On Spot-fixing, the IPL and the BCCI

It’s been a while since I’ve written on cricket.

Not because there hasn’t been anything to write about – but because most of my own thoughts have been expressed, far more eloquently than I could have managed, by a host of far more knowledgeable writers. I’ve therefore restricted myself to enjoying reading those articles, instead of sharing my own little wisdom on them. I see no point in just amplifying the noise on a subject for the sake of contributing sound bytes.

Having said that, why then this article? That’s because, on the recent spot-fixing drama, there are some elements that I didn't quite find sufficiently (if at all) discussed in all the material that I came across. Of course, it's possible that I've missed something out there.

I’ve read a fair number of articles on the subject. And heard some other views too. They range from the extremes of “ban the IPL” (Sharad Yadav) to “it’s just three dirty men” (BCCI chairman, N. Srinivasan). In between, there are a whole host of views.

What I do notice – and very unsurprisingly – is a lot of IPL-bashing. And a lot of BCCI-bashing. For many, the IPL and the BCCI almost seem to be interchangeable, such has become the IPL’s influence on Indian cricket.

Before I go on, I think I must first state unambiguously where I stand on the IPL.

I do have some issues with the IPL. I don’t like the excessive commercialism, the loud commentary, the hype, the artificiality around it. And I must be honest – I find it difficult to respect batting when mishits and top edges go for a six. It is the worst form of an unequal contest between bat and ball that you can imagine. That both sides in the match operate within the same framework, isn’t exactly compensatory consolation. In the forty years that I’ve been following the game, the contest between bat and ball has always been holy.

But I’ve made my peace with the IPL over the years. And now, during IPL season, I enjoy it for what it is. I don’t compare it with other forms of cricket. And, if I manage to ignore all its irritants, I do often enjoy its thrills and tension. Test cricket will always be special for me – but the IPL has found its relevance too in my cricket following pursuits.

Now, onto spot-fixing and the IPL.

I think it is a bit unfair to make the IPL THE villain of the piece. It has its weaknesses but it is not THE reason we’re having spot-fixing. The IPL is just a tournament – and now the world’s most popular cricket tournament. So what do we want to do – ban it? We need to realize that cricket is competing with other sports (and other forms of entertainment) for eyeballs. The IPL, for a few weeks every year, attracts millions of followers of other sports/entertainment options to cricket. How is that not good for the game?

The problem lies elsewhere. It lies in not realizing significant underlying fundamental weakness in a system. Let me give an example.

Think of an unhygienic kitchen. If the hottest-selling item is soup – and  a large number of customers who’re complaining of food poisoning happen to be soup customers - just removing the soup from the menu isn’t going to help. The complaints will continue – they will just come from customers of other products. The soup was never the problem. The problem was the unhygienic kitchen.

The soup is the IPL. The BCCI is the kitchen. And the food poisoning is the fixing.

Let’s admit that there was spot-fixing before the IPL. And there will be spot-fixing after the IPL, if nothing else changes.

What needs to be done is to build strength in the system to prevent food poisoning.

For its part, sadly, the BCCI’s reactions to the whole drama have been entirely predictable. Starting with “expressing shock”, then soundbytes like “strictest action will be taken against the three involved” (at that time there were three known perpetrators, amongst the players). Of course the BCCI is “fully co-operating with the police”.

The overriding tone of the BCCI has been to defend the IPL, protect its image, to blame everything on “these three dirty men”, to play the age-old game of stating the problem to be way too complex - “we do our best but we cannot possibly monitor 200 players”.

All oh-so-predictable, anybody could have written the script and given it to the media, without their bothering the BCCI bigwigs at all.

What I'd have liked to have seen discussed more is some of the following: 

1)  The system and the players

It says a lot about what I think about cricket and cricketer ethics in today’s day and age, that the news of the spot-fixing scandal broke out a few days ago, I didn’t have the slightest sense of shock or surprise. Contrast this with April 2000. When the Cronje story began unraveling (and Indian players, including one of my then-favourites, captain Azharuddin, began getting named), I remember being STUNNED. In denial. Sick in the stomach. Depressed for months.

This time, with the Sreesanth episode? Nothing!

At the most, I can only say that I was disappointed that Sree had done this. I rated him as one of the better opening bowlers we’ve had in Test cricket in recent times – and would have been happy to see him back in the Test side. So I was disappointed that he chose to take this short-cut route to riches.

But I wasn’t surprised.

The IPL had got him good money - but when your aspirations exceed your ability to support them through legitimate means, you seek other means.

Sree had got used to the fast lane - money, fame, celebrity status, an expensive lifestyle. And on the cricketing front, life was going in exactly the opposite direction. The more he “needed” that wealth, the less his chances of getting it through normal cricketing efforts. His chances of getting back to the Indian side were fast receding. Not only for performance reasons but also because of his “terribly difficult person” image. And he was 30.

Imagine, then somebody comes along and tells him “Why do you worry? Bowl one bad over, and I’ll give you 50 lakhs”.

Come on! It’s the IPL – matches are played daily at such a frenzied pace. Where games are totally loaded in favour of batsmen, with short boundaries and a lot more. Where even the best of bowlers often go for sixes and fours.

Who’s going to notice an over going for 15 runs? So many overs go for much more than that.

And once the game’s over, it’s time to move on to the next. Nobody even remembers yesterday’s game. Yesterday’s gone.

All you see is the 50 lakhs in front of your eyes. That’s real – everything else is make-believe.

And hey, you don’t have to feel ashamed or awkward. It’s happening all the time – happened last year too. It’s so easy to do, it’s almost a no-brainer.. Think about YOUR future. If you don’t secure it NOW, when you can – when are you going to do it? You think your franchise cares about where you are in 5 years’ time? You think anybody cares?

So THIS is the player dilemma.

What would I do if I were in Sreesanth’s position?

Speaking purely for myself, I know I wouldn’t have gone with the offer (I say this because I HAVE refused very attractive financial deals in the past purely because they would have troubled my conscience). But that’s me – and I don’t have material aspirations like a Sreesanth does. So instead of using myself personally as a yardstick, I’m going to generalize a bit.

I cannot help feeling that many people – especially those with aspirations far outstripping ability - would probably do what Sreesanth did. It is JUST SO EASY to do. And there’s SO MUCH MONEY to make.

No, I’m not defending Sreesanth here. I’m just trying to be a little more realistic than some of those moral policemen out there. Suddenly Sreesanth has become devil incarnate – all I’m trying to say is it could just have been any A, B or C.

It is the SYSTEM that has weaknesses. An individual – while having his own mind – can easily fall prey to this system if he is not strong enough.

We keep talking about Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly, Kumble and Laxman as examples of cricketers who didn’t fall for the bait. We need to realize that these are successful, secure cricketers with long careers. They have received affection from millions of fans, for years – and have internalized this love. That has also made them strong – and relatively less vulnerable to being manipulated by devious third parties.

But that’s just five cricketers. There are many more out there – and many in domestic cricket – who do not enjoy this luxury. Of financial success. Of love. Some have an early sense of rejection. What’s to say they don’t have aspirations? In today’s India, aspirations seem to be everything – just look around you at the advertisements in the media.

THESE are the people most vulnerable to manipulation. Cricket can be cruel. Only eleven can make a team. You feel like a reject if you aren’t in that eleven. Especially if that happens on a consistent basis.

The IPL just happens to have many players in this category. They wouldn’t make it to the national team – but they enjoy recognition and fame for a few weeks every year, thanks to the IPL. And of course they make good money, better than they’d otherwise have made. But that may just fuel their aspirations to a different level altogether.

So I repeat – when legitimate means are insufficient to bridge the aspiration-ability gap, in many cases, illegitimate means will be resorted to, if they come with acceptably low (in this case near-zero) risk. The ends will justify the means.

2) Corrective measures

a) Be realistic about effectiveness of “mentoring”: After this broke out, the first thing I heard from some BCCI campists was “we need to improve mentoring”. I yawned. Had this been the year 2000, I might have bought this. At that time, there might have been a genuine case of fixing - and the shady-bookie menace - catching everybody on the wrong foot. The whole concept might have been new for some.

Today, in 2013, it is known to one and all involved with the game that this is THE biggest menace in the game. If a player is smart enough to win an IPL contract, he is smart enough to understand what is right and wrong. So now we need to “educate" a cricketer that if you don’t bowl like a bowler normally would, it is a wrong thing to do?

Yes, there are some cricketers out there who are suddenly thrown into the world of riches and glamour. Yes, they need to be cautioned about its negative side too. That they may have undesirable people trying to associate with them. And these may try to make them do things that go against the grain of the game that has made them what they are.

So let's have THIS level of mentoring. But we don’t need to make it sound any more effective than it really is. Repeated emphasis on it only tells me that the BCCI is trying to avoid other, more difficult to implement, solutions to address the issue.

Look at it this way. If a Rahul Dravid, considered THE role-model for one and all to uphold the spirit of the sport, can have his own team mates selling their souls behind his back, what chance does some “mentor” have? The intoxication of money, coupled with the near zero-risk, will drown any well-meaning mentor’s words in an instant. Maybe I’m being a bit skeptical here but I don’t think players quite have as much respect for other players and officials as is often made out by the romanticists. Of course, everything is hunky-dory in public. But in private, each person has to fight his own battle.

b) Be realistic about Anti-Corruption Units:  I would have found this laughable if the emotion of anger did not overwhelmingly dominate my mixed emotions. The ICC’s solution to prevent corruption in the game is its “Anti-Corruption and Security Unit” (ACSU). Never mind that their track record in uncovering corruption has been laughable, but the ICC still offered the services of this unit to the BCCI for IPL2. At a price of course.

The BCCI politely (or maybe not so politely) refused the offer, saying it was setting up its own ACSU unit. Interestingly, it’s been almost four years now – and this ACSU seems to be competing with the ICC’s ACSU in the ineffectiveness race.

To me – and maybe I’m being harsh here – setting up this ACSU was never really going to solve anything. It sounds good on paper, it’s one of those ISO9000 type things. You do it because it then “looks” like “you’ve got the processes in place” and therefore things “should be under control”.

In reality, what are the ACSU’s powers? Can they tap phone messages or other types of communications between players and others? Or is it that they are just present at matches and keep a look-out for suspicious characters? Like in an old-fashioned detective novel.

Let’s accept that the few culprits that have been caught so far, have been caught, not by an ACSU, but by another entity.

It was the Delhi police who stumbled upon Hansie Cronje’s activities  by accident.

It was a sting operation by the media that exposed Salman Butt and two of his team-mates in England in 2010.

It was the Delhi police again who stumbled upon Sreesanth and co’s activities this time, while looking for something completely different.

What has the BCCI’s ACSU been doing?  Why did it not pick up any signals? From the communication the Delhi police have, it is clear that there was fixing involved in IPL5 as well. This lends credence to the feeling that the three who got caught are the unlucky ones – there are others out there who’ve got away.

So much for the BCCI setting up an Anti-Corruption Unit!

And now, at its latest meeting, the BCCI has said it will be setting up ACSUs for each franchise! Great! Another great initiative on paper. But please excuse me if I’m not exactly holding my breath on expecting more cases to be caught and booked.

The point is – this is all INTERNAL. The players are contracted to the BCCI, they are the marketable property of the BCCI, the IPL is the BCCI’s most valuable property. So there is naturally going to be a conflict of interest for the BCCI to take strict action against any of these “properties”. At the most, the BCCI may sacrifice a lesser player as a scapegoat, to build credibility about its processes. Other than that, it is unlikely to rock its boat too much.

And that is why what we need is EXTERNAL.

The ACSU is like internal audit. It is important to have – it sets up processes with checks and balances, it does audits – and it reports deviations it comes across to management. And thereafter it’s upto management’s discretion whether to take further action or not. (I think in practice the ACSU isn’t even doing so much, but I’ll give it credit for now).

What we need is an external auditor-like authority. One who doesn’t care about the BCCI. Who isn’t paid by the BCCI. Who is empowered to do what it takes to check compliance. And who will objectively report its findings - not to the BCCI  -but to a third party.

And who has the skills to do so.

In effect, we are talking about a policing function. Much like what the Delhi police have done now.

I don’t think the ACSU quite cuts it. Not one ACSU, not ten ACSUs. I’m afraid the nefarious world of illegal betting and bookies is much too smart for the administrative type, watchdog type entity that the ACSU is. And extremely ruthless. I understand that a cop who filed an FIR in this matter was killed a few days ago.

I know the police is short of resources already but if the figure of Rs.40,000 crores being talked about as the value of illegal betting business in India is true, then it seems to be well worth dedicating police resources to this. It is not just about individual cricketers – it is about cleaning up the muck in the entire system.

c) Have more “sting operations”:  In India, the media has largely been reactive. Yet, there have been stories broken by the media that have been key to keeping politicians on their toes, and keeping the public aware of happenings. I know “sting operations” tend to have a negative connotation about them, but I believe, if the purpose isn’t unethical, they are great to expose crime and malpractice.

Last year, during the IPL, a sting operation by a TV channel exposed a few cricketers for wrongdoing. It was roundly criticized initially but the evidence was irrefutable and the cricketers were finally given due punishment. We need more of this to happen. If you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to worry about. The “sting operation” can even be conducted by a private party and then shared with the media.

These are some of the corrective measures I can think about. This is by no means an exhaustive list. And I think we need every measure out there that helps reduce (I’m realistic enough not to say “eliminate”) this scourge of fixing. I see it as THE biggest menace in the game of cricket today.

What’s very frustrating is that the BCCI just does not seem to recognize the magnitude of the issue. It does some tinkering here and there, hoping that things will sort themselves out, in due course of time. We all know that’s not how these things work.

It is OUR game. The game for the fans of cricket. And for me personally, it is a game that I’ve been passionately following for the last 40 years. I’m damned if I’m going to just sit quiet and see it dying in front of my eyes. Even if I can’t stop it, I’m at least going to make a noise about it.

Moving on!

I hear tales

Of lands, far and near

From people who’ve lived

Across oceans, without fear

Tales, rich with fabric

Of discoveries new

Sounding ever so often                   

Just too good to be true

My schoolmates from days gone

Now miles and miles away

Scattered around the world

Australia, Europe, USA

But I’ve stayed put here

This same home since birth

Sometimes when I reflect

I wonder what it’s worth

Yes, seeds I once sowed

Are now fully grown trees

I look at them with pride

When they sway in the breeze

But not all’s been good

There’s been sadness too

There’ve been losses along the way

That I have had to rue

My friendly grocer’s no more

I do so miss his smile

He used to give me goodies

And compliment my style

The library’s gone as well

There’s a gaming club instead

What was once a regular haunt

Is now a place I dread

The field where once I played

Now all bricks and mortar

The sky, once bright and clear

Now more and more a blur

I fear if I’m here longer

I’ll be a relic of the past

The body’s not quite itself now

And the mind’s losing it fast

True, where you grow up is special

And fond memories do remain

But it’s time for new pastures now

Else life’s too mundane.

So I decided to move far away from home and move HERE...

(Pic courtesy: Fotolia ).

This post has been written as part of  the writetribe initiative.

The ultimate reality-check

Relativity, best explained

Perspective, best obtained

Brittleness, redefined

White cloak, cloak of God

Nurses, high alert

Every second, pregnant

Tension, knife-cuttable

Atheists, momentary theists

Looks in eyes, desperation-hope mingled

The unthinkable, gaining mindspace

Memories, flashing by at jetspeed

Regrets, lots

Jokes, unfunny

Fingers, crossed

Sleep, alien.

The Emergency ward of a hospital.

Where life gets its ultimate reality-check.

 (Pic courtesy morguefile ). 

This post has been written as part of the write tribe initiative.

In the ultimate analysis

You come into this world with nothin’

And with absolutely nothin’ you go

Twixt this first instant and last

You live the life you know

At first a life as a baby

Face shining with a peaceful glow

Crying, eating, sleeping

One day, into a child you grow

As a child, your world’s a wonder

Every day you feel a hero

Playing games, indoors and outdoors

Into a teenager you grow

As a teen, your mind’s restless

And so tantrums you throw

Everyone’s now on your back

Till into an adult you grow

As an adult, your world’s very different

Work, and a family in tow

It’s a long and arduous journey at times

Till into old age you go

As an old man, you’re counting the years

Your mind and body now slow

Much of your journey’s a flashback

Till one day, it’s time to go

Lying still, bones and flesh

At best, in a suit and a bow

You’re finally back to where you began

With neither friend nor foe

This is the simple truth, my friend

This is all we have to show

In the ultimate analysis, we’re all the same

So please, can we shed that ego?

This crazy mind

This crazy mind

Grabbing at the air

The air laughing mischievously

As if saying

Catch me if you can.

All that’s left

Is a clenched fist.

Open it,

And it’s empty.

Nothingness stares back.

This crazy mind

Needs to pick its battles.

Not the air.

Or the space without.

But the space within.

Its adversary

Or ally, seen another way

Is, but of its own making.

For it is itself

One, or the other.

This crazy mind

Oh, the complexity!

Or the beauty, seen another way.

For it is both,

The one, and the other.

This crazy mind

What it sees, thinks...

Does it see roses?

Or the thorns, seen another way?

For it is both,

The one, and the other.

You are what you think.

  

The Drift

In hindsight, I suppose it had to happen sooner or later.

Our relationship, at the best of times, had been struggling for real warmth. Cosiness was a level it never ever came close to.

At other times, it was about two indifferent people. Living together, but indifferent to each other’s existence.

She would do her thing, I’d do mine. She was musically-inclined – especially interested in classical music. I tried getting into that world – but found myself completely out of my depth in it. She was interested in fine dining, with a meticulous interest in learning new recipes and experimenting with food. And while I appreciated this, and even participated in some of these experiments, I wasn’t quite able to garner anything close to her level of enthusiasm for it.

My interest, on the other hand, lay in news. I was a news junkie – every day, I’d follow every little news item of the day. From multiple sources. Analysed in detail by multiple experts. I’d make my own analysis of it all – and even try to explain it to her. Not that she was really interested in it. Her interest in the news was at a headline level – five minutes of the headlines.

I must admit she never once complained that I didn’t share her interests. Nor did she ever make a fuss about the fact that I was always glued to the news. In fact, she just wasn’t the type to complain. She seemed happy to be left alone to do her thing. And to let me do my thing. Sometimes, we’d go hours without speaking to each other, even if we were in the same room!

That the marriage lasted as long as it did, seems now, in hindsight, as some sort of mini-miracle. I can’t help wondering how we went on for so long.

Eleven long years. Yes, that’s how long we stayed together.

And long years they certainly were.

Pretending that everything was fine. Pretending that this was how married life usually panned out anyway. Pretending that being together was the most important thing anyway.

We didn’t have fights or anything of the sort. Most couples do tend to have tiffs – we surprisingly had very few of them, if at all. In fact, I cannot remember any.

And yet, there was no love in our marriage. We were two individuals, living together under one roof. That was it.

To the outside world, we were a fine couple. We didn’t have many friends - and the few we had were not particularly intrusive anyway. Although there was that one occasion on our tenth wedding anniversary when one of our friends gave us a surprise visit and almost caught on to the sham that our relationship was. We were not celebrating the occasion – and we had to think up a reason quickly for him.

That was the tenth anniversary.

I don’t even remember the ones before the tenth. They are a blur – much as those years are.

By the time the eleventh came around, I guess I should have been more prepared. For the eventuality that there wouldn’t be a twelfth.

But I wasn’t. To me, life with her, even if it wasn’t with her in a traditional sense, wasn’t really bad.  Ok, so we’d never really been madly in love with each other but we’d been together for a big part of our lives. Surely that counted for something. And she had never once hurt me, even if she’d not been exactly generous in showering love.

I figured it was the same with her. And maybe that is why we’d been together all those years. Without love, but caring enough about each other, not to think of rocking the boat.

No, I wasn’t one bit prepared when she broached the subject.

“How old would Jack have been, you think?” she asked me one evening after dinner. Normally she would have been preparing for her post-dinner dose of music, just as I would be getting ready to catch the latest breaking news happening around the world. But that evening she actually started a conversation.

Jack - one of the middle-aged men we often came across in the neighbourhood. We didn’t know him very well, but he was a cheerful sort and we’d exchange greetings with him whenever we’d see him.  A pleasant man, who seemed not to have a worry in this world.  Until he suddenly collapsed one day on the street and was rushed to hospital, only to be pronounced dead on arrival. A massive heart attack, they said.

“I don’t know – maybe 55?”

“Poor guy, that’s no age to go”.

I didn’t say anything. This had happened just a few days earlier and I was still a bit shaken by Jack’s death – it had all been so sudden. He’d never looked ill, or been ailing in hospital, or anything of the sort.

“I think life’s too short to let it just drift”.

I still didn’t say anything. I saw it as just a philosophical remark, not as a lead-up to anything significant.

“Maybe we shouldn’t waste it anymore”.

I looked straight at her. This was suddenly looking like more than just philosophical. What was she really trying to say?

She looked straight back at me.

“Look here, we’re not getting any younger. I’ve been thinking of talking to you about this for a while now, but just didn’t know how to bring it up. Now, after Jack…” Her voice trailed away.

“What are you trying to say?” I was beginning to realize this was the most significant conversation we’d had in ages.

“Well, you know we’re not really the greatest couple out there. We’re not going to win the World’s Best Couple prize or anything”.

“No, we aren’t”. I managed a bit of a hollow laugh. It was the truth, there was no denying it.

“So I was just thinking, we’ve been together so long but in effect…” She paused, then resumed “In effect, we’ve just been drifting all these years, don’t you think?”

“Well…I don’t know about that” I was trying to make it sound better than it was, but I knew it was the truth.

“Come on, you know that’s how it’s been. We haven’t really had much of a truly married life, have we? We’re together…but we’re not REALLY together, are we? You know what I mean”.

I knew EXACTLY what she meant. But I was just too taken aback for words.

She went on “So I was just thinking. The way Jack’s gone…you never know how much more we have. You and I. I’m not sure we’re doing the smart thing by just chugging along like this”.

I was still too stunned to say anything. My wife had never been one for many words – in fact, that might have been one of the reasons we didn’t really connect very strongly. She’d been happy to live in her own world, as I’d been in mine. Sharing thoughts and ideas had never been her strong point. Nor mine, for that matter.

But she was not done yet.

“I think we should live the rest of our lives at least on our own individual terms. The way we’d like to. Whatever’s left of it.”

This was about the most direct statement yet that we were going to split – without saying it in so many words.

“What are you saying?” I was beginning to understand exactly what she was saying – but it was still taking some time to sink in.

“All I’m saying is, maybe we should just go our own separate ways from now on. Yes, that’s what I think I’m saying”. Her voice faltered just a bit, as if that last bit had come out only with great effort.

I think I also just caught a glint of a tear in her left eye.

“But…I don’t know.” I was struggling. She’d said it – and now it was my turn to respond. “We’ve managed ok so far. Ok, so it hasn’t been a “dream come true” sort of married life but hey, we’ve pulled along for so long already, haven’t we? It’s been what, eleven years now? Going on twelve?”

I could now see more than one tear. Welling up.

“That’s what we’ve been doing, John. Pulling along. Just pulling along. And I don’t think that’s what married life is meant to be. Let’s face it  - we don’t exactly have anything in common, we hardly talk to each other. We’ve somehow gone on for eleven years -  and I don’t have a problem as such with you, but…but…”

Her voice cracked – she couldn’t go on. She was now weeping.

I instinctively put my arm around her and pulled her towards me to comfort her. I might not have been in love with her in the usual sense of the term – but if she was weeping, I was weeping too. Within.

“I think we can work it out, honey”.  I managed to say.

“No, we CAN’T.” She pulled away and sounded surprisingly animated. “You know this is the ONLY way. We don’t have an eternity to live – and I don’t want us to go on like this. I don’t want you to waste your years with me…and I don’t…”

She didn’t have to complete her sentence. I knew where it was going – she didn’t want to spend the rest of her years with me. More accurately, she didn’t want to WASTE the rest of her years with me. That was what life with me would mean for her – a waste.

I didn’t know what to say. I knew I should say something – but I just didn’t know what.

“I think it’s all for the best”. She was now more composed. “It’s not like we have children or anything. Nobody’s going to get hurt. It will take a bit of adjustment, that’s all. But that’s for the best”.

She had made up her mind. Strangely, in all these years that we’d been together – when our relationship had been lukewarm for the most part  - I’d never seriously thought it would come to this. I’d been happy to pretend that everything was fine. And I had been pretending for SO long, I had been deluding myself for SO long that I had built a comfortable rosy glass image of our life.

Only now, that glass image was being shattered to smithereens.

She went silent. Clearly she’d said all she wanted to say – and was waiting for me.

“Looks like you’ve made up your mind then?”

She nodded. “It’s not just for me, John. You will do much better without me, I’m sure”.

I wasn’t so sure. I hadn’t ever thought about it – and clearly she had. At least for the last few days. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed her behaving any differently the last few days. And then realized, I hardly ever noticed her, how she behaved, what she did. She’d just been there – all these eleven years.

“Are you ok?” She could see me struggling to take all of this in. I wasn’t good at dealing with even small surprises. And this was like a “wham!”.

“Yeah…yeah…I’m…I’m ok”. I managed to blurt out. I wasn’t ok but I wasn’t going to collapse in a heap. I had to deal with this – and I had to deal with it by myself. It suddenly struck me that I’d have to deal with quite a few things by myself from then on.

“You’ll be all right?”  I managed to ask. Not that it seemed a particularly necessary question. She was dealing with it all much better than I was. But then she’d had more time to think about it.

“Yeah. I think it’s for the best, John. And we can always meet up from time to time. It’s not like we’re at each other’s throats, are we?” She said with a laugh. Yes, she was dealing with it much better than I was.

“No, it’s not”.

So that was it.

We completed the formalities in less than two weeks. Eleven days, to be precise. It took exactly eleven days to end eleven years of married life.

I’ve never met her since. Both of us moved out of our apartment – it was a rented one anyway. She did give me a forwarding phone number. I did speak to her once – about three months after we’d split up. It was one of those spur-of-the-moment things when I just wanted to know how she was doing. Or, to be more honest, wanted to hear her voice. We spoke for just a couple of minutes – but that was enough for me to realize that she’d moved on. She asked me how I was doing – I lied, saying I was doing fine. I wasn’t – but I wasn’t going to let her know.

It’s been three years now. My life’s taken a different turn. I now live in a different city. I’ve made new friends. I do sometimes think about the past – but then I realize that life is full of chapters, and the past is a closed chapter. One has to live in the moment – and look ahead.

And if there’s one thing about life that is an absolute truth, there’s no room in it for “what ifs”.

*Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and bears no resemblance whatsoever to the reality in my life.* 

Paani, paani re... Water! Water!

Shekhar Kapur, noted film director, is far more than just a film director. He has been taking up various public causes from time to time - most recently, and vocally, on water.

Today he has published an article in Tehelka magazine, raising some extremely pertinent questions. Whose water is it anyway? Who owns the groundwater? Who owns the rivers?

His article can be found here.

Inspired by his article, I have penned a few lines myself on this subject.

Paani, paani re (Water! Water!)
-----------------

Kabhi kudrat ki den thi

Amoolya aur bharpoor

Humne hi nahin ki qadr

Hai hamara hi qasoor

Hamari ye nadiyaan

Aur poonji neeche zameen ke

Sabko hamne hai kiya nasht

Rahenge na hum kaheen ke

Makaan banaayen hum zor shor se

Aur tanker se paani mangwaayen

Jo haq hamesha tha har kisi ka

Usi par hum ab mol lagwaayen

Abhi to hai shuruvaat kisse ki

Abhi to hona hai bhayankar

Jab gali gali mein jang chhidegi

Bachaane na aayega Ram ya Shankar

Translation

Once it was a gift of nature

Invaluable and plentiful

It is we who failed to respect it

It is we who are to blame

These rivers of ours

And this wealth under our land

We have destroyed them all

We will end up nowhere

We build buildings with great enthusiasm

And we order water in tankers

What was once every man's right

We now put a price on it

This is just the beginning

This is going to get even scarier

When there are battles on every street

Even your Ram or Shankar (Shiv) will not come to save you!

Transliteration

पानी पानी रॆ
-----------------
कभी कुदरत की देन थी
अमूल्य और भरपूर
हमने ही नही की कद्र 
है हमारा ही कसूर

हमारी सारी नदियाँ 

और पूंजी नीचे ज़मीन के
सबको हमने है किया नष्ट 
रहेंगे ना हम कहीं के

मकान बनाएं हम ज़ोर-शोर से
और टैंकर से पानी मंगवाएं 
जो हक़ हमेशा था हर किसी का
उसी पर हम अब मोल लगवाएं

अभी तो है शुरुवात किस्से की
अभी तो होना है भयंकर
जब गली गली मे जंग छिड़ेगी 
बचाने ना आएगा राम या शंकर