Birthday Brickbats

Sometime back I had invited one of my very best friends, one of the most creative writers I had known in my life, to the 'blog world'. She refused stating that the blogs are for people who brag about themselves. So to prove her wrong I thought of writing about the brickbats I had received over the previous year instead of boasting about the bonquets, since earlier in the day I turned 34, as per the Malayalam calendar.

So the biggest mentionable 'compliment' I had during the previous year had come from my previous boss.....who went around telling people that I was a 'terrorist'.

Thanks very much Sir, for you had equated me with the other bearded men who had terrorised men like you....such as....

The one Who terrorized the rich & affluent, the Greatest 'Terrorist'

The One Who terrorized the Oppressors, the Legendary 'Terrorist'

And the one who terrorized the exploiters, the Ultimate 'Terrorist'

In spite of my far far inferior status, I'll strive hard to live up to your expectations; Sir :-)

But it's my life, you better don't mess with it......

Real Men Don't Cry.....

August, of late has become a month of angst, for it adds another year to my age column…so, ..on what else to post this August other than on ‘tears’?!

Sometime back I happened to read a blog through Deepak titled “Sharmila Mary Joseph cried, Don’t Cry!”

Sharmila Mary Joseph was a highly respected senior student from our school days; an outstanding student who used to top every exam that she wrote and a formidable presence at inter institutional competitions where intelligence mattered. But I doubt whether it was an intelligent move on her part to opt for Indian 'Administrator’s' Service; a legacy of the Raj that we had failed to get rid off. Any way, I’m not the one to pass comment on such complex questions. What bothered me was the author’s sarcastic symbolism about her tears in public. Well…..women had cried throughout mankind’s history…..often using those tears as powerful weapons……to look at those tears and think that it’s a sign of weakness…well, better learn it from experience, I’m not an expert on women and their ways and that, in any case, wasn’t the reason for my uneasiness too. What ruffled me was the apparent suggestion that the real men don’t cry!

Since then I was thinking of posting something on it …. But I was on two minds about writing on the topic……I lacked the guts to post, to tell the truth! Then one day this past week I saw the movie ‘AKG’ in the company of Amma and Deepak himself and then ……and then I fell ill……

As I was bed ridden, the thought reemerged from the back burner……do real men cry? Are the tears a sign of weakness? Some images from the past flashed across my mind……the tears of the victor and smile of the vanquished after a bitterly fought election to the school parliament in one of Kerala’s most politically conscious and potentially violent school campuses…..the final speech of the comrade, laced with tears on a cloudy evening inside the indoor stadium of one of the state’s most prestigious professional colleges ……the colleague who was left sobbing alone in the face of a most vicious and fanatical onslaught, by a group of pseudo-Marxists with foolish expressions on their faces……

A. K. Gopalan was one of the earliest heroes introduced to me by my parents. I vividly recall that one of the earliest books I had was a picture book on the life of the ‘Commander of the Poor’. And ‘AKG’ provided me with the guts to go ahead with this post……it was almost as if I heard him say “Go ahead, with courage”…..may be in a moment of fever induced frenzy… And I can ask anyone who might laugh at me to go and see the movie. The legendary Communist leader, perhaps the most militant and ferocious of the triumvirate who were the pillars of the Communist movement in Kerala, had publicly cried on quite a few occasions, so says the movie. At one particular instant, in the movie, he even agreed with his wife who had said that those who couldn't cry could not be real comrades.

But…….. Do real men really cry?!

Then I tried to look elsewhere…..to have an answer …..Along came that unparalleled master of Malayalam prose, M.T. and his depiction of another of my childhood heroes. The legendary warrior whose dialogues were the favorites as we fought pitched battles at home, among us brothers during our eventful childhood. The ruthless wrestler, who tore Jarasandha into two, crushed the mighty Keechaka’s bones and destroyed the Kauravas, had cried too, more than once, in the Mahabharata. But I remember this one from ‘Randamoozham’, better. Don’t know how good a translator I am…..it went something like this…

“As I stood alone in that silence of the darkness outside the barracks, for the first time in my life a feeling of immense grief over some one dead began to grow in my mind. I stood alone in the path the two of us used to take together on our return from the battlefield each day. The glow in his eyes as he smiled......the affectionate tone while he addressed me as 'Big Daddy'.........my eyes moistened as I recalled that........but no, the mighty Bhimasenan should not cry.....instead of going to my tent, I walked towards the battlefield .....”

But……. can mighty men afford to cry?!

And then………I had a glimpse at my reading of world history……. Perhaps the most feared and powerful President of the United States' history, the ruthless General who butchered the British soldiers at the Battle of New Orleans, the unwavering giant with the nerves of steel who had so badly beaten up the man who fired at him from point blank range with his cane, prompting his aides to restrain him and rescue and hospitalize prospective assassin, the street fighter who had been wounded so frequently in duels and carried so many bullets in his body that it was said he "rattled like a bag of marbles", when he walked, the orphan boy who fought his way up in life, who was not amused as his rivals wrote in their News Papers that he was the son of a common prostitute brought to the New World by the British soldiers; was reduced to tears as his aides brought the news papers carrying headlines deriding his beloved wife as a convicted adulteress, after he had announced his intention to be a candidate for Presidency.

But……can tough men afford to shed tears in public?!

Then …. a flash from the 20th century history…… can’t recall where I had read that one of the most powerful men ever to walk on the earth's surface, the man whose adopted surname meant ‘man of steel’, had tears in his eyes when bidding good bye to one of his best friends who was leaving Moscow to take over as the Vice President of a newly independent nation……India!

But……can strong men get emotional in public?!

And finally….. from sports, since that’s from where more heroes hail these days….One of the toughest men to face across the net on a tennis court, the man who used to go ahead with his task without the slightest sign of emotion on his face, the man nicknamed ‘Pistol Pete’ for his bullet like serve…..Pete Sampras was about to fire another of those ‘pellets’, when someone in the crowd shouted something like “do it for Tim, Pete”…..and the ball dipped onto his body as he wept like a child for his beloved coach who was flown home earlier in the day after suffering a stroke.

But…..don’t real men always keep their emotions under the lid?!

No, no….real men don’t cry….tears are not for them.........

And Oscar must go to....

"You're not disabled by the disabilities you have, you are able by the abilities you have."

Oscar Pistorius

The most contentious issue in international sports these days is neither performance enhancing drugs nor match fixing. It involves the arguments over a young athlete’s participation in the Beijing Olympics of 2008.And the big question is whether a man with no legs should be allowed to compete with able bodied athletes, and probably beat them to the tape in the sprint events! The athlete involved is 20 year old South African Oscar Pistorius, "the fastest man on no legs", a double amputee who runs with the aid of carbon fibre legs named cheetahs. These artificial lower legs, while enabling him to compete, have also generated doubts that he has an unfair advantage over other runners!

Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius was born without fibulae in both legs due to a congenital condition and his legs were amputated halfway between his knees and ankles when he was just 11 months old. Despite his physical condition however, the brave young boy had the heart of a sports man right from his school days. As a school boy he played rugby union, water polo and tennis. He also tried his hands at wrestling. After a serious rugby knee injury, he was introduced to athletics in January 2004 while undergoing rehabilitation, and never looked back.

IAAF has recently amended its competition rules to ban the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device". It claimed that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius, and his track performances are monitored using high-definition cameras to determine whether he actually has an advantage.

The most recent case with a parallel, coming to mind is that of Muthaiah Muralidharan. But Murali was not the first big star suspected of gaining an advantage from a deformity. Years ago a small boy born in a poor neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro was stricken by polio at the age of two. The doctors ruled that he may never walk. Not only did he walk, he also learned to out run his childhood play mates on those crippled legs and soon took to soccer as any kid in Brazil would do. The short boy nick named ‘the little bird’ went on to become one of the greatest stars of Brazilian soccer. But as a star he was also the subject of research as well as ridicule. His exploits on the soccer field were scrutinized and were the topic of research in an age when bio-mechanics was still in its infancy. His ‘banana’ kicks and the way he send the defenders on the wrong paths with his dribbles on the close encounters were all attributed to his bent legs. Some skeptics had even said that the greatest dribbler in soccer history might not have been aware of the path the ball would be going when he kicked it. To them Manuel Francisco dos Santos might never have been the legend that he was had it not been for his bent left leg!

And the great Indian leg spinner Bhagwat Chandrasekhar was similarly ridiculed about his polio afflicted right arm. Experts used to comment that Chandra knew nothing about what the ball would do once he had released it from his fingers. His astonishing strike rate in test cricket and his unplayable deliveries were aided by the deformity,according to them.

But unlike the great men mentioned above, Oscar Pistorius has a deformity which requires artificial limbs to enable him to compete. He affirms that his prosthetics do not give him an unfair advantage and lists the disadvantages that he faces, such as rain, which leaves traction hard to attain, wind, which blows the devices sideways, and the fact that he needs more energy to start running than others. Professor Robert Gailey of the University of Miami opines that the cheetahs, the artificial legs, return only 80% of the energy they absorb, about a third of what an organic leg returns. Pistorius has said that if the IAAF ever found evidence that he was gaining an advantage, he would stop running because he would not want to compete at a top level if he had an unfair advantage.

But do the bodies governing the international sports really ensure a level playing field for all athletes? Isn’t it a fact that the sports persons from the developed countries have access to technologies that give them a head start in any competitive sport? Have they closely verified how the Americans and the Chinese are able to sweep a major share of the medals up for grab in the Olympics? Is it purely sporting abilities alone that ensure their phenomenal success rate?

Many athletes who take part in the Paralympics were regular sportspersons whose disabilities were the result of some tragic accident in their adult life. But here we have a young man whose legs were amputated when he was just a toddler. If he had come this far from such a condition, he must be a real fighter with the heart of a true sportsman. Imagine the influence he can make on the lives of so many ‘differently-abled’ children across the world. That alone should be reason enough to allow him to run in the regular Olympics.

The Woman President, Stray Dogs and the lot of the Girl Child

India, in all probability, is about to get its first woman Head of State. A lady with a hyphenated surname-something even Hillary Clinton couldn’t afford; a former beauty contest winner and once a champion Table Tennis player. Social commentators mention it as a significant step in the emancipation of Indian women although a few skeptics view it as a first step towards the empowerment of another woman.

A dog digging at the ground desperately aroused the curiosity of a few passers-by in the outskirts of Utkoor, a small town in Andhra Pradesh’s Mahabubnagar district, this past week. They were shocked to find a little hand sticking out, as if seeking a helping hand to lift it! They dug out a baby girl, barely two days old and rushed her to the nearby hospital. The police had taken into custody, her grand parents and ‘eighteen year old mother!’ whose husband had migrated to neighboring Maharashtra in search of work.

May be, if she survives, she'll one day grow up and become another beauty queen or a champion sports person or a President or another teen aged Mother.....

But killing of stray dogs could seriously jeopardize the lot of the Indian women.....

Atlantis is back....

Last saturday, NASA's STS-117 mission involving the Space Shuttle Atlantis returned to earth successfully, bringing home the record-breaking Sunita Williams and six other astronauts. A section of the thermal blanket, which protects part of the shuttle from the blazing heat of re-entry, had peeled back from its left engine pod mount during the launch, rekindling the memories of Columbia disaster. Space walker Danny Olivas secured the torn blanket with medical staples and pins. An initial inspection found a slight gap between the blanket and the surrounding heat tiles after landing, but the anchor pins were still in place.

Hats off to Danny Olivas and the NASA.

But who ensured that the pins wouldn't give way?

Here they are;




Whatever we do, let's do it with dedication and devotion as these little ones demonstrate :-)