The Ephemeral Sardar!

He was fairly loved as a cricketer, a right-hand batsman and a part-time medium pace bowler, graduating from the tag of a ‘stroke-less wonder’ during his poor debut to ‘Sixer Sidhu’ in later years; he was the most loved as a commentator and television comedian for his famous one-liners and extempore humorous verses and eulogies; and what he has been as a politician we’ll come back to later on. Yes, we’re indeed talking about the gloriously or infamously unpredictable, the compulsively impulsive, the mysteriously ‘principled’, the all-occasion fun-orator, the allegedly inefficient team-builder and the powerhouse of passion, Navjot Singh Sidhu who in fact managed to display all of the emotions in easy abandon like the colors of a rainbow. He has been a Sardar (of the Sikh religion) with an uncanny difference and his continual fight with another Sardar (Captain Amarinder Singh, the former Chief Minister of Punjab) is one of the Indian political classics.

 

Thanks to his good performances in the domestic circuit of Indian cricket Navjot Singh Sidhu was selected for the national Test team in 1983-84; but his debut was very poor which earned him the tag of a ‘stroke-less wonder’ from a journalist, and was dropped from the team. The Sardar, as usual, showed his emotions, and later claimed in an interview that the tag had entirely changed his cricketing life. Navjot was later recalled to the one-day international (ODI) team and he performed very well in the ICC World Cup-1987, creating a world record of scoring four consecutive half-centuries on debut. He was marked out as a great hitter of sixes, particularly off the spinners, which changed his tag to ‘Sixer Sidhu’. He also earned praise from many international cricket commentators and experts. His cricket career began; however, a career that lasted till 1999 was not without upsets and turmoil thanks to the Sardar’s emotions.

 

He was recalled to the Test team in 1988 and had relatively successful outings in the New Zealand tour of India, the Indian tour of the West Indies and India’s tour of Pakistan. He was dropped again in 1992 for his poor run with the bat in India’s tours of England and Australia. Navjot was recalled to Team India later that season and the best part of his cricketing career lasted till 1996 when he walked out of a Test Series against England in England complaining of a difference of opinion with the then India Captain Mohammed Azharuddin. The BCCI banned him for the next ten Tests as a punitive measure. This episode somewhat confirmed his inability to get on with a team or in team-building. Sidhu made his way back to Team India in the 1996-97 tour of the West Indies where his only double century earned the unique distinction of being one of the slowest innings in the history of world cricket. After a poor performance in India’s New Zealand tour of 1998-99 Sidhu was dropped again for the upcoming tour of Pakistan, and the Sardar announced his retirement from all forms of cricket in 1999. In all, he played 51 Tests with 9 tons including a double ton and 136 ODIs.

 

In the meanwhile, the tempestuous Sardar was involved in a road-rage incident in December 1988 when he hit a senior citizen on the head who later died in the hospital. This homicide case dragged on till 1999 when a trial court acquitted him of murder charges; but in 2006 the Punjab High Court reversed the order convicting him and his associate guilty of culpable homicide. Sidhu and the associate appealed in the Supreme Court, and the Apex Court stayed the order in 2007. Finally Navjot Singh Sidhu was acquitted of culpable homicide in 2018 by the Supreme Court, but the court still convicted him of ‘causing a hurt’, and fined him without, fortunately, ordering a jail term.

After retiring from an eventful cricket career Sidhu became a cricket commentator, a television personality and a politician in the span of the next 4-5 years. His cricket commentator career was cut short abruptly as he got fired by the sports channel for swearing live on air, although his one-liners on air made him an extremely popular commentator. Navjot, however, continued as a cricket expert in various new channels and renewed his contract with the same sports channel in 2012, but due to contractual dispute it ended in 2014 during the IPL. In the region of television he started appearing as a judge in the Great Indian Laughter Challenge (2005-2008) and also acted in various television programs. He had been a permanent guest in the most popular shows of Comedy Nights With Kapil (2013-16) and The Kapil Sharma Show (2016-2019). He was ousted from the latter show due to his alleged pro-Pakistan remarks on the show and his closeness in to the new Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan who was once the most loved fast bowler in international cricket and other Pak army dignitaries that created a national outrage.

 

The political career of Navjot Singh Sidhu also began in 2004 when he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and won the General Elections of 2004 from Amritsar, his favorite constituency. But he had to resign from the Member of Parliament (MP) position due to the reversal of his homicide case. However, Sidhu fought again in a by-election immediately after the Supreme Court stay and won. In the General Elections of 2009 Sidhu won again on the BJP ticket. In 2014 General Elections he refused to fight as he was not given the ticket from Amritsar. To keep him in the party the BJP nominated Sidhu as a Rajya Sabha (the upper house of Parliament) member. The unpredictable Sardar took the oath in April 2016 and resigned in July the same year. After attempting to form his own political party Sidhu joined the Indian National Congress party in January 2017. He was given the Amritsar constituency in the Punjab Assembly Elections of 2017 which he won with thundering majority and became the Tourism Minister in the cabinet formed by Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh.

 

It is hardly possible for the ephemeral Sardar to stay put in a particular position. Losing his television job, hurt by the Captain’s direct opposition to his Pakistan links and the snub by the Election Commission in the campaign for the General Elections 2019 Sidhu started his lasting fight with the Chief Minister and resigned from cabinet, addressing his resignation letter to the Congress high command. The seemingly dormant volcano in Sidhu erupted and he started attacking the Captain’s government openly. Finally, the Congress high command, considering his popularity in various sections of the state and the forthcoming elections, had to bow down to his wishes, and Sidhu was appointed the Congress president of the state on 18^th July 2021. Now in power, he began to garner support from the Congress MLAs (Members of Legislative Assembly) for himself. The happenings hurt the 79-year-old Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh so much that he tendered his resignation on 20^th September 2021 putting the state in a crisis just four months ahead of Assembly elections-2022.

 

Under Sidhu’s supervision a new Chief Minister was appointed by the Congress high command who was a Dalit which happened for the first time in the state, and two Deputy CMs. The unpredictable Sardar seemed to be happy as he was seen around the new CM. But all hell broke loose when Sidhu resigned from his Congress president post on 28^th September 2021 placing the Congress high command in an unprecedented dilemma. Sidhu reportedly was not happy with the two Deputy Chief Ministers and that a few of the new ministers were not his choices. He said that he is fighting for the state’s future and there could be no compromise with that having also said that he would continue to serve Congress. Protesting voices against Sidhu were heard within the Punjab Congress as they could not accept someone opposing a government led by a Dalit for the first time.

 

Hurt and saddened, the former CM Captain Amarinder Singh met the India Home Minister Amit Shah and said to media that he would leave Congress definitely, but would not join the BJP. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo and Delhi Chief Minister Arving Kejriwal also did not reveal his cards about the likelihood of Navjot Singh Sidhu joining his party. And as is usual, nobody can predict the next moves of the unpredictable Sardar. As per latest reports Sidhu today met the new Chief Minister Channi with the latter announcing that all issues were resolved. It has to be seen how this crisis is going to conclude, if at all, with four months left for the elections. At the moment the Congress party that has always won assembly elections in Punjab is at a total loss, and the BJP that has never won there is at an advantage to stage a maiden victory.

Movie The Wailing: Discovering A South Korean Horror Flick That Defies The Genre!

During the ongoing age of the pandemic there’s been hardly any activity concerning the big screens and the new hot weekly releases, and movie buffs really miss the coveted visits to the theatres. However, if one is not so much strained about watching movies on computers or on mobile screens then one can still have lots of enriched watching on the OTT (Over The Top) platforms that stream a rich variety of movies from world cinema apart from their much-publicized web series. There’s a concern no doubt for harming your ear drums with continuous use of the headphones; but one can be judiciously selective about it. During such a restrained and judicious practice of wearing the headphones this writer has come across various movies and web series that really kept alive his cinema-appreciation instincts. One such movie is The Wailing (2016), a South Korean (officially the Republic of Korea) horror film, written and directed by the celebrated award-winning South Korean director Na Hong-jin whose earlier movies like The Chaser (2008) and The Yellow Sea (2010) were screened at the Cannes Film Festival and won various awards in other festivals. The Wailing was also screened at the Cannes Film Festival and got numerous nominations and several awards at various film festivals. The main actors in this movie are Kwak Do-won, Hwang Jung-min, Chun Woo-hee and the Japanese star Jun Kunimura.

 

The Wailingcannot be described as a ‘horror’ film in one breath, because it has a storyline that covers all other genres of mystery, suspense and of course, horror. And the movie boldly defies the implicit ‘rules and regulations’ of a typical horror film: glorifying gore; capturing the most unimaginably ugly faces of ghostly ‘monsters’; the use of the loudest possible sound-track where a simple telephone ring shakes up the whole auditorium; the jump cuts; and figures moving behind your backs. Instead, this movie has a highly intelligent mix of mystery, intriguing dialogues, a normal sound-track, no jump cuts or sudden movements behind your back, no monsters of the typical variety and an entirely different script for a horror flick. Then how it scares, you will definitely ask! Mind you, it still has all the scares of the supernatural, the occult practices, the possessed and the exorcism, the zombies, a lot of gore and violence without glorifying it though and a whole lot of dialogues that you cannot help but listen to attentively.

 

The movie has a rather intimidating length of over two and half hours, a length that normally is valid for Indian films of any genre, but once you get in there’s not a single moment that’d bore you or make you think of putting off your headphones. It puts you into a persistent dilemma of believing or not believing with the elements of mystery and suspense in full play, and this glorious uncertainty of the plot continues till the very end-frame. And mind you, you may not find the climax as gratifying as the usual horror flicks. The film just flows on with brilliant cinematography and a lilting background music score. The performances are powerful and the storytelling is convincing.

 

The story begins with a police investigation when in a Korean village people start getting murdered mysteriously. As the investigations proceed we come to know that a peculiar sickness seems to infect the villagers: once someone gets the infection somehow he or she becomes violent and ends up murdering all members of his or her family. All the doubts were cast on a mysterious Japanese stranger who lives in a hut in the mountains and local people are telling frightening stories about him. The police raid his hut several times, but still fail to link him to the horrible goings-on. In the meantime a mysterious lady also moves around in the village, seemingly giving leads to the police. The police sergeant of the village Jong-goo, the hero of the film played by Kwak Do-won, becomes terribly emotional and desperate to solve the mystery when his little daughter Hyo-Jin gets the infection and starts to demonstrate odd behaviour patterns, gradually becoming violent. The policeman’s mother-in-law invites the local shaman or the exorcist, suspecting it to be a case of possession. Well, nothing more can be said about the storyline to avoid a spoiler.

 

The Wailingis a horror movie with a healthy difference from the genre, and it can more than match the all-time Hollywood horror greats like The Exorcist, The Omen, The Poltergeist, The Conjuring and so on, and can beat the loud and typical horror flicks in popular display both in Hollywood and in Bollywood hands down. This movie is a must-watch for all lovers of mystery, suspense and horror flicks. This writer has discovered this movie quite a bit late, but still holds the view as expressed. The world of cinema has been a territory vastly unexplored by many a viewer due to lack of access or the regional or the language barrier or of the like and if the film buffs keep on trying they’re sure find many more surprises like The Wailing.

India Register The Lowest COVID-19 Daily Cases In Six Months As The Festival Season Looms Ahead!

For the last 3-4 days India have been registering less than 30,000 daily COVID-19 cases with daily fatalities also reducing. A lot of hope is being generated now as the country has seen less than twenty thousand cases in the last 24 hours, 18,795 to be exact, which is the lowest in six months, and the daily deaths have also come down to 179 fatalities in the same period. The state of Kerala is still leading, but the daily infections that had reached more than thirty thousand recently are 11699 in the last 24 hours and the daily fatalities that had overtaken Maharashtra crossing the 200 mark have come down to 58 in the same period. Maharashtra, the worst affected state in India with over 6 million total infections, has also registered less than 3000 cases in the last 24 hours which is the lowest since February 2021 and the deaths at 32 during the same period. Only two other states, Tamil Nadu and Mizoram, are still showing a rising trend of daily cases; all of the rest of India seem to be doing well in all respects: as per a recent report of the Government of India the positivity rate is over 5% in only 23 districts of the country.

 

To add to the positive scenario the country has crossed the required 10-million mark in daily vaccine jabs for the 5^th time—recently crossing the unexpected 20-million mark on the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday. However, to achieve the target of vaccinating the whole country by  December this year the rate needs to be sustained consistently on a daily basis, rather than concentrating on special days to jack up the jabs just to please the authorities examples of which could be seen in the recent past too. No doubt, the Government has been trying very hard to improve its image after the disastrous handling of the Second Wave of the Pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of infected people, but the realities must be faced at all times in a totally non-political way. If the second wave is finally concluding the Government must ensure that the much-feared Third Wave is never allowed to take off. More than 80% of the country’s population has been given at least one jab; but the India-made Covaxin is yet to be approved by the World Health Organization for emergency use, particularly in light of the restrictions imposed rather irrationally by the United Kingdom for Indian travelers. 

There are various concerns though about the future course of the pandemic in India and if it can be controlled till early part of 2022 then only we too can be sure of being able to shake off the third wave and being assured by the ‘endemic theory’ that effectively ruled out further countrywide spread of the virus. Buoyed by the less than 5% positivity rate seen in most parts of the country, the speeded up vaccination and a new vaccine for children above the age of 12 to be available anytime soon, the states are opening up almost completely, this is being endorsed by the experts too. Quite a few of them have reopened schools and colleges and the worst-affected Maharashtra has also decided to reopen schools from 22^nd October and also reopen cinema halls/auditoriums from the same date. This combined with the looming festival season that would last till February 2022 poses as the biggest challenge for the fight against COVID-19. This is indeed going to be the litmus test. The Government of India has sounded restrictions in crowding, particularly in Durga Puja pandals, in districts where the positivity rate is still higher than 5%. However, considering the extended festivities to come we cannot rule out or be complacent about possible exponential rise again in the other states too. Therefore, the overwhelming needs remain to be strictly following COVID appropriate behaviour, avoiding big gatherings/parties and staying away from unnecessary travel or pleasure trips. The next 3-4 months are going to be crucial.

UK Vs India: The COVID-19 Vaccine Vexation!

In the recent cricket Test Series between England and India the 2-1 result in favour of the visitors still hangs in balance entirely due to the fact that a few non-playing members of Team India were found COVID-19 positive which implies that the fifth and the last Test had to be cancelled only because of India’s fault even though not a single playing member of the team got the infection. Now, the change in travel regulations for Indians visiting United Kingdom could be a fallout of the cricket hanger, meaning that the Indians are feared as more prone to getting or spreading the COVID-19 virus with its variants; that India is the originator of the more infectious Delta variant which is again mutating into the Delta Plus; and perhaps also possibly that the handling of the Second Wave of the pandemic in India had been disastrous. Therefore, basically the Englishmen could be feeling insecure with vulnerable Indians loitering around in their territories after sort of achieving the feat of living with the virus and opening up everything including the cricket stadiums to the crowds without the necessity of even masks. They are conveniently forgetting the basic truth that vaccine breakthroughs are possible also for fully vaccinated people everywhere in the world, not just India.

 

What the UK government has done is very wrong, unexpected and absurd: that the Indian travelers, irrespective of vaccinated or not, will have to undergo at least two RT-PCR tests and have to be on 10-day quarantine after arriving there. Apart from the unnecessary inconvenience and exorbitant costs involved, particularly for the Indian students going there to study, this basically implies that the vaccines in India are fakes, and a fully vaccinated person in India becomes ‘unvaccinated’ once s/he arrives in UK. Why? The Indian vaccine Covishield is in fact a licensed product of UK, being the officially valid version of their homemade AstraZeneca vaccine developed by the Oxford University, and in more significantly India had exported millions of doses of Covishield to their country earlier. The fully India-made Covaxin has been proved to be as effective as any other vaccine of the world in preventing at least the serious form of the disease and hospitalization.

 

The Government of India and the Ministry of External Affairs have already lodged a strong protest with the United Kingdom government calling the measures discriminatory and also warned of adopting reciprocal action. If unresolved, this is going to seriously hamper the healthy bilateral relations between the two countries. The UK foreign department has assured India of a relook into it, but so far the discriminatory regulations are not lifted. The World Health Organization (WHO) has also rebuked UK for such actions. However, it is the WHO that has not yet approved either Covishield or Covaxin for emergency use all over the globe despite the former’s link to the approved AstraZeneca and the latter being proven safe and effective. This raises a crucial question about the authenticity of the respective drug regulatory authorities of various countries: are all the regulators only country-specific and not valid for other regulators? This absurd situation must change, if only to give the proper respect to the medical scientists and experts involved tirelessly in the vaccine-making and the approving process in the shortest possible time. And the Indians figure prominently in the number of medical scientists or experts involved in the process across the world, apart from the fact the India has been the largest vaccine supplier to the world.

 

Earlier the discussion had been about ‘vaccine nationalism’; now as the situation warrants we’ll have to discuss about the syndrome of the ‘vaccine superpowers’ and the inequalities emerging out of that with one block denying or not recognizing the other block. For example, the Russian and the Chinese vaccines are yet to be accepted across the globe without WHO approval. Former US President Donald Trump still seems to have the trump card by giving everything, during his last year in office, into the development of the most modern Messenger RNA (mrna) vaccines, namely Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which are available for use across the globe. However, developing countries like India and other poor countries cannot afford these vaccines due to very high prices and the storage hassles. Ultimately, the WHO has to take up such vexing issues as it had earlier made international sharing of the ready vaccines compulsory for all countries.

 

The absolutely wrong and the discriminatory measures of the United Kingdom, almost smacking of racism, must be lifted as soon as possible and the WHO must expedite the approval process of the Indian vaccines and other proven vaccines of the world. The priority should be completely on freeing Planet Earth from the curse of the pandemic in the fast track, and definitely not on rivalries, racism, nationalism and bilateral or international fights or skirmishes.

As per latest reports UK has included Covishield in their list of approved vaccines which would take effect only from 4th October 2021. But to confound matters further the authorities have refused to accept India's CoWin vaccine certificates, and this means the 10-day quarantine plus tests continues still for Indian travelers. 

OTT Platform Watch: Movie ‘Bell Bottom’ Disappoints, Series ‘Mumbai Diaries 26/11’ Well Made, And More!

 

I have been a movie buff since my childhood days, also so passionate about it that I wanted to be a filmmaker and did indeed try in that direction to some extent, still nurturing that ambition. And I always enjoyed the movies on the big screens including those silver screens of the traditional single-screen cinema halls of yore that fitted ideally the 35mm film format and whenever the occasional 70mm films came the frames used to spill over to the sides. I find this very tragic, of course no match to the horrors and sufferings of people due to the pandemic, that for over 18 months now I’ve been deprived of the normal cinema theatre visits and really missing the action. The OTT (Over the Top) streaming platforms thus have become the only alternative, for people like me who puts the entire focus on COVID-19 appropriate behaviour and safety. Therefore, I’ve been watching a lot on such a platform since the first lockdown—always selecting the best of movies available and the most-talked about Series—but limited to only one platform as I don’t want to harm my ears with constant use of headphones. Quite a few of movies are of the golden era and most of the modern ones need no special mention. However, recently I had seen three modern movies and web series of which I’d like to talk about a bit. Latest Bollywood movie Bell Bottom (2021) is one of them which attracted me because of the name that was a craze in our college days, and that the movie was in the lines of effective Indian spy thrillers I enjoyed greatly in the last few years in the modern theatres.

 

The hero of the movie Akshay Kumar is one more attraction as he was cast in several successful thrillers made by filmmaker Neeraj Pandey like Special 26 (2013), Baby (2015), Rustom (2016) and Naam Shabana (2017). Of course, this movie Bell Bottom is not one of his, but as I said the format seemed to be exciting. Watching the movie I was disappointed in the overall sense: it had an explosive plot that got terribly affected by an inept script. The basic theme of the film, a hijack drama of an Indian Airlines plane (based on a true event during the last term of the then Prime Minister of India, late Indira Gandhi.), got impaired unnecessarily by the prolonged flashbacks, and finally when the plot seemed to be picking up there was not enough time to bring it to a worthy climax. Although the film has similarities with another successful hijack thriller, Zameen (2003) directed by Rohit Shetty, its ultimate climax turned out to be very simplistic and sort of rushed through.

 

The film no doubt has its high octane moments with the RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) agent, played by Akshay Kumar whose code name is Bell Bottom, going through the investigations and raids on the terrorists’ dens. His RAW boss, well played by Adil Hussain, is but a pale shadow of the intelligence boss in Baby played by Danny Denzongpa who almost lived through the supercharged drama and action. The characters of the hijackers were also not given sufficient attention with all of them failing to scare the viewers like they did in movies like Baby and Neerja (2016), the latter being very ably directed by Ram Madhvani. The Pakistan intelligence counterpart was also shown half-heartedly. The last twist involving Akshay’s wife, played by Vaani Kapoor, sharing a secret with the RAW boss was only superficial. Some critics are also pointing toward factual errors, but those can be overlooked as ultimately this is a work of fiction. Therefore, the movie Bell Bottomdirected by Ranjit Tiwari, though handled well to some extent, fails to be as engrossing and gripping like those movies of the same genre mentioned here.

 

A surprise was in store when the new OTT web series Mumbai Diaries 26/11, made by known filmmaker Nikhil Advani, became available on air. Having lived through every agonizing moment of that horrific Mumbai Terror Attack on 26^th November 2008 through my work in the media, anything about that attack always caught my attention. However, all of the films made on the attack so far were lame attempts, failing to do justice to the terror unleashed. So I started watching the 9-episode Mumbai Diaries 26/11immediately, and to my great surprise found it very engrossing and doing full justice to the genuine scare still felt by both victims and general people, for the first time. Although it is made from the medical point of view, narrating the story of a Mumbai hospital that finally came under the terror attack, almost all of the horrific moments of the actual three-day reign of fear are being ably captured and presented. Aided by a powerful script the characters, including most prominently the doctors and staff of the hospital, are portrayed with excellent ease and brilliant performances by all actors.

 

The web series also pointed out the much-discussed ‘media involvement’ that was giving constant leads to the Pakistan control room of terror who thus guided the terrorists in action in Mumbai, and the tragedy unleashed by an overzealous news reporter in this work of fiction was shown with honesty and efficiency. If the chronology of the actual series of events was not followed to details, this was never felt while watching, and again, finally it being a work of fiction such complaining is not necessary. More positively, the Series does not indulge in any gory violence or the glorification thereof and explicit sexuality that have been the hallmark of almost all OTT Web Series streamed in India. In all, the Mumbai Diaries 26/11 is thoroughly watchable for all types of viewers of any age who want to feel the reality of the dastardly terror attack again.

 

Finally, a Hollywood movie Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021), directed by Taylor Sheridan. With Angelina Jolie in the lead and an interesting storyline of smoke-jumpers for forest fires I watched the movie as soon as it was streamed on my subscribed OTT platform. To my surprise again, I enjoyed it thoroughly, finding not a single slack moment in this slick thriller. What I found refreshing is that the film followed the thriller-genre of the nineties religiously and to exactitude with an immaculately tight script. Of late, most of the Hollywood movies have been devoted to the super visual effects treatment—either showing all-destroying monsters or catastrophe or unimaginable sci-fi stories mostly covering the outer world and the universe. It kind of vindicated my wish, nourished for long years, that Hollywood should come back to basic human dramas which are always acceptable the world over. All the people with a mind-set of this ordinary mortal should, therefore, not miss watching Those Who Wish Me Dead at any cost. Those who can visit the theatres in full safety are the luckiest. (All photos: wikipedia.org)

Dr. Aswini Kumar Sarma: A Year After A Devastating Personal Tragedy!

That was sometime in the month of May 2018. I was a bit late to wake up and my brother-in-law had already left. He had to attend a high-level meeting in Guwahati and so had to leave very early in the morning. I got up immediately and looked out of the window that opened upon the front side of their quarters, and was just in time to see my brother-in-law getting into the car and the car moving slowly away. As it turned out that was the last time I saw him. Of course, he called me up several times during that day inquiring about the status of my wait-listed train ticket for which he trying with the railway officials, and finally, in the afternoon he only informed me that the reservation was confirmed. As I was seen off by my sister in the Bongaigaon railway station for my journey back to Kolkata I felt unusually sad, didn’t know the reason why.

 

I visited my hometown Guwahati in May 2018 as my mother, Urmila Chakravarty who continues to write books even in her early eighties, was serious and hospitalized recently. The day I arrived she was already back in my sister’s house with a heart monitor attached to her which hang from her arm like a handbag. After my arrival at my sister’s house in the car sent by her to the station she informed me that they had decided to take mother to their Bongaigaon quarters, because there she would get constant attention from my brother-in-law and the township hospital nearby where my brother-in-law was the Chief Medical Officer. So we left for Bongaigaon the next morning and I spent three days with them before going back to my workplace as mentioned above.

 

By brother-in-law Dr. Aswini Kumar Sarma (Sunny, as I used call him lovingly) was married to the eldest of my two younger sisters in 1989 when Sunny was a doctor with the Assam state health services during which time he also completed his MD in medicine from Dibrugarh Medical College and Hospital. Two years later he got an opening in the medical wings of the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IOCL) and joined as a doctor. He was very happy in his new job and often talked about the facilities there in all respects of life. When he was serving in the Begusarai (near Barauni in Bihar) Refinery township hospital we visited them twice and in the second visit we did some medical tests and investigations both for me and for my wife Ragini under Sunny’s active supervision. My sister Mitali Chakravarty Sarma had been serving as a college lecturer after her post-graduation and gave it up post marriage as the post was still not sanctioned. They have two lovely sons, Sagarneel or Papu as is called at home (now working in the US), and Akashneel (graduated from St. Stephens in Delhi and now doing PG in JNU as well as appearing for civil service examination). Akashneel or Piu as he is called at home has been a constant help to his mother in the traumatic years that followed from 2018 onward, when I felt unreasonably sad after leaving their home.

 

Later in 2018 I was shocked beyond measure when Mitali informed me that Sunny was severely ill after his blood sugar shot up uncontrollably without any clinical reason as he has always been a healthy and cheerful person, and a very intelligent student, since his childhood days. He had to be shifted to a hospital in Guwahati where it was found that his liver got damaged almost irreparably. In a very critical condition he was later airlifted to a Delhi hospital where my younger brother Jyotirmay Chakravarty (an IPS officer who took voluntary retirement in 2020) helped them in every possible way. His life was saved and after a few more days they came back to Guwahati and then to his workplace in Bongaigaon Refinery township. What followed was one of the scariest and the most unusual experiences I ever had in my life.

 

During the time when he was severely ill, I was wondering about what could have actually contributed to it. Having a very close and endearing relationship with him since 1989 I came to a few causes that could or could not be true or entirely false. When in Barauni Refinery township hospital and during the official visits he paid to Mumbai at which time I was working there, I found him to be very ambitious wanting to serve in important cities of India outside of Assam. However, after his transfer to Guwahati where he had bought a flat he was transferred around only in the small towns of Assam, and he had to stay away from his family staying back in Guwahati most of the time. This, I found to be crucial, because he was always very fond of staying with family/kin and enjoying social mixing immensely. His requests for a transfer back to Guwahati were ignored all the time and instead the company put him up in Bongaigaon, his final posting eventually. My worst doubts were confirmed a bit later as I mentioned above.

 

Dr. Aswini Kumar Sarma, a very able, efficient and patient-friendly -physician-doctor, was no longer allowed to work peacefully in his workplace in Bongaigaon that he really worshipped. Due to the possible envy and rivalry of a few medical colleagues a kind of harassment in workplace haunted him constantly making him scared to go to office. After trying several times to work normally he failed and started staying at home indefinitely. Almost the entire year of 2019 and the pandemic-infested 2020 had been spent in extreme pain and trauma for him and his family. On numerous phone conversations with him I always tried my best to encourage him to take his rivals head-on and do his duties normally. Although on many occasions he sounded positive and spirited nothing concrete happened as my sister used to inform me occasionally. During that traumatic time he visited Delhi to appeal to the higher-ups of the IOCL for a transfer to Guwahati under genuine medical grounds, but there he was insulted and humiliated in front of his wife. Even then, he never preferred  going against his company and prevented his wife from any complaining outside, so sincere and dedicated he had been in his career.

 

His absence from office was considered unaccounted, and Sunny was now very much concerned about his future benefits after retirement and did not want to take voluntary retirement because of the same uncertainty. His due promotions were also denied. On several occasions he visited his office along with his wife, and literally begged them for being allowed to work and to regularize his unauthorized leave. But every time the in-charge who superseded him in an improper way insulted him calling him unfit and to go and sleep at home. There were many other allegations made against him and his family. The ghosts of uncertainty continued to haunt him till the 17^th of September 2020 when a threatening email was sent to him to explain his unauthorized absence from work.

 

And then came the 18^thof September, 2020, a black day for our larger family and friends. In the afternoon that day when I was sitting listlessly looking out of the balcony in Mumbai, my brother called me and to my horror of horrors informed me that Dr. Aswini had passed away suddenly. I called up Akashneel immediately and came to know of the tragic demise. All was over in just five minutes: he took his lunch normally and in quite a good spirit and went for his usual afternoon nap. Moments after Mitali joined him he suddenly shook violently, and by the time he could be taken to the hospital he was declared dead. He could not even utter a single word about what happened to him, being a doctor himself. My sister said later that the hospital staff did not cooperate as was expected in an emergency. The final diagnosis was a massive cardiac arrest. A doctor died, in the prime in terms of his future services to his loving patients all over.

 

A year passed, and during that time there was not a single day when Sunny’s smiling face did not come to my mind, and more tragically, because of the raging pandemic and I being a senior citizen, we could not even visit the bereaved family and relatives till now. I only solaced myself through writings and my active help in the struggle for justice launched by Mitali and Akashneel who were also helped by one of my paternal first cousins, Debashish Thakur who is a lawyer, my youngest brother-in-law Sasankagupta Kashyap and Aswini’s youngest brother Utpal Kumar Sarma. I also activated a few friends in the IOCL. Some consolation came recently with the IOCL finally acknowledging some wrongdoing in the refinery, promising to look into it, and the company regularized Dr. Aswini’s all unauthorized leave and also announced a one-time compassionate financial grant. But all came too late, as we lost a good doctor unnecessarily and under most tragic circumstances.

 

On the first death anniversary of Dr. Aswini Kumar Sarma we can only share the pain with all family and friends, particularly Sunny’s mother who lost her eldest son and more shatteringly lost her first daughter to COVID-19 recently, and my mother who lost his first son-in-law. Sunny always took full care of all of us starting from my grandparents to ourselves, and my mother had been under his medical supervision till the end. Today we pray for him and for all other doctors who died prematurely due to various reasons including the fight against the pandemic, while serving for the better of us all the time.

The Way To Dusty Death—A Thoughtful Story!

It was many years ago, we were not exactly little ones then, we were about high school leaving age: myself and my younger brother. Thanks to our father’s ways we used to be sent to our native village absolutely alone since our primary school age; he used to request the government transport service bus conductor to look after us and to put us in a bus going to our village after arriving at the major preceding bus stations. All the time nothing adverse had happened, and therefore, we were quite used to travel alone or the both of us brothers. It is not at all necessary to identify the state, towns or localities; suffice it’d be that it was somewhere in India a long time back.

 

We boarded the bus at around eight o’clock in the morning after taking a light breakfast at home, from the then home city we were living in, heading for our native village to spend our summer holidays. Our journey was to take at least 8/9 hours which was to deposit us first in the preceding major station from where we were to take the evening bus to our village, as usual. After about three hours’ journey we arrived at a station which was quite an important stop as almost all the passengers and the driver-conductors used to take their lunch there. Since we left home early we were ravenously hungry by then, and after disembarking immediately went to the large canteen. We took the meals to our hearts’ content, enjoying it thoroughly. We never bothered about the time as we presumed the bus would stop for more than thirty minutes.

 

Finishing our delicious lunch we saw the bus still waiting in front of the book stall; didn’t know why it evaded our attention that almost all of our fellow passengers and the drive-conductor duo were not to be seen around by then. Being book worms, in another way of our father, we started looking at the books: one book ‘The Way to Dusty Death’ drew my attention, and I asked for it and started turning the pages lazily while my brother got engaged in some other books. Now and then we checked behind, finding the bus still standing there. However, after almost an hour we got suspicious; I bought by book, my brother returned his and we went for the bus.

 

To our horror, we found the bus was entirely empty! What happened? We inquired with the transport people loitering around. They informed us that our bus had left a long time back and another bus was put there for a journey to other destinations much later. We found ourselves to be stranded with no luggage and very little money in hand. We were not used to such circumstances and so did not know what to do apart from being very angry that the bus conductor never watched or waited for us. The only solacing thought that came to us was that in a small town, just about 20 km away, lived our very dear paternal aunty, and we decided to seek help there. We went out of the bus station and look a public bus that used to be run by private transporters.

 

The day was very hot, sunny and humid. We were sweating profusely in the packed bus, and to add to our woes as soon as the bus hit the pebble-and-sand road there started a huge trail of dust all along that almost enveloped the bus thanks further to incoming and overtaking vehicles leaving more smokes of dust. I looked sadly at the book at my lap—the way to a dusty death indeed? One more frightening thought struck both of us: if our aunt and family were not at home, gone somewhere urgently? Our sweat became sticky and dirty now.

 

It was almost evening when we finally reached the town. Luckily all were at home, and they were mighty surprised finding us so suddenly there. We narrated our tragedy, and our uncle immediately asked if we had informed the manager of that station. He got visibly irritated at our dismal performance, and left instantly for the local government bus station, as there were no phones around in most of the homes then. In the meantime our aunt took absolute care of us. We got refreshed with baths and deliciously hot homemade snacks.

 

After about an hour our uncle returned. He said he had talked to the manager of the preceding station of our destination and requested him to take proper action although it was quite late by then. He also booked our tickets for a morning ride next day as more time should not be wasted.

 

By afternoon next day we arrived at that major station, and even then it didn’t strike us to find the manager and ask for our baggage. Instead, we looked around the whole campus trying to find if the lifter had deposited the bag or the suitcase in the drains around the station. In the midst of our search, getting desperate by the minute, an uncle who lived in the village found us. He was also surprised at our ways. Knowing our full story he immediately took us to the transport manager’s chamber, and told him about the incident. First, he looked very disapprovingly at us and then pointed to a corner.

 

We almost leapt with joy! Our suitcase was lying there, still locked. The manager then asked us about the items put inside which we informed him very honestly about. He checked making us unlock it and finding it satisfactory handed over the suitcase to us. About the handbag he had not a clue. We were happy to get at least the major item back.

 

Our uncle, as if sent by God, took us to our native village and to our home, narrating himself the story behind. All there were also happy that the suitcase could be recovered. We informed our grandfather that the bag contained our undergarments, pajamas and some eatables sent by our mother and that now we had nothing to wear for the night. Our grandfather smilingly arranged two dhotis (traditional Indian village lower wear) and said that other things would be bought from the market the next morning.

 

A few days later one morning we were horrified to find the local police officer with two constables marching heavily toward our house. He informed our grandfather that our father was very worried not getting any confirmation of our arrival. We told him with profound apologies that we were afraid to write a letter as we felt guilty, and besides, the tumult of the whole thing made us forget it too. Our grandfather invited them inside for a cup of tea. 

England Vs India: Finally COVID-19 Makes A Mess Of The Final Test!

The fifth and the last Test match between hosts England and visitors India was awaited by cricket lovers with much excitement with India taking an unbeatable 2-1 lead winning the fourth Test at the Oval, because the Indian fans wanted their team to seal the series win while the England fans wanted their team to bounce back and win the Test to share the final honors. All of them were in for a huge disappointment though. As soon as the junior physio of Team India tested COVID-19 positive on Thursday, the 9^th of September 2012, a day before the fifth Test was to start at the Old Trafford, total and clueless uncertainty enveloped the match; head coach Ravi Shastri and possibly one or two members of the team management including the senior physio (not confirmed) were already in isolation testing positive before the fourth Test. The practice session for India on that day was cancelled.

 

Since a physio is obviously to get involved with the players ‘physically’ there were risks of players getting infected if the match was allowed to go on, and many cricket mandarins of India had the prospects of the IPL-2021 starting in nine days in their minds. Perhaps getting concerned for the health of the English players a few of whom are also going to play in the IPL to be followed by the ICC T20 World Cup, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) asked the Indian Board BCCI to forfeit the fifth match which meant that in that eventuality the Series would be considered as drawn at 2-2. It was also instinctive on their part as nobody would want their team give up, as it were, the Series without a fight. The two respective Boards got into a seemingly endless bout of deliberations with no communication to the players.

 

On Friday, the 10^thof September 2021—the day the match was to start—the ECB changed its earlier statement slightly, now saying that India was unable to field a team due to the physio’s infection and that the match was cancelled. The Indian Board also said that fearing a rise in infections among the playing members the match had to be cancelled. Meanwhile all the Indian players were tested and found COVID negative. Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma reportedly objected to the match being called off; although some other report said that they secretly wrote to the BCCI expressing their concern of more infections, because they felt the present status of ‘COVID negative’ might easily change in the course of two or three days. Anyway, the Boards took a long time in deciding, and announced that the fifth Test was cancelled just two hours before the scheduled start. Even the players of both the teams did not know it beforehand.

 

Now, the verdict of the Series in India’s favor has been the biggest question. If rains had washed out the match India would’ve won the series undoubtedly, but even though the pandemic is also a natural calamity the question is about taking precautions and following the strict protocols, and some in the English camp felt that the Indians were not careful enough. However, we feel that it is indeed unfortunate that the Series was held during a time when England decided to live with the virus after vaccinating most of their citizens, and the matches were fully open to the spectators who were not even asked to wear masks, and in such a situation the players or the non-playing members could get easily infected as they move through the crowds on various occasions, at least while moving through the pavilion stand. There was a soft bubble and necessary tests were done from time to time; and therefore it is not right to blame the Indian camp for their supposed lack of taking adequate precautions.

 

It was also reported that the ICC would intervene and give the final call on the official result of the Test Series. Perhaps to avoid an imbroglio or any injustice to any team the two Boards finally decided to reschedule the Test sometime next year as there was hardly any time left now with the IPL-2021 starting in nine days followed the all-important ICC T20 World Cup-2021 in UAE. But the problem is far from being resolved, because if the lone fifth Test is going to be held as a standalone or one-off match then how was it to be considered as part of the England Vs India Test Series of 2021, and if it was not considered a part then it must be declared now that India have won the Series at the 2-1 lead achieved after winning the fourth match.

 

Of course, if the IPL-2021 can be split into two halves—one half already played in Indian venues and the other half in UAE venues—at different time periods with the same league points and standings, then why not apply the same rule here too: hold the cancelled or rather now postponed fifth Test any time in 2022 in England and treat it as part of the 2021 Test Series, the result of which would finally decide the Series verdict. As per the latest international cricket schedule India is supposed to visit England again in 2022. There is an additional aspect of the issue: ECB stands to lose around 40 million pounds on broadcasting rights and hospitality sponsorships from the cancellation of the fifth Test, and therefore, it would be in the Board’s interest to reschedule the match and treat it as a part of the present Series.

 

The money-game or the money-challenge is everywhere in the game of cricket. Ideally, the series should naturally have been decided in India’s favour and the players should have been flown home immediately to give them the much-needed rest and to prepare them well for the T20 World Cup. But no, the IPL has to be completed for the same monetary stakes for the Indian Board. Another ideal alternative would have been to reschedule the fifth Test in a week’s time, depending on the situation, postponing the IPL-2021 to be held after the World Cup. But no again, for the same reasons; the stakes involve not only the Indian Board, but a large chunk of international cricketers and cricket boards. So then, let’s wait and watch, and enjoy whatever is offered.

 

Finally, the pandemic is far from over yet, and it has to be taken seriously. Cricket matches must go on being held under strict bubble and behind closed doors. Besides, it is inhuman to keep the cricketers in a bubble-to-bubble scenario and the mandatory isolation plus the endless tests for over a year now. Whatever be the stakes involved in cricket the matches should be held considering all humanitarian angles.

ICC Cricket T20 World Cup-2021: R Ashwin In, Dhawan And Chahal Out Of The Indian Squad!

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) senior selection committee has announced the 15-member Indian team for the ICC T20 World Cup-2021starting from the 17^th of October 2021 in Oman and United Arab Emirates. The tournament final is scheduled on 14^th November 2021. Indian captain for all formats, Virat Kohli is to lead the team with the rather queer introduction of MS Dhoni as the Mentor of the team—how he is going to perform that duty in the presence of all the coaches is something left to imagination—perhaps this is being done thanks to the tremendous record of Dhoni as the former Indian skipper, his terrific rapport with Virat Kohli and that he will be there anyway due to the staging of the remaining part of the IPL-2021 which was also shifted to the UAE.      

 

This tournament is actually the delayed version of the ICC T20 World Cup-2020 which was originally scheduled in Australia, but had to be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and later was scheduled in India during the same period, but because of the danger of a Third Wave of the pandemic in India the International Cricket Council (ICC) finally shifted it to the UAE with some matches to be played in Oman. The IPL-2021 too, played in only three venues in India, had to be halted midway due to the disastrous COVID-19 Second Wave and later was scheduled in UAE from 19^th of September 2021. Before we go on to the structure of the matches in the ICC T20 World Cup-2021 let us take a look at the Indian squad selected for the tournament.

 

India Squad for ICC T20 World Cup-2021: Virat Kohli (Captain), Rohit Sharma (Vice-captain), KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (Wicket-keeper), Ishan Kishan (Wicket-keeper), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Rahul Chahar, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami.

Standby Players: Shreyas Iyer, Deepak Chahar and Shardul Thakur.

 

The team looks balanced and mostly on the expected lines with KL Rahul likely to open with Vice-captain Rohit Sharma; of course, the reserve wicket-keeper Ishan Kishan is also an opener in the IPL. Here comes the surprising omission of Shikhar Dhawan who had been Rohit’s regular opening partner and whose injury greatly hampered the progress of India in the ICC World Cup-2019. Maybe he did not get the final call due to his a bit not-too-good recent record and also due to the fact that KL Rahul was doing well as an opener in the IPL. However, it must be said that Rahul has been basically a Test opener who had been denied a place till the series against England where he justified his selection; but even if he gets going in the shortest format he fails often to get the momentum going like Dhawan does, and that often hampers the winning chances of the team. Therefore, the decision to drop Dhawan is fraught with danger. If Ishan Kishan plays then there will be two wicket-keepers in the team as Rishabh Pant cannot possibly be dropped.

Likewise, the inclusion of Ravichandran Ashwin is a surprise considering the fact that he has been India’s best Test spinner in recent times and yet he was not played in the Test Series against England. Perhaps the slow and often turning pitches of UAE are being factored in for his selection along with promising spinners Rahul Chahar, Axar Patel and Varun Chakravarthy. The final eleven would depend on the IPL, because all these players will be there playing for their respective teams. Omission of Yazuvendra Chahal is not much of a surprise due to his erratic displays in various matches. India’s regular and seasoned three fast bowlers are figuring obviously in the squad with Hardik Pandya being thrown in to help them as required.

Photo: sportstiger.com

There will be two rounds in the tournament: the first, starting from 17th October 2021, is the qualifying round of 8 teams that have been formed into two groups with two top teams of each group entering the second round of Super-12 that starts from 23rd October. It is to be noted that India being the earlier hosts qualified for Super-12 straightaway, and 7 out of 9 other teams in ICC rankings also qualified directly for the second round. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh could not qualify being at the bottom of the ICC rankings, and both teams figure in the two qualifying groups. Other teams are Ireland, Netherlands, Scotland, Namibia, Oman and Papua New Guinea—the last team playing in the World Cup for the first time. Most of the qualifying matches will be played in Oman.

In the Super-12 stage too there will be two groups of six teams each with both of India and Pakistan placed in Group-2. The qualifying teams are being marked as A1, A2 and B1, B2. All group matches will be played on round-robin basis within each group respectively and top two teams from each group will enter the semi-final stage from which point it will be the knockout stage till the Final on 14th November 2021. With the IPL-2021 matches to be played there till the 15th of October 2021 it would be interesting to see if this bonanza tournament played in the same format, would indeed help the cricketers prepare themselves better for the big international competition or fatigue them including some of the over-played Indian players. It would also be curious to know if all international sides would allow their top players to play on in the IPL or take them for special training sessions. Whatever be the scenario, cricket lovers are in for some great cricket with UAE, fortunately, becoming a safe hotspot for cricket.

England Vs India: And India Batting Clicks, Take An Unbeatable 2-1 Lead In The Test Series!

In an innings that mattered most the Indian batting clicked in the second innings of the fourth Test match at the Oval right from the top to the bottom with the sole exception of Rahane who went for a duck. Facing an intimidating deficit of 99 runs India hauled up the highest of the Series total so far of 466 runs with their openers Rohit Sharma and Kl Rahul going about it very methodically—the former notching up his first ever away century (127) and KL Rahul (46) who was the lone centurion for India in the first three matches, unfortunately, fell short of a much-deserved half-century, at least. Pujara joined Rohit and between them they put up a 153-run partnership, and Pujara, going strong at 61, again failed to take it further to a deserved century as he missed one in the third Test too, getting out for 91 runs. Kohli maintained the momentum, but again fell for 44 runs, unable to take the way for a long innings he is mostly used to, and Jadeja (17) coming ahead of Rahane could not make it big this time. There was a bit of concern with India at 312/6.

 

Shardul Thakur

Rishabh Pant, luckily, found his touch and was able to achieve his first fifty of the Series, and pacer Shardul Thakur did it again, picked up his second consecutive fifty (60) of the match, and later in the England reply took up the prized wickets of Burns and captain Joe Root who could not be the cause in this match. After that Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah—the new-found batsman—and Siraj contributed well to ensure a mammoth target of 348 runs for England to win.

 

Joe Root

England started very well with their openers Burns and Hameed remaining not out at stumps on the fourth day, and then on the last day today launched a century partnership with Burns getting out first for 50 at the score exactly 100.  But after that England wickets fell regularly with the tragic run-out of David Malan early on, and Bumrah and Jadeja striking deadly blows later—the former clean bowling Pope for 1 and the dangerous Bairstow for a duck while the latter taking the scalps of Hameed and Ali. If England entertained any idea to challenge the target it was gone now. When Thakur clean bowled Joe Root for 36 with England reduced to 182/7 the match was in India’s pocket. England finally was done for 210 runs. India won the the Fourth Test by 157 runs which happens to be India's second Test win at the Oval after fifty years, the first win being in 1971.  

Virat

 It must be mentioned here that Indian captain Virat Kohli handled his bowlers quite professionally, switching between them strategically—getting a breakthrough almost every time. All the bowlers except Siraj, one of the heroes of the second Test, were among the wickets. This victory gives India an unbeatable 2-1 lead in the Test Series with the fifth and the last Test starting from the 10^th of September 2021. And the victory comes following an innings defeat and India getting all-out for 78 runs; like in Australia when Rahane did wonders of winning the Series after being bowled out for 36 in the previous Test. The fifth match is likely to be fought tooth and nail as the hosts would definitely want to share the honors.

 

A few questions for India remain unanswered though. The precedence of Ravindra Jadeja over Rahane in the batting order for the second time is as inexplicable as keeping India’s best spinner Ravichandran Ashwin who is also a sound batsman with two tons eternally in the dressing room. However, as long as the team keeps winning everything is justified. Only the form of Rahane is becoming a big concern. His decimation in the batting order is also demoralizing for the star batsman. High time he proves to be a match winner again, more aptly in the fifth Test to script another Indian overseas series victory.