Something to cheer about at last!

The morning today brought two pieces of brilliant news, something that happens rarely. Eighteen-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju has become the youngest world champion in chess, a game that was invented in India. The second piece of great news is a sensitive matter, let me quote The Telegraph, Kolkata:

“The Supreme Court on Thursday [12 Dec 2024] restricted courts in the country from passing any orders on disputes relating to places of worship till its next hearing of a challenge to a 1991 law that prevents one religion’s sites from conversion to another’s. … The bench also barred the registration of fresh lawsuits relating to such disputes, at a time when Hindutva groups have been filing cases demanding the handover of the sites of various mosques and dargahs they claim were built after demolishing temples.”

I will come back to Gukesh in a moment, but first, what is the “Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act 1991” and why is it at the centre of our attention today?  

The government of Mr Narasimha Rao (blessed be his soul!) through this act of 18 September 1991 froze the religious characteristics of every place of worship in India as it had been on 15 August 1947. In simple English, if a place of worship was a mosque at the time of our independence, it would continue to be a mosque for all times. It couldn’t be changed, etched in stone! Ditto for churches, synagogues, temples, and so on.

The only exception to the law was the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya because a legal battle about its ownership had begun even before independence. Let us park the sad story of the Babri Masjid and move on.

Thanks to the 1991 law, there was no legal battle to change the status of any mosque, although the Hindutwa brigade claimed  several mosques in North India had been built on the ruins of temples destroyed by Muslim invaders. The law stood as an impenetrable barrier against starting more demands of conversion of mosques into temples. And thus avoided new communal flashpoints. 

This was the situation until 13 October 2022. On that day, our Harvard educated brilliant former Chief Justice of India made an oral observation in an open court that opened a Pandora’s box. He said although that there were laws to maintain the status quo in places of religious worship, there was no harm in checking their history. How charming!

There was no written order, but the oral observation by the highest court was good enough for the saffron brigade to demand “surveys” of many important mosques, from Gyanvapi in Varanasi to Ajmer Sharif in Rajasthan, which had nothing to do with Muslim rulers, but is a tomb of the Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Hasan Chishti (and one of the holiest places for pilgrimage for Muslims the world over).

Recently in Shambal, Uttar Pradesh, one fine morning, a local sundry Hindu leader dreamt there was a temple buried under the 16th-century Jama Masjid, a Mughal-era mosque in the town. Within hours of the “revelation” a local court ordered a survey of the mosque. It led to an agitation by Muslims killing of at least four of them, many arrests, and a communal strife that brought the town to a halt. However, being the law-abiding citizen that I am, I believe the former CJI DY Chandrachud cannot be connected to the loss of four innocent young live in Shambal.

By its proclamation yesterday, the Supereme Court of India Bench comprising of the CJI Sanjiv Khanna, Justice Sanjay Kumar, and Justice K.V. Viswanathan has temporarily stopped the attempt by our ruling party to create endless tension in the country which will offer them electoral dividend maybe, for decades. I do hope the honourable justices will make the stay permanent.

Moving back to chess, Gukesh has achieved something that no great masters could achieve. Even Bobby Fischer, considered the greatest chess player verifiable history, became the world champion at the age of 29. That might help us to put Gukesh’s achievement in some perspective.

Some people might say that Gukesh’s victory in the final and deciding game was scratchy as his opponent’s blunder presented the game to Gukesh on a platter. But isn’t luck a necessary ingredient to every victory in sport? Who cares if the tennis champion got a favourable net cord at a crucial point?

Congratulations Gukesh! After Neeraj Chopra, you will surely inspire Indian sportspersons to become world champions. Actually, you have even inspired this 70+ year old writer to take his work more seriously, to strive for the best. Thank you Gukesh Dommaraju. <>

Friday, 13 December 2024

 

A photograph of Barkat

 Shamsur Rahman

 

বরকতের ফটোগ্রাফ / শামসুর রাহমান >>>

[Twenty-five-year-old Abul Barkat was one of the language  martyrs of 1952 in Dhaka when he was a student of Dhaka University. He had been born in Murshidabad in undivided Bengal in 1927. It has been a pleasure to translate this moving poem by one of the finest poets in Bangla. I hope you will like it.

The original in Bangla follows.]

 

A forgotten tract of ancient grassland,

A palace of bushes and weeds, a glittering sky,

A veranda before an unseen room,

A mother who never steps out looks on

She hadn’t got any signal sent out by history.

The early-morning breeze hasn’t ruffled her hair.

 

As she looked ahead,

Did she think the dawn was like a sibling?

I wouldn’t know, I would never know.

So many years have flowed upon her

Like waves. The most faraway star in the sky,

A magpie, a river, the new moon,

Clusters of fireflies, and a sunbaked highway

Marked her as a bright fragment of history,

But she didn’t know; she never realised.

 

Had she ever written letters to someone

Late in the night in a script of affection?

As she dipped her toes

Into the dark waters of the lake,

Did her afternoons fall towards the skyline

As the long wait raised her heartbeats?

Had she read political pamphlets thoroughly?

Had her name been jotted in fat notebooks

In police stations? Even if I exhausted myself

By asking the tree bending over my window

again and again, I would never know.

 

I didn’t expect an old photograph of Barkat

To land up in my hand in the late evening.

From the cosy shelter of his mother, it’s now

Found the warmth of my palms. It’s not easy

To look away. If I said there was

No spell of wonder, no grand revelation,

There was nothing to be thrilled about,

It was only a chapter of history

That soared out of my vision and merged into

The blue firmament, would I be

Spreading falsehood?

Flowers fall on the meadow,

Flowers fall on the meadow,

Flowers fall on the meadow.

A faraway star wants to rush in

From the sky and kiss

The earth covered by grass and flowers.

 

You can stitch together a delectable story

With the photograph of Barkat at its centre

Adding a little seasoning of middleclass sentiments,

The vows of the 21^st February,

The vows of the flaming palashes in spring.

But I’ll do nothing of the sort.

No one has given me the right

To bury the pristine virtue of a sunrise

Beneath dark clouds,

Beneath a mist of garrulous words.

The fleeting moments of a tenebrous evening

Tell me, ‘Keep looking at the photograph

In silence. Let time flow

Like the meditation of a saint,

Like the ripening of a fruit.’

Barkat’s old photograph

Beneath a sheet of glass with etched motifs

Is faded, dirty from the dust strewn

By the hooves of a galloping time.

I swear in the name of my language,

I do not know how a million sparks

Spiralled out of the photograph

And spread everywhere.

I cannot say why in this late evening

I am drowned in an ocean of light.

 

Translated in Ooty

07 December 2024

 

***

 

বরকতের ফটোগ্রাফ

শামসুর রাহমান

 

কবেকার ঘাসঢাকা এক টুকরো জমি, ঝোপঝাড়ের
খাসমহল, ঝকমকে আকাশ
অদৃশ্য ঘরের বারান্দা, অন্তরালবর্তিনী
মায়ের তাকিয়ে-থাকা
ইতিহাসের কোনো ইশারা দেখেনি। সকালবেলার হাওয়া
অবিন্যস্ত করেনি তার চুল। তার দৃষ্টি ছিল
সামনের দিকে, ভোরকে সে সোদরপ্রতিম ভেবেছিল?
বলতে পারব না, আমি বলতে পারব না।
তার উপর দিয়ে ঢেউয়ের মতো গড়িয়ে গেছে
বছরের পর বছর। একটি দোয়েল,
আকাশের সবচেয়ে দূরবর্তী নক্ষত্র, নদী, অমাবস্যা,
জোনাকিপুঞ্জ আর রৌদ্রদগ্ধ রাজপথ
তাকে চিহ্নিত করেছিল ইতিহাসের উজ্জ্বল অংশ হিসেবে,
সে জানতে পারেনি, বুঝতে পারেনি কোনোদিন।

 

সে কি কখনও রাত জেগে কাউকে লিখেছিল চিঠি
অনুরাগের অক্ষর সাজিয়ে? দিঘির জলে পা ডুবিয়ে
তার বিকেল কি সন্ধ্যায় ঢলে পড়েছে
হৃৎপিন্ডের স্পন্দন বাড়ানো প্রতীক্ষায়? সে কি রাজনৈতিক
ইস্তাহার পড়েছে খুঁটিয়ে খুঁটিয়ে? তার নাম কি
লেখা ছিল পুলিশের স্থুলোদর খাতায়?
জানালার দিকে ঝুঁকে-থাকা
গাছটিকে প্রশ্ন ক’রে ক’রে ক্লান্ত হ’লেও জানতে পারব না।

 

ভর সন্ধেবেলা বরকতের পুরোনো এক ফটোগ্রাফ
আমার হাতে এসে যাবে, ভাবিনি। তার মায়ের
যত্নের আশ্রয় ছেড়ে সেটি এখন
আমার হাতের উষ্ণতায়। সহজে চোখ ফেরানো
যায় না, যদি বলি, বিস্ময়ের ঘোর নয়,
কোনো চমৎকারিত্ব নয়,
কোনোরকম রোমঞ্চও নয়, শুধু ইতিহাসের একটি অধ্যায়
আমার দৃষ্টি থেকে ছুটে নীলিমায় মিশে গেল,
তবে কি মিথ্যাকে প্রশ্রয় দেবো আমি?
ঘাস-ঢাকা মাটিতে ফুল ঝরে,
ঘাস-ঢাকা মাটিতে ফুল ঝরে,
ঘাস-ঢাকা মাটিতে ফুল ঝরে।
সুদূরতম এক নক্ষত্র আকাশ থেকে ছুটে এসে
চুমো খেতে চায় ঘাস-ঢাকা, ফুল-মাখা মাটিকে।

 

চমৎকার একটি গল্প বানানো যায় ফটোগ্রাফের
বরকতকে কেন্দ্রবিন্দু ক’রে
মিডলক্লাশ সেন্টিমেন্টের ভিয়েন দিয়ে।
একুশে ফেব্রুয়ারির শপথ, শপথ এই
ফাল্গুনের গুচ্ছ গুচ্ছ পলাশের,

আমি সে রকম কিছুই করব না।
সূর্যোদয়ের মতো পবিত্রতাকে মেঘাচ্ছন্ন করার,
অক্ষরের প্রগলভতায় কুয়াশাচ্ছন্ন করার অধিকার
কেউ আমাকে দেয়নি।
‘এই ফটোগ্রাফের দিকে তাকিয়ে
নীরব থাকো, সময় হোক পরিপক্ক ফল, সন্তের ধ্যান’,
বলল আমাকে সন্ধেবেলার মুহূর্তগুলো।

নকশা ঘেরা কাচবন্দী বরকতার পুরোনো ফটোগ্রাফ
সময়ের ছুটন্ত খুর থেকে ঝরে-পড়া ধুলোয় বিবর্ণ,
অথচ আমার মনে হলো, সেই ছবির
ভেতর থেকে জ্যোতিকণাগুলো
চক্রাকারে বেরুতে বেরুতে নিমেষে
ছড়িয়ে পড়ল সব খানে। শপথ বর্ণমালার,
কী ক’রে ভর সন্ধেবেলা আমার চতুর্দিকে
আলোর সমুদ্র, আমি বলতে পারব না।

* আবুল বরকত ১৯৫২ র একজন ভাষা শহীদ। জন্মেছিলেন অবিভক্ত বাংলার মুর্শিদাবাদে ১৯২৭ এ। শহীদ হন ঢাকায়, বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ে পড়াকালীন।

My friend Randeep

 

Randeep Wadehra, his youngest sister Seema, Sangita, and my significant other, Arundhati Sinha

In my previous birth, I worked for a bank. One evening when I was leaving office at about 7, there was nobody on the ground floor except a young officer who was working with a pile of registers on something called “balancing fixed deposit accounts”. I am not explaining the term “balancing … accounts” because the information is useless for the rest of humanity. You can be successful, have a happy married life, and create healthy children even if you don’t know what it means.

I didn’t know Randeep Wadehra well because he had just joined our office. As I sat down to assist him with the work, aided by mud cups of sugary tea brought in by our Gurkha watchmen, I got to know a pleasant, shy young man with solid Punjabi muscles and a beautiful smile. By the time we finished, it was an hour when even the pimps in the nearby redlight area in Free School Street had finished their day’s work and retired to bed. (What a contrast between the name of a street and the activity which makes it famous!) I took Randeep home, where we had a late supper followed by a few drinks. And we talked till the small hours.

Thus began a friendship that has remained as fresh, as warm, and as reciprocal as it was 45 years ago despite long periods of disengagement in between. During this time, Fate dealt Randeep a cruel hand. When he was a in his late twenties, when everybody around him adored him for his work and endearing personality, when he was looking at a bright future ahead, he was afflicted by a rheumatic disease. He was at home in Panchkula on sick leave, but the disease continued for far beyond the maximum period of leave which was normally granted. When he lost his job, Randeep couldn’t sit up on his bed. Our bank, sadly, treated him as an employee number, not a human being.

Randeep Wadehra has regained his mobility only very partially, but he has overcome his problems. He remained intellectually active and reengineered his career to become a column writer for the Chandigarh based newspaper Tribune. His wide reading, knowledge of the world, hard work, and incisive analytical mind made it possible. Parallelly, he has had terrible mishaps in his personal life too. But Randeep Wadehra marched on, writing fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. He also runs a video blog.

If I may digress a little, the word “batchmates” is easily understood by anyone who has been in a job where an organisation selects officials in a particular cadre through a national-level selection process. The young men and women who join a particular cadre of a company (or government) in the same year are from different parts of the country who are close to a median age, and who have comparable intellectual levels. Usually, they also participate in introductory trainings together. They speak different languages and would go on to work in different parts of the country, but the “batch”, which is an Indianism in this sense, maintains a strong fraternal bond. A few years ago when Randeep’s batchmates had retired, over thirty of them along with their spouses went from different part of the country to Panchkula to be with Randeep. Such was Randeep Wadehra’s magnetic pull!

Randeep lived with his father in Panchkula in their own house with a garden. The son would have got his writer’s genes from his father who too was a writer, although I must admit I know very little about him. Father passed away in March this year and then Randeep and his two younger sisters did a wonderful thing. Instead of fighting over their father’s properties, they decided to dispose of their Panchkula bungalow and move to Bengaluru to stay near the only child of the older among the two sisters. Randeep and his two sisters now live in a beautifully appointed flat in Bengaluru. His niece’s family lives in the same condo, in another flat.

Last Sunday, my wife and I met the siblings in their new home. What a happy threesome! They not only extended the famous Punjabi hospitality and offered a lovely lunch to us, a little of their joie de vivre rubbed on to us. When we returned, we were a little younger than what we had been when we went to their home!

Age is not determined by the calendar alone!

Dehradun / 13 Nov. 24

 

How they beat Vinesh Phogat—The (almost) complete story

 

Since 7 August, I have been sad and angry about what has happened to a young woman who I haven’t met and will never meet: Vinesh Phogat, who was disqualified before the finals of the Paris Olympics freestyle wrestling in the 50 Kg category. Because  she was overweight by 100 grams.

Her disqualification hurts even more because the day before—when her weight hadn’t been an issue—Vinesh made history by reaching Olympics wrestling finals, the first Indian woman to achieve the feat. In a day, she defeated the following wrestlers (scores in bracket):

Yui Susaki, the defending Olympic champion from Japan (3-2),

Oksana Livach of Ukraine, the European champion (7-5), and

Cuba's Yusneylis Guzman, the Pan American Games champion (5-0).

So, Vinesh defeated the champions from three continents. But we will appreciate her feat better if we look at Susaki’s accomplishments. Susaki won gold in the 2020 Olympics WITHOUT LOSING  A POINT; she has been a world champion FOUR times. Wikipedia says: “Susaki lost her first-round bout against Indian wrestler Vinesh Phogat, which was her first loss in 95 matches” in international competitions. So, what Vinesh did was like defeating Rod Lever in Tennis, who had won the last two Grand Slams he participated in, or beating the Italian boxer Rocky Marciano, the only undefeated heavyweight boxer in history who had won 47 successive bouts!

Do we now realise enormity of what Vinesh achieved? And yet, just a day later, she would be disgraced and banished to the bottom of the merit list for absolutely no fault of hers!

Let us see what the chief physician accompanying Indian athletes says on the fiasco. Indian Express (8 August) says:

QUOTE Dr Dinshaw Pardiwala, the Chief Medical Officer of the Indian contingent [at Paris], said that following her three bouts on Tuesday, Phogat had to be given some water “to avoid dehydration”. … “We found that her post-participation weight increased more than normal and the coach initiated the normal process of weight cut that he has always employed with Vinesh,” Pardiwala said. “He felt confident it would be achieved.” UNQUOTE

The doctor’s statement is problematic because:

(A) “To avoid dehydration,” what is given is oral rehydration solution (ORS), not “water,” as stated by the doc.

(B) An athlete’s weight does not increase “post-participation,” it increases when she drinks ORS to replenish body fluids lost during a bout.

(C) The Chief Medical Officer seems to have passed the buck to Vinesh’s coach. One would like to know if in such a critical situation the doctor had any obligation to monitor the process of reduction of weight.

Hindustan Times reports* that her weight increased by 2.7 kgs instead of the normal 1.5 kgs. This additional increase couldn’t be brought down, although Vinesh and her team tried their best through the night by making her sweat through vigorous exercise, sauna, and even by cutting her hair.

In a situation like this, Vinesh’s ORS intake would have been carefully controlled. So the doctor’s statement “her post-participation weight increased more than normal” is pure bullshit. The correct statement would be: SHE WAS GIVEN MORE ORS THAN WHAT WAS NORMAL. Her weight could not have increased by 2.7 kgs unless she ingested 2.7 kgs (+ the weight lost in bouts).

Was it a blunder by her support staff, an accident, or sabotage? We won’t know the answer, but the possibility of a mischief cannot be ruled out.

Mischief cannot be ruled out because what happened in Paris looks like the culmination of an asymmetric battle fought by a resolute Vinesh Phogat and her friends against a dirty power elite of India that rules over wrestling. Let me recall the story briefly.

 

THE BACKSTORY

A middle-aged BJP MP, Brijbhushan Sharan Singh was the president of the Indian Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) for ages. Seven female wrestlers, including a minor, alleged that he had been molesting them. The complainants included the leading lights in the sport, including Sakshi Malik (our only woman wrestling Olympic medal winner), Sangeeta Phogat, and Vinesh herself. In the normal course, Brijbhushan would have been arrested. In particular, the complaint of sexual harassment by a minor should have led to automatic arrest. Also, the government of India ought to have responded to the female  wrestlers’ repeated appeals and protected them.

But for BJP bigwigs, rules are different. The minor’s complaint was mysteriously withdrawn by her parents; for the other complaints, after much pushback  by the civil society and valiant protest by the wrestlers themselves (please see below), 2 FIRs were filed in June this year against the WFI president. Quite expectedly, nothing much is heard about the cases.

For the harassed wrestlers, getting justice is still a distant goal; even to get an FIR registered was a long and bitter struggle. As their complaints to the government including the prime minister yielded no result, the wrestlers began a dharna at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi in January 2023 demanding the dismissal sexual predator. They called off the agitation when the sports minister intervened and  promised to resolve their issues.

When the promise seemed hollow, the wrestlers resumed their protest in April. For a month, they ate and slept on the road and used public toilets. The government did nothing.

On the night of 28 May, the government finally took action. Delhi  Police assaulted our peaceful national heroes and Padmashrees brutally, and dragged them into waiting prison vans. In the process, Vinesh and two other wrestlers were injured.

Sadly, after all this BJP couldn’t give Brijbhushan a Lok Sabha ticket in this year’s general elections. So, they gave it to his son, who is an MP now. Also, Brijbhushan had been continuing as the head of WFI without holding election for years. When the WFI elections were ultimately held recently after severe criticism from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Brijbhushan couldn’t become president. ☹ He was replaced by his close friend, Sanjay Singh.

This is what the Indian government and the sports establishment did to protect our star athletes. BETI BACHAO, BETI PADHAO.

However, the WFI election was so murky that even the government was forced to ban WFI in January this year. But hold your breath! There are more twists in the tale.

When athletes around the world were preparing for the Olympics and following strict regimen of diet, exercise, mental conditioning, and practice, Vinesh and her friends were on the roads of Delhi at a sit-in strike that would be ended violently. Naturally, their preparations were seriously dislocated. Among the protesting wrestlers, none except Vinesh qualified. How she did is another sad story.

Vinesh, who was competing in the 53 Kg category for a long time, has a sterling record in that category, including Asian Championship and Commonwealth Games gold medals (2019, 2023), and two bronzes in World Championships (2021 and 23).

How she was pushed out of her comfort zone of 53 Kgs for the Paris Olympics can be the story of a pulp fiction. Another talented athlete, Amit Panghal was selected for the category as she had won a bronze in the previous World Wrestling Championship, held at a time when Vinesh had been injured. No problem there. But here comes the twist. Medal winners in international tournaments are not automatically selected for Olympics. They have to go through a domestic selection process once again. This stands to reason. After all, the nation would like to send the best athlete going by their present form. But for this year's Olympics, the WFI decided THERE WOULD BE NO TRIAL! Vinesh begged WFI for a trial, which was turned down. She even offered to fight Antim Panghal. (Incidentally, Panghal lost her only bout in Paris 0-10.) So, Vinesh Phogat was forced compete in the 50 Kg category, which was way outside her comfort zone. Many experts, including the veteran sports journalist Pradip Magazine, say that was the time when Vinesh Phogat was actually stabbed in the back.

Finally, for the 6 athletes in the wrestling squad in Paris, there are 12 wrestling officials, including the president of the banned federation, Sanjay Singh, who was in charge of the wrestlers there.

He had control over Vinesh Phogat and other wrestlers.

Tailpiece:

Our prime minister, who leaves his mark in everything newsworthy from Ram Temple to cheetahs, was completely silent during the ordeal suffered by wrestlers. Not a word did he say when they were beaten on the roads. But after Vinesh’s disqualification, he tweeted in English (a language she doesn’t speak), which had this unforgettable line: “Vinesh, … I wish words could express the sense of despair that I am experiencing.”

How charming!

11 August 2024

* [https://wwwDOThindustantimesDOTcom/sports/olympics/vinesh-phogats-nutritionist-expected-the-reason-behind-wrestlers-sudden-weight-increase-revealed-101723092671976.html]