tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78699281527425892632024-02-09T01:54:15.837+05:30TyposPrashanto Banerji<br>
<a href="http://prashantobanerji.blogspot.com/">(An IIPM Think Tank Blog)</a>Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.comBlogger339125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-34947009146164562862014-01-09T12:05:00.000+05:302014-01-11T12:06:35.608+05:30The Hobbled Hobo<div style="text-align: justify;">
Wasn’t long into the afternoon when we first saw him… We were a little lost and needed to stop and ask for directions, but that hot summer afternoon, on that usually busy bridge across the Yamuna that connects what Delhiites fondly call ITO to the sprawling industrial pastures of Western UP, there wasn’t a soul to be seen… as we trundled along slowly, we saw him bundled in rags by the pavement… We stopped to ask, he got up… a ghastly sight with his long matted hair gathered in greasy clumps, his sunken cheeks stretched over high cheek bones and at his chin grew a scraggly beard… his filthy and tattered clothes seemed to have grown brittle with dirt and age and his skin was dry and scaly… There are many such homeless tramps on our streets so I didn’t think twice about rolling down the window and popping the question when the stench hit us and we saw flies buzzing around what must have once been his left shin… His left leg below the knee had swollen like the stomach of a dead cow and near the shin was a gaping hole… “Gosh, he’s got maggots in there!” my friend Eravee exclaimed… “and isn’t that a bone sticking out from that wound?” I looked and realised that it was so. The man seemed to feel no pain though. He casually started peeling dead skin from his foot and then looked at me as if to ask why I had disrupted his slumber… So I stopped staring and asked him the way to our destination. He mumbled and pointed to his left… we drove off….<br /><br />“This is the capital… how could a man with a shattered rotting leg be lying around on a busy flyover without anyone stopping and doing anything about it! It’s shocking!!” I exclaimed. “What’ll anyone do,” asked Eravee … “What did we do? Aren’t we walking away too, just like everybody else… We aren’t doctors; we can’t take him home and the condition he is in, can’t even take him to a hospital… We don’t even know if we’ll be able to pick him up without worsening his condition. And then who cares for him, pays for the treatment etc? He obviously has no one to do this for him… really, who cares? Would you… could you, or I take on this responsibility?”<br /><br />“But isn’t there anything one could do? How could we allow something like this to happen in front of our very eyes and not react? I mean, this is not someone being robbed or raped on gunpoint wherein concerns for our own safety stop us from stepping in and trying to help, right? I’m sure there is something we could do to reduce this man’s suffering… isn’t there,” I asked…. “I don’t know…. I’m sure there are some NGOs we could ask around for….,” Eravee wondered aloud. Hmm, NGOs… these days, isn’t there one for everything one could think of (and thank God and their funding organizations for that)? So, we called a friend of ours who we knew would’ve been busy spilling coffee over her keyboard at that hour and asked her if she could find out about an agency that was committed to providing medical aid to the homeless. And that resourceful little Samaritan called us back with a handful of options. Eravee called on two of those numbers and sure enough, we got a response from a certain Mansoor who promised to reach the said spot and attend to the tramp… We were relieved. We felt that even as we drove off, we hadn’t ‘walked away’ from our responsibilities … aah, the moral high ground offers a great view… of oneself.<br /><br />However, when I called that evening to check with Mansoor about our patient’s health, I found out that apparently they hadn’t been able to locate the man and had left without him. I was upset and grew skeptical of this Mansoor. I asked him why they couldn’t spend more time looking… He said he tried his best… Disappointed, I arranged for a meeting the next day with Mansoor at the venue so that he wouldn’t have an excuse this time… he agreed… and sounded rather somber…<br /><br />Next day, I was late and reached the spot more than an hour behind schedule… I was afraid that Mansoor might leave, citing the delay as an excuse, so I called him to assure him and he assured me in turn, saying I’d find him there… We were supposed to meet at the mouth of the aforementioned bridge and that is where I found Mansoor and his friend Mr Tingle. We drove up a few metres and we found the man just as we’d left him… There was a dirty rag tied around the wound. I couldn’t go near him because of the pungent odour and grime around the man. But Mansoor gently put his arm around the man and started talking to him… he had my respect… I strained to hear the man but couldn’t understand a thing. Mansoor tried to explain…. “His name’s Babu Rao.. he’s from Andhra Pradesh. He came here looking for a job and can’t quite remember how he injured his leg… he seems to have lost his mind a bit,” he surmise. “Now what?”, I asked. “Well, it’s a terrible wound… he’ll need a surgeon. So we’ll have sent to a charitable hospital. But we’ll inform the cops first… the ambulance wouldn’t take him unless the cops are present. Don’t worry, it won’t take long… but we’ll have to be here till they arrive…” I nodded… Mr Tingle dialed 100 and informed the cops while Mansoor called CATS* on 1021099 (a friend of mine suggested we could also try dialing 1092). Within 15 minutes, both the ambulance and the cop car had arrived… but Babu Rao wouldn’t budge… Mansoor put an arm around him, “kya hua baba… kyun nahin jaoge…” Babu Rao mumbled… “he fears that he’ll be jailed… the homeless are terrified of the police”. With a compassionate patience, Mansoor explained that they were only here to help. Rao seemed to trust Mansoor and after a lot of cajoling, he agreed and was carried into the ambulance. “Don’t worry… he’ll live…” the ambulance driver called out as they drove off.<br /><br />“We couldn’t sleep last night”, Mr Tingle said as saw the ambulance off… “We felt really bad about not being able to rescue him yesterday. There’s so much that needs to be done for the homeless but we just can’t seem to do enough. Two years ago, in Fatehpuri, the government had set up some temporary night shelters to protect the homeless from the biting cold of Delhi’s winter nights… Mansoor and I had gone to help and inspect the arrangements. Outside one of these tents, at about 9:00 p.m., we saw an old man haggling with the caretaker… “The caretaker’s not letting me in… please ask him to let me… it’s so cold outside”, the old man complained in desperation. We rebuked the caretaker and asked him to let the old man in. The caretaker apologised and showed us in… Inside, the shelter was bursting at the seams. Equipped to house 60 inmates, it was packed in with more than 250 people… it couldn’t have taken in ant without squashing it. It was so difficult… telling the old man that there just wasn’t any space left... Our words took the fight out of the old man… He nodded… he understood… The caretaker emerged with a couple of blankets and we wrapped them around the old man as he sat down outside the tent. We promised to look around and let him know if we found a place for him and left. After hours of searching and calling, we finally found a shelter which had some room. We rushed to Fatehpuri. In the December mist, we could see the old man where we’d left him, wrapped in blankets, sitting outside the tent, his right hand holding on to one of the tent’s ropes. As we got closer, we called out to him but he didn’t budge… So Mansoor patted him on the shoulder and then on his bare arm. Mansoor froze… the old man’s hand was cold and stiff… he was dead! We felt so hollow.. so helpless that day… and this feeling hounds us all the time…. because of our countless limitations, we can’t always provide help on time, and are haunted by the thought that would it be too little… too late. When Mansoor called last night to say that they hadn’t been able to look long enough to find this man, that old helplessness returned. We were feeling sick in the stomach as we waited, unsure if we’d be reaching this man in time… I’m so glad we did…” The enormity of their task was obvious… I asked him if there was anything we could do to help. Mr. Tingle smiled, “Just let people know that they don’t need us to help people like Babu Rao. Just call the cops and the ambulance (take note, folks… the numbers are up there for Delhi and each city will have its own) and insist that you’ll wait for them to show up. They’ll do the rest… Just remember the numbers, and please don’t hesitate to help… The homeless aren’t always junkies and losers but often people from decent families who’ve been pushed out of their homes in distant villages by catastrophes and feuds. They come to our cities seeking shelter and a livelihood … We might not have the means to offer them that but don’t they deserve at least our compassion? Remember, circumstances, whether ours, theirs or of those who we love, could change, have changed, in an instant… I always believe that if we keep doing our bit for those in need, providence too tries its best to let us keep ‘doing’, never ‘needing’…”</div>
Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-50964720728981106682013-12-19T13:00:00.000+05:302013-12-20T18:10:48.400+05:30I want a bully in my backyard<div style="text-align: justify;">
Finally, a genius and I have something in common. We made the same stupid (since we’re talking about a certified genius –no, not me, duh- I must clarify that I’m using the word loosely, and in place of the far more appropriate but far less zingy ‘ignorant’) mistake.<br /><br />Dr. Carl Semencic, a Mensa member, and I, we both wrote a few words (in his case a best-selling book or three and a 1000 word article from your truly, but hey, so what?) about canis lupus familiaris, or the dog to non-Mensa or similar such riffraff, and ended up with a bit of a gaffe. Finding the cross of which too much to bear, on behalf of our shared intelligence, let me right that wrong here and now…<br /><br />Dr. Semencic wrote a book titled ‘Gladiator Dogs’ (and two others – The World of Fighting Dogs and Pit Bulls and Tenacious Guard Dogs) that celebrated the undeniable prowess that lurks in the folds of muscle, sinew and jowl of the fighting breeds. And a few years later, and incidentally just about a few weeks ago, I happened to write about Indian dog breeds. And in both our accounts, a breed that should have rightfully taken its place at the head of the pack was forgotten, ignored, insulted and got passed over…<br /><br />I can’t speak for Dr. Carl, but let me fix my error of omission in this very piece, so ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together and say a little high-pitched prayer, for you will soon be in the company of the ‘Beast from the East’, the redoubtable champion of the blood-soaked pit, the pride of fighting dog-men, and one of the most formidable canines in the country and the planet – the Bully Kutta.<br /><br />Before I go further, and before you self-righteous sorts begin howling like a wolf-pack at moonrise, let me soothe your hackles by taking a leaf out of Dr. Carl’s methods and announce that I do not approve of or support the idea of pitting one dog against another in a battle that inflicts pain or draws blood. I’m a vegetarian, for Christ’s sake! However, no book about canine gladiators can be complete without paying homage to this magnificent and brave beast, and nor can a listing of Indian breeds be complete without the Bully Kutta being given the bone (no not dog bone – a nylabone) of honour.<br /><br />So what is this bully kutta? Chances are, you wouldn’t have seen one. They are rather rare and you wouldn’t find them in pet stores or most dog shows. They are a bit like erotic paintings – neighbour’s envy, owner’s pride; they feign outrage and so we pretend to hide.<br /><br />But these dogs aren’t easy to hide. The easiest way to describe them would be to show you a Great Dane and ask you to add about 20 lbs of muscle and take away a couple of inches in height. But the bigger difference is on the inside. These dogs have the courage of a lion, the stamina of a wild ass, the power of a diesel truck and the tenacity of a Navy SEAL. In any other country, a dog of such impressive proportions and character would have been feted as our national dog but the Bully is popular only in pockets in this country and mostly with those involved with dog fighting, an illegal blood sport in India.<br /><br />Er…here I should clarify that the Bully is often called the Pakistani Bully, but that isn’t necessarily so because the breed was created in Pakistan. In ancient India, in the high Himalayas, large wolf like dogs bred for protecting livestock from predators and thieves, fanned out along the mountains with their nomadic masters and into the steppes and plains and valleys of Asia Minor, Europe and Central Asia. From here, over the centuries, some dogs returned with the flocks through the cold and hot deserts out west of the subcontinent. Here, they mixed with the sleek and fast sighthounds that hunted antelope and gazelle on the hot plains of peninsular India and evolved into a formidable breed that was the combination of the muscle and moods of the mastiff and the speed and predatory instinct of the hounds. And to this mix was added terrier tenacity when the Brits and their game dogs took over the country.<br /><br />It was this formidable combination that has made the Bully a champion fighting dog. And this canine heritage is the subcontinent’s to claim, irrespective of borders. However it is true that the Bully is far more common in Pakistan than India, but that is only because dogfights are still a part of Pakistan’s rural culture while stricter governance has pushed dog fighting into the armpits of the hinterland in India.<br /><br />By the way, before I go, I must answer that question in your head. Is the Bully (pronounced like the word pulley with a little lingering on the ‘l’) called so because it is a bully of a dog, or is it because of the bully-breed (as in the bulldog of old, or the bull-terriers) influence? Neither actually! The Bully kutta got its name from the North-Indian word ‘bohli’, meaning wrinkled-kutta, and that’s of course hindi for dog.<br /><br /> Next week I am scheduled to meet a traditional Bully owner. Following the meeting, I hope to be able to share some insights from the world of dog fighting, the men and dogs that mind it and perhaps discuss a way to keep the wonderful physiological and temperament markers in the Bully intact, without having to resort to the barbaric practice of dog fighting.<br /><br />Meanwhile, you could take a stroll in the winter sun and take pride in walking on the land that was both mother and midwife to one of the most magnificent breeds to mark its territory on this planet.</div>
Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-57099423837143270612013-12-12T10:09:00.000+05:302013-12-16T10:11:01.200+05:30Ubuntu!<div style="text-align: justify;">
Ubuntu – we are because you are; I am because you are… and a lot of what is, or could be, good in us, is because of you, Madiba!<br /><br />Your long walk to freedom, freedom… from all that you owed us, from all the lessons you had to teach us, from more of the acid rain of hate we keep pouring on ourselves and would have been drenched to the bone with, if not for you and your compassionate example, Madiba…!<br /><br />Farewell ye, oh greatest of fragments of The Great Spirit. The ocean of humanity that walks in your wake will miss you, but the nation that your vision fathered will miss you most of all.<br /><br />The long walk to freedom may have finally ended for Nelson Rolhilahla Mandela. But it has only just begun for the people of South Africa. It is now more than ever that their resolve to live by the tenets of peace, forgiveness and reconciliation will be truly tested, with the fading of the towering figure of Madiba who will no longer be walking by their side, holding the young fingers of the rainbow nation and guiding them away from every perilous prism lurking in the corners of history.<br /><br />A lot of people who know a lot more than I will ever understand have eulogized the unparalleled greatness of Nelson Mandela for the world to get to know this great life and its lessons better. So I write these words, not because Mandela needs yet another requiem nor because you might have the stomach for yet another obituary, but because like so many other unread authors, I too, on this occasion, have this irrepressible desire to speak of this man to the winds for it take them where it will…<br /><br />If you walk across the hall of heroes from the beginning of time, you will be hard pressed to come across a name more luminous than Madiba’s. Mahatma Gandhi, the man Mandela had claimed as an inspiration, awash in the romance of another time, was a great man indeed. But compare the fractured and blood splattered legacy of partition with the unified harmony of the rainbow nation and you will have to acknowledge that the pupil has improved tremendously on the master’s design.<br /><br />But let’s not belittle our heroes by pitching them against each other for that is not the point of this piece.<br />Instead, let us light a candle in our hearts to the examples that Mandela set. He said he is no saint but he performed miracles that merit canonization. Many saints have spoken of love and forgiveness. But tell me how many do we remember who have been born of men and had the heart to embrace their own oppressors and welcome them into their hearts with open arms and unconditional forgiveness? There would be some, though it would be tough to tell where legend meets logic, but admittedly there indeed would be a few… But tell me where would you find such a leader of men who not only forgave and embraced those who sought to hurt, harm, destroy and subjugate both him and his people, but did so without for a moment hurting their dignity and pride? And now I ask you, show me a leader of men who not only managed to forgive and win the hearts of his oppressors but inspired an entire nation of oppressed people to set aside their anger and hurt and embrace their former oppressors as brothers. Madiba indeed was a rare one…<br /><br />During my time in B-school, I was taught about the roles and responsibilities of an ideal leader. And I grew up to understand that an ideal leader is one who knows who to, when and how to command, motivate, inspire and delegate. And for a long while, I felt that that alone was all one needed. And perhaps for most leaders in most scenarios, indeed little else is needed to meet goals at work and straddle the gap between wants and demands at home. But the extraordinary circumstances of Nelson Mandela’s life demanded extraordinary leadership skills. And it is only when I began reading about how he led his people and his country - blacks, browns and whites, together beyond the rainbow that I began to realize that truly great leadership, in any sphere – from sports to religion and even that swampland called politics, is not possible without spiritual awareness and integrity.<br /><br />Next week, the sendoff prayers for Madiba would have grown quieter and perhaps that would be the time to delve a little less into the man and to focus a little more on his methods. And until such a time as that Madiba, when we’ll invoke your undying spirit again, may you rest in comfort and peace. God bless…</div>
Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-57195158960998932212013-12-05T10:49:00.000+05:302013-12-07T10:52:50.611+05:30The Gambhir Conundrum<div style="text-align: justify;">
Impressed?!! Well, you better be… A week ago, in this very space, I had suggested that out of favour opener, Gautam Gambhir had to make the team if India is to rule the cricketing roost in the half decade to come. Days later, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the man many believe was responsible for the southpaw’s ouster, has suggested that the team to South Africa might have been better served with Gambhir’s presence than without.<br /><br />To understand why Gautam Gambhir’s return to the team is inevitable, we’ll have to understand the whys and hows of his expulsion from the team. How did an opener who has proven the mettle of his skills and his character with commanding performances at home and abroad, in Tests, ODIs and T20s, lose his way and go from being the vice-captain to a non-starter?<br /><br />When Gauti was dropped for the home series against Australia earlier this year, the story doing the rounds was his run of bad form since the series in England had led to his banishment. But the cold truth of statistics would tell you that Gambhir, with two 50s and some near half-centuries, was well on the mend if not back to his blazing best. Then why the boot?<br /><br />Hidden under the ominous clouds of successive series losses at home and abroad was the darkening mood in the dressing room. The captain had publicly berated his once-upon-a-time deputy for his self-centred approach and then there was that infamous run-in with the man who usurped him as the vice-captain and the crown prince of Indian cricket – Virat Kohli. His success as the captain of the Knight Riders would have added impetus to the clash, intensifying his usually frothing-at-the-rim competitive confidence and also set alarm bells ringing in the Royal Challengers and Super Kings lockers at the time. Mahi of course has been a devoted team man and hasn’t shied away from taking a tough stand for what he believes is best for the team. And to his credit, his decisions have always been impersonal and purely professional as far as the world can tell. So Gautam’s time in the wilderness wasn’t only about him finding form but also reining in his attitude and aggression and channelizing it through his batting rather than letting it fracture the team spirit. And now that he seems to have both found form and also perhaps tempered his approach off the field, Dhoni seems to have no qualms about bringing the pocket dynamite back into the mix.<br /><br />And it must be said that at that time, it was in the interest of the team for gambhir to take a break. Otherwise, in the wake of those losses to England and Australia, cracks of the kind that surfaced during the Waseem-Waqar tug of war in Pakistan and clipped the air-borne wings of what was then the most talented team in world cricket could have divided the Indian team as well and pushed it off the course to the greatness that is now within kissing distance for this team.<br />But now, gambhir’s return is inevitable. After all, good though he may be, Murali Vijay isn’t a patch yet on Gambhir’s championship caliber skills and mind-set. It is only a matter of time before Gambhir comes back into the Test side for another good run as the senior statesman in a very young team. And his replacement, when it is his turn to retire, would be another Delhi bat, Unmukt Chand. The 20 year old has the brains and the batting to make it big on the biggest stage, his poor showing in last season’s IPL notwithstanding.<br /><br />What of the others? Virat Kohli has proven himself and has reminded of Sachin Tendulkar in more ways than one. The most striking comparison is the way in which Virat stood tall in Australia amongst the rubble of his team during a whitewash, just the way a young Sachin had done in 1992 with that legendary hundred at Perth. <br /><br />Cheteshwar Pujara should be cementing his impressive credentials on the South African pitches while Shikhar Dhawan and the resurgent Rohit Sharma should be looking to convert their ODI successes on foreign soil into Test triumphs as well.<br /><br />At this stage in the debate comes in the question of the sixth batsman. Should he be a pure batsman or an all-rounder. And who are the men most likely to battle for this spot?<br />Next week, I will offer my two bit to try and settle an issue which has needled selectors ever since the great Dev of Indian cricket decided to hang up his well worn boots.<br /><br />But before I go, an apology to Ajinkya Rahane. How easy it is for us scribes to write off a man and all his future with a few callous punches of the keyboard. I thought nothing of all your sweat, toil, tons and dreams before dismissing your chances to living all those bathed in blue dreams of yours and binning them with my predictions. For your sake and for the sake of Indian cricket, I hope you prove me wrong and inundate us with greater riches than we on the side-lines have dared to imagine for Indian cricket. And until then do forgive me for calling it like I see it, that though your talents are undeniable, those that stand before you have proven hungrier and stronger so far…<br /><br />Anyway, the curtains are about part and the first act of this epic contest shall soon be underway. May our hopes, and our horses, live up to their billing. Amen!</div>
Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-14300789137844308892013-11-28T13:30:00.000+05:302013-11-29T17:14:21.118+05:30In the wake of giants...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Question: How does the forest look when the Washington tree falls?<br />Incidentally, the Washington tree, the second largest tree in the world, a giant sequoia, collapsed partially after lightning struck and the resulting fire partially burnt the 255 feet tall giant down and then a snow load in 2005 ground it down to about half its once gigantic stature.<br /><br />Answer: In the Giant Forest Grove (which is where the once colossal, now diminutive Washington still stands), where every other tree is a towering 200 ft plus sequoia, whether seen from the ground up or from the heavens above, the forest still looks pretty much the same.<br /><br />Come December, when the Indian team sets sail for South Africa without its own towering ‘T’alisman, question is, how would they look? Look at Australia and the West Indies. When their cricketing giants put up their feet and rolled over in their hammocks, their heirs struggled and juggled with the crown till they dropped it down a bottomless pit. But the four great sequoias (Ganguly, Kumble, Laxman and Dravid) whose shadows lengthened over the Indian plains over seasons past, and the greatest of them all who walked away last, are not walking away from a forest stunted by the blinding brilliance of their greatness but from one where they have sown their greatness. And from those seeds, I suspect will grow even taller sequoias to take their place.<br /><br />This tour of the moment’s greatest Test playing nation, on hard bouncy wickets against sea-fed winds and the most lethal bowling attack on the planet will truly test if these boys will grow into giants. It is this tour that will prove if this forest that Tendulkar is leaving behind will be engulfed by the fire storm called Dale Steyn & Co. or will they emerge as the giants their fans believe them to be, giving away little by way of comparison to the stalwarts that have gone before them.<br /><br />It isn’t just the fast bowling that will prove to be a challenge for Virat, Shikhar, Pujara and Rohit, India’s young sequoias in waiting. The South African batting might prove an even greater challenge for the inexperienced bowling attack. AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla own four of the most skillful hands to have held a bat and their will to impose their presence on the opposition has made them into modern day greats. And with them stands another giant who could well take on our very own Sachin Ramesh for the mantle of the greatest cricketer of our times – the unmatched allrounder – Jacques Kallis.<br /><br />Be that as it may, I have a strong feeling that in terms of attitude, skill, toughness and mental preparedness, this might well be the best Indian team to take on the Proteas in their backyard.<br /><br />Also, this team, save for one glaring omission, is also the nucleus of the side that will last for the decade to come and might also become India’s best ever Test team. Will that team also be good enough to be the best in the world, like it has threatened to be, and leave behind an all-conquering legacy like the Australian and West Indian teams of old? I do think so…<br /><br />So let’s look at the team of tomorrow, which is pretty much the team of today, and see how they hold up against the greats of the past.<br /><br />Flouting convention, lets start at the business end of a Test team – the tail. In this respect, test teams are like scorpions. The head might make an impression but it is the tail, the lethal weapon, that gets you respect.<br /><br />India’s hopefully lethal weapons, their bowlers have come in for a lot of flak lately but this attack is quite different from the one that conducted affairs in the ODI series against Australia. And truth be told, it’s not like Mitchell Johnson and the band fared much better. So who will be the leader of the attack in the matches and years to come? Who will take the new ball and make those early inroads like Kapil Dev and Javagal Srinath and Zaheer Khan once did…er, in case of the last named, does…?<br /><br />With discipline and skill, that viper like darting swing and innate cricketing intelligence, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar will surely become a name that rival teams would prepare and plan for in the seasons to come.As a swing bowler, he may lack the pace of an Akram or a Steyn but as I have mentioned in previous columns, I remember batsmen from backgrounds as diverse as the Barbadian Desmond Haynes who honed his skills against the likes of Malcolm Marshall, Joel garner and Sylvester Clarke and Sanjay Manjrekar who learnt his cuts on the Mumbai maidans saying that the by then medium paced Richard Hadlee was still the best bowler they had ever faced because of his control over line, length and movement off the seam and in the air.<br /><br />I’m not suggesting that ‘Bhuvi’ is going to become a Hadlee. I’m just saying that lack of pace needn’t hold him back and he has the skills and the acumen to become the sword arm for India.<br /><br />And if you say it was another era, well I remember Glenn Mcgrath dismantling entire line-ups with deliveries no quicker than the low 130s. The key for these past greats was control over line, being able to read which length to use on what pitch against which batsman and the ability to move the ball late and enough – skills the bowler Bhuvaneshwar Kumar is evolving into will surely posses as the tours go by.<br /><br />Complementing Bhuvaneshwar’s incisive seam bowling with his nippy pace, heavy effort ball and devastating reverse swing is the consistent and diligent Shami Ahmed. He isn’t frighteningly quick but swings the ball at pace, is consistent in his lines, has the heart of a lion. He has courage and character for though he has often spent long months just waiting in the wings, he has never let nerves spoil his party and has grabbed his opportunities with performances that have strong, steady and at times spectacular. His approach to the game reminds me of the solid workhorses – from Alec Bedser and Brian Statham to Courtney Walsh and Shaun Pollock.<br /><br />These bowlers are steady in length and pace with the ability to slip in a real quick one every now at times. And they can move the ball off the seam or in the air. When there is something in the pitch or the atmosphere, these guys know how to extract the most out of it. And if there’s nothing happening, they can just plug away in the corridor, keeping things tight. Young Shami is in the same mould and with his hunger and passion for making his mark fuelling his performances, there is every reason to believe that he will be bowling will sting, irrespective of the conditions. And like Sourav Ganguly said in an interview “I have played Waqar Younis at his tearaway best, and Shami’s reverse swing is good as anyone else’s.”<br /><br />Space and time will not permit us to run through the rest of the team this week. So we’ll save it for next time. But before I go, I would like you to meditate on one name that should continue to be a part of this team for the next five years to come. His name is Gautam Gambhir and he should have been on the boat to South Africa. As things stand, he didn’t quite make the cut. But never mind, he’ll be back soon enough, as would I with the rest of the team…<br /><br />Until then, enjoy the cricket..</div>
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Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-67687593457263206302013-11-21T11:43:00.000+05:302013-11-23T11:45:07.178+05:30Will This dog Have it's Day?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Where do you reckon I might have last caught sight of a magnificent but rare animal teetering on the brink of extinction? Would it have been the deserts of the Thar or the rain soaked cloud forests in the east? Am I more likely to have spotted this elusive beast on a lonely windswept crag in the Himalayas or in the dense forests along the Western Ghats?<br /><br />Ah well, the answer to that question is a sad indictment of the rather staid travel itineraries that have governed my life and work so far, but I count my blessings wherever I find them, and on this occasion, I happened to run in to them at the taxi stand outside the Pune airport..<br /><br />In the warm rays of a winter afternoon, I had seen the pair, gazing imperiously at the passing cars and the jostling crowds, unmindful of the smoke and dust, these two aristocrats looked past and through the hurrying haze that whirled around them, like they knew they were higher beings, living in this world but not of it.<br /><br />The coat shimmering in the sun, that deep, deep chest harbouring the power to span the breadth of the Deccan in a leap and a bound and that faraway look in those big hazel eyes…. Ah! They were a sight to behold. The fact that these regal beasts were standing at the end of ornate leashes didn’t seem to matter. With their bearing, they still seemed to own the place.<br /><br />At the other end of the same leash stood a man, professorial in demeanour, who looked like he would be more comfortable with a book or sketch-pad in his hand, and yet the incongruity of the trio, with respect to each other as well as their environment seemed to hint at a bond far deeper than was apparent.<br /><br />Forgetting all about the conference I was to go to, and drawn like the proverbial moth to a flame, I walked towards their eminence with a question in my head…’what are they?’<br /><br />Those of you who have had the misfortune of bumping into more than one of my earnest endeavours in this corner of the magazine might know that I’m rather unreasonably obsessive about a few subjects, dogs being one of them. I can usually separate a setter, English or Irish from Gordon, even if I be on the east bank of the Ganges while they be gamboling on the west (and that has nothing to do with what dams have done to our rivers), and same should hold true, if the dogs be terriers, mastiffs, hounds or curs. Then why couldn’t I put my finger on these sight-hounds (yeah I’d gotten the group but I couldn’t place the breed)?<br /><br />“Excuse me” I ventured, “…er, what kind of dogs are these?”<br /><br />The professor floated out of his thoughts and blinked back to the present as he looked at me and then at his dogs, like he’d seen them for the first time, as if wondering how they came to be here with him. His gaze took in the contours of the hounds and a wave of pride swept across his face… “Caravan Hounds!”, he said. “They are an ancient Indian breed, bred for the chase. Though more numerous than some other indigenous breeds, they are still very rare and nowhere near as popular as most of the Western breeds”<br /><br />Ah! An Indian breed. No wonder I hadn’t seen any pictures of the breed in books or magazines. I have been collecting breed-books and reading about dogs ever since I can remember. I share my life with four dogs and two of them are rare breeds from different parts of the world. I can tell the difference between a Karabash, an Akbash and a Kangal – all rare and similar livestock guarding breeds from Turkey and yet I had never heard of nor seen a dog as magnificent as the Caravan Hound before. My point is not to toot on about what I know about obscure breeds. I’m just trying to impress upon the reader that even one as involved with canine trivia as I had failed to come across literature or physical evidence of one of the most striking native specimens of our canine culture.<br /><br />And the Caravan Hound, though rare and endangered, is far more numerous than some of the other highly endangered breeds. The Kumaoni Mastiff and the Chippiparai are found in little pockets in their geographical enclaves. The Rampur Hound and the Rajapalyam are relatively better known but the Kinnauri Gaddi, the Combai, the Poligar and the Alangu are all extremely rare and extinction is a very real threat.<br /><br />Most Indian breeds are either livestock guardians, (which means they don’t herd sheep like a German Shepherd or a Collie but protect the flocks from predators) or sight hounds (greyhound-type hunting dogs that chase and bring down prey). But why are these breeds languishing on the brink?<br /><br />More dog enthusiasts in India would know more about rare South American breeds like the Dogo Argentino and the Fila Brasileiro or the South African Boerboel than they would about any of these Indian breeds.<br /><br />Ironically enough, the very people you’d like to thank for keeping these breeds alive are the ones you should hold responsible for their decline. Not only have breeders of these indigenous dogs not done enough to spread information about these dogs but have done precious little to develop them. Many of these breeds have stagnated and become living relics of a long-gone past. The problem with most of these breeds is that they are hard-wired for the tasks they had traditionally been bred for. The hounds are snappy, often unpredictable hunters which are impossible to manage within the confines of an urban home while the livestock guardians need lots of space, bark through the night and are aggressive with strangers. Though these breeds are hardy and healthy, almost all of them are very difficult to train and little has been done by breeders to make these dogs easier to live with.<br /><br />There has been an on and off ban on importing breeds from other countries because activists and law-makers want to preserve and protect the Indian breeds but as long as a Labrador or a Boxer is easier to live with and is more reliable and trustworthy with friends and furniture, the Rajapalyams and Gaddis will remain on the rural fringes of the Indian dog enthusiast’s horizon.<br /><br />It would be a proud day for all of us indeed when Caravan hound registrations outstrip Golden retriever registrations in India and they even begin to find homes in other countries. But such a day will remain a dream until breeders work on making these hunters and protectors into reliable companions as well. Every shred of life has to stay relevant in the context of the present. All life that fails that test, no matter how magnificent, be it the Diplodocus, the Sabre-toothed Tiger, or heaven forbid, the Chippiparai, will eventually cease to be.</div>
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Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-9623073618401741902013-11-14T11:30:00.000+05:302013-11-15T17:51:58.634+05:30Of Cats, Gods and Tides...<div style="text-align: justify;">
Anybody remembers Bizarro from Htrae, the square peg in the round planetary hole in that ‘space’ called DC comics, where everything that happens is opposite of how it might happen on earth (Htrae is Earth spelt backwards)? I do… I was just a little older than a toddler when that bizarre Superman issue showed up on news-stands… But why am I dragging out that dusty memory from that worm eaten cupboard of my childhood? That is because a cousin of mine who happened to snag a job in the Thames and a husband and a baby followed, is returning home and she wanted to see a wild bizarre part of what was once her ‘native’ country.<br /><br />I spread out the creased map on the bed and then my wife and I, we hurriedly went up north past a rather tempting but daunting Ladakh and the forbidding heights of Nanda Devi , and then scampered south, by-passing the far too comforting confines of houseboats in Kumarakom, hopped around the red-striped ‘ultra’ wilderness in the heart of the Naxal nation around the Deccan and then gingerly circumvented the warm winds out west before scooting east looking for a holiday destination that could measure up to my cousin’s wishlist... <br /><br /> It was then that I remembered that from under the armpits of the city Charnock built, snake mighty rivers in search of the sea. And as cities and towns fall away, along their banks crawls a strange beast, a mighty forest that recognizes neither time nor space. It stretches beyond the realms of land and sea, beyond borders that divide countries and faith, spilling over into countries and oceans. Here, in the endless tidal swamp-forests, man - undefended by concrete walls, cellular technology and metalled roads – is reduced to being a mere mortal again. Governed by primal laws where great beasts rule, on land and water, where man still lives in want and fear. In this truly bizarre landscape shaped by the tides, land appears and disappears like a mirage, and water is the one true constant… It is an enchanted land where fish walk the earth while trees grow roots that refuse to dig deep into the earth and stick their arms out, through the earth and towards the sky. These are the forests of the sundari trees, and the Sunderbans, be you my cousin or someone else’s, are truly as beautiful and enigmatic and ‘out there’ as any land you could find in the pages of a comic book or a fairy tale.<br /><br />But like all lands that promise adventure, the Sunderbans too are as treacherous as they are beautiful. While in the rest of the country, tigers slink away whenever man approaches, here the great cats stalk man as they would a deer or wild boar, to hunt and eat.<br /><br />So great is the fear of the tiger that those travelling through the Sunderbans at night in their houseboats prefer to drop anchor in the middle of a waterway than risk being close to land. But the tigers won’t be denied by a mere expanse of water. These relentless beasts have been known to swim up to a boat, steal up to the deck or a window and then carry their victim through the waters to an undisturbed spot on the shore, where they can eat in peace.<br /><br />Just in case as you read this, you think you would have jumped into the tidal waters to escape the tiger, I would strongly urge you to exercise extreme caution for those waters are home to the largest living crocodilian in the world – the salt water crocodile. And the salt water croc relishes the taste of man just as much as the tiger.<br /><br />Then of course there are the bull sharks and the cobras and pythons and vipers. Every home in the region would have lost a relative or a friend to these hunters in the shadows and the shallows, for here in the Sunderbans alone, man has failed to manipulate the forces of the great wilderness and remained a mere subject to the laws of nature.<br /><br />And yet, I say that this winter, in the gathering smog in your city, as you wonder where to head out in search of adventure, I say you can’t better trying on a trip to these mangrove forests for size.<br /><br /> The meandering waterways, the languid pace of life and your boat, the calls of birds and monkeys on the passing branches overhead and the glistening mud banks with fresh pug marks leading from the water’s edge to the forest threshold, all make for an unforgettable experience in their own right. But what I remember most fondly from my trips to the region is the magnificent camaraderie that is the very essence of life for the people who live in this inhospitable wilderness.<br /><br />Away from the artifice and excesses of our city-bred lives, here in the lap of nature at her best and worst, the tide-people have begun to rediscover the meaning of faith and friendship. Unfettered by the web of meaningless meaning that our complicated lives spin for us in the ‘real world’, here in the surreal world of the Sunderbans, life is about staying alive and in the moment. God isn’t some deity whose tales have popped out of an ancient tome. Nor is God the one learned philosophers have tried to introduce most of mankind to through their own isms and prisms. Nay, not either. Instead God here is that sublime force that rules the lives of all who live here. These forces are represented by two deities, Bono Bibi, the goddess of the forest and Dakshin Rai, the divine spirit of the tiger… And though you might find two men in a small boat out fishing for crabs and their names maybe Koreem and Kanhai, but these men are neither Hindu nor Muslim. Their forefathers may have been before they reached this mystical land but once here, faith gets pared down to just the essentials.. And so these men, Koreem and Kanhai and their brothers you meet, will also be found united in prayer before every expedition into the forest as they stare down death at every step as they look for crabs, firewood or honey (so fraught with danger are these expeditions into the Sunderbans for the locals that their wives live like widows until their husbands return) . And when life has been reclaimed after each such expeditions, these men and their families unite again to offer gratefulness and gratitude to ‘God’, their forest and their tiger, and celebrate their today the best they can, for who knows what kind of a tomorrow the winds might bring.<br /><br />So visit the Sunderbans, dear cousin, or whoever else you be, for here you will stand on the little delta of your experiences, and witness the river of our primordial past empty itself into the oceanic basin of our present… now why should you want to miss out on a dip like that?</div>
Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-16457839654608587852013-11-07T10:02:00.000+05:302013-11-11T10:05:20.923+05:30Of Lambs And Lions <div style="text-align: justify;">
Cricket commentary on television has evolved into a fine art that is as entertaining as it is informative. Former cricketers like Sunil Gavaskar, Geoffery Boycott, Ravi Shastri, Sourav Ganguly and Ians - Chappell, Bishop and Botham sharing the box, the commentary box, with passionate scholars of the game like Harsha Bhogle and Tony Cozier makes for a delightfully enlightening experience for a student of the game. Facts and stats dance with tales and trivia for a whirling ball that seduces no less than the one being chased by the players and the stadium.<br />
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Today while I watched Tino Best and Sheldon Cotterell crank it up to the high 140s against the Indian openers, talk in the box drifted to the heydays of the West Indian pace battery when Andy Roberts, Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding and ‘Big Bird’ Garner had bounced and literally beaten the cricketing world black, blue and into submission for nearly two decades.<br />
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Sunil Gavaskar’s punchy eloquence, whether he wields a microphone or the willow, makes him a star on every pitch in the game. Here he was recounting the time when 6’8” Joel Garner was asked by a lady in Australia if he his gargantuan dimensions were proportionate all over, and to which Big Bird replied that for him to be proportionate all over he’d have to be 8’6” tall. And not only did the original little master pick up hundreds in the Caribbean but also their charming island accent. He recounted how the fast men usually pitched the ball in only their half of the wicket and there was usually nothing there for the drive… “if you want to drive, buy a car, maan…” they’d say… And while Gavaskar cut and pulled these gems out of his kitbag, I wondered how those legendary fast bowlers who used to strike fear in the hearts of fans and batsmen alike would have fared in the modern game.<br />
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The pitches are slower and truer, the protective equipment far better, the bats meatier and the rules, in games both long and short, tilted heavily in favour of the guy with the bat. I thought of the just concluded ODI series between India and Australia and the batting slugfest that it turned out to be. Could these legends have done any better and walked away from such a series with their heads higher than their bowling average?<br />
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Would or could a Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli or Glen Maxwell or George Bailey have treated a Malcolm Marshall or Dennis Lillee any differently? Has the game changed yet again to increase the depth and breadth of the yawning chasm between the aristocrats (batsmen) and serfs (bowlers) and establish once and for all that bowlers are meant to be lambs fattened for that run-feast called cricket, and especially limited overs cricket.<br />
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My thoughts turned to the words of the victorious yet thoughtful MS Dhoni after the last game who wondered aloud if 300 was the new par for the game, at least on the sub-continental course. And the underlying question was – Is this new avatar of the game with T20 improving shotmaking, new fielding restrictions liberating big hitting batsmen and pitches with as much life in them as a tombstone good for the future of the game? Will the tribe of bowlers currently reduced to being cannon fodder, like Christians being dragged to the lions in the coliseum in Rome, survive this relentless onslaught? Will they get reduced to or in fact be better off being replaced by bowling machines like Dhoni suggested, only half in jest…<br />
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After mulling over the thought for a while, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is excellent for the game.<br />
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Here’s why…<br />
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• With every bowler getting mauled and runs flowing no matter who is bowling and at what pace or length, it is clear that bowling to save runs is an ineffectual approach for fielding captains and bowlers hoping to win games. Even the most potent bowler in the series, Mitchell Johnson, often bowling at speeds in excess of 150 kmph, went for more than seven runs an over in Nagpur and Jaipur.<br />
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• Containment isn’t an option anymore. The only option for the fielding captain is to take wickets. And bowlers who can take wickets, be it those like Mitchell Johnson, Dale Steyn and Lasith Malinga who force their will upon a game with pace and swing or those like Sunil Narine or Ajanta Mendis who use guile and spin or even chess players like Nuwan Kulasekra and Ravindra Jadeja who use unerring accuracy allied with subtle changes of pace and length to out think the batsman, will be the ones who will win matches. Only a bowler who wants to take wickets will survive in this new era of cricket. And so no matter who is batting, with what bat and on what wicket with what rules, attacking bowlers like Roberts and Lillees, and later like Waseeem and Waqar, and Donald and Mcgrath, and Warne and Murali will always seek wickets, remain a threat, earn respect and spread fear, no matter how many runs they get taken off them.<br />
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• The first avatar of the one day game rewarded the dullness of economy over wicket-taking ability. And so the dibbly dobbly gentle medium pacemen who could turn their arms over for ten overs by giving away anything around forty runs and no wickets were valued more than genuine wicket takers whose aggressive intent could lead to them leaking runs on occasions.<br />
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• Efficiency was killing the one day game. Overs twenty to forty, be it Sydney or Sharjah, made for a dreary spectacle. Batsmen scoring ones and twos and bowlers with neither pace nor imagination plugging away at good length without either the desire or the ability to take wickets. Thank God for these new rules and thank ECB marketing man Stuart Robertson for the T20 game , I say…<br />
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• Whenever the bat has oppressed the ball for long, there has always been a Prometheus who has emerged to redress the balance. If it was Harold Larwood and Douglas Jardine with Bodyline in the 1930s, it was Clive Lloyd and his pack of four in the ‘70s and 80s. The lords at Lords moved in on both occasions to nip the rebellions as best as they could and brought in rules to chain the rebels and so the fast bowlers were defanged by regulating the bouncer and spinners were reined in by covered wickets and the heavy roller. But not to be undone by the rulebook, Imran Khan unleashed his labour of love on unsuspecting batsmen with the craft of swinging the old ball. Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis elevated it to even greater heights and pace and yet again the batsmen cried foul. This time the rules were helpless against reverse swing and with no moral (since there was no physical danger to the batsman) or historical foundation for complaint, reverse swing managed to add an arrow in the now rather bare bowler’s quiver.<br />
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• Spinners brought in the doosra and the carom-ball and suddenly you had bowlers being the difference between victory and defeat in T20.<br />
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• It is only a matter of time before an imaginative captain in tandem with a pair or trio of immensely gifted bowlers comes up with a plan to attack and take out wickets by the bushels in ODIs and begin an era of dominance in the game. Of course wicket taking abilities in ODIs and t20 games is bound to have an impact on the way Tests are played as well, so the series that was bodes well for bowlers in all formats of the game<br />
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• However, a little administrative support will go a long way towards re-balancing the game.<br />
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• There’s no point complaining about bigger bats and belters but surely the ball could do with some improvements as well. The seam for instance could be a little more pronounced. I remember how in the 90s, a ball manufactured by Readers was introduced into club cricket and it had a slightly more pronounced seam than the conventional Dukes (though still within the seam-height limit prescribed in the rule-book) and it caused a sensation with the extra bounce and seam movement it generated. The squeamish lords at Lords were yet again unwilling to persist with the revolution that threatened equality and went back to the Dukes. But it is only fair that for the game to survive, every improvement in bats or wickets should be followed by a corresponding evolutionary innovation in the design of the ball. Both predator and prey must evolve together. If one outstrips the other by too much too soon, it is the law of nature for both to go extinct.<br />
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• Lastly, the rule about new balls and fielding restrictions (which captains should read as more men in catching positions), will eventually force fielding captains to adopt more aggressive tactics. But they would feel truly empowered if they were allowed to bowl bouncers a little more often and with modern protective equipment, it is unlikely to be a life-threatening rule change. And the fielding side should be allowed to manually enhance the ball’s wicket taking properties and restrict ball-tampering laws only to actions that disfigure the shape and nature of the ball. Raising the seam with finger nails or scuffing the ball with the nails (as against rubbing it on the ground or on one’s boots) is akin to taping the bat or adding rubber grips to it. It is only fair that bowlers be allowed to ‘treat’ the ball just the way a batter is allowed to ‘prepare’ the bat.<br />
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Mark my words, the next great bowling uprising is just around the corner and cricket, especially limited overs cricket, is about to enter the most exciting phase of its illustrious history.<br />
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So hold your breath and don’t you dare blink for the game is moulting before your very eyes.<br />
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And when you see the bowlers being put to the sword again, pity them at your own peril, for who would have imagined that the Christians being thrown to the lions for the pleasure of the Roman nobility would one day rule over both Romans and lions…</div>
Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-52841683727057055582013-10-31T14:05:00.000+05:302013-11-02T14:06:24.500+05:30The Fitness Dive And The Final Wharf<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It had been a long cold day. The queues to the Great Wall, the emasculative scale and grandeur of Tiananmen Square and the biting cold and oppressive grayness of a winter smog in Beijing had taken its toll on my ‘first day in the city’ enthusiasm. All I wanted to do was curl up with a book, a blanket and a large mug of hot chocolate when the bus took me past a large square building shining bright red behind a grid of lights. The rather imaginatively named ‘Red Theatre’ was hosting a show called the Legend of Kung fu. A montage of saffron clad sinewy bodies flying acrobatically and executing beautifully choreographed stunts flashed through a brightly lit stage in my head.</div>
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Warm room and hot chocolate versus braving the cold night for expensive seats to a kung fu show…. Hmmm, I must still be young for kung fu won hands down.</div>
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The show did not disappoint. A corny tale but beautifully told and the athleticism, power and grace of the performers made for a grand spectacle. It was there and then that I realized that if I was ever to draw up a list of fitness methods and rank them for what they do to enhance the human experience, Shaolin kung fu, has got to rank at the very top of that tall mountain.</div>
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And so let the drums roll, let the bugle call, and all rise to bow to the method that claims the prize – The Shaolin arts are the path of choice for both the beautiful and the wise.</div>
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Before you ask me why should you devote yourself to this system of Chinese self care, let me begin with telling that though the motherland for this system is China, the father of this martial system is India for it is a prince named Bodhidharma from somewhere in our neighbourhood who had taken the nuances and seeds of the system to the Shaolin temple (see issue dated: November 27, 2011 for the back story) and thus was born Shaolin temple kung fu.</div>
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But from a simple system of health and fitness, the monks nurtured the philosophy and principles of breathing, postures and forms into a martial art that integrates combat skills with fitness and internal health and well being with spiritual awareness. So straight away, you’ve got a fitness tool that covers more bases than anything else we have encountered till now.</div>
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Convinced? Come on, what more could you ask for? The Shaolin forms and calisthenics will tone and build muscle, give you an outstanding cardio workout and all that stance training like horse stance etc. will make you scream out and call people names but would also build fantastic muscle endurance. And it will do it all in a manner that would be good for your joints and build strength even in the tendons and ligaments which conventional strength training tends to neglect. No wonder you have had kung fu men like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li setting pulses racing and setting screens alight with their athleticism and world class fitness.</div>
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And as for power, Bruce Lee, who had trained in Wing Chun (a style created by a pair of Shaolin trained nuns) was famous for his explosive punches and kicks while other monks have been broken rocks, not boards or bricks but rocks, with their bare hands. As for aesthetics, check out the chiseled body of a man they call Sifu Yan Lei. Men’s fitness described his physique as one “that has been cut from solid jade”.</div>
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But Shaolin workouts aren’t about muscles alone. The first few words on Sifu Yan Lei’s website are “Qigong (the yoga like postures and forms that Bodhidharma brought to the Shaolin Temple) and Kung Fu is (sic!) not just for martial artists but for anyone who wants to live a long and healthy life”. Then it goes on to explain how qigong makes the organs healthy and strong, helps turn back the clock, builds immunity and generally gives the practitioner an energy boost that carries him or her through the most stressful of days.</div>
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And then of course, like yoga, qigong and kung fu train the mind and the spirit through meditation and breathing. Shaolin workouts push those who train in the discipline to connect with one’s inner self and the forces of the universe as much as with the opponents chin or solar plexus.</div>
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And lastly, Shaolin kung fu build courage and honour by teaching one how to defend oneself, but without losing control over one’s emotions or one’s punches.</div>
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Don’t take my word for it. Go out there and find yourself a Shaolin Sifu. It is an unbeatable workout that ticks all the boxes and far more than any other system that claims it can get you super fit and looking and feeling super good.</div>
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So there might be other systems that are better at building pure self defense skills, or better at healing the body or building huge muscles. But if mind-body fitness is what you seek, you could try kettlebells or clubbells and krav maga or yoga and yet there is nothing that compares with what those monks in the Shaoshi Mountain (that’s where the Shao in Shaolin comes from) have to offer.</div>
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We have our champion and you have your list. So don’t hang around the couch. The match is over and India has won. Let go of that remote and instead of gaping in awe as Virat Kohli crunches another one through the offside, get on your feet, pick something you’ll enjoy and stick with it for a while. For all you know, in months to come, your family and friends might be staring at you and your athleticism with a bit of the awe that they currently reserve for Mitchell Johnson and Kohli. So Happy Diwali and hope this series did a little to light your fuse… </div>
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Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-11177032401497821252013-10-24T12:30:00.000+05:302013-10-25T16:49:08.603+05:30THE FITNESS DIVE AND THE TEN WHARFS - V<div style="text-align: justify;">
There’s this strange thing about climaxes. The journey might be unknown but the destination is known. After all the climax is the reason why you got started in the first place. Through every curve on every winding road to wherever you want to go, you expect it. Through every shock and surprise and exclamation of delight or horror, the only guarantee is the climax, or at least you sure hope so. The nature of the journey, the lessons and experiences, tactile, intellectual and spiritual, prepare us for the finale but the enigmatic truth is that the better the journey the more difficult it is for the climax to not become anti-climactic.</div>
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And that is the dilemma staring back at me from the laptop screen this moment. Over the last four issues, I have shared with you, dear reader, all I have learnt about the world of fitness and we built up through a countdown of some of the best fitness systems in the world to what I believe are the top two systems on the planet for holistic health and incredible fitness.</div>
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The funny bit is that I had known all along that the two systems we will discuss today are the top two systems on my list. It was building the sequence that lead up to the top two that took a lot of time and thought.</div>
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We began with power lifting and body-building, two high risk-high returns workouts which primarily work the musculature and the skeletal structure. Then we explored lesser known, lost disciplines like club bells and isometrics – methods that were extremely popular about half a century ago but seem to have fallen out of favour due to the imbalances in these otherwise highly effective systems.</div>
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Then came the body-weight workouts - high rep and gymnastic low-rep systems that are surprisingly effective though a little too challenging for the average fitness enthusiast.</div>
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Nearing the top of the rack was a hard-core martial method followed by kettle bells. These two methods are incredibly balanced, relatively safe and bear fruit on all boughs on the fitness tree.</div>
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What more can be found on the altar of fitness that could offer even greater strength and health benefits than the above mentioned methods? And what could possibly be missing from these wonderful systems of health wholesomeness?</div>
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And the answer is internal health, and at the risk of sounding a touch un-cool, spiritual health. All these above mentioned systems, and some more so than others, fix most bricks on the fitness wall with aplomb.</div>
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Strength, endurance, cardiovascular capacity and even flexibility levels will be enhanced greatly through consistent devotion to the high rankers in the list. But what about the lungs and the kidneys, and the liver and the glands? Let’s not delve into greater anatomical detail, but really, what about all that clockwork that functions noiselessly usually, inside that rock hard and beautifully sculpted shell, to keep you running like a well engineered marvel of nature? Who is going to take care of that?</div>
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And to answer that question, put your hands together and welcome the runner up that ran the champion close – the humble homegrown and ancient system of, you guessed it - yoga!</div>
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First things first… What you know to be yoga and what is practiced in studios and gymnasiums around the world is actually asana, a mere limb of the complete system of physical and spiritual health known as yoga. Morality, meditation, restraints, and austerities are some of the other limbs of yoga but for the sake of our discussion let’s confine ourselves to the triumvirate that has the most tangible and scientifically verifiable impact on our health – asana or physical, calisthenics like postures; pranayama or breath work and lastly dhyana or meditation.</div>
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The primary difference, on a physiological plane, between yoga and other fitness tools is that instead of working on the body by building the muscles first, bones next and cardio-respiratory systems last, yoga work inside out. Each asana posture targets not just muscles and bone but different aspects of the internal systems like the endocrinal system or the nervous system along with other more obvious components of fitness.</div>
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But you knew that already, didn’t you? From Dr. Dean Ornish to Baba ram Dev, everybody who is anybody in the world of holistic health has been screaming from the rooftops about the benefits of yoga. This is why patients nursing chronic ailments oft en practice ‘yoga’. Even Western medical practitioners run parallel ‘yoga programmes’ in many hospitals to supplement allopathic treatments for their patients. </div>
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The real challenge for yoga is to prove it works the other way round… that it is a legitimate fitness tool and not merely a therapeutic one.</div>
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I was reminded of an article I had read in a 2002 issue of Yoga Journal which had pit three American yogis against Biodex machines and treadmills and the like. The yogis demonstrated flexibility levels comparable to gymnasts and acrobats and cardio respiratory fitness and lung capacity that on an average scored just below levels achieved by elite endurance athletes (but without pushing themselves too hard), had excellent body fat ratios and BMI (thanks to the overall healthy and conscientious dietary choices that are a part of the yogic lifestyle) and scored around the average mark in terms of strength. However, observers felt that the body takes a little time to adjust to the machines and scores might have gotten progressively better with more time spent on the machines. So there you have it… Scientific evidence that yoga works to keep you fit. As for muscle tone and strength, let a man no weaker than former world champion pro wrestler and current fitness guru Diamond Dallas Page tell you that not only does the practice of yoga heal and strengthen banged up joints but also tones and strengthens every muscle in the body in a way that conventional weight training couldn’t touch.</div>
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Yoga might not make you look like a body-builder but when done with passion and persistence and coupled with a lean nutritious diet plan, can give you the graceful lines of a diver and the aesthetic value of that can be understood if you take a look at the lean ripples on a young Greg Louganis or Bryan Kest.</div>
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Then of course there is pranayama, the practice of which gave Yogacharya BKS Iyengar, the grand sire of yoga a lung capacity that rivals the average lung capacity of a 25 year old Olympian at the age of 80. In the book Real men Do Yoga, a New York City fireman whose lungs had been damaged while he was busy saving lives during the World trade Centre attacks claims that even doctors couldn’t help him breathe and go for 20 minutes without coughing until he tried yogic breath work. The practice of pranayama improves lung capacity, and oxygenates the body like nothing else can. Pretty useful under stress or under water, I’d say…</div>
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Finally, the benefits of meditation have been trumpeted by far too many and far too often to be reiterated by me but just for the sake of completeness, meditation indeed relaxes the body and mind and rids both of stress and free radicals. And meditation also helps you focus and develop mental clarity and reign in and train that jumpy monkey in our heads.</div>
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Yoga attains a sky-high number two on the list because its benefits, while flooding the physical, soar far higher into realms and corners of our lives in a way that few other workouts can. </div>
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At this stage, we are left with little space to introduce the king of the heap who edged out the ancient and resilient yogic training system by a whisker, so I’ll bid you adieu for now with the promise that you will meet the champ next week. Meanwhile, get on the mat and give me a headstand. I’ll see you there in seven…</div>
Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-44895582212401455192013-10-17T11:30:00.000+05:302013-10-18T16:15:58.939+05:30THE FITNESS DIVE AND THE TEN WHARFS - IV<div style="text-align: justify;">
In a forgettable film named Enough but in a memorable role as the furiously fisty, super toned mom-on-the-run, Slim, Jennifer Lopez, with that final flourish of a front kick that sent her abusive husband to his death, introduced Krav Maga to the league of the bruised and the battered. This Israeli martial art that emerged from the shadow of the Holocaust and emboldened a nation, becoming the chosen self-defense system for not just soldiers and law-enforcement agencies but for the whole nation – children, women and even the elderly. Today, it has spread all over the globe and is practiced with a view to improving not just one’s skills for staying safe on the streets but increasingly for its unique health and fitness benefits.<br /><br />And this brings us to our rungs in the countdown for this week. First up, at number four, we have the striking arts. If you keep aspects of self defense aside (martial arts like boxing, kick boxing and muay thai are sports while Krav Maga is designed to keep one safe. Consequently, the most vulnerable parts of the body – eyes, throat and groin, are off limits in the former and the express targets in the latter), the striking arts, collectively, those martial systems that predominantly encourage striking with punches, kicks, elbows and knees, as opposed to grappling, like in wrestling or throwing, like in judo or groundwork, like in Brazilian jiujitsu (Krav maga has a bit of groundwork in its syllabus, but most of the time is spent on one’s feet in a Krav maga gym) – offer a tremendous all-round workout.<br /><br />As a fitness workout, kickboxing, muay thai or thai boxing, krav maga and boxing have a unique edge over most other conventional workouts. A striking art challenges the body to exert balance, power and stamina, all in one intense workout. This is accomplished by going up against two unrelenting opponents – the timer and the punching bag (subject to the kind of strike being practiced, it could be a focus mitt, seed bag, strike pad or a heavy bag).<br /><br />In most gymnasiums that use a martial art as a fitness tool, trainers use a combination of shuttle runs, calisthenics and bag-work (martialart speak for pounding away against a bag), and I kid you not, the intensity wastes you like few thing under the sun can.<br /><br />I remember the first time I did a partner drill on a focus mitt (it’s those big padded gloves that trainers wear to help their wards develop striking proficiency against moving targets at different ranges), wherein one holds the bag for a minute while the other pounds away, and then we switch… and we were supposed to total ten minutes, which is just five alternate minutes each, but by the 50th second in round one, your insides are screaming ‘fire’. By the third minute, your veins feel like they are filled with liquid lead and your lungs with magma. Your kidneys beat like your heart and your heart feels like it will explode in your head… but don’t be alarmed. If it doesn’t kill you, and in all likelihood, as long as your doctor has told you that you are fit to exercise, it won’t, then it will definitely make you stronger. And strength in this context is not limited to the muscles and the bones alone. It also strengthens your heart, and perhaps far more than a round of jogging or aerobics ever could.<br /><br />And cardiovascular fitness, along with muscular endurance and development, is the hallmark of our selections for this week. And so, entering the medal round, at number three, is the oddball dark horse called the kettlebell which does everything that a ‘martial arts for fitness’ workout can do and then some more.<br /><br />Now, what is so special about this cannonball with a handle that it has become the weapon of choice for elite special-forces like the Russian Spetsnatz and the United States Secret Service, for martial arts legends like three-time Olympic gold medalist Aleksandr Karelin, and for the man the media anointed as the greatest mixed martial artist of all time – Fedor Emelianenko? But today, it isn’t just the Russians that swear by the bounce in the bell. Movie stars, football stars and athletes from track and field besides the usual suspects - martial artists and commandoes, are lifting kettlebells to achieve an athletic edge or an edgy athletic physique, whatever the purpose might be.<br /><br />Super chiseled Mathew McConaughey lifts bells to ‘burn fat in a hurry and build muscles’ while Jessica Biel swings one too. And if she can’t convince you about why kettlebells rule, no one else ever will…. Why, even homegrown hunks like Hrithik Roshan have fallen for the bell.<br /><br />And why are kettlebells so special? Well, for starters, the objective of kettlebell sport isn’t vanity but true-blue fitness. Swinging kettlebells won’t work the vanity muscles – bis, tris and pecs -arms and chest to the uninitiated, as much as conventional gym workouts would. But what it would do is work the muscles that we need the most to live long and live strong – the heart, the shoulder girdle, the back, all the way from the traps to the glutes, the core muscles and the legs. Steel grip forearms are a bonus. If you do it right, not only will you avoid injuries but would end up rehabilitating old ones. Secondly, unlike ‘the bigger (in inches or tonnage) is better’ mindset encouraged around most bench press booths, kettlebells are more about encouraging muscular endurance, correct breathing patterns, and learning how to maximize neural strength by working on the mind-muscle connection. All of this holds both body and mind in better stead as the years hurtle into the 40s.<br /><br />Last but not the least, the incidental benefit of working on these functional fitness goals is a physique that admittedly looks more at home on a lithe vine-swinging Tarzan than on a ‘roid-raging mountain of muscle like that big green guy from Marvel. The latter makes for a fine spectacle, sure and marvelous strength goals are possible with such a physique. But for most folks, whether you want to show off a pair of jeans, a skirt, even the big green guy’s frayed cut-offs or a leopard printed loin-cloth, the former physique is the one they’d like to hold in their arms, or behold in the mirror. And as far as long term health benefits are concerned, on all fronts - muscular strength and endurance, cardiovascular fitness, flexibility and balance, nothing can beat and only calisthenics can match the completeness of the kettlebell.<br /><br />So there you have it. As long as the body in balance is what concerns you, kettlebells are pretty much at the top of the pile. Sure calisthenics are great too but they aren’t weight-adjustable to accommodate varying levels of fitness like kettlebells can. So start swinging if that’s all you want.<br /><br />If you think there’s more to being healthy than just a fit and strong body, then maybe next week’s methods are more up your street. But if Superman is all you want to be (Henry Cavil swings kettlebells too, by the way), all you need to do is wear the right pants, carry your kettlebell and find a phone booth where you can start doing your presses and snatches, and before you know it, your fitness levels will be soaring… up, up and away!<br /><br />Wouldn’t hurt trying one on for size while you wait, would it?</div>
Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-68327345860302612942013-10-10T13:30:00.000+05:302013-10-13T16:38:38.324+05:30The Fitness Dive and the Ten Wharfs - III<div style="text-align: justify;">
What makes ordinary people like you and me into superhuman soldiers aka the US Navy SEALS who save the world in a week’s work? What built a delinquent young kid into ‘the world’s most dangerous man’ aka MMA legend Ken Shamrock? What sculpted actor-athlete Woody Strode into the ‘most beautiful male specimen of his time’ and prompted Adolf Hitler to exclaim that Woody had ‘…the greatest physique of any athlete ever seen..”<br /><br />Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for the humblest fruit-seed on the fitness tree –b-o-d-y-w-e-i-g-h-t-c-a-l-i-s-t-h-e-n-i-c-s!<br /><br />What? Why did you all stop clapping? Not cool enough? I know… I know… For those of you who’ve been brought up on images of beefy men benching a mountain and ladies in leotards beating the beats with hand-weights as the ideal path to fitness, calisthenics are merely an old fashioned way to warm-up…<br /><br />In the third episode in this countdown, we will explore the oldest, and to its champions, arguably the best form of exercise known to man – bodyweight training, or as the old timers call it – ‘freehand exercises’. <br /><br />What’s new about free hand exercises? Push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups and squats… that’s all there is to them, you say… ok for beginners or to supplement a weight-training program but it can’t sustain a comprehensive fitness life-style. How can push-ups compare with bench presses or clean and presses when it comes to building lean muscle or athletic strength?<br /><br />Well, here’s how…<br /><br />First up, the endurance hound’s holy grail – The Special Operations Warrior Workout! This freehand training method has evolved from the trenches. Soldiers in the field of battle, from when they were fighting with rocks and clubs to assault rifles and grenades, they’ve always known that the key to surviving most life and death situations, be it cutting through enemy positions, crossing a desert or a swamp, surviving a plane crash or a ship wreck or years as a prisoner of war, the most essential ingredient to survive it all is endurance – indomitable and unstoppable mental and physical endurance that refuses to accept defeat until the goal is reached or the body gives up the ghost.<br /><br />To this end, elite super soldiers like the Navy Seals and martial artists like Matt Furey and those from Shamrock’s Lion’s Den gym crank out push-ups and pull-ups and crunches and squats till their whole body is reduced to a quivering gob of jelly. They might throw around some weights too but the cornerstone of their workout is the extremely high repetition workout plan where numbers routinely cross a few hundreds and often get into the thousand plus zone. This kind of training not only builds great muscle tone and endurance but it does something which few other relatively low rep or training to failure type methods can achieve. High rep whole body training, which is usually infinitely more intense than high rep, single joint machine or weight training, with the mind focused on a certain goal or number, trains not only the body but also the mind to keep fighting and not give up - even as the mouth goes dry and the muscles burn with lactic acid build up; when cranking even one more rep seems difficult and you have almost a hundred to go; when every cell in your body screams out for a reprieve but you just clench your jaw and keep going.<br /><br />This kind of training will tomorrow help a soldier with a bullet lodged in his thigh still grit his teeth and carry his severely wounded buddy through a swamp and a forest over days without food to safety.<br /><br />What good is it for you when all you want is a chiseled bod to show off in a Versace gown or in your Speedos by the pool? Well, for starters, if you have a mountain of lard to lose, then high rep goal oriented training is not only your best bet for building high octane fat burning muscle while giving yourself a great cardio workout, but it also gives you micro goals that will keep you motivated while the mirror takes its own sweet time in revealing the truth.<br /><br />And for those of you who are already in good shape, there is nothing as liberating as getting a great workout anytime, anywhere, with nothing but your own body.<br /><br />And if the extreme athlete in you feels that squats without weights is for sissies, pick up Ken Shamrock’s book –Inside the Lion’s Den. Flip to page 36. “Give me 500 squats”, Masami Saranaka, talent scout for a Japanese fighting circuit, had demanded. The scout knew that high rep squats test the two most important weapons in a fighter’s armoury – legs and heart. Shamrock of course had obliged, but if you want to know if you are fit to fight, go ahead, give the 500 a try. Elite international fighters usually manage 500 squats, a 100 push-ups and about a 100 crunches. And Navy Seal tests need athletes to swim and run for miles, do hundreds of push-ups and crunches and manage about 20 pull ups at least to be competitive. Now I’ve given you the goal. See how you match up… And if this isn’t incentive enough, even an iron-warrior like Arnold Schwarzenegger has asserted in ‘The Education of a Bodybuilder’, that not only do freehand exercises build a great foundation of muscle but sculpt the body in the tradition of the heroic Greek ideal. Now do you have a problem with looking like the Farnese Hercules? I don’t!<br /><br />So if high repetition bodyweight exercises can give you superhuman endurance, excellent cardiovascular fitness and a lean muscular physique then why would you need anything else? What’s missing in the mix? <br /><br />And the answer is strength. A 100 pushups in five minutes still wouldn’t necessarily translate into the kind of strength you would need to manage a single one arm push up. Traditional body weight training makes it difficult for athletes to increase resistance once a certain level of strength has been attained. Once you can do 50 pushups or 15 pull ups, the only way to progress further is to keep increasing repetitions. While that is excellent for improving overall fitness, such training does little for building strength.<br /><br />But in penitentiaries around the world, many criminals who are confined without access to modern gymnasiums still want to keep themselves fit and strong. For some, it is a way to ward off boredom while for others it is a way to acquire strength and respect - vital weapons if one wants to survive in the brutal dog eat dog world behind bars and steel doors. These prison athletes began experimenting with bodyweight training methods with greater leverage challenges. One arm push-ups and pull-ups, one legged squats and the like. On the outside, acrobats, gymnasts and circus performers had also been training with these techniques to build enormous strength without becoming too bulky. The focus was on improving the body’s power to weight ratio. There are many names for this game. Some authors call it ‘convict conditioning’ while others call it ‘freehand acrobatics’. In essence, it is extreme bodyweight gymnastics.<br /><br />Today, extreme bodyweight athletes like Jim Bathurst, Al Kavadlo and Bulgarian superman Encho Keryazov are exponents of an extreme bodyweight training lifestyle that not only sculpts fit and beautiful bodies but is one of the few training methods that make for great viewing for bystanders too. Some of the things that these athletes can do are straight out of a ‘Ripley’s believe it or not’ episode. And their lean and muscular physiques are almost impossible to replicate with conventional weight training.<br /><br />Then why are freehand exercises figuring in the middle of the list instead of at the very top? No gym required. Extremely healthy training methods which are both comprehensive and relatively safe. The physiques they build are unique and aesthetic. So what gives?<br /><br />Well, granted that all you need for these workouts is your body but to achieve exceptional levels of aesthetics and strength, you need a very fit and strong body to even begin some of these exercises. Most people reading this would find it difficult to manage even one pull up or one-legged squat. And I w if any wonder how many would have the mental fortitude and physical endurance to crank out 50 consecutive pushups. The problem with freehand exercises, while excellent for beginners looking to build a foundation before moving on to weights and cables, is that they are too demanding. Freehand exercises, contrary to the belief that they are too easy, are in fact a lifestyle choice for a select few only who have the willingness to forge both body and mind in a foundry that is a little too hot for most and therein rests its Achilles’ heel.<br /><br />Ten reps and three sets of a moderately loaded bench press bar and about 20 minutes of running on the treadmill are nowhere near as intense as three sets of ten one arm pushups and 500 squats. And when the apparent results, at least on the aesthetic plane are pretty much the same, then why should one strive that much harder.<br /><br />As long as ‘fabulous fitness’ is all you seek, indeed why should you, for there are better bargains to come in the countdown. Just hang in there for a week more… and if from a pull up bar is too much to ask, go get yourself a hammock instead.</div>
Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-5519825366443683342013-09-26T11:30:00.000+05:302013-09-27T15:20:51.919+05:30THE FITNESS DIVE AND THE TEN WHARFS - II<div style="text-align: justify;">
Now, where were we? Ah yes, in the middle of a countdown. Last week was spent delving into the respective merits and demerits of two rather popular training methods for those looking for ways to become fit and fabulous. We are looking for methods that not only pump the body with feel good endorphins and sculpt it in pursuit of our own aesthetic ideals but also make us healthier and stronger…</div>
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This week we take the countdown further and start the ball, or rather in this case, the bell, rolling with the system that’s number eight on the list…</div>
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This one’s an old favourite. The sheer simplicity of this method and its effectiveness in terms of quickly sculpting the body and building strength makes it one of the most valuable training methods especially for those who are constantly on the move and haven’t the time or the opportunities of visiting a gymnasium. They call it isometrics…</div>
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It’s a forgotten jewel in the pantheon of physical culture. Once a rage, no one tries it anymore. Worse, no one seems to believe in it either. That’s rather sad if you ask me for a lot of fitness enthusiasts don’t know what they are missing.</div>
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Consisting of host of techniques which basically involve the muscles pushing against an immoveable resistance, one can work the whole body within half an hour. Research claims suggest that isometrics is also one of the quickest methods for building strength within a certain range of motion and definitely the best for sculpting the muscles in a hurry. As for the naysayers, let me remind them of a man called Alexander Zass.</div>
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Once a circus strongman, Zass fought against the Austrians in the first World War and was captured while attempting to escape while carrying his injured horse on his back. Put into jail with his arms and legs in shackles, Zass exercised his muscles everyday by pushing and pulling against his chains. This kind of training, imposed upon him by his constrained circumstances, pushed his strength levels through the stratosphere. The prisoner managed to eventually break his chains, bent the bars of his cell and escaped to freedom. Isometric training was also the reason behind the legendary Bruce Lee’s amazing strength. Both Zass and Lee were small in stature but their strength surpassed that of many much larger men.</div>
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Then why does it figure so low in the list? Well that is because isometrics only build strength through a partial range of motion, and it does not teach the body the mysteries of leverage. That is why, though phenomenally strong, and perhaps even stronger than the greatest weight lifters of his time, by his own admission Zass might not have been able to match their weight lifting feats.</div>
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More significantly for you and me and others like us who are just looking for a method to help us improve our quality of life, our levels of fitness and our generally sagging popularity ratings, isometrics do little to improve cardiovascular fitness. Blood circulation definitely benefits from a regimen of isometrics but incorrect breathing can adversely affect blood pressure.</div>
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Thus, though excellent for building strength and tone, even and especially in the elderly, isometric training figures where it does on the list because of its inherent limitations as a method for comprehensive physical development as well as for the rather serious risk associated with incorrect training methods.<br />
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Next on the list, is an ancient Indian in its modern avatar – the clubbell!<br />
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Clubbell training’s origins are a little obscure. The mace or club is perhaps the most ancient weapon known to man. Early humans would have dragged around bowling pin shaped clubs when out hunting or during tribal wars. Later the club became the weapon of choice for the biggest and strongest soldiers in ancient armies. Even today, tribal warriors from the Maasai to the Maori carry clubs to signify their warrior ranks and have been used by these cultures as weapons of war as much as in hunts.</div>
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But the credit for using the ancient club as a training tool must go to the pehelwans of ancient India and Persia. Some sources suggest that the pehelwani culture and the club was introduced by Mid eastern invaders or the Mughals. However that cannot explain India’s own wrestling heritage that flows like the Indus, from the times of the Mahabharata and beyond, and east to west. </div>
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It is no coincidence that most of India’s mythological strong men, like Hanuman and Bheem have not only been accomplished wrestlers but also wielders of the mace or club. Of course, the fact remains that the cultures of ancient India and Persia, shared a common border in those days and a fair degree of cultural fusion and exchange must have taken place.</div>
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Wrestling is a tradition for Indians and Iranians today. Traditionally, they have always done the same exercises and practiced similar techniques and have always been regional and even global superpowers in the traditional mud/pit versions of the sport. So what has been their secret?</div>
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Well, if you were to believe a rather loud mouthed septuagenarian Iranian living in Georgia, USA, Iranian and Indian wrestlers owe their edge to the ancient practice of club swinging. Hossein khosrow Ali Vaziri, a professional wrestling champion from the 80s who wrestled with the likes of Hulk Hogan would oft en bring his clubs to the ring and challenge fellow wrestlers and fans to try their hand at swinging the behemoths. Needless to say, few could lift and none could match Hossein’s numbers.</div>
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That was the modern west’s introduction to the old clubbell. Today, from the akhadas of India to the sambo clubs of Russia and right up to celebrity trainers in Hollywood, everyone is using the Indian club as it is called now, to strengthen and tone their bodies.</div>
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Martial artists and grapplers love swinging the club because there perhaps isn’t another exercise in the world that is better for building grip strength. Secondly, club training adds a muscular fluidity that is tough to replicate through conventional weight training. And it’s fun, which is why it is standing on the cusp of becoming the next ‘hot new workout of the season’. Women love clubbell training for it tones all the little muscles of the upper body and can be used for both cardiovascular training as well as heavy strength training.</div>
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Lastly, Mensa member Scott Sonnon, the man who ‘reintroduced’ the West to clubbells has emphasized the unique manner in which training with a club activates muscle function, strengthens tendons and ligaments and heals battered joints. With so much going for it, you would wonder why the oldest implement in the list isn’t also the most relevant…</div>
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Hmmm, I thought long and hard about this one. For all its virtues, clubbells should figure at the very top of the list. And it would have too, but for one glaring omission – the lower body.</div>
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Clubbell enthusiasts would insist that few training tools work the core like clubs do and while that may be true, the legs are undeniably not equal beneficiaries of a club swinging regimen. True you can do squats while resting the clubbells on your shoulders but in a static state, it is just dead weight and has none of the dynamic and ballistic benefits that the upper body enjoys.</div>
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Isn’t that the reason why the undefeated wrestling champion of the world, the Great Gama would routinely do squats with a heavy cement ring placed around his neck even though he was amongst the best club swingers of his time.</div>
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So there you have it… two methods that are unique and less known than most others and are yet brilliant at what they do best. A complete workout? Perhaps not. But do they have a place in most people’s lives as a supplementary training component, for example isometrics are great if you are travelling when combined with a run. Clubbells are a great anyway and perhaps the best when it comes to upper body training. If you could just add pistols and bridges to them, you might not need anything else and have more fun than most gym rats with your workouts.</div>
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The list will be back next week. Meanwhile, you tell that mirror that it lies while you keep working hard on the truth. Swing on…</div>
Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-60756850336183544002013-09-19T11:00:00.000+05:302013-09-20T18:06:29.357+05:30THE FITNESS DIVE AND THE TEN WHARFS-PART 1<div style="text-align: justify;">
Remember what they say about teachers and doers? Those who can, do; those who can’t teach… well, I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t, so I might as well keep on teaching…<br /><br />It’s been a while since I lay a wager with my friends that I was going to get a six pack and uncountable extensions on the original date later, I’m still looking for them in them in the mirror, feeling for them under the tee or the shirt and a little layer that keeps swelling up like bread in an oven every time I whittle it down to near nothing.<br /><br />So I guess I really can’t eh?<br />But all that searching for the right way, the best way, the quickest way, the surest way and so on, sure gave me a lot of plans to play with.. And while walking the walk has had its own share of hitherto insurmountable hurdles, talking the talk should be a whole lot easier…<br /><br />So while I’m still running on that treadmill to nowhere ab nauseam, let me give you a quick peek into all that I found and my top tries for getting to good health, super fitness and someday that six pack package… No promises here, let me warn you…<br /><br />Just my thoughts on what might work best in the long run..<br /><br />So without further ado, let’s begin with the countdown to the best fitness workouts (according to admittedly an armchair pundit but one who oft en, though not oft en enough, does push-ups on the arms of the very same arm-chair) that could keep you fit and strong even as the metabolism slows down and the years run away before you seem to be able to catch ‘em…<br /><br />First and therefore last but definitely not the least on this countdown is… put your hands together for the king of strength sport and a favourite with ageing gym rats with testosterone issues and aslopecia… the sport for true blue strength athletes -<br />At number 10 on the countdown…<br /><br /><b>Powerlifting</b><br />I must apologize for my earlier comment about alopecia and testosterone. Who knows, I might be donning those tights and rubbing chalk on what might be by then, my massively thighs, on my way to a record deadlift . And I hope to have issues with neither at the time. A perfectly legitimate way to extreme strength, powerlifting training, the way of the big three, the bench-press, the dead-lift and the squat, is perhaps every human being’s surest path to finding and enhancing the limits of one’s strength potential.<br /><br />And strength, unlike other athletic components like speed or agility, at least on the basis of anecdotal evidence, seems to be the last to fade. That is why a lot of Masters (above 40) level competitors post numbers not too far away from the big guys in the open category.<br /><br />Joe Brodski, the 2009 United States record holder in the Masters 60-64 year olds category with a 315 lb lift at 220 lbs bodyweight is living proof that power lift ing has its perks.<br /><br />“It (powerlifting) keeps my cholesterol and blood pressure down and I’m able to keep up with the kids at work”, says the tough graybeard who is twice as strong as most men half his age.<br /><br />But while powerlifting is great for sagging muscle bellies, it is a sport that chases an extreme ideal, that of strength and more strength and nothing else and so it has its limitations in terms of enhancing all aspects of ‘fitness’.<br /><br />And so at number nine, we have close cousin to the big lift sport, and everyone’s usual suspect for picking a path to the six-pack, bis-tris and bubble butt nirvana, <i><b>the body-building workout</b></i> at yonder gym.<br /><br />In theory, workouts inspired by the body-builder’s goal of well defined muscles and a ripped look with low body fat is pretty much an ideal and balanced training plan. The focus is as much on a well rounded diet as it is on strength and cardiovascular training. If practiced in moderation, it is pretty close to what might be the perfect plan.<br /><br />Seventy-one year old three time Mr. Olympia, Frank Zane, 82 year old five-time Mr Universe, Bill Pearl and 76 year old Masters bodybuilding champion and fitness author are living testimony to the power of weight training done right. For one who knows one’s body and its limitations, this method is as good as the ones at the top of this list.<br /><br />But what keeps this method at nine on the list is the high degree of caution that one has to exercise because training with weights is a tight rope walk fraught with many dangers where either ego or ignorance could lead one down a path splintered with broken bones, worn out joints, torn ligaments and slipped discs. Added to that are the temptations of over-supplementation, an underground steroid culture and extreme diet plans that oft en sacrifice good health on the altar of vanity.<br /><br />And so with its baggage of physiological and psychological red zones, body-building workouts, despite their innumerable benefits could climb no higher than number nine on this count down.<br /><br />Next week, we will explore four more workout plans on this countdown, their virtues and their dangers and the shape of the ideals that one might reflect through bodies dedicated to these plans.<br /><br />But don’t wait for me folks. Just because my dreams seem to take a while to bake is no reason for you to slacken off … so train on…<br /><br />Now, where was I…? Ah yes… 1091… 1092… ..1093… phew… so see you.. 1094… at the end of this set..1095..and the week…!</div>
Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-37453864889754755032013-09-12T11:30:00.000+05:302013-09-13T13:52:48.189+05:30LOOK BEFORE YOU LEASH II<div style="text-align: justify;">
This one was mahogany red and while I was friends with all the dogs in the area, both pet and stray, this one just wouldn’t want to say hi. I would drift close to the gate and Jojo would slam into the gate on his side, growling, barking and spitting doggy expletives for all he was worth. But with his family, he was surprisingly gentle and affectionate.<br /><br />Spurned thus, I gave up on him and went back to the ones I used to roam the streets with in those days. After some years, word trickled in that Jojo had turned on his master, that he’d ‘gone mad’ and so was put down.<br /><br />These mad-dog stories abound amongst all who fear dogs. Some were bitten by a neighbour’s pet or a stray. Others have never been bitten but have inherited this fear of dogs from those they have heard these horror stories from – of dogs being unpredictable, of how they turn on their masters and how dog owners might assure them that a dog wouldn’t bite, and yet they snap at an unsuspecting guest. <br /><br />So what is the truth? Undoubtedly, these dogs have drawn blood. So are they mad dogs? Are they rabid beasts that need to be put down at the earliest?<br /><br />A few months ago, I met our bhaiya, Jojo’s master, at a wedding in the old neighbourhood and inevitably talk turned to Jackie’s madness. And here’s how the story unfolded…<br /><br />It was the night of Diwali and the smoke and crackle of crackers and the leaping lights of the night had given poor Jojo a terrible fright. Leaving his customary spot in the open courtyard, the nervous dog ran into a bedroom on the first floor and hid under a table. As luck would have it, the first floor was supposed to be off limits to the dog and while the night echoed with the sizzle and screams of shooting rockets and bursting crackers, bhaiya’s father tried to coax Jojo from under the table. Since Jojo wouldn’t budge, the man tried to hold the dog by his tail and yank him out. On a night like most others Jojo might have submitted and quietly given in, but fear had driven Jojo’s mind into a zone that he didn’t know how to control. For the first time in all his seven years with the family, Jojo growled at a family member. The man thought that Jojo had growled because he had grabbed his tail and so tried to pull him out by his collar. Jojo snapped and bit the arm that had grabbed the collar. The growling and the biting convinced the family that the dog must have gone mad or rabid. He was locked and chained inside the room for a day, and though the family loved their pet, with young children in the house, a difficult decision was taken. Though the dog had regained his cheerful demeanor by morning, unwilling to risk their children, the tearful family called in an executioner who dispatched a very confused and otherwise normal dog with a few well placed blows from a big stick. <br /><br />I’ve heard other tales of ‘mad dogs’ biting people I know. On each occasion, including the above mentioned incident, on asking about the nature of the wound, the ‘victim’ has revealed two tell-tale puncture wounds were the canines broke skin. <br /><br />Now go to Youtube and check out videos of wolves and wild dogs on a hunt. These pack hunters literally tear their prey apart while it’s on the run. That’s what those teeth are designed for. Have you seen stray dogs fight? When they mean business, once a dog has gotten hold of their opponent, you’ll see them vigorously shake their head and neck in an attempt to tear off a clump of flesh. A dog the size of a Doberman has enough jaw strength to break a man’s forearm. So when a dog snaps and all you get are two puncture wounds, it doesn’t want to hurt you. It is just a dog’s way of saying “don’t bother me please… I’m not in the mood”. Admittedly, some dogs in the same situation will just growl, while others would walk away and some would just whine and bear it. But then, it’s the same with people. Some just handle pressure better than others. <br /><br />I have been bitten thrice, and on each occasion, I was aware that I was the one who had made the mistake.<br /><br />The point I’m trying to make is that most dog-bites are nothing but a dog’s way of saying ‘lay off !’ <br /><br />The world of dogs is full of rules and hierarchies and corrections for misdemeanors and is swift . We get bitten when we break or misunderstand these unwritten rules. Some dogs bite out of fear and others because we confuse them. <br /><br />For instance, if you’ve been spoiling a dog by not giving him any rules, letting him climb on the bed, eat off the table, poop on the floor and pull you on a walk, you are effectively telling the dog that he is the boss.<br /><br />Dogs are pack animals and live in a very structured family in the wild. The alpha dog has all the rights and the omega (the last in the hierarchy) has the least number of privileges. The pack takes care of all his needs but his privileges are limited and that fact is consistently reinforced. A pet dog should always be the omega in the family pack. And the dog doesn’t have ego issues about that. He does not understand equality or democracy. His primal mind craves order and structure. Without consistent rules, the dog, in order to silence the chaos in its head makes up its own rules. And since the one who makes the rules is the one in charge, the dog assumes the role of an alpha. <br /><br />Now this dog who’d trundle off the couch without a whimper whenever you felt like imposing a little discipline will suddenly refuse to budge. Subject to the dog’s breed, energy-levels and nature, attempts to physically remove a dog that has assumed alpha status would either be met by repeated attempts to climb the couch, barking, a low growl or even a warning bite. The last two are the most common methods used by dogs higher up in the hierarchy to enforce rules and boundaries for subordinates and pups.<br /><br />Most dogs that snap don’t mean any harm. They know that their existence is tied to the pack’s well being. But they need calm and consistent leadership. If you don’t provide that, the dog would try and provide that, for you and the family. <br /><br />A dog needs physical and mental exercise that matches the animal’s energy levels. A tired dog is a happy dog. But a dog with pent up energy would express itself through destructive, neurotic and even aggressive behavior. So pick a breed your lifestyle, time constraints and physical fitness levels can afford. <br />Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t dominant aggression or territorial behavior but fear biting that draws the most blood in pet owning households. Most dogs lack the courage and the confidence to exhibit dominance oriented aggression. Instead they become biters because circumstance or nature has pushed them to the other edge of the aggression spectrum – a dog that is so insecure that it lashes out at its own shadow. A potential fear biter cowers when approached, fl ashes the white of the eye and the lips curl back in a snarl. It is important to just let the dog be until the moment or the mood has passed and the dog calms down and approaches you on its own.<br /><br />Those of you who want to acquire a big macho dog to fill in for your own psychological inadequacies, be warned that you need a lot more help than what a dog can provide. If this is your reason for getting a dog, you’ll only end up with a maladjusted animal - a loose cannon that would end up hurting people and leave you with medical bills, law suits and eventually a dead dog.<br /><br />Lastly, a word of advice for those who love their dogs to a premature death. Dogs are not children on four legs. They are dogs and are happiest being dogs. They don’t need pretty jackets and collars with bows. They don’t mind not sleeping in your bed and not pigging out on your table scraps as long as you can give them the rules of the house, exercise that meets the needs of the breed and a belly rub at the end of the day that’s says, so what if you are the omega, my life is still incomplete without you.<br /><br />Here’s hoping that this piece goes a small way in helping you understand man’s best friend and the terms of that age old friendship a little better, and may the Iago of misapprehension never drive a wedge between you and your four-legged Cassio ever again.</div>
Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-27549020422208470162013-09-05T11:26:00.000+05:302013-09-06T11:29:25.641+05:30LOOK BEFORE YOU LEASH<div style="text-align: justify;">
Friendly, good looking, healthy, playful and great with the kids. And yet, Sophie couldn’t keep her family happy. Within six months of being adopted, the happy go lucky Dalmatian - yeah, those oh so cute spotty dogs – was returned to the breeder by the Guptas. Now I know this family rather well. They are good neighbours and definitely are a good home for the ‘right pet’. And that’s the key word – the right pet, or in this instance, the right breed. <br /><br />Most people in most countries have a very shallow decision making process when it comes to picking up a dog. My friends who want to look macho, and don’t really have the time to build a strong body or character would usually want one of those macho breeds like the Rottweiler or bull mastiff or pit bull, while those with money in their banks and jewels in their cabinets would want a ‘good guard dog’ like a German shepherd dog or a Dobermann to protect their high walled homes. On the other hand, every home that’s ready for a pet thinks that they are good enough to home a Labrador retriever, ‘because they are so lovable and cute and everyone has them so could go wrong with ours…?’ And those who think that ‘everyone has a lab so I want something similar, but different, ummm… like a…’, usually end up with a Dalmatian or a boxer or sin of sins, a Saint Bernard.<br /><br />In most such homes, if they are lucky, it is the dog that ends up distraught, unhappy, unhealthily fat and sad, and not the owners. Such owners usually end up with chewed up furniture and bedsteads while the unlucky ones might end up with a chewed up limb or two, but in most cases if not all, the fault is always YOURS! <br /><br />Dogs are creatures of instinct, not reason. And so the choices we make for them are the seeds we sow in this unique relationship between man and beast, and the fruits, whether sour or sweet, are all a consequence of our own labours, or lack thereof… <br /><br />Look at the Guptas and their Dalmatian. If they chose the dog aft er their daughter squealed with joy while watching 101 dalmatians or because the local vet recommended it as a smarter leaner Labrador in a spotted coat, it really isn’t Sophie’s fault that they didn’t do their homework on the breed.<br /><br />Dalmatians were bred in the days of the stage coach. While the stagecoach and the horses would run between cities and towns, ferrying passengers, the Dalmatian would run alongside the coach to guard the passengers from highwaymen and the horses from stray dogs that could chase or spook the steeds. Now that would need a dog that could pretty much run all day and still have energy to spare. And the dog didn’t choose to become this extreme endurance athlete. We bred them to be this.<br /><br />Now imagine bringing Mo Farah home and then telling him he can only walk with you till the park and back. What is he going to do with all those extra buttons in his system that you never touch or acknowledge? Well, if its mighty Mo, he’ll find some walls to climb and someone else to touch his buttons for him while your back is turned. And what would a Dalmatian do if a 20 minute walk till the poop point and back is all he got? He ain’t no Mo, so he will literally try and climb your walls and chew through your furniture while you’re not looking, for he is like a soul possessed by his own unfulfilled instinctive urges. We know some people like that too, don’t we? After a few such episodes, the dog, if lucky, would be rehomed, and if not, will spend the rest of its 14 odd years at the end of a short chain outside the house, barking and whining its way to an unhappy end.<br /><br />And look at the ubiquitous Labrador. Nine out of 10 of these admittedly wonderful dogs are overweight. They look more like pigs than the sturdy and athletic hunting dogs that they were bred to be. Labrador ‘retreivers’ were bred to retrieve downed game birds from lakes and rivers. Their highly intelligent canine brains need a job that stimulates both mind and body. A long game of fetch, tracking, doing water rescues, searches or at the very least, a long hike more than a few kilometers long is what these dogs need to be happy and the wonderful companions they are meant to be. If all they get are two short walks morning and evening and a little bit of play time in the house, their wonderful temperaments will usually stop them from being a pest in the house once they’ve learnt the rules but their unused energy will come out in some form of neurotic behavior or the other. And their general unhappiness might also result in weak immune systems, weight issues, resulting bone problems, premature ageing and death.<br /><br />The truth is most of us are just too busy, and too ignorant to really provide a good home for any of these sporting or working breeds. (For the uninitiated, all breeds of dog have been categorized by the breed founders for our convenience – hounds (hunters that hunt by sight like the greyhound or those that hunt by chasing a scent, like the coonhounds), sporting dogs (also assist on the hunt, but instead of taking down the quarry, they usually if not always set – like the Irish setter, point – like the German short-haired pointer, flush – like the cocker spaniel, or retriever – like the lab, in partnership with a human hunter with a gun), herders (like the collie, German shepherd and the bouvier des flandres have been bred to herd sheep and cattle on farms and take commands and directions from a shepherd – a heritage which makes them ideal breeds for working in close partnership with man in the areas of police-work and with the armed forces), general working breeds (a collection of mostly guardian breeds bred to protect livestock, property and person from both four and two legged intruders like the Anatolian shepherd and the Dobermann), terriers (feisty vermin hunters), the spitz breeds and finally the non-sporting group, which with the exception of the Dalmatian, mostly comprises of the dogs that most of us should take home – the companion breeds, bred specifically to serve as accommodating pals who are just as happy going for a short walk as they are sharing your couch. Pugs, Chihuahuas and the Pekingese and the modern English bulldog are all dogs that have had the whole wolf bred right out of them and only the wagging tail remains. Nor do these breeds have any strong working instincts or high energy drives that need to be worked off so they would happily laze and snooze while you’re busy and then be ready for their little walk soon as you are…<br /><br />So if you like one of the working breeds like the German or heaven forbid, a Belgian shepherd, or even the seemingly easy to manage labs or golden retrievers, please do research the breeds and the commitments you would need to make to train, yes train, these powerful animals and the amount of exercise thy need to stay happy and healthy. If you don’t have the time to work, train or exercise your dog and only want something to love, pick one of the companion breeds instead.<br /><br />But if all you want is a big beast to tie to the gate to keep intruders and just impress the neighbors and don’t really have the time to give attention or affection to the animal, may I suggest a snapping turtle, an alligator or a python… that’s because these guys, unlike dogs who are rather forgiving, would have the good sense to bite the hand that feeds it because honestly, you really don’t deserve to keep a pet… well maybe goldfish, but really, that’s about all.<br /><br />Now that brings us to an important discussion – why do some dogs become apparently dangerous and why do they bite – some even their owners and why do some dogs become killers? And what can we do to prevent such incidents… Saving that for next week. Until then, keep it wagging!</div>
Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-82571155131127975852013-08-29T12:06:00.000+05:302013-08-30T12:07:21.982+05:30A FLIGHT OF CONSCIENCE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Another fifteen minutes and the sun would set. Did I travel all these hundred miles and more for this; did I drag myself through mud and thorn bush for this; did I crawl on my hands my knees and stay stock still for the better part of 90 minutes for this… for nothing? I would know soon enough, but my mind was racing to gather the lessons if there were any… there always are is what I had come to believe, deep down in the depths of every failure.. and reached down and scoured the depths of this day to salvage what I could even as I waited in hope…<br /><br />The day had begun early enough in Delhi and as I drove along the seductive grey expanse of the Yamuna expressway that ran from Greater Noida to Agra, images of the imperious Sarus Crane, the greatest of all birds that take wing, danced in my head.<br /><br />A few weeks ago, I had called upon an old friend, Prakash who was a naturalist at the Keoladeo Ghana National Park and a keen birder. I had asked him if he could help me photograph a pair of Sarus cranes in the area. Incidentally, the Sarus is a beautiful bird, nearly six feet tall, and graceful as a ballerina. Known to mate for life, these romantic cranes are known for their version of avian salsa. Prakash assured me that he would let me know as soon as he had located a breeding pair within camera range.<br /><br />Two days, Prakash called, his voice shrill with restrained excitement. He had located a breeding pair and a nest in a marsh near a farmland in Mathura and wanted me to drive up as soon as I could. My biggest lens was a 500 mm zoomer. Yes, yes, I know static lenses are far better and 500 mm is not nearly enough for many birders, but ladies and gentlemen of the flock and the feather, not all can indulge their ideals the way well heeled folk like you can. Many of us just have to get by with what we have and a 200-500 was all I had. So I checked with Prakash if the nest was within range of my modest equipment and the birder assured me that it was so.<br /><br />So with one bag stuffed with equipment and another with lunch for may day out in the field, I set out for the marsh where the great birds cried…<br /><br />‘Kurr’ is what the local village lads in the area call the sarus, for that is the call of the crane. Kurr-kurr, the crane would call, shredding the quiet of the open fields when seized by the mood for love or when intruded upon, and then all would be quiet once again as they fed on till again the pair was infatuated or alarmed by shadow, light or sight.<br /><br />I met up with Prakash and one of his associates by the park gate and then we drove back to this ‘secret’ location where the birds had chosen to rear their brood. It was almost afternoon and we were chasing the light and so made as quickly as I could for the marshes. By the time we got there the sun had only begun its slow slide off the sky and there was enough light yet for me to catch the birds as they danced in the golden light of an autumnal dusk. Or at least so I thought.<br /><br />Off the highway and on to a broken trail, through a narrow rut and a ploughed field, by the tracks of trains that screamed through hell, we finally reached the marsh where the cranes had built nest, in the middle of a lake, hidden from view by reeds for a shield.<br /><br />But what was this! The ‘secret’ location had been revealed. The nest had flocks in neither feather nor fur but wrapped in Cannons and Nikons and some other sorts, prying like a gaggle of voyeurs I thought. The cranes had been driven off their nest and the eggs lay bare to the sun and rain and beyond the reeds roamed the frightened birds, craning their necks to steal a glance to see if the intruders had left them their peace.<br /><br />I didn’t like those photographers for being there. They had taken away my ‘secret’, and from the birds their lair. But then an upstart thought raised its head. Was I any better, were my rights any greater, than those who were here, those who had come ahead? Nay, not for the cranes at least, nay they couldn’t care less.<br /><br />As for me, I joined the jostling and found a spot that I thought was best. I inched a little closer from the rest. Meanwhile the cranes would return every now and then to check on their eggs and to see if we’d left . But every return would be met by the whirring of cameras, the excited gaggle of voices and push the poor birds back behind the grassy crest.<br /><br />By now, the sun was sliding down a slippery slope. From above my head it had now come to rest over my left shoulder and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold it there for long. One by one, the others left . I was determined to wait, to become a ghost that the birds wouldn’t see, and so I crept through the reeds and mud, and right to the edge of the lake brush. From there I had the clearest shot, of egg and nest, and hopefully the birds too soon as they’d return. But the sun didn’t want to wait for the birds any longer. I pleaded with the orb to wait some more but it had had enough, it had other skies to brighten, through other worlds to wander. And so I turned to the birds and pleaded stronger, for them to return before the sky grew any darker. They seemed to yield and began to wade, through the water for their roost, I had frozen in wait but must have moved, for the birds sensed that there was one waiting still, adamant and unmoved.<br /><br />The birds hesitated and then turned away again, from me and the nest and my hopes of a frame of the pair, in love and at rest. The light was fading fast. And hope had receded with the light. A day spent in the heat and dust and mud and muck, but not a photo to show for all that was spent, it wasn’t fair, it didn’t feel right. In that moment I felt the earth shake and behind me screeched an iron demon, hurtling along the rails, screaming to all to keep their distance. As train hollered by, I saw the cranes raise their heads and see it go by, just as the last light dropped out of the sky.<br /><br />So I had failed for the first in my short photographic career, to take the frame I had planned, and I wondered why the birds turned me away. In the fading light as I trudged back to my car, I scoured the bottom of the day for something to hold in my hand or heart and say, that the day taught me even if it didn’t bless me. Prakash’s tale while on a bicycle ride through the Bharatpur wetlands came back to haunt me. He had told me of a time from a few years ago when a pair of cranes built a nest pretty close to a trail and photographers would line up all day to take pictures of the birds and the nest.<br /><br />Usually the eggs hatch within 30 days but so disturbed was the pair by photographers that they couldn’t even after 40 days. The pair might have persisted and tried even longer but it was already late in the season and the waters from a nearby canal couldn’t wait any longer as they fl owed into the park washed the nest away. He told me other tales of how the presence of people would disturb these birds from their nest and while the parents were away, crows and kites would sneak up to the nest and peck at the eggs. Th us would those that love the bird contribute to its destruction. And I wondered, ‘had I yet again contributed my bit to the destruction of a species that I love and respect, both for its magnificence as much for its courage and character?<br /><br />In 20 days or so, if we allow nature to take its wise course, the eggs should have hatched and yet another little sarus or two would have emerged to bolster the dwindling numbers of this crane which almost became our national bird. But what about us photographers, both hobbyists and professionals? Of course, we love nature and our subjects who we obsessively chase with our lenses. But while we mean no harm do we end up causing more harm than we realize? As nature lovers, all of us who swear by our cameras would want to believe that we are custodians and guardians of our natural wonders as much as any NGO or conservationist. But do we at times become the problem instead of the solution we like to believe we are? These are questions I will try and answer for my own conscience as much as my tribe of the tripod and until then tread in the wilds with scruples as sharp as your images.</div>
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Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-19323082695983980722013-08-22T11:28:00.000+05:302013-08-23T11:30:43.316+05:30THE WHYS OF WAR<div style="text-align: justify;">
Hypocrite! What’s wrong with you? Someday it is aikido and some day it is krav maga! Your are confused and you are confusing your readers too… That’s what you are doing”, said Joy, as tossed an old issue of TSI on the table and flung his head with such vehemence that it was a wonder that it hadn’t wrenched itself off his neck and tumbled onto the table. I recoiled at his feedback and at that point, I would have confessed to a certain degree of involuntary amusement at the thought, assuming of course I could screw that bowling ball of a head back on… at an appropriate hour in the for now distant future. And anyway, it was I who brought this spit spattered deluge of criticism upon my evening by badgering him for feedback in the middle of a party.<br /><br />Joy was pattering on about one of my recent columns about an encounter with my Aikido teacher. And I guess i must have been showing off a few moves for effect in rather pleasant company and that must have pushed sweet old Joy over the edge a little... And of course we single kids have these attention seeking kinks which tend to get on people’s nerves. I’ll give Joy that...<br /><br />So once the air, thick with my ‘pet me, I’m cool’ purring and punctuated with Joy’s ‘I’m sick of you’ outburst, had settled, I thought it was time for an honest assessment of these two formidable martial systems which while so different on the surface, are close kin under the skin.<br /><br />Unlike other martial arts from around the world, like karate, Judo, muay thai, boxing, wrestling, taekwondo and most others that you can think of, Aikido and Krav Maga are both what the great O Sensei, martial artist extraordinaire, perhaps the greatest in the last 100 years and the creator of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba, would have called ‘true Budo!’ Unlike the above mentioned arts, Aikido and Krav Maga practitioners do not seek to score points or win tournaments. In fact within the original template of these dissimilar twins, there is no winning and losing in aikido or Krav maga. On the contrary, kravists and aikidokas train for the real battles of life where opponents do not follow a code of conduct, morals or rules; where opponents might seek to maim, hurt or kill, with or without weapons, and the mission of training in either system is the same, and ironically, perhaps aikido, more than any other art mirrors the philosophy that drove one of the bravest civilian warriors of the second world war, Imi Lichtenfeld to acts of true heroism that helped him save both lives and honour of his fellow Jews in the face of barbaric anti-Semitic persecution. All that Imi fought and trained others to fight for was so that ‘one may walk in peace’... While WWII pushed Morihei to create an art that sought peace even in the midst of violence, the same war pushed Imi to create a system that oft en was brutally violent, in its quest for peace.<br /><br />While Japan was an aggressor in the war, and after bloodying her hands in the Pacific War theatre, and aft er experiencing retributive carnage in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Morihei and perhaps even the rest of Japan realized the futility of war. Morihei’s art evolved out of that urgent need for pacifism, that realization that violence shall beget violence, and so you have Aikidoan art that stresses the need to avoid confrontation, to be gentle albeit with control.<br /><br />On the other hand, Imi Lichtenfeld and his people were persecuted and stripped, of dignity, opportunity, independence and even the right to live. And when cornered thus, when flight is not an option, fight is what one does, and Imi and his students did that really well. Krav Maga’s attitude towards a situation is like that of a cornered tiger, brutally violent until left in peace - incredibly effective, though susceptible to possible overreactions.<br /><br />And here’s where the arts (incidentally KM masters refer to it as a system of self defense, not an art, but more on that later) diverge. Imi and his people were a minority, persecuted and insecure, and pushed into corners where the threat was always greater and far more formidable than their meager and rather unprepared means of defending themselves. The situation demanded a degree of viciousness to compensate for both the greater odds as well as their own inadequacies in terms of preparedness and strength. Imi had to train virtual novices in the art of unarmed combat - bakers, bankers, housewives and children to defend themselves against divisions and minions of the Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel or defence corps). Even today, Israel bristles at the slightest provocation. Needle them and they strike back doubly hard. Scars of the Holocaust don’t heal easy, and so there’s this constant looking over one’s shoulder, this unbridled aggression, this innate understanding of one’s strengths and the opponent’s corresponding weaknesses and commitment to at least partial destruction and complete immobilisation of the source of the threat. This is also an attempt to erase the nightmares of a trauma that is barely a generation old and even today Israel’s geography does not let her forget her history.<br /><br />Ueshiba on the other hand was part of a society that had deified martial culture and woven it into the fabric of their lives. The Samurai code, the Samurai spirit drove the growth of Japan as a nation, its spirit of subjugating self for the greater good of the community or nation like the samurai did for his shogun, the spirit of death before dishonour that still drives Japanese corporations into creating quality that every employee and citizen can hold up and say ‘I’m proud of this... This is Japanese!’, just the way the Samurai would give his all for honour or commit harakiri if he failed. And it is the same battlefield forged samurai spirit that made Japan into a military powerhouse that shook up the world during two world wars. The same martial wisdom and vigour enabled a tiny nation to stare down mighty Russia and dominate a gigantic neighbour like China. From kamikaze to kaizen, it is the same samurai inspired martial spirit that guides Japan’s rise as a nation and as a people. <br /><br />And when ‘Budo’ (the martial path) defines a society, it begins to learn the pitfalls as much as the bonuses of living on the edge of a katana.<br /><br />So when the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki followed the Nanking Massacre and Pearl Harbour, Ueshiba, with his samurai heritage, could understand that it is not budo itself that is at fault but the purpose and manner in which it is conducted that opposes the laws of the universe, causing disharmony and destruction. Thus aikido emerged as a combat system that honoured the opponent, no matter how violent the threat, and sought to remove and immobilise the thought of violence rather than the perpetrator of violence. I know this needs explaining so in the next issue I will take your thoughts and mine to two masters of these apparently different but surprisingly similar systems/art forms and try and explain to you and good old Joy why I’ve been crusading for both.<br /><br />For now, let’s just understand that krav maga and aikido are both similar in their philosophy of seeking peace and not points or trophies. Both understand the reality of death and pain far more than arts preoccupied with the idea of ‘victory’ and both are mirrors of the society and heritage that created them. Where they differ is that while krav maga seeks to hurt an opponent WHERE he is weak, aikido aims to challenge an opponent WHEN he is weak. Now take these two radically different approaches to the same problem and extrapolate that into a verbal argument. That will tell you how an opponent would respond to you, when at the end of either counter. Which method works better? Well, that’s a debate for next week, but until then, what you should mull over is, who are you? And, what do you want?</div>
Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-39682560448342522112013-08-15T13:13:00.000+05:302013-08-16T13:14:26.919+05:30IMMORAL FAITH<div style="text-align: justify;">
IRC’s an atheist. Not an easy nut to crack and he refuses to let God exit a conversation or enter his heart. He is a good guy… about as good as an atheist can possibly get!
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When I told him that, I had in fact meant that as half a compliment, but IRC didn’t like the sound of it. He let it pass that afternoon but later in the evening, he sent me a text, “…..and by the way, I think atheists have stronger morals than those who are religious.”
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At the time, I was knee deep in work and should have either ignored the message and waited to send in a response later or I could have just sent in an appropriate emoticon to let him know what I thought of his valued opinion. But I did neither…. Instead, I shook a hornet’s nest loose, stuck my face right in it and got into the debate… Blackberry messages went screaming through the airwaves, collided, crashed, picked themselves up and then squirmed their way into our respective phones in an effort to buy up acres of mindscape before the opposing thought process could intervene…
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By the end of our conversation, I had, what we both thought was a rather interesting debate. I have reproduced it here for your perusal… hope you find it worth its space on this page. Be kind… do keep in mind we were debating and we are both bound to have our biases and so would manipulate facts a wee bit to make a stronger case…
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Disclaimer: We are both rather young(really!) and within the context of the discussion, you might even consider us immature. But what the heck, gotta start someday…
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IRC: …..and by the way…. I think atheists have stronger morals….!
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PB: Of course you would. Every gambler says he is braver than those who don’t gamble. I’m a believer and I wouldn’t mind standing up to a moral inquisition so how do we settle that, good sir? In fact, on the contrary, non-believers have no foundation for moral behaviour. All they have is ‘accepted social behaviour’. In the absence of God, or goodness, every act is merely ‘as per fashion of the times’, since there can’t be a universal sense of right or wrong. Morality, therefore, isn’t a factor in the world of non believers. It’s pure fiction good sir. Lucky you!
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IRC: Non believers have no foundation but in fiction. True (moral) foundation lies in humanity and human values. Thus, it is not an imposed sense of morality but one which helps to uplift humanity as a whole. It is unselfish as well as grand. And religious texts or God present a sense of morality where one has to pick and choose the good bits and leave out ‘stoning’ and other such barbaric acts which are supposedly “moral”.
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PB: But who is to say what is humane and what uplift s humanity without a sense of divine purpose to give it a context. There is nothing humane about humanity without recognizing this divinity in man.. Going by ‘human values’ as dictated by evolution alone, Adolf Hitler, Attila, Timur Lang, Nadir Shah and all the other despots who follow their lead, believed in survival of the fittest, subjugation of the weakest and annihilation of every dissenting voice were the alpha males we should have been praying to, for both mercy and inspiration.
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Religion, an institution that we both love to despise, is what we owe the seeds of ‘humanity’ as we know it to -’…for it is wrong to kill a fellow Christian for God hath made him by his hand just as he hath carved me and so he is a brother to me just like the one by my own mother’.
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Otherwise the driving human values, before religion, before learning to recognise the “divinity” in each other, were about getting as many wives one could; beat up as many as needed so I could lead my tribe, by show of force and wit; attack other tribes, take their wealth, rape their women by right and decree, kill their sons, enslave their daughters and consume their flesh... something lions and chimps and many other species practice to this day – unaffected by ‘morality’, yet perfectly in tune with nature’s values. And unencumbered by a sense of mutual and universal divinity, we too are but mere animals, unhindered by moral compunctions and your version of ‘human values’..
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What you call ‘the greater good of humanity’ is a philosophy steeped in morality whose foundation is the assumption that even without might, you have a right, because you are my equal ‘for the Lord God created us all’. We are slowly extending this right to animals and one day it will be illegal to kill them too. Seriously! But our laws, our civilization and our society of agnostics, atheists and fanatics, all build on that basic assumption. Our morality, your sense of human values, and our sense of honesty, integrity etc. are all built on that premise..
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Nature on the other hand, rewards deception, rape and war. That is why there are fewer bonobos in this world than there are chimpanzees... So believe it or not, if you believe in human values, equal rights, human rights, animal rights, non violence, non cruelty, honesty and integrity, then you are a believer too. I didn’t add commitment to that list because nature rewards commitment, whether to a tribe or to a partner.
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IRC: Seriously?! Are you saying that before we had religion and (a sense of) God, we didn’t have laws? Of course we did. And those laws came from understanding, science and learning - something which religion has always eschewed at least from the times of Galileo. Just because we can judge right or wrong for ourselves is the very reason we don’t need a foundation for morality.
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People like Hitler have always been there even after religion spread and we treated them like gods. It’s only with education and ‘humanity’ that we finally know that selfish behaviour is wrong. That came with the advent of science and understanding our place in the universe.
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PB: No, we never knew right from wrong before organized religion because religion is merely organized spirituality.. It went wrong because it became dogmatic. But science never gave us a sense of right and wrong. Science merely recognizes cause and effect. The position of the sun or the shape of the earth does not decide whether it is right or wrong to kill, pillage or rape. According to science our place is merely at the top of the food chain and Idi Amin’s at the top our own little food and mating rights chain. Why are they wrong in the eyes of science? Marshalling forces, mobilising resources, reserving first right of use to all property and people and ruthlessly quelling opposition - every species practices that to this day. Why would science say that’s wrong? So irrespective of whether God exists or not, his idea has given us both humanity and civilization. There’s no morality or a sense of right or wrong in nature. It is purely a function of acknowledged mutual and universal divinity.
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IRC: Morality in fact is steeped in science. For one, evolution makes it mandatory for humans to live in harmony. Secondly experiments have shown that there are certain hard wired moral values in us. Killing each other is bad. Having sex with one’s mother is wrong. People like Hitler and Amin are the exception. It is human to be good. We are animals yes, but a different kind of animal. The reason our brain grew to this humongous size was because of living in a community and sharing. So the side effect of our increased intelligence is this moral sense, an emotional connection with life and the universe.
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PB: Evolution makes it mandatory for us to live in harmony? You can’t possibly be serious. Harmony has always been limited at best to a tribal concept before religion... And even after that, it struggles to stay in place. We are the most violent species on the planet.. We fight everywhere and kill far more often despite being governed by laws unlike other creatures. Animals don’t fight all the time either and they definitely don’t fight to the death over issues as petty as crossing the road first. And not having sex with one’s mother is true in all of nature. And while animals don’t fantasize about incest, our ‘hard’ wiring doesn’t stop us from committing incest more often per capita than any other species.
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Our tribal peace isn’t a patch on wolf, elephant or even rather violent lion and chimp societies.. Chimps and lions aren’t hanged for killing and yet they don’t kill if another lion or even a jackal steals a morsel, crosses their path, roars a little too loudly or stares at their female... Nor do they accept rape as normal interaction between the sexes. Yet humans had collectively sanctioned rape of ‘other women’ before religion and God made an appearance. Even today, war zones, zones without fear of God or law due to hate and differences in faith or ethnicity (like in the Balkans, Sudan and even pockets right here at home) still see rape being exchanged more often than currency.. And don’t even get me started on murder and genocide…”
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And so we rolled with the tide as it would ebb and flow... Matters remain unresolved for now but what it has done is gotten us thinking. Hope it sets a little lump of snow rolling in your head too. And now that we’re done, let’s say ‘Thank God!’ to that... Yeah IRC, you too!
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Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-23825869958476939432013-08-08T13:55:00.000+05:302013-08-08T13:55:05.373+05:30BEYOND MARVEL’S MARVEL<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Picking up from last week it’s a pity most of us in the tropics have neither encountered a wolverine nor its innumerable legends. To see this superhero of the animal kingdom in the flesh, carrying its diminutive size with a gigantic attitude, like a viking warrior walking fearlessly amongst giants, is a sight to embolden quaking hearts and fortify flagging spirits. The beast and its mythical aura is a sight both sublime and surreal, and our forests and vales are poorer for the fact that in spite of our great faunal riches, the wolverine doesn’t call our country its home.
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But wait! So what if we have no wolverine... We have a creature even braver, and perhaps some would say, way smarter... In fact, most wildlife experts would call this animal the bravest and most fearless of all the creatures that walk the earth. The massive wild water buffalo, built like a muscular tank and huge sweeping horns, the giant with the impassive eyes that could stare down a tiger with a mere shake of the head, is a contender. Others say the wild boar, with its slashing dagger like tusks and barrel like body and beady eyes that burn with rage and dauntless courage when cornered is the stuff of legends that tigers tell their cubs about at bed-time and ask them to be wary of.
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But the animal that breasts the tape in the courage race ahead of these two or any other amongst creatures great and small is an animal as unassuming in stature as its distant northern cousin, the wolverine. Another of the Mustelidae (that’s the cool and officious sounding Latin name for the weasel family) family, the ratel or honey badger, though a giant amongst weasels at about 10-20kgs is still a rather small animal that usually lives its life in the shadow of the bigger, more glamorous carnivores. No tourists to Ranthambore or Bandhavgarh would ask their guides for tracks of the honey badger and nor would they come away disappointed at not having seen one. But had they insisted they might have seen one of the most amazing sights in all of jungledom…
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It is said, admittedly far more often of the ratel in Africa than the Indian subspecies, that a unique and special bird called the honeyguide would often lead the ratel to a honey-comb. Now you don’t need a genius to tell you that honey has got to be a honey badger’s favourite food. And so the badger doesn’t need to be told twice. Off it goes after the bird in search of wild honey and when it finds the comb, without a moment’s hesitation, up he goes the chosen tree and to the branch from which hangs the comb. With powerful claws it rips the hive open and digs into both honey and the larvae in the comb. The bees could buzz and sting all they like but the ratel’s tough hide is almost impervious to most bee stings. The honey badger has its fill of honey and the rest and then leaves the scraps for the honeyguide bird. Some say this tale of teamwork is but a mere myth while others claim to have seen it with their very eyes.
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While the jury is out on the authenticity of this legend about this super cousin to that super hero called the wolverine, what is beyond doubt is the toughness and pound for pound super strength of the ratel. Like its cousin, the wolverine, there is nothing the ratel cannot climb, there is nothing the ratel wouldn’t eat and there is no animal that walks alive that can ever have claimed to have scared off a ratel. It might defer to common sense and make way for a boar or a buffalo. It might even grudgingly return a leopard its kill when the two face off over what might rightfully be the leopard’s but when cornered, a ratel would lunge and fight even a lion and more often than not emerge unscathed with a moral victory and a prized cut from the kill to show for it.
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I have often asked around for the ratel in national parks across the country and while most guides would tell you that its around somewhere but it sure isn’t easy to spot from a safari vehicle. One reason for that is that especially in India, the ratel is primarily a nocturnal animal. Th ough few have seen it, all who have, have a huge amount of respect for the feisty little badger.
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About a decade and a half ago, BBC and Valmik Thapar created a stunningly gorgeous nature documentary series called Land of the Tiger. I had just graduated and joined work at the time, and one of the first things I spent my first salary on, besides the customary gift s for family and family-to-be, was on a video collection of the Land of the Tiger. Many subsequent Sunday afternoons were spent listening to Thapar’s mellifluous and intense entreaties for conserving what remains of our magnificent natural heritage and watching one of the most visually enchanting documentaries of its time. And if you ask me today as to what are the most enduring memories from those Sundays, I would tell you about three such – one would have to be the sight of a snow leopard patting down a stone to keep things quiet as it stealthily slithered down a rocky slope against the inky blue skies and the blue hued snow on the mountain crag. Then there was the battle at dawn between two of the handsomest creatures of the jungle – a pair of massively muscled gaur bulls fighting for the right to a harem of females.. their great forms tearing up the grassy meadows and their bellows rending the misty clouds of the Western ghats to ribboned shred – primal and sublime. But the cutest and most interesting scene of all the six episodes was the montage that showed a ratel on a hunt…
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It has been a while since I last saw it so forgive me if I make a mistake but I hope to keep the moment’s essence intact… Drawn by the distress calls of a bird a badger had located a kingfisher’s burrow on a sand bank or cave of sorts that had collapsed in the heat. The fledgling was caught in an overhanging network of roots that were sticking out of the sandbank/cave. The badger tried to reach the fledgling and it stood up on its hind legs and waved its paws but the chick hung on for dear life. Undeterred, the badger looked around and found a dry log lying a few yards away. It threw the chick an “I’ll be back” look, shuffled off towards the log, rolled and nudged it to a spot right under the roots, climbed up on the log, made adjustments, got another log, and then stood up on its hind legs and with a little stretch reached the kingfisher, grabbed it in its mouth, dropped to the floor and sauntered away to enjoy a well earned meal.
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There you have it now – tough as nails, super strong for its size, courage to match a pride of lions with a more than a little left to spare and smarts that rival the creature’s great strength. How many animals other than the apes or dolphins are as good at solving problems and using tools? I say the ratel deserves a superhero character to call his own just like his cuz, the wolverine.
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If you remember the wolverine, and here I mean the comicbook and silver screen hero, you would remember that one of his greatest powers was his ability to heal his own body. Now forest guides in honey badger territory would tell you that the honey badger, due to its loose skin and tough hide, is almost immune to attacks from most predator for it can turn around on its attacker and inflict a nasty bite with its powerful jaws but what is most stunning is the way it reacts to cobras and other venomous snakes. The badger seeks out cobras for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And none of the nift y fencing footwork of the mongoose while snake fighting for our badger. Th is guy just barrels in and bites the snake’s head off. And what happens if it is fanged in the process? When the venom makes its way into its system, the animal collapses and rolls over, like as if it’s dead. For a few minutes its out cold, and then within minutes, it recovers, comes to, gives his body a shake and then calmly goes back to munching chunks off the half eaten snake. That’s a feat even Marvel’s Wolverine will find tough to beat.
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Next time you go tiger watching, remember that there’s more to machismo than stripes and a roar, and there are greater heroes out here in the wild than on screen. The honey badger is one of the few mammals who by dint of their courage, charisma and wits has managed to stay out of the endangered species list… let it not stay out of your ‘must catch on camera’ list next time you hit the trail, for there are few to hold a candle to the ratel.. for beware, it might bite off more than you think it could chew!
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Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-26230459782143219172013-08-01T10:50:00.000+05:302013-08-02T10:51:33.048+05:30LARGER THAN THE LEGEND<div style="text-align: justify;">
During my early years in school, Superman and Batman and DC’s Justice League America were the heroes that flew around the mindscape. I remember tying my mother’s red shawl around my neck and jumping off walls and ledges. Then the Christopher Reeve movies drove the madness deeper into our young hearts.<br /><br />Marvel’s Spiderman was a bit of a late-bloomer in those days. Then of course the Daredevil popped up and The Hulk crashed through. The Marvel heroes, unlike DC’s clean cut all-American heroes, have a dark side to them that makes Batman look like a choirboy. But of all the freaky mutants in the Marvel stables, the Wolverine has got to be the coolest of them all.<br /><br />Short, just a few inches above five feet, hairy, with angry whiskers framing his strong chiseled head, a bull-neck exploding out of ropey muscles and massive shoulders, and a dense stocky torso bouncing about on powerful springy legs powered by indefatigable stamina and an indestructible skeletal structure… Hmmm, does that description remind you of another character from popular fiction? No not a comic book character but a super villain from the classics – Robert Louis Stevenson’s inner demon incarnate, the respectable Mr. Jekyll’s despicable Mr. Hyde.<br /><br />If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that when Marvel writer Len Wein and art director John Romita Sr. came up with the character of the Wolverine, a misunderstood mutant battling inner demons of his own, they were more than merely inspired by Hyde’s savage primal vigour. But let this be known to all and sundry, and to all who have held a comic book in their hands, and dreamt dreams 40 pages long of saving the world with their super-human strength, that if ever there was a creature that was truly as heroic as it’s comic-book namesake, it is the wolverine.<br /><br />Bats have an eerie reputation and the vampire bats can draw blood or even leave behind a few nasty bugs in our bloodstream but there is nothing conventionally heroic about these shy creatures of the night. Spiders, from black widows to tarantulas have painful and some even venomous bites if you fit in between their pincers, and they can weave delicate webs and while they may be phenomenally strong for their size, their miniature world is too far removed from our own for their heroics to resonate with our psyches. And so on and so forth for Hawkgirl, the Falcon, and the Ninja Turtles…<br /><br />But The Wolverine is another matter altogether. This superhero takes his name from a relatively small little dynamo found in the taiga forests of the North. Weighing in between 10-30 kgs, the shaggy wolverine is the king of the weasels and the largest of the mustelids. Like its fictional namesake, the wolverine too has long strong bear like claws, immensely powerful jaws and a tough hide that most animals would find nearly impossible to bite through. Like the superhero, the wolverine is immensely strong and brave, taking on the might of animals many times its size, and more oft en than not emerging a winner.<br /><br />In the arctic and alpine wildernesses, this small but mighty predator roams the snowy wastes and oft en hunts animals as large as the elk and mule-deer. The wolverine has even been known to take down adult moose in the winter, an animal that is ten times its size. The sure audaciousness and self belief of the animal is legendary for moose are formidable opponents and even bears and wolves would find the task of bringing down an animal as large as the moose a daunting challenge.<br /><br />So brave is the beast that the wolverine wouldn’t think twice before challenging much larger predators like wolves or bears for the right to a carcass. I have seen videos of this animal hustling a large bear off a kill. And it has even been known to hunt and kill other formidable carnivores like the Eurasian lynx and the coyote.<br /><br />And yet these highly intelligent little bear like animals can make very affectionate and playful pets. Jasper, one of a pair of orphaned wolverines raised by Steve Kroschel, an Alaska based wildlife film-maker has become a tv star and has demonstrated search & rescue abilities that would rival those of highly trained and decorated S&R dogs.<br /><br />And wolverines make wonderful parents. Males maintain territories that range between six and seven hundred square kilometers and might have up to three females at different ends of the territory. When kits are born in spring, the father divides his time and helps all three mothers bring up the young with devotion that is as intense as the mother’s. Now, how demonic is that? Mysterious beast of the northern wilderness with a fierce diabolical reputation, and known for his immense strength, dauntless courage, terrible fury and an incredible survival instinct, both fictional mutant and real mustelid are heroic creatures.<br /><br />What does the wolverine teach us, in both fact and fiction? At the very least, they teach us that size doesn’t matter… It is attitude that does. The spoils of victory can be yours even though you may not be the strongest or the biggest or the prettiest.<br /><br />As long as you have an honest, unpretentious attitude, refuse to back down in the face of seemingly impossible odds, recognize and then stay true to your strengths and believe in them, you will see the biggest bullies and obstacles, be they in the shape of man, beast or fate, fade away and leave the path to survival and success open in their wake. <br /><br />So here’s to a super hero that matters, and a superhero that is as real as it is grand. May you find strength and courage in the call of The Wolverine, in theatres near you, in forests far away, and in the wild expanses that remain even today, in corners of our anxious and crowded hearts.<br /><br />Next week, I will take you to meet a cousin of the great wolverine, who wanders unnoticed in wild places closer home. And for this week, I leave you with the words of Doug Chadwick, author of The Wolverine Way who says “(the wolverines strategy, if it has one, is to)…go hard and high and steep, and never back down… not even from a grizzly and least of all from a mountain… I will never really know what it is to be a wolverine, but I’ve learnt a little more about courage and a lot more about what being wild means, just from being on the wolverine’s trail…”<br /><br />Here’s to the wolverine that roams in all of us…</div>
Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-30567232926422874082013-07-25T12:12:00.000+05:302013-07-26T12:14:13.237+05:30MYSTERIES OF THE MASTERS II<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Come to think of it, last week’s Ki story, though a powerful personal experience, isn’t the most dramatic demonstration of internal power that I’ve ever witnessed.<br /><br />I think it was Ripley’s Believe it or Not or some similar show on AXN.. An old man with a wispy fu man chu was introduced to the audience as a martial arts master from one of the temples in Korea’s mountains... I can’t quite remember if the venerable master’s martial path of choice was Hapkido, Hwa Rangdo or Taekwondo.. but if you’d chain my hands and put a gun to my head to my head and ask me to bet on one of the three, I’d have to go with Hapkido, since it shares the same root with Aikido... <br /><br />Anyway, this master looked more like a chef than a fighter, for instead of bricks to break and slaps of ice to smash, the man was standing behind a table which had a metal pot of some sort with some kind of a rather ominous looking heater under it. The host announced that the container the master was peering into right now contained a molten metal of some sort and both the container and the long handled spoon that the master was holding were made of special reinforced materials that could withstand the intense heat that had turned cold metal to boiling liquid. <br /><br />The old master then took his knob-headed spoon, stirred the liquid furnace with it and then, just to prove his point, dipped a regular spoon into the magma and saw it literally wilt, wither and melt in the heat. And then, as jaws dropped, gasps escaped and involuntary screams jumped out of shocked mouths, the Korean master took a spoonful and poured that liquid death into his mouth.<br /><br />With far greater ease than lava burning furrows through the earth, that burning brook would have burnt holes through a normal man’s insides. But the great grand master just nonchalantly swirled the liquid in his mouth, as if trying out a new brand of mouthwash and then spat out two marble sized metallic spheres onto the table. I can’t seem to remember what the table was made of but I do remember one of the spheres melting a neat hole through the table and bouncing on the floor below.<br /><br />I wish I remembered the specifics which would have added credibility to this fantastic little fairy tale, but as much as I can remember, this is what I saw on the telly nearly a decade ago and was impressed enough to have remembered it all through all these years, and I’m pretty sure my mind isn’t playing tricks.<br /><br />Then, on a cold winter evening in Beijing, I walked into a bright red theatre and saw magic unfold. Bald headed super humans smashed iron bars on their heads, and balanced their bodies on two fingered handstands. But the icing on the cake was this finale in which these Shaolin monks balanced their bodies on the sharp point of a spear while others lay down on a row of sabers so sharp that when a melon was dropped on one, it sliced straight through the fruit. <br /><br />This mystical power that lets a man rinse his mouth with molten metal and withstand an assault by iron bars or edged weapons is known in martial arts circles as the steel jacket or iron shirt. <br /><br />Steel jacket training is advanced qigong. (Incidentally, qigong is a form of standing or sitting yoga that travelled to China from India through a Buddhist monk named Damo)<br /><br />It is a rather advanced form of mind boy and breath training that both heals as well as strengthens the body. Practitioners believe, and demonstrate, that steel jacket training creates this layer of energy underneath the skin that insulates the body from any kind of blow or assault. If you go to Youtube, you’ll find lots of videos of qigong masters being clubbed by baseball bats and these guys just stand there and smile while thick wooden clubs get smashed to smithereens on their strong as steel bodies.<br /><br />A Discovery channel documentary featuring the Shaolin Temple in Henan, China showed these steel jacket masters chopping rocks with their hands and attacks with meat cleavers failing to penetrate the skin. The abilities of these qigong masters defy science, and yet science must admit that even though it can’t explain this phenomenon, it exists.<br /><br />The reason why I shared these astounding facts with you is because I intend to meet my old Aikido teacher and ask him to reveal the secrets of ki. It is this cosmic force that Japanese call ki, the Chinese qi and in India we know it as prana, that is the source of these miraculous feats.<br /><br />In most martial arts, the discovery ki or qi is an incidental process – something one encounters almost by chance during the course of one’s practice. But there was one man, Sensei Koichi Tohei, Morihei Ueshiba’s dearest and highest ranking student who founded the Ki Society, an institution dedicated to the study and pursuit of ki.<br /><br />Sensei Tohei (January 20, 1920 – 19 may 2011) and his students trained to unify the body and the mind and routinely demonstrated the power of ki through the unbendable arm and other such demonstrations.<br /><br />Next week, in the concluding part of this three part series, hopefully, with a little help from Sensei Sethi, we will embark on a journey, seeking the ki within and seek answers to that most important question of all – why bother with ki? Will it make my life any better? <br /><br />Until then, keep the faith…<br /><br /></div>
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Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-51316137370416576092013-07-18T10:51:00.000+05:302013-07-19T10:54:27.136+05:30MYSTERIES OF THE MASTERS<div style="text-align: justify;">
Remember Sensei Sethi, the man who taught me Aikido? No? Doesn’t ring a bell?
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Let me jog your memory a bit.
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About a decade ago, while strolling through a park in south Delhi, I happened to see a portly figure engaging in a graceful dance-like tussle with two others. Their moves were elegant and one might even say gentle, and yet the martial quality of their actions was undeniable. Eventually, the burly gent whirled around and held his opponent’s arms, wrenching them with a degree of controlled fury that ended with his opponents writhing on the ground, their faces a twisted mask of agony and appreciation.
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I went up to the group while it was engaged in the process of finding its feet again and asked what they were doing. I had read a bit about Tai Chi Chuan at the time though I hadn’t seen much of it. But the graceful expression of power in the master’s moves reminded me of the internal power that surreptitiously courses through the limbs of a true Tai Chi practitioner.
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“No, this isn’t Tai Chi. We are practicing Aikido, a Japanese martial art that is as gentle as it is firm. However, Aikido draws influences from Baguazhang, an internal Chinese martial art, much like Tai Chi”, said the master. He wasnt a very big man. About 5’8”, but heavily built, and from a distance, with his heavy paunch and chubby arms, looked decidedly fat, but on closer inspection, all that chubbiness had this unshakeable dense quality about, much like a sumo wrestler’s, but on a far smaller scale. Since they were all wearing a ‘gi’, I should have realized that the art had Japanese origins. The master also wore a black skirt like wrap-around called a hakama. Only black-belts were allowed the wear them, I was told.
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But let’s not linger here for too long. After that intriguing introduction, I signed up for a few classes and was drawn to the art’s philosophy - created in the wake of World War II in a Japan that stood shamed, bruised and battered. Though potentially lethal, the techniques however allowed a practitioner to control the degree of punishment meted out to one’s opponent. Minimum force, maximum compassion seemed to be the aikidoka’s credo, which makes this art unique in the reasonably violent world of self-defense with its flying kicks and hammer punches.
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One of the most interesting aspects of aikido is ‘ki’ training. A rough translation of the word ki would be ‘universal energy’. Aikidokas do a lot of breathwork at the end of every training session to try and align with the universal force and try and harness this energy and channel it though their bodies.
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Legends and a few grainy videos would have you believe that ki training enabled the man who created Aikido, the venerable Morihei Ueshiba (1883 - 1969), to walk on the rim of tiny tea cups filled to the brim, without dropping a drop of tea. During the same demonstration, Morihei invited a few men from the audience to come up on stage and try and lift him up. Lift ing or at least pushing the great master’s then frail 80 year old body, not many inches above five feet, should have been child’s play for most average sized men. For five of the biggest and burliest men in the audience, it would be easier than snapping a match-stick in two. But neither individually nor as a team could these men lift or even budge the little old Japanese master from his stance. It was an astonishing spectacle. Many other miraculous abilities are attributed to this great martial artist
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They said he dodged a hail of bullets from border guards in Mongolia because he could see the trajectory of the bullets even as they were fired. Morihei’s miracles inspired my early practice but I guess I needed tangible evidence of this ki force.
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I guess I had been pestering my teacher for a while. So on a balmy summer evening, Sensei Sethi decided that it was time for his students to sample the incredible force of ki.
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By now, the class had shift ed from the park to a gymnasium where we shared the floor with a muay thai group. We had finished our class and were wrapping up the evening with some ‘kokyoho’ – ki breath work, a bit like pranayama. The muay thai students were also done with their sparring and were sitting around their ‘ring’ and rolling glass bottles filled with sand all along their shins to toughen skin and bone so it could both deliver and take punishment.
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In the idyll of the late evening, akidokas and nak muays were winding down after a tough workout, but our tired happiness was zapped out of its reverie when Sensei announced that it was time for us to feel the power of ki
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Sensei declared that he would demonstrate the difference between muscular strength and the strength of the universal life force but for that we would need to test our muscular strength first. We arm wrestled each other to settle who was the strongest amongst us. My modest arms didn’t take me very far from the middle of the pack but who won the mini-tournament was the son of a local weight-lift ing federation president and had been schooled well on the nuances of the iron game. The guy who came in second best was big and muscular and had beaten a hall full of well conditioned kickboxers and aikidokas but this beast beat his knuckles to pulp within mere seconds.
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After the champ had rested, Sensei said that Aikido’s code of honour forbade him from trying to beat a competitor in a test of strength but he would hold us in the neutral position for as long as we wanted.
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Anybody who has engaged in an arm-wrestling match would know that it is far tougher for an athlete to control the flow of strength and momentum and hold the neutral position against an opponent than it is to try and beat him. But one by one, we all pulled and pushed and wrestled and struggled but we couldn’t move his arm an inch. Nay, not even the beast.
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While we gasped with awe and congratulated Sensei, he just nodded and without a trace of emotion, sat down in ‘seiza’ – on his knees and haunches, much like vajrasana. He extended his arms and asked three people to grab his right arm and three others to grab his left . He instructed us to push and pull as much as we could till he was thrown to the ground. We knew what we had already witnessed was pretty special but just in case he was just way too strong physically than the rest of us, this test, should Sensei succeed should put our doubts to rest.
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Sensei had also announced that if he was truly using ki, even after we have all failed to dislodge him, he would still be breathing at a slow and easy pace and wouldn’t even have broken a sweat. We got into a huddle and agreed to push and pull with all our might.
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The six of us heaved and hauled, pulled and pushed but all to no avail. We couldn’t move the man an inch. We were huffing and puffing and sweating buckets while Sensei just smiled beatifically. Then Sensei waved his arms, almost unmindful of the weight of three grown men on each arm, folded them and then extended them with a fair degree of force. Like ants on a branch swaying in a storm, we were flung one way and the other. Like cows caught in a tornado, we felt this force literally lift and push us trough our core and we went sprawling to the floor.
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Stunned and exhausted, we lay on the floor for a while, struggling with the implications of our experience. “All ok, boys?”, boomed Sensei’s voice. I turned to look at him, as he towered over us, with a smile adorning his face and not a bead of sweat could I catch glistening on his temples. Sensei’s ki had truly made its point.
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After a week or two from then, Sensei moved to Dehradun. He taught Aikido to some of the schools on the Doon-Mussourie circuit. He even stared a career as a performing ghazal singer and I lost touch with Aikido and him.
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I missed the camaraderie of the classes and the joy of learning an art from an exceptional teacher and expressing myself through it. The strength and compassion that Aikido demanded was making me into a better person and I missed the person I was beginning to become. But most of all I missed that touch of the near divine – the pursuit of ki.
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Dulled with the dust of time, I had forgotten all about Aikido until a recent call reignited that once bright flame. Sensei Sethi is back in town, I was told, and all the memories, and the montage from that evening stood out the boldest, came flooding back to me. This time, I will pursue and explore the elusive yet potent ‘ki’ with all the physical, spiritual, intellectual and emotional energy that I can muster. And like always, I will keep you updated on the adventures on the Aikido mat. Try on a class for size at a dojo near you meanwhile, for an Aikido class is one of those rare experiences that makes you both stronger and kinder in the same long breath…
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Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-38381242722410326202013-07-11T13:04:00.000+05:302013-07-11T13:04:12.442+05:30A WAVE OF BLUE!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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No offense intended here but ever since the Indians shook up the then invincible Aussies in Sydney in 2008, I have been heralding the rise of the ‘Third Reich’ in modern day cricket. Kerry Packer, ODI cricket, day and night games with coloured clothing, teams with ‘physios’ and of course the advent of the now ubiquitous helmets rang in a new era in the gentleman’s game in the 1970s.
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The first cricketing empire of this era was built by a bunch of all-conquering athletes from the West Indies. Clive Lloyd, Vivian Richards, Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Gordon Greenidge, Dessie Haynes, Richie Richardson, Curtley Ambrose and Courtney Walsh had made the islanders an invincible force for nearly two decades. Then in the mid-90s, Stephen Waugh’s Australians out muscled the ageing champions from the West indies and made the crown their own. Steve Waugh’s grit and vision, the ruthless power of Mathew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist, the menace of McGrath and the sheer brilliance of Ricky Ponting and Shane Warne translated into three World Cups, Test series wins against every country both away and at home and multiple ODI championships all over the globe. This second wave, some would say, was even more dominant than the first reich. The Australians were ruthless, often toying with even high quality opposition and winning tournaments without dropping a game or breaking a sweat. The quality of their cricket and their bench strength was so good that in the mid-90s, Australia fielded their A team (the Australian second XI consisting of promising fringe players and the odd veteran) in a four nation tournament. The A team edged out full strength English and Zimbabwean teams to face the Australian team in the finals.
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Then, in the Australian summer of 2008, in Sydney, India knocked the reigning world champions down for the count. A long count by Steve Bucknor allowed the champs to survive the challenge but the Indians had thrown down the gauntlet. Perhaps betraying more patriotic myopia than cricketing common sense, I began announcing the advent of the third great cricketing empire under the Indian tricolour ever since.
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Admittedly, in Test cricket, the boys in blue haven’t really danced like champions, especially on those seaming and bouncy green tops in England, Australia and South Africa. But in limited overs cricket, from the T20 World Cup in 2007 onwards, India has built the nucleus of a team that has now announced itself as the greatest team in the short game over the last half decade. If tri-nation trophies, a World Cup, and ODI victories in a bunch of bilateral rubbers reiterated their greatness in the shorter versions of the game, then their dramatic triumph in the ICC championship put the pyjama cricket crown firmly on their heads.
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There have been occasions in the past when an Indian team has been as dominant through a tournament. In the magical 80s, the Indian team not only won the World Cup but also the Benson & Hedges World Championship of Cricket. And they won both without dropping a game. But between these championships, they were often beaten rather comprehensively. One had the feeling that the Indians didn’t really stride forward and take their crown by right. In those days it was more like they were smart opportunists who took advantage of their opponent’s hubris. But this Indian team, emerging from the shadow of greats, the fab four and Sehwag, Zaheer and Kumble, has taken its trophies by right. It has won matches and tournaments, often dominating and at times snatching victory from the gnashing jaws of defeat. It is a team that refused to capitulate in the face of unfair decisions, biased weather gods, ugly controversies and a nosy media that thought nothing of pestering the team and the captain with a smear campaign even as it prepared for one of the biggest battles of the year. Mind you, I’m not suggesting that the issues raised were not pertinent or relevant, but is it fair to bully and worry a team in the middle of tournament as big as the Champion’s Trophy?
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Sure, Indian teams of the past have also won tournaments of similar stature but what is different this time is this team’s hunger for not just the big prize but its hunger for total domination in every battle. In the past, the after-glow of victory would often become an excuse for mediocrity and capitulation. The West Indies for instance travelled to India in the wake of the 1983 World Cup loss and thrashed the champions at home. And this is why no one raised an eyebrow when the Indians got walloped in Jamaica. After the rigours of the IPL and the euphoria of the ICC triumph, even the fans were a little fatigued. But the Indians, hungry for domination bounced back to top the table and enter the final. It doesn’t matter who wins the final tomorrow, for the Indians have already shown both hunger and character. And supremacy in the limited overs game is now theirs by right.
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But the more important question, if this Indian juggernaut is truly to be the third great empire in the modern game, is can this team translate their ODI success in the longer version of the game too? This question will be answered once and for all when the Indians set out for South Africa this winter. But does India have the firepower to overcome the current No. 1 ranked Test team in their own backyard?
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With the willow, they definitely have the pedigree. No run mountain is too high for a line-up that boasts of names like Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar. And with the rise and rise of Shikhar Dhawan and Cheteshwar Pujara and the grim determination with which Rohit Sharma and Murali Vijay are keeping their inner demons at bay, the batting holds both promise and power. As long as they have the heart for battle, these boys surely have the potential to dominate any attack on any wicket. Mahendra Singh Dhoni is a man with Midas’ golden touch and the blistering helicopter shot, and is arguably amongst the greatest keeper-batsmen and captains in the history of the game.
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So it is the bowlers that are a worry. Do we have the firepower to bowl out quality oppositions on foreign pitches? I can’t remember the last time an Indian seamer who consistently ran through batting line ups as often as Bhuvaneshwar Kumar has done. This lad from UP has troubled the best in the world on all sorts of surfaces with his movement in the air and off the wicket. And he bowls with a maturity that belies the fact that this is only his first season in international cricket.
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R. Ashwin’s intelligence is more potent than his spin and he will surely become one of the premier tweakers of his time. But would these two have enough in their armoury to dominate sides as comprehensively in Tests as they have in shorter formats? Of course not! They would need either the pacy Umesh Yadav or the injury prone but even quicker Varun Aaron to be the battering ram. And the team would need a stock bowler who hits the seam to keep things tight when neither swing nor pace seems to work. Here, though Ishant Sharma seems to be Dhoni’s go-to man for the job, on the basis of the little that we have seen of him, Shami Ahmed seems the better bet in the long run. Bowlers like Joel Garner, Courtney Walsh and Jason Gillespie are the benchmarks in this role and either Ishant or Shami would have to really lift their game to fill in this role if India is to touch the greatness that now seems within reach.
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And last but not the least, Ravindra Jadeja’s evolution from an itsy bitsy allrounder to being a genuine match winner in games of all lengths augurs well for this November and the seasons to come. And if you still have doubts about India’s impending greatness, just check out these tigers when they take the field and stride on it like they own it.
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As Indian cricket fans, it is a rare privilege for us to see our team on the cusp of immortal greatness. As for the boys in blue, their hour has come, let’s just hope they believe it too.
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Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869928152742589263.post-1296758789751265822013-06-27T13:06:00.000+05:302013-06-27T17:06:41.464+05:30IN THE WAKE OF DOOM<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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“You are very new to this… I don’t know if you can do justice to this subject”, said Mr. Ghosh. He was right about my lack of experience but I thought I had done enough to bury my naivete under mounds of hurried but what I hoped was adequate research.
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I really wanted to help, as too would perhaps you and many others who you and I might know. But like you, I didn’t know what I should do. Yes I could send money to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund but what if I wanted to do more? Could I send food, clothes? Could I go over to the ravaged valleys and help in some way, or would I get in the way?
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I had these questions and many more and I thought it best that I find out from the man who might know such things better than most.
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Dr. Chandan Ghosh, professor and Head of the Geo-Hazard Risk Management Division with the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) is a man who has been as vocal as a man in his capacity can be about pinning the rights and responsibilities of the calamitous tragedy on the high slopes in Uttarakhand. I thought he might be the one I could take my questions to but I wondered if he would have the time. Fortunately enough, Dr. Ghosh came on the line soon as I asked for him and I was asked to come in that afternoon if I could. These days he is usually in office all morning, noon and night, till about 10 pm, I was told. Rather heartening, I he thought, given the circumstances.
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I spent a few hours trying to understand the scale of disaster that had struck the sacred mountains. But through the montage of crashing rocks and wrathful rivers, the carnage and corpses, the inconsolable agony of the bereaved and relieved survivors, the selfless Samaritans and those ubiquitous heroes in olive-greens, I still found it difficult to fathom the scale of the loss. I recently lost one of the most important people in my life, someone without whom I wouldn’t be, and yet I found my loss, howsoever great and insurmountable in this lifetime, pale in front of the burning tears of an old man who went to bed with a happy family, wife, daughter and grand-child, and woke up to a deafening roar to find himself all alone, his every reason to live swept away in the deluge. I prayed for the man to find strength, and for his family to find peace.
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I went through articles that decried the near-illegal and unsanctioned hydel projects that were killing the rivers and ravaging the mountains. There were those that said that unplanned construction had destroyed the fragile mountains and this was a disaster that was waiting to happen. I wanted to know why no one could say ‘fix it now!’, instead of waiting to say, ‘See, I told you so…’
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And so I went over to Dr. Ghosh’s office and entered a room where one could tell that the files don’t just sit around. He looked like a man who took his work seriously. And that was fine, for these were serious times. Matters began smoothly enough and he started off with orienting me about the NIDM and its inception. The whole story is a microcosm of our collective attitude towards disaster management. Mind you, I’m not blaming ‘our government’s attitude’ alone here, because though succeeding governments should bear the weight of yet another unfulfilled promise, we are the ones who have peopled these governments and also failed to demand this of the powers that be often o enough and consistently enough to effect a change.
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Anyway, I could tell you more about it but you can read it all on the NIDM website. We moved on to the issue at hand. Dr. Ghosh wasn’t pulling punches. He laid out the predicament of an academic institution ‘entrusted with the responsibility for human resource development, capacity building, training, research, documentation and policy advocacy in the field of disaster management.’
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NIDM’s role, he railed, had practically been reduced to filing reports. Building bylaws all across the country, be they government buildings or private, whether up in Kedarnath, or here in Central Delhi, are flouted with impunity, he said. Dr. Ghosh should know. He is a civil engineer and he specializes in earthquake geo-technology, having cut his teeth on doctorate programs in India as well as in that land that has forged and honed its disaster management skills on the anvil of recurring earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear holocausts – Japan.
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“Deforestation (on the mountain slopes) isn’t really the problem (for landslides). It is the manner in which a mountain is cut to build roads… and there’s a simple solution if you want to stop the landslides. All you have to do is grow vetiver on the slopes.”
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I must’ve seemed a little muddled and so Dr. Ghosh explained “….you know this grass called khus?” I nodded. “This grass can bind the soil and prevent soil erosion.” A little post interview research revealed that the Vetiver System is used around the world to prevent erosion and soil degradation on mountain slopes etc. I wondered aloud as to why then aren’t we using this grass to safeguard our roads, mountain villages and above all, our people who travel through or call this region their home...?
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Dr. Ghosh just smiled a wry smile and shook his head. “No one likes this solution. It is too cheap and inexpensive.” I was shocked beyond words. Like the rest of my generation, I have come to expect corruption across the socio-political system, but to see such blatant callousness and disregard for life and property driven by greed still seemed difficult to digest. Yet again, it is our fault as a community that we choose to put up with this.
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Here I must interrupt my account of our conversation and leave you with a simple list of things you could do if you want to help those whose lives have been scarred forever in this valley of the gods… •
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You could donate money to the Chief Minister’s Disaster Management Relief Fund. (SBI a/c no. – 10587398235 FC code SBI N 0010164)•
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If the above doesn’t make a lot of sense you could reach a very helpful volunteer – Mr. Sushil Nautiyal at 9410198367. He or his colleagues will guide you through all you could do to help.
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Besides money, you could also send clothes, blankets, umbrellas, stoves, dry foods and masala.
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Dr. Chandan Ghosh also mentioned religious organizations like Shanti Kunj, based in Haridwar, helping out relatives of those who are stranded or have died on the mountains. These organizations need volunteers to help with communicating with concerned friends and relatives.
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You could also reach the Garhwal Mandal and volunteer your services.
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Please Note That The Roads Beyond Haridwar Have Been Closed Due To Incessant Rain And All Who Want To Volunteer Their Services Must Wait Till The 29th-30th Of June, Register And Check With Local Authorities And Agencies And Only Then Head Out To Help.
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I will be back next week with the rest of our conversation. Until then, let’s do our bit for those who are suffering untold agonies on the slopes. Wishing them and those heroes who are risking their lives to save them an abundance of peace and strength…
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Prashanto Banerjihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01950861619062559453noreply@blogger.com1