Cricket who? Hockey rules

When had you last seen an Indian cricketer running towards the spectators’ stand, asking the crowds for an Indian flag for his victory huddle? Or, when had you last seen the “men in blue” passionately sing the national anthem before a decisive match? Don’t know about the cricketers, for I have never been to a one day international match. But, having attended five matches at the Asia Cup hockey tournament, I have realised how different it feels to watch a game of hockey and those who play it.

In the spectators’ stand, there is no end to adjectives lauding the “men-running-on-horse-power”. Coach Joaquim Carvalho’s men have no accessories to flaunt, no neat burly watches on their wrists: they are rough and determined, like the rugged characters in D H Lawrence’s novels. No qualms about the sweat, and sweat the hockeywallas shed willingly and happily. They really looked like they were playing for the country. And, people cheering from this corner of the stadium — meant for the “aam aadmi” — made sure they did. In the final match against Korea, the spectators had spared no tactic in their festive cheering, little surprise, that the players had looked here, every time they had wanted to breathe in some energy during this initially tiring tussle.

The ball crossing hurdles, kissing the board with thuds regularly —some even saw the spirit of Pargat Singh, a legendary player of yesteryears, trapped inside Sardara. The people had called Tirkeys, the lions of the east; the Singhs — Singhs, Sardara as Sardar, Shivendra as Shiva. Small victory, or big battles ahead — no one really cared. The players responded to the crowd during the game — they acknowledged they belonged to us and we belonged to them. Baljit, the goalee, smiled back each time a special cheer from the stands inspired him.

Rajpal raised his hand, shrieking after his role in every goal, as if assuring he had taken the crowd’s advice on the Korean manning him. Dilip Tirkey, puffing between the victory lap and random sound bites to TV anchors walked down to the mesh, throwing up his hand in “thanks”. Tushar Khandkar returned after the long photo session, assuring us that his teammates would get the trophy this side, which his teammates later did. The cheerer leaders included an army of forty-something professionals, college goers, a minority of women, and a brigade of oldies — all equally fascinated and committed. The teams’ tempers rising on the field and the Koreans walking out in protest, beating-the-turf-pushing-Prabhjot-storming-to-the-Ref: all this fired up the stands. Dialogues from Rajni hits and warnings in chaste Tamil and Hindi were thrown in.

The group of people with the chef-like head gear — the most animated lot — responded to our cheerleader, sincerely. “Cricket who? Hockey rules”. “Cricket go to hell”. “Dravid, Tendulkar, Saurav, are you watching this?”. “Forget Lords. The Lords are here.” The posters and banners have never had such direct stinkers.

On TV, these people might have looked like wobblers, loving hockey. But they know the rules of hockey like the back of their hand. They flirt with cricket but their true love is the other 11.

For some, hockey is life. Like our cheer leader, a Sardarji almost 80, who calls himself Rashtra Kavi Inderpal. People know him as the man “who comes for all national and international hockey tournaments.” We peeped into the autograph books he had signed for people. Some even pleaded with him to put down his address there. “Patel Nagar, Gha. You complete it yourself. I am busy cheering. It’s Ghaziabad in UP,” says our man with a celeb’s shrug. Well, “Rashtra Kavi Inderpal” is the-man-with-the-gong you had seen on your television. People took good care of their guest from UP. Some even got him gifts on the day of the final match — gifts he would be hesitant to accept till people would shove them into his jhola.

Some guarded his space while he went on rounds to the other wing of spectators, ordering them to be louder, coordinating with the tambourines. The frail man’s gong would get consistent whenever the Indians tried a penalty corner — like an extra prayer for them to convert the unconvertible. Joining him were boys from a sports college in southern Tamil Nadu — masters at the rhythmic rattle with empty plastic bottles. Matches have been played, won, lost in the past and people have cheered for the players.

But if the Beatles ever wanted to make a stadium-rock video of their song, All the Lovely People, they could have done it in Chennai this time.

image copyright: the new indian express (till i upload my own)

copyright: the new indian express

the path less travelled

Any famous Hindustani musician performing at an overnight concert will be more than happy to travel from raag Kedar to raag Bhatiyaar. But request the same maestro to face a detailed question-answer session on music — and you will see the hesitation setting in. His reaction, as Prabha Atre, the renowned Kirana gharana (tradition) vocalist puts it in her book Along the Path of Music will be, “We can’t answer all that… See what you can get from the music that we present.” It’s the truth. Our musicians do not like talking about their music.

But there are a few exceptions, like Atre, herself — a performer and academician rolled into one. Over the years, discussing music has come as naturally to Atre as singing the khayal (a form of Hindustani music) and sargam (arrangement of swaras) — an aspect of music she has always strongly supported. Her contemporaries believe that Indian classical music isn’t really meant for the “masses”, yet, Atre has always wanted to communicate with the “lay listener”. In the year 2000, she had published her first book, Enlightening the Listener, which deals with the technical aspects of contemporary Hindustani music. In this book, the maestro had taken up the task of explaining the basics of Hindustani music (saptak, taan, talas, sargam etc) and the Hindustani concert format. She had also delved into the factors that make Hindustani and Carnatic music differ from each other in form and presentation.

In 2005, Atre had published her second book, Along the Path Of Music — an autobiographical account, certainly closer to her heart than her previous work. It’s like a piece of nostalgia out of Atre’s long relationship with music and stalwarts; a rare account, where the musician talks about the material cherished, performed, studied under the watchful eyes of gurus (she had three, well almost) and the audience.

Atre’s second work involves serious personal views and experiences which come from her interactions with her guru Shri Sureshbabu Mane, Mane’s sister and Atre’s second guru — the legendry Hirabai Badodekar; her inspiration for Punjabi thumri and khayal singing, Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. Also, Pandit Bhim Sen Joshi whom she has (interestingly) described as the artiste “blessed by both” Saraswati and Laxmi — the goddesses for wisdom and prosperity in Hindu mythology. Then, there are strains of appreciation for Ustad Amir Khan, the nodal artiste of Kirana tradition, who did the unthinkable by giving the gharana a three dimensional canvas by involving the lower octave notes. Khan with his “introspective” and “aristocratic” gayaki (style and method of singing), reveals Atre, was “like a guru” who had indirectly guided her in making her music bold.

In Along the Path Of Music, she tries to find out what makes “Indian musicians” so reticent about their own art. She provides the answers. Stating candidly — that musicians of yesteryears lacked formal education — one of the many reasons why we don’t have enough writing on music from the geniuses. Atre, who turned 75 last week, has always made a very sincere effort to express her views in a simple yet methodical manner. Along the Path of Music is no exception. In her writing, as in her concerts, there are streaks of independence, which shouldn’t be mistaken as something rebellious. The septuagenarian artiste is carefully defensive about the experiments and epithets Kirana gharana has been criticised for — including Ustad Amir Khan’s daring treatment of tala and his “sargam singing in between alaaps and taans”. Her sweet bias for using sargams, which you come across often in her second book (she took this up as a subject for her doctorate), sounds quite like the love pangs the Benaras gharana maestros feel for their vocal ostentations. It’s thought provoking and artistically rich.

Stalwarts like her have a treasure to share when they remember their own gurus. In this book, she narrates how much she (like many students of music) had felt satiated with raag Yaman — the first melody she had learned from Sureshbabu Mane, and wanted to move over to other ragas. Her description of how her guru had strategically dealt with her idea reads as innocent and beautiful as this melody. Apart from such autobiographical elements Atre has also taken up certain issues that concern our artistes. Like the fate of folk and tribal music in our country; the need to educate the audience worldwide about our ascending and descending scales, talas, ragas etc. Also, the role of education in music. She attributes this concern to her academic background. It makes her look at music “with open eyes”, she says. Atre suggests “formulation of a national policy for Indian classical music.”

Some of the anecdotes in her book help the connoisseurs get to know a few lesser known traits of our musicians. For instance, Atre had sung Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan’s famous daadra when Sureshbabu Mane had wanted to listen to her to decide whether she could be her student. And that, there was no certainty whether Ustad Amir Khan would finish his concert with a Bhairavi! Only if more stalwarts would be as generous as Atre, our music could get an extended audience.

copyright: the new indian express

The Korean beating retreat

The Koreans sink to the ground. The Singhs and the Tirkeys hug each other. The victory roars at the packed stadium merge in a de-stressing knoll.


What had got people to Mayor Radhakrishnan Stadium, on a Monday? The success of a film based on Indian hockey; the presence of a glamorous Sunil Shetty; the fact that team India’s performance at Asia Cup will give them a ticket to the Beijing Olympics; or the clash against the unsparing Koreans?

Well, a curry of reasons — like a long lost love for the so-called national game, fascination for the Tirkeys and the Singhs, among others. The stadium saw people waking up from a slumber — that of Pakistan trampling Singapore 8-0 at the Asia Hockey Cup tournament earlier that evening — to a bunch of Korean players warming up on the turf under floodlights.

I notice a Korean family walk past the spectators’ stands. A couple with a child; the man holding their flag, his partner carrying a drowsy four-year-old. Suddenly, a Korean player shouts something on the field. To this, the little girl raises her head, forgetting her nap, clapping and chuckling till she disappears into a minority. She had to cheer for ‘‘her own”. Very much like the others at the stadium; a small Sikh gathering had joined the Chennaiites in cheering ‘‘their own” – the sole sardarji and a ‘‘somewhat- Tamil” chap in the Singapore team – in Punjabi and Tamil, giving suggestions – flung across, hockey style, to the losing team during the Singapore-Pak match.

Prabhjot Singh had hardly eked out a few scoops steering, stealing and snorting when the stadium heard its first organised ensemble of cymbals and drums. No, that can’t be the Indians, I guiltily grumble. We realise it’s a group of Korean people coordinating the flag-waving and the rhythms. They were the only source that provided inspiration to the Koreans that evening.The Koreans sink to the ground. The Singhs and the Tirkeys hug each other. The victory roars at the packed stadium merge in a destressing knoll. But who’s that? An 80-something man, from the spectators’ stand, is running around with a gong. An army of tirangawallas are trailing him.

Forget the drums. This is not bad for a good restart.

copyright: The New Indian Express

The tears, sweat and the hardships

memories of another day (Insight, September 2)

On an afternoon in 1996, we had two guests at my home in Dehradun. Both old enough to be my grandfather and both Olympians from the Indian hockey squads of late 1950s and 1960s — people revered by my dad’s generation. Over coffee, they were exchanging regrets, yet another time: the-goal-that-could-have-been-saved, the follies on the field and what-ifs. Before you realised they had got into an argument, and it took a couple of jokes from the host to get the two men to laugh. But it was very clear that advancing age hadn’t diminished their passion for the game or the bitter-sweet memories that they carry along all their lives like trophies.

I couldn’t help remembering that afternoon while watching Shimit Amin’s Chak De India. The regret and the redemption, where Kabir Khan, the coach (played by Shah Rukh Khan), maintains that he will not really like to part with the shame the un-saved stroke had brought him seven years ago. Not everyone can be forgiven for a mistake (Ek galtee subko maaf nahi hoti), he says, before turning to his team of ragtag 16. Real life veterans keep regrets for decades. And they seek to make up for them years later by contributing to the game. Chak De India has been inspired by such an incident in Indian men’s hockey. So, unlike others who squirmed in their seats watching Chak De’s Kabir Khan take a plunge into regret and gloom for seven years, I sat patiently.

And honestly, Amin’s audience would have squirmed more had his film shown a dejected team packing bags after the 7-nil defeat in the opener in Australia, or other honest changes that the script had required. Yet, people pretend to reject the unrealistic, like Kabir Khan’s 11 making to the victory stand, stiffly, thanklessly. Amin had shared his ideas with a few hockey pundits, and that’s one reason why he has been able to portray the scenes with ease. On a field, much like it has been shown in the film, people feel more than happy to see a robust sardarni spill the aggression, or a Haryanvi with a heart of gold fight out a selfish game, or a manicured Manipuri scowl her way to become an immaculate penalty specialist.

That childlike joy over unwrapping swanky kits, the social, regional differences in the dorm and their influence on the game, that snubbing from the seniors, that dwarfed-down feeling among players over their rivals’ fitness regime in the international circuit – all this is familiar to anyone who has rubbed the blade on the turf (literally in hockey terms ) for India.

Chak De might have pricked many people directly involved with Indian women’s hockey. But it brings out a bunch of pleasant truths as well. For instance, a dialogue where Kabir Khan is told by his subordinate after one of training sessions at the national camp that the situation is “in hands” (considering the brigade of un-coordinated Medusas he is training). He says, choosing not to smile, that the situation will soon go “out of hands” — referring to the soaring progress. This sentence, according to me, is the “the moment” of the film.

It takes me a step backward from coach Kabir Khan’s luxury of being a national coach to a picture in my family album, which is larger than the rest: a content-looking coach flanked by a dozen sturdy teenagers; 10 of them having represented Haryana and Uttar Pradesh at the national level camps in their new tri-colour-on-white kit, no less glamorous than the Chak De team. The situation must have been truly “out of hands” then, with only a few years of hard work gone into shaping the carefully selected trainees for a noble cause — the National Sports Talent Contest (NSTC) in Patiala in 1988. Women from very simple backgrounds; two daughters of a farmer, who now are role models in Haryana; another, the eldest among a trail of fairly gifted siblings from the interiors of UP, a beautiful athlete who had impressed all in Germany; then a fragile veggie who had later swept it to the goal post on a diet of “fascinating” baby corns at a championship in Thailand; next, a daughter of a hockey coach among others.

For me, they were no less than stars. I saw them sweat it out for themselves, for the state and later Team India with the limited facilities that the government scheme could afford for them. In a way, they represent the sweet 16 in Chak De, but definitely more heroic, more dignified. Their grumble over that extra round would melt down Sirji (the suffix for additional respect to the coach), followed by a helpless request mixed with the huffs. Puffs, there weren’t any, no matter what the level of success or the number of national camps they had attended. A crunch in funds, even for leveling of the grass during the rainy season had never really mattered. The coach and the team would laugh their way to the end of the field, sprinting with the grass cutting machine, checking their stamina. The joke associated with this peculiar exercise — it would help them at the treadmill fitness test in Delhi! The evenings would end in a collective “Break-off-Jai-Hind” followed by treats of bun-butter or sugarcane-juice, or both, depending on the margin of goals.

Cramps, crepe bandages, that permanent likeable whiff of the muscle relaxant in their dorm, posters of Gabriela Sabatini, the all pervasive Pat-bandana-Cash and Imran Khan — this was their world between two strenuous practice sessions. In between they would find time to reluctantly flip through “guide” notes, or snore, or pack for a tournament. “If only had A pursued the game, she could have made it to the national team even today,” the coach says ruing the corked up career of one them, “B was doing beautifully, but for her bad academic record, she had to walk out of the scheme, nalaayak (useless) couldn’t manage to pass in English, but I am happy she eventually found a way out,” he says chuckling, nostalgically. It was this backyard of talent that contributed to the scoreboards at international fields and I grew up watching the women become tall. Lack of funds and a new bunch of policies, deflated it all, many of them made exits, for reasons, personal and professional in the late 1990s.

Chak De reminds me of this tiff between lack of funds and the stubbornness of the players and coaches to keep up the show at the state level, from where these players move to the national front. At the district level, there has been a constant bank of talent — girls from not-well-to-do background, making a coach watery eyed with appreciation over their dodges and dribbles. But then, not many students are as fortunate as Chitrashi Rawat, a real life player who plays the verbose Haryanvi in Chak De and belongs to Dehradun (she represents Uttaranchal). Unlike her, many aspiring players in this town cannot really manage going to a decent school or even afford a pair of canvas shoes for the field. You will be more than optimistic to expect proficiency from such students in more than one game for the lack of resources and fitness reasons.

But then, there are certain university-level trends that make you happy. Like at the Meher Chand Mahajan (MCM) DAV College, Chandigarh, where Tania Abrol, who plays the offending short-fuse Balbir Kaur in Chak De, is graduating, players are expected to pick up a couple of other games seriously to save their ranks in the college and Panjab University. During my days at the same college, I bumped into a hockey player, once, part of the NSTC, passionately spending a couple of hours at other games. Same goes for Abrol, a national level judo pro, she has picked up hockey for the first time at her college, tries shot-put, softball and basketball along side. So, unlike in the film where Abrol gazes at members of a foreign contingent indulging in other games, at college she is comfortable with a few already.

Chak De has subtly hinted at the lack of “sporting culture” among our players. It deals with a national team, yet it raises questions that address the total scenario of Indian women’s hockey. Blame Amin for making a show of our lack of resources in the national game the look in Kabir Khan’s eyes when the opponent coach laps up strategies from fresh Xerox copies being ferried across from somewhere in the stadium). After all, people haven’t even spared Satyajit Ray the criticism for making a show of our poverty in the 1960s.

But Amin has been able to stir up emotions in habitually optimistic people related to this dejected game, who are hoping that the film will help Indians turn to Indian women’s hockey again. The turn out at Chak De India isn’t failing them.

copyright: The New Indian Express

Ustad Bismillah Khan and the fruit cake

Of Fruit Cake and Kajri (2005, 48 hours)

If all grandads were to become like him, only Jesus could save my contemporaries. It is, still like it was in the past - takes courage to sit next to Shehnai God Ustad Bismillah Khan. Forget the musical aspect, he, belonging to the sharpest creed of grandads, catches you on what you thought he never heard. Worse still, he can sense conspiracies in your mind - quicker than your mom.
Khansahib, at any point of time, irrespective of how fit or unfit he is, has the energy to drop arsenals, of surprise, anger or disgust, just on anybody who wishes to talk about his music. And be prepared to sing - Kaafi, Basant, Yaman, Khamaj. It depends on the maestro's choice what he wants to grill you with. At least, that's what happened with me, about three years ago. Before I could ask the first question, I was grilled for more than an hour on what I understood of music.

On how I think Basant would sound if sung in July, of telling him how a particular composition in Hameer could not replace Krishna with Ram. A blasphemy, I had committed by bothering him around the namaaz time (the second round). I could hear, from inside the room, "Abhi bahar ruko. Namaz padhenge phir tumhari khabar lenge." And he did what he said. My first answer came, fortunately, after listening to answers, his versions on what he had asked me.

Visit two. Elections were close, so people from Mayawati's clan wanted to be "close" to the then sick maestro, with money and concern. They were vying to make way into the narrow Ustad Bismillah Khan Lane, just next to the narrower ones at Kabir Chaura, Benaras. The street where Pt Kishan Maharaj shares space with the now forgotten abodes of Pt Rajan and Sajan Mishra, legend Sitara Devi and others. And spending about three hours in this living room, where the Padma Awards hang dwarfed next to the Bharat Ratna, I heard "blessings" from the room up the winding staircase. Khansahib could not speak even then.

Third visit, greenroom, at a recent concert. Now, he is chuckling. Chuckling hard. The mischievous glint, secure in his eyes. Most cheerful, sitting on a sofa. Volunteers from Spicmacay, showering affection from all corners. His sons, busy tuning their respective share of instruments inherited rightfully from their father. Javed, his secretary, takes care that Ustadsahib obliges wives of a few babus in the greenroom with endless pictures. No, not any more, our man is fed up.

And you know a smile like his, would tire the sunken cheeks. I grab space on his left, on the floor. Ustadsahib shakes his head, later a finger, right in front of my nose. "Yeh ladki bahut ustad (here a different connotation, used mostly by and for UPwallahs) lagti hai." Javed drops in to do his job. Tries to remind Ustadsahib of how I was a guest when he was unwell. No, Khansahib would not pretend. He says, "Inke nana se bhi bade hain. My memory is fading. Don't remember when she came home but I made her sing once." Directions for this time. "Don't take out your kagaz kalam. I don't like people who note down things." We knew this would come up. That's why entered the greenroom empty handed.

A plate of cakes passes in front of him, making way to his sons. He directs the volunteer. "Keep it here. Next to me. Their teeth are intact. Give them something else. I am just left with two, cake is perfect for me."

A piece for me. Another one for a student from down South, who does not understand what Khansahib lectures on kajri. Language constraints. But listens when Ustadsahib throws the staple string of taans. One after the other. "Jam ke khaya karo. Look at me. Have to force myself against my age to get ragas out of my shehnai." He adds, "My late uncle, Ali Bux, who played at the Vishwanath Temple, rewarded me with sweets after riyaz. I would save a few pieces for bad times, specially when mamu refused to reward me, owing to my carelessness with the instrument."

He remembers how his uncle got a miniature shehnai made for him. With holes specially placed to fit his fingers' span. "I loved him and he loved me," he tells us, with tears in his eyes. Another piece of cake goes into his mouth and one is directed to us. I refuse. He stores that one in his hand.

Sings a taan in kaafi. And what art! Percussion mingled with non-percussion, in just one throat.

Telling volumes on how Ustad Bismillah Khan would not need a tabla if given a choice. He asks me. "Sur ke pakke ho ki nahi? I was taught to even abuse in sur, thanks to my mama. If you are not strong in sur you are a fool." I nod a yes. "Dekhenge. I will sing a taan, you carry on with sa. Just hum." I obey. We finish. He laughs. His youngest son, whom Khansahib calls Nannhe Khan, smiles. I ask Ustadsahib, looking towards Nannhe, "He is the dearest one?" "Sabse pyaara. He keeps me going when I am unwell and low."

Father-son chemistry begins and ends at music. The concert extends, this time a bandish in Khamaj, Nannhe gives the theka on tabla. Both meet at the samm. Another roaring laughter. Tuning gets more intense. Ustadsahib is forced to end the conversation. Takes out his shehnai from the laced jhola. "Lahaul vila kuwat, I am getting late for tuning. You chat a lot," says he, tapping on my head. Only if this phase continues for a decade or more, one would be forced to believe that God likes music.

copyright: The Pioneer

Right wing clipped

SECOND OPINION 2005
Right wing clipped


Time and again, the political scene at Delhi University has been ridiculed for its tradition of "pretty face" politics. Famous (or infamous) for overtly glamourous campaign rallies, candidates - especially from the Congress-backed National Students Union of India - have often been targets of sarcasm by JNU. However, a more interesting chapter has opened after NSUI's recent win in the DUSU elections.

Third in a row, this victory brings a special flavour with it. Aside from posing for the ceremonious NSUI yearly photo, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has jumped into the DU scene to rectify his "shy baba" image. What could be better for the new Gandhi on the block than mingling with decked-out NSUI candidates? This just proves the point: the Congress's PR is better than the BJP's, which has failed to wake the ABVP from its slumber.

Clearly, none among the BJP's senior rung had time to think about its gen next leaders during the Chennai session. It is too much to expect from the party's top leaders, who have been busy defusing 'human bombs' - that is to say, leaders who have damaged their own party with their explosive statements. Thanks to their perpetual turmoil within, the BJP has lost its hold on the twenty somethings - a generation, which never saw or heard Deen Dayal Upadhyay or Veer Savarkar, and who do not know what the BJP actually stands for.

Moreover, the party has neither the funds nor the time to concentrate on the political and ideological growth of its university affiliates. On the other hand, the outcome of direct communication that other parties like the Congress and the Left Front have established with the youth, proves how important it is to keep students close to a party's ideology. Thus, the Congress's NSUI, the CPI(M)'s Students Federation of India and the now toddler on Delhi University's political scene, Om Prakash Chautala's Indian National Students' Organisation, have all benefited their parent organisations by supporting larger objectives - the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.

Professor Yashwantrao Kelkar's child, the ABVP, however, is the most neglected in the Capital when it comes to leader-student interaction or interaction with the parent party. Its leaders and volunteers in JNU and DU are in the throes of extreme ideological confusion. For example, they do not even know whether they should derive their philosophy from the BJP or the RSS. This reflects in their posters and speeches and, except for the Jinnah controversy, they seldom venture into debates. They would not even brave a discussion on Ram Mandir or Veer Savarkar, let alone issues like West Asia, World Bank, farmer-deaths, or the Kashmir issue - topics that their rivals have mastered.

Evidently, the most indisciplined student wing at JNU campus, the ABVP activists, frequently invite criticism for their tomfoolery like organising hostile demonstrations against SAR Geelani's visit to the JNU campus and coming "drunk" for election campaigning.
It is fair to say that Mr Murli Manohar Joshi, Mr Arun Jaitley and Mr Vijay Goel are few BJP members who began their political careers with the ABVP. Yet, what is their present contribution to student politics? They could probably take lessons from Ms Sonia Gandhi or now, even Rahul Gandhi on how to build a party from the grassroots.

Otherwise, it is likely that the next generation will find the ABVP, or even its parent party, consigned to history books edited by leaders from the Congress or the Left.

COPYRIGHT: THE PIONEER