My article about Yala and Kataragama in the Free Press Journal

The temple of Murugan in Kataragama on the southeastern coast of the island is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Sri Lanka for Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims alike. During the season, the town is packed with busloads of pilgrims praying for everything from good results for children appearing in public exams to jobs overseas.

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The coup in paradise and India’s silence

Taking a closer look at the events that have transpired in the Maldivian Archipelago, one has to wonder whether the “world’s largest democracy” has any kind of foreign policy at all. A secular, liberal, democratically-elected pro-India president was forced to resign from the presidency at gun-point by rogue police on a mutiny. All this happens in India’s backyard with the largest navy in the region fast asleep!

The Manmohan Singh government decides to congratulate the new president instead of standing by the democratically-elected Mohammed Anni Nasheed. What’s worse is that this coup is backed by Islamic fundamentalists in the country. The same fanatics vandalized Buddha statues in a museum in Male, the island-nation’s capital.

The impotent Congress-led Indian government is probably waiting for a Taliban-style government in the Maldives. A regime that will give free access to groups like the Lakhshar e Tayaba, so that terrorist attacks can be carried out in southern India!! Bravo Manmohan Singh!

Tuberculosis is a serious problem in Bombay

Nicely hidden away in this morning's Hindustan Times is a report that says 900 cases of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis were detected in Bombay in 2011. There's obviously more important news in the paper like Shah Rukh Khan being rated the best role model for children!! A typical Indian way to deal with any problem is to pretend that it doesn't exist and hope it will go away on its own. I am not hinting that there should be some kind of mass panic in the city, but if serious measures aren't taken, then the situation can spiral out of control.

TB thrives in dark, dirty and damp environments. Given the fact that 60 percent of the city's inhabitants live in slums, there is a high risk that this killer disease can spread far and wide. NGOs, actors, cricketers and the municipal authorities need to educate the masses about the threat of TB and how spitting can spread this disease. A cleanliness campaign is the need of the hour, else the plague of TB will bring this city and its inhabitants down.

Indian cricket in doldrums

I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the plight of the Indian cricket team and the board that administers the sport in India. The Indian cricket team was on an all-time high after winning the World Cup in April 2011. At that they time, they were also coming off a great test series in South Africa, and were rated the number 1 test team in the world.

Come the English Summer and it all came crashing down. India lost 8 tests in a row, the first 4 in England and the next 4 in Australia. Add to this fact that the Board of Cricket Control in India (or the Board of Criminals and Crooks in India) is losing sponsors and TV revenue, this sport, which is a colonial relic, faces a glum future.

The sooner cricket collapses, the better for India. India's cricketers are a greedy, selfish set of parasites, who have never done anything for the betterment of the country. While Australian cricketers come back to India post-retirement to help the sick and the poor, India's cricketers, who are treated as national heroes do nothing. Instead, they ask the government to bend rules so they can destroy heritage structures and construct ugly monstrosities in prime land. They ask for tax relief and import duty waivers. And a set of sycophants support these cricketers blindly.

I remember 1 particular incident in 2009. The Indian cricket team was in New Zealand and there were complaints that they had to pick up their own bags from the airport and load them themselves on to the bus. Apparently, the New Zealand authorities didn't provide them porters! This was a major issue and people close to me condemned New Zealand for this!!!

Well, time's up for cricket and the good times are gone for Indian cricketers.. Welcome to reality!!

Before sunrise

When a friend of mine from Colombo called me lazy for sleeping till 8 am, I laughed. I know people in Bombay who wake up at 10 am so that they can get to work by 11ish. Going by those standards, I was an early riser. But running the marathon changed everything. Being up at a time when most people were sleeping and greeting the sunrise on that wonderful day, made me rethink.

So now, I get up at 4:30 am (!!!) It's wonderful to be up so early, considering the fact that I can get a lot of work done by 8 am. There are days when I finish writing 2 articles by sunrise. Of course, this has been a death-knell to late nights, but I am not complaining.

My thoughts on 'The Outsider' by Albert Camus

If Rodion Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment had a Russian (albeit dark) soul, Meursault, the main character in Camus' The Outsider seems to have a "Western" soul. After all, it is a "Western" aspiration for a man to be strong, quiet and not emotional. Women have been stereotyped in the West and I assume other cultures of having traits to the contrary.

One of the best novels ever written in the 20th century, The Outsider uses colonial Algeria as the setting for the set of events that lead to the murder of a local by a Frenchman. To fully understand what Camus wanted to convey in the book,  the reader has to read the afterword. Meursault pays the price for being different, for not conforming to societal norms and for not behaving like the kind of robot that greater society churns out.

This book is more relevant in India today than it is in the West. Since western society has since moved on from its judgemental nature and developed an "I don't care" attitude that some fret is the other extreme.

I wouldn't do any justice to the great author and book if I didn't mention that his descriptions of Algeria at that time make me wish I lived there.

Of Urban Ghettos

Everybody loves Bandra because it's a liberal, mostly green suburb, which even though is cosmpolitan, is predominantly a Catholic area. It's apparently a pleasant sight to see "Christian-looking" aunties in dresses with bobbed hair. I have never heard anyone refer to areas near St Andrew's Church as "ghettos."

Now compare this to Yari Road, a predominantly Muslim area at the western end of Andheri. Instead of frocks, you see burkhas, burkhas and more burkhas. The trees have been felled and the less posh localities are chaotic. Do so many Muslims live there because they can't get flats in pre-dominantly Hindu buildings? Is it safety in numbers? Is it the comfort of living with members of the same religion?

Are the differences between Bandra and Yari Road, just those of Christians and Muslims? Of being liberal and being conservative?