When the last man leaves the crease

It was too much to gulp down; a tear emerging in an unexpected moment. After his emotional alter ago had made his exit a few months back, the fans would have wanted the shrewd strategist and the stern diplomat to make an eloquent speech before waving his final goodbye. After all, it is not every day that Kumar Choksanada Sangakkara wears his heart on his sleeve—but when he does, it tugs at the nation’s heartstrings more than his double centuries, stumpings and the World Cup win that the country was long starving for.

It was no easy holding a nation in awe, and that too for such a long time.

He did not have as elaborate a start as his buddy did. Having arrived in the dressing room almost two years after Mahela Jayewardene was officially named the heir to the helm of Sri Lankan cricket, he did not look as if he was in a haste to prove himself either.

Thus began the bumpy carrier of Kumar Sangakkara; he was not always as sure-footed behind the wicket as he became of late. It is hard to escape the picture of him giving a lost look when a ball escapes past between his legs, or the childish wave of amber gloves when he missed out a stumping.

As much as he has been accurate to the last letter of the book in his batting, we have cheered when an opponent drops him off, consequent to a careless stroke.

His first test hundred in Galle against India on a one fine August day, was all I can remember of a school holiday fourteen years ago. Even then, his square cuts were worth dying for; the cover-drives not as perfected and patented as they are now, could make one yearn to see more. The Country was passing a dry spell and hence the scheduled power cuts to ration hydro-power electricity would sometimes mar the fun; until the long abandoned battery powered radio received new batteries and tuned to the live broadcast of the match.

In Sri Lanka the popular cricket myth is that, in order to make it rain in Kandy, hold a cricket match at Asgiriya—Sangakkara’s school ground and the only international venue in the world owned by a school. The second match was a fluff—spoiled by the much expected rain and the lack of heroics from the home side-- but the concluding one at the SSC, ended with a series win.

The following test series with Windies saw him scoring another ton of 140, getting Mahela Jayewardene run out at 99 in the process. He caused the same havoc to his Skipper Jayasuriya, when the latter was toiling with a match saving knot of 99 in Adelaide in 2003—the ugliest waltz the critics saw and that too on a cricket pitch.

Ironically, the first test match that was not telecast in Sri Lanka was the Asian Test Championship final played against Pakistan in Lahore in 2002—a venue that invoke mixed feelings among Sri Lankan fans—for its world cup victory in 1996 and that of the deadly terror attack on the Sri Lankan team. Fans will remember it for one more reason—the first double hundred of Kumar —a worthy 230 that made Sri Lanka the test champions in Asia.

Sangakkara took time to score his first ODI hundred. Having concluded a fruitless World Cup Tour in South Africa, which nearly cost him his place in the team, Shajah Cup 2003 saw him scoring his maiden hundred against Pakistan, and another in the very next match against Zimbabwe.

Much has been written about his long standing partnership with Mahela Jayewardene; some analytical and others bordering somewhat on the emotional lines. Google is over-brimming with images of the two of them complimenting each other in the middle. They even faced the ice-bucket challenge together.

The most fascinating picture I carry in my heart of the two of them is, when Angelo Mathews (who was not even the captain then) was helping young Chandimal to score an ODI hundred at the Lord’s with what seemed to be a comfortable win inclusive of the impeding century—how, behind the angry-faced Skipper Dilshan—Mahela and Kumar were smilingly looking at the two youngsters in the middle.

Their prophetic smiles have been proven true!

 A record keeper’s memory would do more justice, but a fan would only remember the quirks and the limited doses of glory that game had for those who lived the moment to the fullest.

The Sangakkara I saw and saw through was not the finest to the last line of the script. Since of late, he allowed the liberty to have his face painted on every other hording.  At times he was subject to scorn of others when he started endorsing one mobile connection partner after another.

He is not a paragon of perfection as the media would hype him to be; but a human being, beauteously flawed to the last fibre. Yet he had carried a nation home safely, more often than any other ambassador has ever done, which makes one forget quite easily his dropped catches and careless shots played direct to the hands of fielders.

Oscar Wilde had a wicked wit, and any ardent reader of his, needs to have the wickedness somewhere imbibed into his charm. And Kumar Sangakkara is no exception.

 (--which makes him all the more qualified to become the Sri Lankan High Commissioner to the United Kingdom!)

The second send-off of Denagamage Prabod Mahela de Silva Jayewardene

At a night, the Lankans will never forget, in Dhaka under the floodlights, two buddies in their sweat-sodden shirts hugged each other; probably for the four hundredth time. They were as thrilled as two school boys after winning a much-hyped about big match. They would have walked many grounds before, fist-punched and patted each other for a thousandth time; after every boundary, half a ton and a double ton scored between them.

Long before that night, they would have realized that this duet will one day come to an end—with no secrets of the game between them, they would have even scripted and disputed as to who would make the exit first; and whom to follow.  

Ashqui-2, Aditya Roy Kapur and Ab Tum Hi Ho

Amidst the run-a-round B-town productions, Ashqui looks like slow food.

It starts with a song; and ends with one.

Star-crossed lovers, who are willing to die for each other; but failing to be together.

Showers to bless the divine occasions.

 And the right dose of drama. Ashqui carries the element of Indian-ness that the contemporary productions seem to have dumped for the convenient and invasive western-ness. Its fragile frame does not try to contain anything that is too heavy or cinematically complicated. Ashqui is easy to read, but hard to gulp down.

Ab Tum Hi Ho

A musical would have looked ill-timed in the rush. Yet, this nails it right on the head. From the first no. till the curtain pulls, music enthralls the viewer. There is a reason why movies are supposed to be viewed in theatres; and for Ashqui- it is the score.

The melodies are those that keep replaying in the mind. They were the very type that has musical notoriety to become a rage. And, then there are lyrics that, if one cares to read between the lines, could give away the entire story in a condensed version.

More than the title no. it is the opening song that carries the viewer through the rest. There would have even been an acoustic version of it, sung by Mr. Roy Kapur himself. (why? Why not?)

Ashiqui

The Kapoors, despite their different marks in the cinema, are truly a couple. No one else could have brought out that much, in a company other than what the viewer witnesses. Shraddha moves through the plot swiftly; untainted and feather-weight. Only her quirkiness would have had more space amidst the slots.

Aditya Roy Kapur

He drugs the viewer. This is an intoxication which leaves a hangover that lasts for months or perhaps years. As much as his character gets addicted to booze, the viewer gets addicted to Aditya; a kind of an addiction that keeps one awake at the dead of the night.

He only has to shed that smile of his that reaches all the way to his eyes; the rest falls into place. Yet, he is way more than a pretty face. He struggles to stay in character. It is no easy acting the drunkard—specially in the first solo lead. After all, many of his predecessors with lengthy years of experience have got it wrong. After all, not everyone can be a Devdas. Even the Shah of the Kingdom had a tinge of over-acting in his award-winning role.

No doubt, Shraddha is a gem, well-cut and constantly polished. Yet it is Aditya who steals the show. It was no exaggeration when he conceded that he felt he was the heroine of the movie. With the punch and verve he brings in, he doesn’t deserve to be anything less.

Sadly, his sense of humour had gone waste. Yet, the transformation from the food-prodding VJ to crazy curls to a pop-sensation, which became half-truth in the wake of the movie, is truly heart-stopping.

The point is moot whether Aditya would still have the limelight if the the story was a happily-ever-after. Probably, he would have still aced through it; there would be no lacking of praise that is showered over him. The critics of course would have shown a little bit more sharpness of fangs, in the apparent absence of the need to sympathise.

Probably it is high time he sheds his immunity to romantics. For in time to come, he is going to be tied up and be identified with it.

He clearly knows how to hold a guitar, a bottle and the woman!

A poetic line or two would have made him the archetype. Whether he would have liked it or not, is entirely another matter.

For, when it comes to Aditya Roy Kapur, he is the purest form of poetry!

Bas yun hi....

Once I held a pen, so I know it!

All the pens that write do not necessarily write words. There are scribbling, written blabbering, nonsensical blah blahs and oodles of doodles that draw ink out of them. Pens are not designed to die writing nothing but the owners’ names over and again.
And a journalist has a conscience that does not allow him/her to bleed it too much on gibberish.

Once I held a pen, so I know it!

Ethics were what we lived by. They were very much there. Since, we were a breed too poor to put up posters on every wall on our existence; those who little knew us, never knew of our ethics. After all, I come from a kin who did not send a hundred fishermen to sea at the wake of a storm and watched them die. Mine isn’t a fraternity that shrugs shoulders at the tragedies of our women, toiling their way to death in the Middle East. Ours was not a culture to call unprintable names on public platforms; or Adam-tease its female counterparts just to dodge questions.

Our hands have no blood-stains—rather the blotches that are left by ink!

We breathed through censorship, the demonic 18^th Amendment, thugs, arson,murder, white vans, goons and the defeat of the Right to Information Bill. Ethics is a poor name for another device designed to felicitate choking. My fraternity will choke, yet it will not die but live through.

Once I held a pen, so I know it!

Ours were the hands that were tied for the convenience of the truth-fearing. Eyes, though could see, were not allowed to look beyond the fences. Yet, the pens kept carving strokes on the papers; sending words to the printers and back to newsprints. Though they would have soothed many, pricked a few to near-death. Praises were pleasant surprises; threats and clarifications were the ten o’clock plain teas. Those were the overfed cats, jumping out of the bags. And the hands that held the pens, clapped at the sight. Sense of fulfillment does not come with surrender or cowardice.

Once I held a pen, so I know it.

Truth, even in its crudest and the most indigestive form, still fits to be delivered to those who want to know it. It is the unspoken pledge between the reveler and the learner of the truth. Those who come between them are blunt-headed murderers who would only see the pointed finger without seeing the direction it was pointed at. It was no easy dropping hints. Metaphorics would have never been journalism. Hints would have never been information. Yet, the times made them so. The bravest few abhorred the frills and the sugar coats, thus their fraternity was compelled to stare at the frills of their open coffins. The press, as one would loosely call it, has seen enough bloody days, red-letter days and Januaries full of blackened days.

Though a nation could be free once every year to remember war heroes, its citizens would hardly see the trouble of remembering a missing byline on paper or disappeared face on television. For us, hardly a day passed without remembering one of those whom we outlived; perhaps, thanks to our own insignificance. Though press cocktails may flood with scandal at their mention, when tough times hit the newsrooms their martyrdoms would surge, and there would be uncomfortable silences too obstinate to be broken from sighs. And everything would get back to normal. Occasionally a poem or a tribute would appear for a name achingly familiar. Idealization is allowed in small doses. Even the enemies by principle could write elegies.

Those who hold a pen swear in allegiance to stick together; despite the color of their ink, the quality of their newsprint and the reach of their words. And this is something, no amount of breakfast-stuffing with a golden spoon or a countless cylinders of tear gas could take away.  

Once I held a pen so I know it!

In a country where the citizenry is deprived of its rightful right to information, and the former’s complacence at hands of depravation have always been the painful reminders of the isolated path, our breed had chosen to walk. Ours were no superstar faces. No girl screamed at a left-out byline, like the way one does when the golden-eyed boy walks out of the stage. The only ones who scrapbooked our clippings were us. Fame was not a fairy- gift created for us. Yet, we took pride in the familiar light that crossed the reader’s face, at a random introduction. We could even skip a few meals if a reader could narrate from memory a line from a long forgotten feature.

This was the highest form of recognition, so credible and transparent that even dollars or pounds could not buy; nor could it be forced out at gunpoint.

Once I held a pen, so I know it!

There is a reason why one is called a journalist; and why not every writer can be one. Indomitability loses its sense when there is no battle to fight. This is why fiction is less hurtful and such writers have fewer enemies, many fans and so much money. We have fought. For us. And for people. We had everything. We had nothing.

My kin has pens and words; everything worth defending.

They have only scissors and they will only know how to cut, reduce and lose!

Once I held a pen and I know it!

The King decides what his subjects read

Cartoon by Awantha Artigala-Daily Mirror

 Being a journalist in an independent media organization would have been an enviable job. With it comes the luxury to laugh at those who betray their integrities to attain perks and privileges; those who lick stinky feet rest on high pedestals, become entertainment material. There is a pride in spurning a green billet wrapped in a brown envelope, handed over at the end of press briefings. There is an unavoidable supremacy that comes with the feeling that your head does not bow to anything else but truth. Empty may be your pocket and leaking may be your roof, yet you have a heart in full and a good night’s sleep devoid of demonic dreams.

Yet, the illusion that one could write what one would want at a so-called free press often goes into pieces.

After the conclusion of war, censorship that had been there in black and white has become a ghostly presence in every media institution. Sometimes, it comes in the form of illogical midnight requests of omissions by the management. Then there are taboos declared and dispensed by those even above the management.

Even with a hierarchy that minimally interferes with the editorial functions, there are hidden hands of the regime that could slip through the protective net to throttle the necks of those who hold the pen.

This is exactly how the impeachment motion against Chief Justice became a banned subject for us. Ours is perhaps the only national English daily that carried editorial after editorial, column after column questioning and cross-questioning the regime’s shameless behaviour in dissecting and raping the independent structure of the country’s judiciary. There were opinion pieces exposing the nudity of the Executive and the spinelessness of the Legislature.

The persistent attack was however to spur the conscience of the readers more than to prick the wrong-doers in the eye. Of course, there was nothing wrong with twisting Goebbels’ theory for a worthy cause; after all, it is not a lie that is being repeated—but truth, more than the whole truth and nothing at all but the truth!

One could not be too sure whether our objective was fulfilled; for the dangerous dormancy of the people still continues in abundance. As for the latter, they knew their hands were smudged with dirt and blood; hence, they dreaded revelation. They were the faceless, unreachable paragons of vagueness, hiding behind the humongous shadow of the crown who drew the free flowing ink out of our pens.

With much reluctance, the politically victimized CJ and the blatant insult to the country’s virgin of Justice needed to be swept under the King’s carpet. Perhaps, it is misinterpreting the mandate people granted the regime. Jumping over the fundamental and ethical boundaries, the King even decides what his subjects read!

Depriving the citizen of his rightful morsel of information is tyranny.

At such times, one has to read between the lines, decipher and decode the message. For our hands are tied to a forced allegiance for a regime that we no longer believe in; a government that could no longer be termed synonymously with the state.

Did the over-enthusiastic general public who took to the roads in support of the 18^th Amendment find it unfitting to oppose when the government trampled the Right to Information Bill?

The kingdom of free media collapsed with the fall of Leader. With its knights dead and having abandoned the fortress, it is just another security checkpoint taken over by the regime.

The Journalists and editors who do not go to taste the Kiri Buth at the Royal Palace automatically become traitors the same way Macduff becomes one for evading Macbeth’s banquet.

Well, tyranny in modern times could come with a majoritarian Parliament and an overwhelming public vote. Perhaps, Shakespeare’s Macbeth was a lamb when compared to the contemporary wolves.

Perhaps, censorship is a security measure for those who open their chests for bullets for nothing. It saves the lives of those of us who hate to sugar-coat our hatred and distaste. The price of life of a journalist has fallen so low during the recent times.

It is not worth dying for a citizenry who plays the statue when their rights and liberties are massacred in the broad daylight; for it is very unlikely that they will open their self-locked mouths in our demise when they were locked at the loss of what is very much theirs.