 Aril, 2007)

Extraaa Reel

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)

L Suresh fantasizes about the endless possibilities when one juxtaposes cricket’s wonder show to cinema.

It happened one night as Mandira slighted Bangladeshi supporters by announcing a “New Zealand wee Bangladesh” match for the next day. (“Blame it on the teleprompter. Who on earth knew that v stood for versus?”) So wee it was and before the incident turned into an international furore, a new avenue had to be found.

The show had thus far taken cricket to the common man and made the game more entertaining with delightful asides into everything that had nothing to do with cricket. Now it would take movies to the common man using the same format – through extraaa reel, a programme that would play in every theatre before and after the movie and during intermission so that audiences across the country found cinema more entertaining.

And not without reason. Just as the man on the street doesn’t understand the nuances of cricket, there are many who don’t understand the intricacies of movies. Such as why every girl’s father walks around with a blank cheque, why every hero’s mother makes gaajar ka halwa – his ‘favourite dish’, why all dream songs are sung on the Swiss Alps and why every second movie has to have a philosophical ending with a final slide that says ‘Not the end – the beginning’.

So it was decided that Mandira would be the common man’s representative and ask all those questions that he was dying to ask - who would win in the fight between the hero and 20 hoodlums in a crowded market place? Will the hero’s butterfly strokes help him overtake the villain’s speedboat in the choppy waters? Will the heroine fall in love with the hero at the end of the song? The answers are yes, yes and yes, but if such shows can ensure a wider audience, who are we to complain? And spare a thought for the producers who hang in there by a slender thread every Friday - noodle straps do come across as a stronger proposition.

Keeping these sentiments in mind, extraa reel has been packaged with Mandira's meaningful questions – plus awards given to the one in a billion movie buff who has managed to see the movie fully. And for all those who just can't hold their excitement till the end of the movie to find out what happens in the last reel, a tarot card reader's services would be employed to predict if Rahul would finally marry Pooja or if the brothers will finally unite to bash up the villain.

As a pleasant diversion, extraa reel will also feature an exciting chat show titled ‘extraaa dud, bud?’ that will invite cricketers like Sunil Gavaskar, Kirmani, Jadeja and Vinod Kambli who have acted in movies that have been disasters at the box office. Other interesting shows include extraaa ticket where winners of sms contests can get their money back when they find the movie insufferable, extraaa cushion that will showcase nostalgic memories of front benchers from the 70s tearing up the seats when the movie sucked big time and extraaa pressure that will ask people for funny experiences in a theater loo.

And then, it happened one night when Mandira slighted the junior artists association by announcing a new feature called extraa action. ‘How dare she calls us extras?’ they ranted and demanded an apology. Last heard, the team was heading towards newer pastures for a third show that would complete the trilogy and would cover mega serials – rumours are that it will be called extraaa soap.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 15 Aril, 2007)

March of the minnows

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No minnows? Sorry Mr. Ponting, they’ve made all the difference so far, says L Suresh.

What’s common to carps, goldfish, daces, Bermuda, Netherlands, Canada and Scotland? Ask Ricky Ponting or Michael Holding and they’ll tell you that all of the above happen to be minnows. While present and former greats have questioned the presence of such lesser-known teams in a tournament as prominent as the World Cup, saying that they had 'little or nothing to offer', good-hearted Dravid spoke in support of them, saying that they brought a lot of charm and character to the tournament. What he failed to mention was that they also succeeded in bringing nightmares to Asian countries that, not too long back, were considered serious contenders for the final eight.

Ponting of course, will now take a break from taking potshots at Gavaskar and look for those reams of newsprint that carried his caustic remarks over the participation of second-rung teams – the time has come for him to eat them all, considering the fact that the biggest upset of the tournament has been caused by Ireland.

A week ago, the Super Eights format seemed to divide the teams into two sets of eight, the top eight playing for the trophy and the rookies, playing for exposure and all those nice-sounding non-competitive words that meant 'we're here for the party, but sorry, we can't dance.'

But ever since Bangladesh shocked New Zealand in one of the earlier warm-up matches, the alarm bells have been pealing across the Caribbean islands - only none of the top teams heard it. It only reinforced what history had to say - the minnow have always been there for shock effect, not for comic relief.

Ever since Sri Lanka caused the first major upset in World Cup history when they beat a not-so-hot one day prospect like India back in 1979, there have always been tables being overturned and rugs being yanked to spoil a party or two. In 1983, Zimbabwe beat a stunned Australia and were on their way to give India a hiding - until one man decided to stop the nonsense and played the innings of his life when his team was tottering at 17 for 5. Almost a decade later, Zimbabwe took on the Queen’s men who were having a dream run in the 1992 World Cup and surprised them and the world at large by defending a paltry total of 134. England were beaten by nine runs in a match that produced some funny tales of reverse-sledging – apparently, the Zimbabwean tailenders were talked into staying on and not getting out by English fielders so that they wouldn’t have to come in and bat before lunch. What they didn't know was that the menu for the rest of the day would have just one item on it - humble pie.

Four years later, Kenya surprised Lara's men with a shocking 73 run defeat in an 'ouch' match that hurt Lara enough for him to come out all guns blazing and take on South Africa single-handedly in the quarterfinals. Chasing a miniscule total of 166 by the Kenyans, the Calypso kings found out what it felt like to be paupers for a day as the runs dried up, the wickets fell and they collapsed to 93 all out at the end of 35 overs.

1999 was Zimbabwe's glory year. Australia may have won the World Cup and Pakistan may have beaten several other teams to the final, but Zimbabwe - with the Flower brothers and the likes of Neil Johnson, Murray Goodwin and Alistair Campbell - reached the Super Sixes with emphatic wins over India and South Africa. Meanwhile, Bangladesh decided to steal some glory for themselves and pounced on a dozing Pakistan, routing them by 62 runs before one could say Inzamam-ul-Haq.

In the next edition of the tournament, Zimbabwe and Kenya raced ahead of giants like South Africa, Pakistan, West Indies and England to make it to the Super Sixes. Of course, England giving a walkover to Zimbabwe for political reasons and Kenya getting bonus points because the Kiwis didn’t want to fly there for security reasons did help, but there were upsets too, like Kenya's 53-run defeat of Sri Lanka. And then the unthinkable happened - Kenya found itself in the semi-finals. It was the situation every marketer and television channel would dread. John McEnroe vs Chris Lewis, Australia vs American Samoa, Mike Tyson vs Michael Sphinx - who would want to watch a no-contest three-setter, a 31-0 football match or a 91-second boxing bout? But there would always be a first time and for a minnow, it would always be unforgettable. Ask Ireland.

For a team that was playing its first World Cup tournament to have its first big win and to make it happen on St. Patrick's day - Ireland must be running out of the finest single malt that it is known for. The wrong team in green has come out on top, leaving Inzy and his boys heading back home just 96 hours after the World Cup began.

In 1999, Australia and South Africa had played one of the most thrilling matches in World Cup history - one that ended in a heart-stopping tie and heartbreak for the Proteas. Eight years later, it was time for history to be repeated and it would take two lesser-known teams to do it. Eleven men from the land of the Leprechauns ran circles around Zimbabwe - a team that had completed its u-turn in 1999 and has been on its way down ever since – and produced a game that changed the complexion of this World Cup. Minnows and Ireland? Not likely. No team that can play two stupendous back-to-back matches would fit that description.

Barely days after their sizzling tie against Zimbabwe - a match that they won, lost and won again – the Irish were ready for more action. Pakistan suddenly felt as if they were fighting the IRA on alien territory. Jeremy Bray, Rankin and Botha were names they probably had never heard of before they reached the West Indies. Now they would never forget them.

In another group, a different set of men in green were rewriting the script to suit their fancy. Just as Zimbabwe found the English conditions to their liking in earlier World Cups, just as Kenya found form in 2003, Bangladesh seem to be having just the kind of players who could take advantage of the Caribbean conditions. Disciplined medium pace, on-the-stumps spin attack, fearless batting and above all, electric fielding made possible by young guns from the under-19 team - Bangladesh could well be the team to look out for, considering the fact that two of their three wins came against New Zealand and India.

While Bangladesh and Ireland have been covering themselves with glory, other smaller teams have also been prominently featuring in the thick of the action, even if it is at the receiving end. The Dutch team has figured in so many records in one week of World Cup action that its entries in the records column outnumber the total number of matches it has played in the tournament thus far.

In his autobiography, Gary Sobers has mentioned how Malcolm Nash - the bowler he hit for six sixes in an over - garnered more mileage and made more money out of the incident than he ever did. One wonders if Daan Van Bunge will be smart enough to do something similar. Against a juggernaut that even mighty teams like India and Pakistan have failed in recent times, Netherlands had little chance taking out any positives from the game. But in a truncated match, they managed to find a backdoor entry into the record books as Van Bunge slipped into a nightmarish rendition of Groundhog Day. Every ball he bowled brought in a sense of déjà vu as he scratched his head and walked back to his bowling mark with one question in his mind – didn’t the same thing happen to the previous delivery? At the end of the over, Netherlands became the first team to concede 36 runs in an over in international cricket.

If the number of sixes were not enough, Netherlands also went on to become the first team to offer three century partnerships in one match. While such major incidents were happening, a few other minor records were also set. South Africa scored 18 sixes in all, the most by any team in the World Cup. Then Boucher scored the fastest 50 - off 21 balls - in World Cup cricket. And these individual performances added up to yet another record - South Africa blazed away to the highest score in a 40-over match.

Not the ones to be left out of a party, the jolly team from Bermuda decided to pitch in with their own contributions. Taking on a choking India that desperately needed some oxygen to stay alive, they not only gave a whiff of life-saving fresh air, but also added a sunny beach, a live band and a rocking party as compliments. And for the first time India entered alien territory – the 400-plus mark. India posted the highest total of the World Cup – 413 – and won by 257 runs, the largest margin of victory ever in one day cricket history. In all, the men in blue scored 18 sixes and equalled South Africa’s record of the most sixes in an innings.

So that’s how the story goes as the tournament progresses into the Super Eights – it’s been a tale filled with twists and turns, loot and arson, emotions and tragedy, mourning and celebrations. And five Sundays from today, the world will wake up to a World Champion who has outclassed the rest. But years from now, the stories of the underdog will be folklore as lesser-known teams will take heart from the exploits of men who played with their heart and soul.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 25 March, 2007)

The WHO

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L Suresh profiles the unsung heroes of 2006 who have been striking gold.

Ever heard of Sati Geetha, K. Chitra, Vijay Kumar and Dinesh Kumar? Not many have. They are sportspersons who have represented India in the international arena. They are yet to appear in commercials endorsing cars or soft drinks. And they have all played a key role in winning golds for India in the recently concluded Asian Games.

Even as India's stars - read cricketers and tennis players – have been yo-yoing between the adulation and abhorrence of a nation, lesser known sportspersons have been adding to our treasury of sporting glory by bringing home the precious metals. The year was coming to a miserable close, with cricket carnivals, tennis grand slams, hockey tournaments and the commonwealth games adding to one’s frustrations. And then came along the Asian games.

Of course, India's overall standing in the medals tally could have been so much better, if only Anju Bobby George, Sania Mirza and Rajyavardhan Rathore had lived up to the expectations of their countrymen and brought home those crucial golds that could have catapulted us to the top five. That was not to be and we let smaller nations like Iran, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and even Thailand step on us and climb ahead. But to put things in perspective, we need to look back into the not too distant past when we brought back a solitary gold that we won in - no points for guessing this - kabaddi in the 1990 Asian Games in Beijing.

Runaway success
In the 80s, athletics in India was a stronghold of the women athletes, with the baton passed on from one legend to another. There was the famous quartet of M D Valsamma, P T Usha, Shiny Wilson and Vandana Rao. It was then the turn of India’s answer to Flo Jo – Ashwini Nachappa. A decade later, it was left to Anju Bobby George to lead the way. But 2006 has not been a year when she could take that leap into greatness. Finishing sixth at the Commonwealth Games, sliding down three spots from fourth to seventh in the world rankings and ending with a silver in the Asian Grand Prix in Pune, all Anju could manage was a silver in the Asian Games at Doha. And then came four young women who brought back something that India hadn't seen in years - an athletic gold. Sati Geetha, Manjeet Kaur, K. Chitra and Pinki Pramanik ran their way into the hearts of a billion Indians as they occupied prime position on the victory stand, flashing the women's 4x400 relay gold.

Of the quartet, Pinki Pramanik, has been enjoying a good year, bringing home a rich harvest of medals in the 400 m and 800 m at the three legs of the Asian Grand Prix - a gold and a silver at Bangkok and two golds each in Bangalore and Pune. While individual glory eluded her at the Commonwealth, she did help her team secure a silver. A sense of déjà vu must have pervaded at the Asian Games as she failed to make it to the medals tally in the individual events, but she came back strong to notch a gold in the women’s 4 x 400m relay.


Men with the golden gun
Shooting is another sport where India has hit bull's eye all through 2006 - well, almost. After his Olympic silver, Rajyavardhan Rathore has been a targeted man, with hopes and dreams for medals stalking him through the year. After his individual gold and team silver in the double trap shooting event at the Commonwealth, he had to be content with a team silver and an individual bronze at the recently concluded Asian Games. But there were other surprises in store, as a couple of unlikely heroes emerged from the wings to fix their crosshairs on a clutch of golds.

In the 2006 Commonwealth Games at Melbourne, it had been Samresh Jung who took the world by storm with five golds, a silver and a bronze in the pistol shooting events to bag the best athlete award. It turned out to be a face-saving act that increased our tally to 22 golds, 10 less than that in the previous Commonwealth Games at Manchester where weightlifting and wrestling won us 16 golds - in Melbourne, we won three.

A few months later, it was the turn of Jaspal Rana at Doha. Though the Commonwealth Games had completely belonged to Jung, Rana had teamed up with him to win a team gold for the Men's 25m Centre Fire Pistol Pairs. But it was entirely Rana’s reign in the Asian Games, with two individual golds in the Men's 25 m Centre and Standard Pistol shooting events, a team gold in the Men's 25m Centre Fire Pistol team event and a team silver in the Men's 25m Standard Pistol team event.

Teaming up to triumph
Tennis has always been a game where India has never been in the thick of the action in what matters most - the grand slam singles. With India's brightest hopes – Leander and Bhupathi - focusing only on doubles and mixed doubles, and with Sania Mirza having a rank bad year that saw her slide from 31 to 67, India's saving grace was the fairytale hit of a wild-card duo - Bhupathi and Martina Hingis - teaming up to win the Australian Open. Later in the year, Paes won the US Open doubles with Martin Damm. And that was India’s brief stint at the big stage.

As for Sania, two doubles victories with Liezel Huber at the WTA Bangalore Open and at the Sunfeast Open in Kolkata were the highlights of an ordinary year. And life went on, with one false hope after another and then came along that one bright shiny medallion that India was familiar with - the doubles gold at the Asian games. The Paes-Bhupathi pair, after the debacle of the first round loss in the men's team event in tennis – to Chinese Taipei - rallied around to win the doubles gold. Paes then stepped back on court for an encore - this time for the mixed doubles with Sania - and India got her second tennis gold.

The Brain Train
It has been a success story masterminded by a 19-year prodigy – that has ensured India's ascent to great heights. Koneru Humpy, who has added a lengthy scroll of achievements and accolades to her player profile, carried her good form with her into the Asian Games as well. She added two golds to the kitty - in the individual event and in the team event where she teamed up with Sasikiran and P Harikrishna, another young performer who has been making excellent use of black and white to keep the Indian tri-colour flying high. Currently ranked No. 2 in the country, behind Vishy Anand, Hari had emerged joint winner in the 22nd Reykjavik International Open chess tournament and followed it up with a comfortable win in the third Marx Gyorgy International Chess tournament in Hungary. More success followed as he emerged triumphant as the world rapid chess champion in the under-20 Chess 960 in Germany.

Just as Hari beat Anand to become the country's youngest GM, Parimarjan Negi, at 12, beat Hari to become the India's youngest Grandmaster and the second youngest International Grandmaster ever in July 2006 - exactly a year after he became the youngest International Master of the country in 2005. Young minds, unlimited potential – the future looks bright for India, at least when it comes to the chequered board.

The Elite Club
In recent years, terms like swing and green have been identified more with golf than cricket, thanks to the efforts of Indian golfers like Jyoti Randhawa, Arjun Atwal and the man to whom 2006 truly belongs - Jeev Milkha Singh. As of October 2006, Jeev became the highest ranked Indian golfer in the world, breaking into the top 100 with wins in the Volvo China Open, the Volvo Masters in Europe and the Japan Golf Tour. Not surprisingly, he ended the year winning the Asian Tour Order of Merit and moved into the top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings. There was more to come - the Players' Player of the Year and the inaugural UBS Special Achievement Award. Even as the Flying Sikh proudly watched his son bring glory to the country, the nation rejoiced. Here was one man who kept the country in the headlines of the sports pages - for all the right reasons.

Breathless in Glory
India has won almost all the kabaddi events it has participated in, including the first ever kabaddi World Cup contested by 12 nations. And of course, it is always a matter of interest to two nations that we have beaten Pakistan to win the Asian gold - for the fifth time in succession, beginning with the 1990 Asian Games. (Incidentally, Dinesh Kumar – the last name mentioned at the beginning of this piece - is the captain of the Indian gold winning kabaddi team.)

Hockey has failed us, cricket is a hit and miss affair, tennis has been relegated to mixed doubles - perhaps the time has come for us to celebrate a sport where we have held the upper hand for decades - even if it is so because there haven't been too many takers for the game. Big deal - the United States hail their baseball championship as the 'World Series' and make it one of the most watched events in television history, so this would be one time when we wouldn’t go wrong by following the West.

And so the year came to an end, with the established stars seeking fame through celebrity routes even as the lesser known ones tried it the old fashioned way – through performance. It is said that there comes a time when every sportsperson comes to crossroads and has to make a choice - between the Kournikova way and the Sharapova way. While both lead to fame, only one brings glory and it is left to see what the emerging stars of 2006 choose in the year to come.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 24 December, 2006)