Shevlin Sebastian's Blog

A Thunderous Welcome: Arundhati Roy Launches Mother Mary Comes to Me in Kochi

By Shevlin Sebastian

It was only 5 p.m. on September 2, yet the Mother Mary Hall at St. Teresa’s College, Kochi was three-quarters full for the 6 p.m. show. It was a mix of young, middle-aged, and elderly people. All of them had looks of anticipation on their faces for the worldwide book release of Arundhati Roy’s searing memoir of her mother, ‘Mother Mary Comes to Me.’ The rush was so much that the organisers, DC Books and Penguin Random House India, set up another hall on the first floor where the event could be watched on a large screen.

In the front seats of the main hall were TV legend Prannoy Roy (a cousin of Arundhati from her father’s side) and his wife Radhika, well-known journalist Saba Naqvi, as well as Arundhati’s international publishers, like Simon Prosser, publishing director of Hamish Hamilton, UK, Nan Graham, Senior Vice President, Publisher‑at‑Large, and Editor at Scribner, the literary imprint of Simon & Schuster (USA), as well as Arundhati’s literary agents, David Godwin, Aparna Kumar and Rebecca Wehrmuth.

There was also Malayalam superstar Prithviraj’s producer wife, Supriya, actress Parvathy and Rima Kallingal, and many others from the art and cultural spheres in Kerala.

Arundhati’s relatives from her village of Aymanam were there, apart from her paternal relatives from Bengal. The staff and students of Palikoodam School, which Mary Roy founded in 1967, were also present. People had come from other parts of Kerala as well as Bangalore and Chennai.

When Arundhati arrived in the hall, she received thunderous applause. It sounded like a bounteous monsoon rainfall. This was the writer as a global literary superstar. This may be rare in future as attention spans decline and so too will reading.

Arundhati exchanged a warm embrace with her brother Lalit Kumar Christopher Roy, sharing a warm, affectionate look. Apart from her mother, she has dedicated the book to him. Arundhati, who has a mop of curly grey hair, wore a red top – to match the book cover – over bootcut jeans and red shoes.

In the introduction, award-winning Malayalam author K.R. Meera said, “To read ‘Mother Mary Comes to Me’ is to hug a porcupine. Be also ready to take medicine for sadness. It’s very difficult to describe Arundhati. She is as unpredictable as her works are. I would say that she is the only writer in India that all fascist governments in the world listen to.”

(The hall erupted in generous applause at this statement.)

Meera continued, with a smile, “She is the true Indian international writer. When Arundhati says something, it becomes her news, her headline. And she is the only writer who is known from Kashmir to Tamil Nadu.”

In response, Arundhati said, “My God, almost everybody that I love is gathered in this one room. Except for a few people who aren't in the country. That is a pretty dangerous thing given our government.” The hall again broke into loud applause. “Anyway, I said, for a normal person this would be her wedding or her funeral. But thank God, I am not normal. I am a writer. It’s a book launch.”

She continued, “I want to say that there are many Mother Marys here. One is the Blessed Virgin, for whom this hall is named after. Another is Paul McCartney's Mother Mary, who is in the song [Let It Be]. The third one is ours and she is neither of them. I am actually here to do an introduction to a person who has been my support from the time I was three years old. A man who I love beyond measure. This is my brother LKC Roy, who is going to sing ‘Let It Be’.”

When Arundhati speaks, there is tremulousness at the core of her voice. It sounds like a woman who has suffered much, but has overcome her pain with a sweet smile.

Lalit, who plays the guitar with his left hand, sang a rousing rendition of ‘Let It Be’ accompanied by a young and talented singer, Raina John.

Arundhati then read from the first chapter, titled 'Gangster’. Here is the opening paragraph:

‘She chose September, that most excellent month, to make her move. The monsoon had receded, leaving Kerala gleaming like an emerald strip between the mountains and the sea. As the plane banked to land, and the earth rose to greet us, I couldn’t believe that topography could cause such palpable, physical pain. I had never known that beloved landscape, never imagined it, never evoked it, without her being part of it. I couldn’t think of those hills and trees, the green rivers, the shrinking, cemented-over rice fields with giant billboards rising out of them advertising awful wedding saris and even worse jewellery, without thinking of her. She was woven through it all, taller in my mind than any billboard, more perilous than any river in spate, more relentless than the rain, more present than the sea itself. How could this have happened? How? She checked out with no advance notice. Typically unpredictable.’

Manasi Subramaniam, Editor-in-Chief and Vice-President of Penguin Random House India, who edited the book, gave her view:

“This is a book about freedom,” she said. “Not the kind flattened into slogans or repackaged as lifestyle. This is a messier, more volatile kind. Freedom as exposure, as rupture, as a series of deliberate choices made in full view of power. The freedom to speak, to dissent, to withdraw, to make and unmake and remake a life.

She took a breath and continued, “These are the freedoms that Arundhati Roy insists upon. And they are never theoretical. They are lived, contested, refused, reclaimed. None of it unfolds in isolation. These are not private gestures. These are public acts with consequences. They take shape inside systems that reward obedience and punish deviation. Where language itself is a site of conflict. And yet, she does not cede ground.”

She paused and said forcefully, “This book will outlast us all. It will outlast you. It will outlast me. It will outlast its author.”

Manasi then had a conversation with Arundhati.

Arundhati struck a sombre note when she said, “I do want us to remember that while this book is coming out, it is written in the time of one of the most horrible genocides of the 21st century in Gaza. In full public view. It is easier for us to reach for images of children being starved in Gaza than it is for a glass of water at night. And it is the shame of all of us that we appear to be helpless to stop it because there is a schism now between governments and people, not just in our country, but everywhere.

“I also want to say that today, just as I got ready to come up on stage, the High Court has once again denied bail to [PhD scholar in history at JNU] Umar Khalid and to many of my friends who have been in prison for five years, just like they kept my friend, [Professor GN] Sai Baba in prison for ten years before he was declared innocent and acquitted and he came out and died [on October 12, 2024]. So, yes, I mean, these are terrible things that happen even while literature is and must be written and we must keep on insisting there are other ways of thinking, not just about public things, but also about private things.”

And during the course of this conversation, Arundhati gave a full description of her mother: “In that conservative, stifling little South Indian town where in those days women were only allowed the option of flowing virtue or its affectation, my mother conducted herself with the edginess of a gangster. I watched her unleash all of herself — her genius, her eccentricity, her radical kindness, her militant courage, her ruthlessness, her generosity, her cruelty, her bullying, her hyper-brittleness, and her wild, unpredictable temper — with complete abandon on our tiny, insular, Syrian Christian society which, because of its education and relative wealth, was sequestered from the swirling violence and debilitating poverty in the rest of the country.”

In the end, this was a soaring evening that sent hearts aflutter and for a few brief moments we tasted the breath of pure freedom that has been missing in this country for the past several years.

(Published in rediff.com)

Inside Usha’s world

 

Athletic legend PT Usha is in a happy frame of mind. The marriage of her son Dr. Vignesh Ujjwal with Krishna took place on August 25. Ujjwal, who has specialised in sports medicine, is a doctor at the Usha School of Athletics. 

Usha is a Rajya Sabha member and president of the Indian Olympic Association.

In the 1980’ and 90s, Usha dominated the national consciousness with her exploits at the Asian level and her heartbreak of missing a bronze medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics by 1/100 th of a second.

According to AI, Usha has won a total of 101 international medals.

The breakdown is roughly: Gold: 47-50; Silver: 22-25. Bronze: 10-15.

The following piece was published in the Sportsworld issue of March 6, 1991. It was a time when Usha had retired and was about to get married.

COLUMN: Tunnel of Time

By Shevlin Sebastian/Payyolli

Photographs: Utpal Sorkar

The road is narrow.

On the left, there is a small cigarette shop; a few young men stand near it and look at us curiously. On the right, a thatched-roofed cinema hall called Reshmi Talkies.

Further down the narrow tarred road is the Block Development Office.

A curve on the road, later, suddenly in the distance… the big, sprawling yellow-coloured house of P. T. Usha.

The black gate, of shoulder height, has a sign on the wall near it – black letters on white marble – that says “Usha”, the house name. In the open garage, underneath a roof, is a gleaming Standard 2000. In an adjacent garage is a blue Maruti.

As we move towards the door, photographer Utpal Sorkar’s brand new Ray-Ban sunglasses slip from his hand and fall to the cement ground. The right lens is completely shattered. Utpal looks shocked. He picks up the small glass pieces and throws them towards a grassy verge. ‘Bad sign!’ he mutters to himself.

We ring the bell.

After a while Usha opens the door. She smiles but is looking listless, a little bored. She invites us in. It is a large hall. One’s attention is immediately drawn to an incredible showcase that spans a whole wall. It is filled with rows of medals, cups, mementos and souvenirs. On the right, near the door, is a staircase that leads up to the first floor.

We sit down.

It is very silent in the house. You can hear the birds chatter in the tree on the lawn. You can hear the sound of plates being cleaned in the kitchen. You can hear the tick-tock of the clock hanging on the wall. The slap of bare feet announces the arrival of a younger sister, on her way to the first floor.

The mood of the house seeps into you. It is peaceful and quiet, but to one who has just completed a 2400 km train journey, assaulted by that relentless clatter of rail on track, the silence in the house is like a harsh shout. There is a droning sound in my ears. I struggle to clear my brain.

Usha struggles to clear her lethargic mood.

I begin: “You know there is tremendous interest all over India about your marriage.”

“Well, that is the only thing left of interest,” comes her quick reply.

“You know people want to know how you have gone about it. Like how many guys you have seen? How did you make the final choice?”

“Oh, dear,” she replies, “that is too difficult. It’s a private matter. And nothing has been really fixed. There is a tentative agreement for an engagement, but everything will only be fixed on March 3rd.”

“Yes, but this article is coming out after that. So there is really nothing to worry about.”

“Are you sure?” she asks. The hundreds of journalistic promises like this, all to be broken the very next morning in the newspaper, make her wary.

“I promise!” I say.

She looks at Utpal and me, measuring and weighing the pros and cons. Then she smiles and begins to speak.

Her voice is her most distinctive feature. It is a strong, determined voice. It is a voice that is patently honest. It is a voice that never forgets that she is a small town girl. And yet the voice can suddenly give way to embarrassing giggles, and to tremors of excitement. And if you hear and rehear her voice on the dictaphone, you can detect that, at the core of it, there are strands of nervousness. The voice does not indicate the runner.

On the track, Usha is bold all the way. She runs with fluid strength, with utter confidence. Her running style can leave you gasping in admiration. But off the track, her confidence can sometimes flounder. A question about “the positive and negative aspects of fame,” has her lowering her eyes to the ground, swallowing hard, the Adam’s apple bobbing, and then she asks simply, “Could you explain that question again? I can’t understand it.”

The question is rephrased and then she breaks into a flood of words, glad to have a say on the subject and embarrassed that she did not initially understand. Yet her eyes are steady, direct and penetrating. And later, as the day wears on, she speaks a lot, and her confidence increases; her eyes hold one with their fierce determination.

ON MARRIAGE

I don’t know how many proposals have come but there have been quite a few. In some cases everything seemed okay but something was not right with the family. Or the family was all right but the person was not. For quite a few, they did not have the necessary height. I am 5’7”.

Then in some cases where everything seemed right, good family, good job, good height, close relatives of the boy’s family said, “It is not good to be Usha’s husband. You will be in her shadow all the time.”

THE FINAL CHOICE

His name is V. Srinivasan. He’s about six feet tall. He was a former university level kabaddi player and I could sense immediately that he had a keen interest in sports. That was very important for me. I wanted to marry a man who is understanding and gentle and soft, and liked sports a lot.

Srinivasan seems to be like this. At present he is a Circle Inspector in the CISF (Central Industrial Security Force) in Bhopal. After our marriage, he hopes to get transferred to Madras and I should also get a posting there. So we intend to start our family life in Madras. He is 31 years old and is one of two sons. His mother died when he was very young. But he was brought up by close relatives.

His father is retired and lives with his second family in Calcutta, although Srinivasan is originally from Trichur in Malappuram district. The marriage is fixed for April 26th but everything is still unclear at this stage.

The doorbell rings. Usha goes to the door. There’s another visitor to see her. He is in his early fifties, greying hair, thick spectacles, blue shirt and a crisp white dhoti. Usha asks him to sit down on a chair at the entrance, and then comes back. Once again, she sits down but she is distracted. It takes quite a while to get her back on track.

ON FAME:

I get a lot of affection from people. And that would not have been possible if I was not famous. And it is so wonderful to meet different kinds of people. This has been my greatest joy, to meet such a wide variety of people, each different and unique. But fame can get to you, also.

For example, I cannot go shopping in peace. If I go to a market, it’s just a matter of time before people recognise me and there are whispers of “Usha, Usha.” Then they ask for photographs and sometimes take pictures with me. I don’t mind it. But the result is that I can’t shop in peace.

ON HER PRESENT MOOD AFTER RETIREMENT

After the Beijing Asian Games {1990}, there has been a complete absence of tension. Normally, when I was an active athlete, there was this ever-present feeling of tension. Now it is no longer there.

From a very early age, I used to get up early in the morning for training. There was always this same sense of purpose and direction as soon as I got up. I had something to do. Something important. But nowadays when I get up, and even now I get up very early in the morning, I lie in bed and feel depressed. I become listless. And this mood carries on till the afternoon. But then slowly the mood lifts and by evening I am back to my high spirits once again.

I miss the excitement. But if I start to do something, like write a letter or something, my concentration returns and I feel better. Like I am already feeling better talking to you. There is something to do now.

At this point, Utpal interrupts, “Excuse me Usha, but could I have a glass of water?”

“Sure, why not,” she says, springing up from the chair.

I look at Utpal puzzled. Her mood was just improving. There was animation in her eyes. She was speaking with enthusiasm, and then this interruption.

“We were in good flow,” I said.

“Yes, I know,” he replies. “But I had to interrupt for a particular reason. The man who is sitting outside is a journalist and he is taking down all that Usha is saying. And Usha is opening up. God only knows where he is going to publish all this. And anyway, it’s not the right thing, is it?”

Usha appears with two glasses of lemonade, and then we tell her why we interrupted her. She is non-committal, but then we suggest she finish off the interview with the other journalist. Usha agrees, and calls the journalist in. He comes in, smiles sheepishly at us, and Usha takes him to the dining room. We drink our lemonade and explore the house.

On the landing leading to the first floor is a room to the right. This is Usha’s room. It is simple, bare and unpretentious. The air-conditioner is switched off. The walls are painted a soothing blue. On the table, there is a tape recorder and cassettes of Yesudas and Mohammed Rafi lie scattered about.

On the wall, there is a superb picture of the Great Wall of China. There is a double bed with the sheet smoothed down. It is simple and clean. There is nothing else in the room.

We go up to the first floor. On the right is a small puja room. There are two other bedrooms with attached baths. The house is neat, everything in its place.

We hang around; we look out through the window and we can see coconut trees in the distance. A breeze blows; the leaves shake in response. The sunlight streams in through the windows and lights up the mosaic floor. Time passes. It is a little unnerving to adjust to nature’s silence after the din of the city.

Usha calls out. The interview with the Malayali journalist is over.

We come down the stairs and again sit down.

“You must have lunch!” Usha says.

“Nothing doing,” we reply. “We will go to a restaurant.”

“No, you have come all the way from Calcutta. You must have lunch here.”

“Oh, please don’t worry. We will manage.”

“There is no problem here,” she says. “The food is simple and there is enough for everybody.”

It is 12:45 p.m. and there is still time for lunch.

“Why don’t we talk some more?” I suggest. She smiles and sits down.

ON HER HOUSE

After I won five gold medals at the ’85 Asian Track and Field Championships in Jakarta, the Kerala State government announced a grant of Rs 2 lakhs to build me a house. But by the time the house was completed in ’87, the total cost had shot up to Rs 5 lakhs. So I put up the rest of the money. The house was designed by a Government architect and now the whole family stays here. My brother, two younger sisters, my parents and myself. My other two sisters are married and live elsewhere.

ON HOW MUCH MONEY SHE HAS EARNED

I cannot say how much I have earned. But now, people expect me to keep up a certain standard of living. I cannot travel by bus. Because people will say, “Look, she has two cars, why does she need to travel by bus?” I have to maintain this Standard 2000. It was given to us by the State Government after my performance in the Seoul Asian Games.

I have noticed that people are shocked by the awards. But there is also a lot of hard work behind the winning of all these international races. It’s not easy. And after this we have to run about to get the money. Sometimes, it takes a whole year before the cheque is in my hands. You see, this is how the bureaucracy works here in India.

ON HER HUMILIATION AFTER THE SEOUL OLYMPICS (Usha failed to go past the heats in the 400m hurdles)

I was abused and reviled after those Games. For the first time, I deeply resented what I had chosen as an athletics career. It was terrible. Nobody seemed to try to understand me. I am also human. I am also like other people. I was just sad and could not see my way well. Why couldn’t people understand that?

Even in Payyoli, people used to throw stones at the house and make hooting sounds. I had reached a stage when I was terrified to go out of the house. Posters were put all over the place belittling me. I was depressed and lost at least 10 kg of weight due to the stress. Of course, later I understood that people had high expectations of me and they were hurt.

And I did come back strongly at the Asian Track and Field championships in New Delhi, in which I won four gold medals and broke the records that I had set in Jakarta. That was a fitting reply to my critics.

ON HER FAN MAIL

I receive all kinds of letters. At present, I receive a lot of letters saying that my departure has been a loss to Indian athletics. Some boys write funny letters. There are letters asking for my photo so that they can frame it. It is fun reading them. They come from all over India and I used to get a lot of letters from all over the world. In thousands, but now I get very few. It is physically impossible to reply to all the letters. But what is most interesting is the addresses. Sometimes, there’s a picture of me on the cover and underneath it is written: P.T. Usha, Payyoli. Sometimes the letters are just addressed to The Payyoli Express, Kerala.

It is 1.30 p.m.

Usha’s father has just come home from his tailoring shop near the village centre. He is a tall, straight-backed man in his early sixties, with a mop of wavy hair. A broad forehead and a ready smile, his bearing indicates a principled man and one can deduce where Usha inherits her qualities of discipline, hard work and dedication. We talked a little.

A photo session with the family is arranged and Usha’s two younger sisters, Susha and Suma, talk about what dress to wear. Finally, everyone sits on the steps leading to the house and the tripod is set up. The interaction between the family members is open and direct and frank. Suddenly Usha asks, “Where is Pradeep?”

“He has gone out,” her father replies and so the brother is left out of the family portrait.

After the photo session is over, we go in and sit down. And suddenly I realise that at the rate we are going, the assignment can be completed in a day and not two days as we originally thought.

I tell Utpal, “I think we can leave tonight.”

Aloud, I ask, “Excuse me, Usha, is Mr. Nambiar around?”

“Yes,” she says and moves to the telephone. “He lives nearby.”

“Actually the reason is that we want a couple of tickets on tonight’s Trivandrum Mail. That’s just why we wanted to meet Mr. Nambiar. Maybe he could arrange it.”

“But I can arrange it!” Usha exclaims, a rising inflection to her voice. “Did you forget that I was with the Railways?”

“Oh!” I say.

She rings up the Station Master at Vatakara, 12 kilometres from Payyoli. “Hi, this is Usha. Are there tickets available on tonight’s Trivandrum Mail?”

Of course tickets are available due to the MP’s quota. But we have to go to Vatakara to collect the tickets.

Usha smiles and says, “Now will you please have lunch.”

The meal is simple.

There is mutton curry, beans, another vegetable dish, mango curry and rice and papad. Usha eats with us while her mother and a sister hover around, serving the dishes. We are in fact ravenous and attack the food. As we eat, Usha talks some more.

ON THE FUTURE OF KERALA ATHLETICS

It is definitely going down. There seems to be a lull now. There are a lot of potentially good athletes but they don’t seem to be interested in excelling anymore. I went to my former sports school in Cannanore and I could see that the facilities had improved drastically. In my time, we had no beds. We had to join two benches together to make a bed. For 80 students, there were just two bathrooms. But now things have changed but somehow, people don’t seem to be interested in excelling anymore.

ON KERALA’S REACTION TO HER SUCCESS

Well, here’s an example. The railway track is nearby. But very few trains stop at Payyoli, most stop at Vatakara. But when I won four gold medals after the Seoul Asian Games, the train was forced to make an unscheduled stop at Payyoli because there were so many people at the station, who were waiting to greet me. Those times are gone now.

The meal is over and we manage another photo session in the evening. Then Utpal and I leave for Vatakara to get the tickets.

In Vatakara, the tickets are collected with ease. The Assistant Station Master is charming and solicitous and we take a return bus to Payyoli. It is the peak of a summer afternoon. There is tiredness in the mind and the body. Both of us fall asleep and by the time we wake, Payyoli is ten kilometres away.

We jump off, brushing the sleep from our eyes and blaming each other.

We wait at a bus stop. After a while, a bus comes up in a rush of squealing brakes and screeching tyres, we jump in and jump out at the next stop. The bus is not going to Payyoli. A lone autorickshaw goes past and we are beaten to it by four giggling schoolgirls. We are getting desperate. Time is passing. Suddenly a trekker comes past and we wave it down. It is filled with people. There is no place to sit.

“Are you going to Payyoli?” we ask. They nod and we hang at the back of the vehicle, one foot barely managing a toe-hold, the other leg floating in space, our hands gripping the bars of the trekker.

Usha breaks into loud laughter when we tell her our adventures.

“How silly,” she says. “As soon as you got into the first bus, you should have told the conductor that you wanted to go to Usha’s place and they would have dropped you at the right stop.”

There is no hint of arrogance when she says this. Because it is a fact. Everybody knows where Usha stays. After all, it is she and she alone who has singlehandedly put the name of Payyoli on India’s map.

We take some quick pictures inside the house. Usha is dressed in a sari. Photos are taken of her in her room, coming down the stairs, lighting up the diya, holding her medals. The sun is setting and we have to hurry to the beach to get the sunlight shining on the water.

Usha changes into a red salwar and we get into the Standard 2000. Brother Pradeep drives while Usha and her sister Suma sit at the back. People stare at us as we go down the road. It is like wearing a sign over your head. But Usha is used to it. I take the chance to ask a few more questions.

THE QUALITIES NEEDED TO BE A SUCCESSFUL ATHLETE

If you want to achieve anything you must be willing to work hard. There must be a will to succeed. It is not easy. There is a lot of hardship involved. One should not be discouraged by setbacks but continue training day in and day out. Like, after 1988, I could have stopped running, but it was determination that kept me going. So, despite everything, one must persevere. One should never lose courage but keep struggling. And then one day success will come to you.

ON WHY INDIAN ATHLETES PERFORM SO POORLY ABROAD

They don’t work hard. Firstly, very few people come to athletics as an end in itself. Mostly, they train in order to get a job. And once they have got a job, most of their ambitions are over. Perhaps a few of them want to get promoted, so they work a little bit more.

Suppose, for example, the athlete comes from a good family. Then he or she is trying to get a seat on the sports quota for medical or engineering courses. Once they secure admission their interest in sports dies down. That is the difference between the other athletes and me. For me, excellence in athletics was an end in itself.

We arrive at the beach. And suddenly, it is wonderful. The setting sun, the relentless waves breaking on the shore, and the breeze flapping our collars about. Tension seems to dissolve like foam on top of a wave. One feels light-hearted. Usha smiles. Utpal begins to get hyper-excited. The photo opportunity looks superb.

Fishermen’s children begin to follow us as we walk further and further away from groups of people who have come to experience the evening breeze. And now you can see a distinct change in Usha. She turns to beckon to me.

“See this!” she says, pointing at the sand. “It is soft, and yet it is hard. I used to practise hurdles on this surface. This is the most wonderful place on earth. How I loved training on the beach. Remember, I used to run over the hurdles here and so you can imagine how easy it was for me when I ran on the track. This is the best training ground for me. It differed from day to day.

Sometimes I went for long jogs. Sometimes I did short sprints. Sometimes, I practised the hurdles. And I had to keep an idea of the tides. Whether it was high or low tide. But the best thing was that I was away from people.

I dearly wished there was a stadium nearby. Then there would have been no need for me to go all the way to Bangalore or Delhi. I could have trained here, my mother would have given me the best food and I would not have suffered from homesickness at all.

Then she stops speaking and smiles. She willingly listens to Utpal as he instructs her on how to pose. She sits on a boat moored on the beach. She looks beautiful because she has a deep sense of well-being on her face. And yet, as one watches her, as she moves about on the sand, there is a feeling of sadness.

She must now realise that everything is in the past. At an age where other people are beginning to get a hold on their careers, this talented woman is at the end of hers. Life is now spread out in front of her and there is just blankness.

I ask her: “What are your future plans?”

Immediately, a shadow falls across her face.

“I really don’t know what I am going to do,” she says. “I have never thought about it at all.”

I regretted suddenly asking this question. A few children come up and stand around Usha, all smiling brightly. Utpal decides to take a picture of Usha with them.

Usha’s mood changes again. She seems to have lightning changes of mood. She smiles now and taps the heads of the children, in a gentle show of affection.

We reach the car and she tells Pradeep, “I will drive.” And with expert ease, she turns the car around and drives down the narrow road. Again, she has that look of concentration on her face.

We reach the main road and we suggest that she drop us off at the bus stop.

“Nothing doing**,” she replies, “Have tea at the house and then you can leave.”

And so we return to the house. Tea is already laid out. Cakes, biscuits, and coconut sweets. It is dusk now and the dining room is partially in darkness.

A casual question: “How many guests do you have in a day?”

“So many that we lose count,” she replies. “Some days, principals of schools ring up saying that their children are coming to Payyoli and they would like to see the trophy display. They make sure that I am at home. Photographs are taken with the children and I sign autograph books. This is official. But there are people who are dropping in all the time just to talk to me, to listen to me. They are complete strangers but I guess they feel comfortable and welcome and so the word spreads. Of course, now with the STD facility, we have visitors every Friday to get calls from relatives in the Gulf.”

“Why do they have to come here?” one asks, puzzled.

“Because you will be surprised to know that I have the only STD facility in this village. And people come here on Fridays because it is a holiday in the Gulf and calls are cheaper for those calling from there. And now the calls have increased three-fold since the Gulf War. To put it dramatically, in Payyoli I am the only link to the Gulf world.

This phone was installed because I had specifically requested Arjun Singh, who was then Communications Minister, whether he could arrange such a phone to be installed. When I am in training camps I used to feel lonely and miss the family. It is only because of this phone, that I could call up my parents from all the way in Delhi and wherever else I was.”

Tea is over and it is time to leave. It has been a long, exhausting and eventful day. There is a sense of weariness although Usha still seems to be in high energy. We get up and I say, “One last question. Has luck anything to do with your success as an athlete?”

“Luck,” Usha exclaims, her black eyes widening in emphasis. “Luck, luck, luck. Everything has to do with luck. I was lucky to have a coach from the very beginning of my athletics career. I was lucky that when I reached Standard Eight, such a concept as a sports school came into being. I was lucky that I had a talent for running. Of course, it has got to do with luck. Otherwise how can a small-town girl like me become an Asian champion? Luck, and I believe very strongly that God’s support made the difference. I think that without God’s support, nothing would have been possible!”

(Published in Sportsworld, March 6, 1991)

CHINA’S GREAT BALL!

 

This is a rare analytical piece by me.Throughout my career, I tended to focus on the human story. This was thanks to my mother, who from the time I was a baby was constantly telling me stories.So stories became fascinating for me. Whenever I meet people, I am keen to know their stories. Everybody has a river of stories flowing inside them.I also realised the human story never grows old. It can withstand the passage of time. So I stuck to story. And I continue to do so.COLUMN: The Tunnel Of Time The 1990 Asiad turned out to be a victory party for the host nation. Shevlin Sebastian investigates the almost unbelievable success of the Chinese athletes at BeijingPhotos: Nikhil BhattacharyaChina has turned the Asian Games upside down. Never has any country so dominated a Games as China did at this year’s Asiad. A simple statistic proves the point: of the 262 gold medals at stake, China won 183. By contrast, India collected just 59 medals. Most journalists and foreign visitors at the Games were confronted with an extraordinary spectacle. We would keep an eye on a race or an event, wait for it to start. The pistol would go, and predictably, the crack of the gun was followed by the sight of the red flag moving into the lead, unchallenged, untouched. Seconds or minutes later, the same flag would break the tape first. No surprise at all.The result: complete boredom.Midway through the Games, out of 18 gold medals at stake, China won 17. There was almost a desperate hope that some other nation would win, just to make an impact. But no, the Chinese juggernaut just rolled on. Each medal ceremony became a routine. We would stand up for the national anthem, watch the red flag with one large yellow star and four small ones in a semicircle sway in the breeze, and hear the anthem repeatedly. Hours of cheering by the spectators, the waving of miniature red flags, and then another medal for China. As the days went past, curiosity grew about how the Chinese managed to perform so magnificently at the Games. Interviews with a cross-section of journalists, athletes, officials, and trainers revealed the answer: planning and preparation on a massive scale.THE PLANAt the ’86 Seoul Asian Games, China came first in the medals tally but only narrowly, with 94 gold medals to South Korea’s 93. But even then, Beijing worried. Yet when China competed in the Seoul Olympics two years later, it won only 10 gold medals. This was in sharp contrast to the 50 medals claimed at the 1984 Los Angeles Games.The government sat down, or rather, called in the national sports organisations, and reviewed the situation. The conclusion: more attention and more money had to be diverted into sport. Soon, there was a nationwide campaign to make people aware of the need for China to excel at the Games.As hosts of the 1990 Asiad in Beijing, the government propagandists stressed, it was imperative that China give its best performance.Thus, within a couple of months after the Seoul Asian Games, training camps were set up both at the national and provincial level. It was a systematic, long-term programme aimed to culminate at the Beijing Asiad.The plan has worked perfectly. Because of it, China is today on top of the pile. But what were the other factors that contributed to this extraordinary success?THE MOTIVATING FACTORSWhat made the Chinese athletes train so assiduously, to push themselves so hard, that they performed so well? What motivated them? A) Patriotism B) Money C) FearPATRIOTISM: Perhaps one of the singular and unwavering qualities of the Chinese people is their deep sense of patriotism. Frequently, on the winners’ rostrum, as the national anthem was being played, a Chinese gold medallist would wipe away tears of joy. “No matter how angry they may be against the government,” said Wang Shenguin, an official, “we are a deeply patriotic people.”Moreover, this was the first time China was holding such an extravagant sporting event, where the eyes of Asia would be on them. The Chinese believed that as host nation, not only should they show utmost respect and deference to foreign guests, but they must also put up their best performance. And you could see it on hoardings across Beijing: ‘We must do our best’ or ‘We must stand up proud in the world.’ The message was clear: China must rule.MONEY Another great incentive for intensive and sustained training was the prospect of money and jobs. In China, the average person and the average athlete earns about 100 yuan (Rs. 500) a month. Although clothing, food and shelter are subsidised (for example, in Beijing, rents of apartments are fixed at five per cent of your salary), living is a tight financial squeeze. For most athletes, a good performance promised a better future.The government offered incentives of 3,000 to 5,000 yuan (Rs. 13,000–15,000) for a gold medal. To Indians, this might not be much. But, says Zweng Huang, an athlete, “In China, it is a lot of money.”The general feeling that sporting success could mean more money was reinforced by the great, successful former gymnast Li Ning after retiring from competition.The multiple Olympic gold medallist started his own business, a clothing line in his own name, and because of his famous name has been highly successful. Time and again, in Beijing, one came across young people wearing T-shirts with the name Li Ning emblazoned in white across the back.Li Ning is rich now, and has a flat and a car, and sport was his route to money and fame. He was a shining example for all to see.FEARThe fear of the State, the repercussions of failure, also accelerated the athletes’ drive. The State was spending money on the athletes and the State wanted rewards.The State, in the form of coaches and officials, put immense pressure on the athletes, and there have been documented cases of athletes suffering a nervous breakdown because of these pressures.On the flip side was the danger of failing. In China, there are hundreds of athletes who have not won anything. They are unknown. And because they were involved in sports for so long, they were unable to develop a new skill.Some tried to go back to university but most settled for working jobs in departmental stores or as gardeners and workers in factories. “It’s a tragedy,” said an athlete who requested anonymity. “If you don’t win anything you are nowhere. No education and no medal. People don’t care about you.”POVERTY, DRUGS AND TRAININGAnother interesting fact was that most of these athletes came from low middle-class or poor families. Poverty thus became another factor. For example, the new gymnastics star, Li Jing, comes from a poor family in Hunan province. He was selected for gymnastics at an early age, struggled and practised remorselessly, and now, after twelve years, has achieved nationwide fame.So, it was these factors that have collectively pushed the Chinese to excel. Yet it is imperative to add that they were aided by a superb system set up by the Chinese sporting authorities. The two-year camps were brilliantly organised on scientific lines, programmed so that an athlete would reach his peak during the Games.An average day in the camps would consist of long-distance runs, weight training, physical fitness and practising for a specific event. Then there would be psychological classes, the need to develop mental strength and to stay calm. There were further classes then on strategy and tactics.This took about four hours every day. It was four hours for two long years. At the most, the athletes were allowed to go out for a few days during the spring festival, which is in February, and in October, when the National Day celebrations took place. Otherwise, it was just training, training, and more training.China was also blessed by the fact that they had highly competent coaches. Said Win Shangquin, a Xinhua news agency journalist: “A qualified coach is necessary. Hard training is one thing, but good coaching is needed to complement the hard training. China, thankfully, has many qualified coaches, especially in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Canton. And because the government was keen, all the training camps were provided with the best equipment.”Yet there were also consistent accusations of widespread doping. No single Chinese person admitted in private about this, such was their deep fear or perhaps their deep patriotism. But as Jeremy Walker of the South China Morning Post said: “I think it is obvious. It is impossible to have such a high level of performance without the help of drugs. I am sure the 400m hurdles winner was on drugs. She looked so tired after the race. And there were hints of a moustache and a beard on her face. And the Chinese have so many herbal drugs that the Western world has not even heard about, let alone put them on the banned list.”And here in Beijing, with the doping tests being supervised by the organising committee (and let’s face it, China has a powerful voice in the Olympic Council of Asia), the chances of a Chinese getting caught was relatively slim. “I am sorry to say it but I am convinced that they are taking drugs.”NATURAL SELECTIONTo produce winners, you need to select athletes from a large section of the population, so that the best talent can be weeded out. And in China, they have a superb system that enables them to select athletes at an early age.Firstly, when a child shows a particular talent for a particular discipline, the school recommends his name to the sports council of the province. The sports council then tests whether he is a deserving case. If yes, they recommend his name to the national association. The national association receives a list of names and then selects and chooses the best among them. The selected few are put into sports schools.In these sports schools, children are given special training in their specific sport. They do their normal studies but, in the evening, they are given two hours of special training. They are put on a free diet but the food is rich and nutritious.The admission age for these schools depends on each specific sport, but the age varies from 8 to 13 years. For weightlifting, it is from 14 to 17, while for gymnastics, children are admitted when they are five years old. Five years old! Can you imagine putting a child under intensive and systematic training at five years of age?Every now and then, there is a monitoring of the student. If he does not improve after a period of training, he must leave. On the other hand, an outstanding student may be selected by a city, a province, or a national side.There are 3,411 such schools across China and so far, they have produced 80–90 percent of China’s national team and 90 percent of China’s World and Asian record holders. Names like high jump record holder Zhou Jianhua and Li Ning are the ones that come to mind. They are all products of these sports schools.But there is now a backlash against these sports schools across China. Parents now resent losing their children to a sports school. And this has become even more pronounced ever since the government announced that a couple can have only one child.“So, people don’t want their children to go into sports,” said a People’s Daily journalist. “When you do sports, you can’t do your studies well and if you are not successful like Li Ning, you are nowhere.”The result is that fewer children are being enrolled in these sports schools. Admitted Wang Chen, a director of a sports school: “Despite the fact that the sports school has been successful, we have a lack of promising students.”Not surprisingly, this is really worrying the Chinese sports authorities. They believe now that their chances are bleak of duplicating their present performance in Hiroshima in 1994.Nevertheless, that is the future. Today, China is the hero of the Games. Statistically they are untouchable.In swimming, out of a total of 36 gold medals at stake, they won 28. - In rowing, out of 12, they won 12. - In Wushu, out of 6, they won 6. - In cycling, out of 11, they won 6. - In weightlifting, out of 19, they won 12.And out of the 198 multiple medal winners at the Games, 82 were Chinese.You know, they made a mistake. Instead of calling it the Asian Games, they should have simply called it the Chinese National Games.(Published in Sportsworld, October 17, 1990)

In the Line of Life and Death

 

Photos: Author Arup Ratan Basu; the book cover; Indian Air Force Squadron leader Ajay Ahuja

In his book, ‘The Kargil                                                                                                                                                    War Surgeon’s Testimony’, Arup Ratan Basuoffers a gripping first-hand account of what it was like to serve on thefrontlines during the Kargil conflict

By Shevlin Sebastian 

Arup Ratan Basu was deputed as a general surgeon to the fieldhospital in Kargil. To reach Kargil, Arup was flown from Chandigarh to Leh, andthen drove to Kargil on May 19, 1999. The surgeon on duty Major RPS Gambhir wasgoing on a two-month leave. 

One of the first things Arup did when he reached Kargil wasto buy a hardbound notebook at the town bazaar. The aim was to note down hisexperiences.

With just a month’s surgical experience, Arup feltunderstandably nervous about the assignment. By this time, the skirmish betweenthe Indian and Pakistan armies had begun in the heights nearKargil.  

On Arup’s first night itself, casualties were brought to thehospital. At first glance, he realised that they were wounds from bullets orartillery shell splinters. They hit limbs, necks and shoulders. 

Thankfully, Major Gambhir did all the necessary surgicalprocedures. 

Two days later, Major Ramaprasad told Arup, tongue-in-cheek,that he had not received a proper reception since he arrived in Kargil. Momentslater, the Pakistani Army responded to that request when there was a boomingnoise and the hospital shook. 

Arup’s first patient was a 21-year-old sepoy, who had asplinter on his left armpit. Arup quickly got to work. 

Once a sepoy, who was returning to consciousness, as hisanaesthesia wore off, shouted, ‘Of you mother……, just wait till I get you. Andthat bi…, who does she think she is. You bloody Benazir, just you wait.’ 

As Arup wrote, ‘In his reduced mental state, the poor fellowthought that Benazir Bhutto was still the prime minister ofPakistan.’       

Soon, Arup got settled into the routine of the surgery:‘scrub, drape, pass the forceps, scissors, suck this area, ligatures, arteryforceps, and hydrogen peroxide, saline and betadine dressing.’ 

When asked why the casualties were always arriving in theevenings, a hospital staffer explained that during the day the soldiers weretrying to scale up the peaks to get rid of the Pakistani intruders. So, if theywere shot, they had to lie down till night because the rescuers wanted to avoidgetting shot during the daytime. 

As the fighting intensified, one day, Arup received a callthat an officer had been wounded gravely. When he asked the name, he was toldit was Major Vikram Shekhawat of the Jat regiment. 

The same seemed familiar. Then he realised that some newschannels had already declared him dead. He bemoaned the inaccuracy of the mediareports. 

Arup realised some people had miraculous escapes, to thedetriment of others. Once a lieutenant colonel was travelling in a jeep fromLeh to Kargil. After a while, the colonel took the wheel to give the driversome rest. As they neared Kargil, an artillery shell exploded and a splinterpierced the passenger seat and hit the driver. 

But when Arup opened up the stomach, he found that thesplinter had missed the spinal cord, the bigger blood vessels of the abdomenand the right ureter. As Arup wrote, ‘If any of those had been hit, the injurywould have been fatal.’

But not every surgery ended in success. 

One day a 22-year-old sepoy was brought in, hit by asplinter. Despite several hours of surgery, the sepoy died. ‘A healthy andenergetic man was gone forever,’ wrote Arup. ‘Never will I forget the sight ofhis pale face and his distended abdomen. He had come to me for help – and whathad I done? I was numb with guilt, shame and disgust.’    

During a lull in the fighting, Arup came to know from woundedsoldiers that they lacked proper rations and clothing for the freezing weather.One captain was suffering from frostbite. He said that he had survived on onechapati by day and another by night, with occasional dried nuts and sugarcandies. When that ran out, they ate snow and ice to satisfy their hungerpangs. 

‘Of course, we had other things to eat too,’ he said, with asardonic smile. 

‘Such as?’ Arup asked. 

‘We could feast on a steady stream ofbullets.’         

Arup was summoned to examine a body in a coffin. This turnedout to be Indian Air Force squadron leader Ajay Ahuja whose MIG 21 was shotdown by a Pakistani heat-seeking missile. When Arup inspected the body herealised that Ajay had been subjected to torture before being shot.

One day an officer rushed into the mess and begged for water.When asked why he looked in so much distress, he said that he had seen thebodies of Captain Saurav Kalia and his team who had been captured by Pakistanisoldiers. 

The officer was trembling as he blurted out, ‘I have neverseen such horribly mutilated bodies… their nails had been pulled out, theirearlobes cut away, their eardrums punctured, their eyes gouged out, and theirbones broken. Even their penises were cut off.’

Arup had one thought, ‘Could the Geneva Conventions be simplyignored like this? Besides, could any human being do such a thing to beginwith?’        

There were light moments, too. 

On one occasion, the wards lit up with excitement whenBollywood luminaries,  Javed Akhtar, Shabana Azmi, Salman Khan, JavedJaffrey, Vinod Khanna, Raveena Tandon and Pooja Batra arrived. 

The commanding officer pulled Arup aside, pointed to one ofthe patients, and said, ‘Wasn’t that fellow admitted three days ago withintense back pain and sciatica-like symptoms?’ 

Arup looked with narrowed eyes and confirmed it. 

‘Then how is he jumping from one bed to another trying to getphotographed?’ bellowed the senior officer. ‘Discharge him rightaway.’  

As India slowly regained control of the peaks, aided by thefirepower of Bofors guns and precision airstrikes, the soldiers began moving upthe peaks. The Pakistani soldiers began to withdraw when their positions becamehopeless. International pressure was also heaped on Pakistan. As a result,there were fewer casualties for Arup to minister to.  

Interestingly, when the Indian soldiers captured bunkers leftby fleeing Pakistanis, they were met with a putrid stench – the bodies of deadPakistani soldiers left behind to rot.

Arup’s book offers a raw, eyewitness account of war’s brutalrealities. The sheer waste of human resources, and equipment, the damage to theenvironment, the terrible loss of life, and the resulting disruption to normallife – there is nothing good about war. 

Or as Shashi Tharoor wrote, ‘In Basu’s view, it’s not so muchabout the futility of war as its untold human cost, which gets muffled beneaththe nationalist pomp and clamour of any war effort – even one like Kargil,undertaken in self-defence. Yet for the parents who lost their sons, wives,husbands and children, their fathers, this is the only real consequence ofwar.’ 

Adds Lt General (Retd.) Vinod Bhatia, ‘Basu captures thehuman face of the Kargil war. Touching, easy to read, and an interestingperspective.’ 

After his short stint of two months, when he did anastonishing 250 surgeries, as Arup prepared to leave, he fell into aphilosophical mood. ‘The concept of war is based on the idea that others shouldbe subjugated,’ he wrote. ‘Humans have a desire to dominate others, and controland possess that which does not belong to them. This insatiable greed has ledto history repeating itself time and time again.’ 

For his services, Arup received the Yudh Seva Medal. 

In 2001, he was deputed to Kabul, following the collapse ofthe first Taliban services. He served with distinction for ten months. Later,he served in various command hospitals of the Army Medical Corps beforeretiring to his hometown of Jamshedpur in 2013 where he works as a consultinggastroenterology surgeon. 

Arup has written three books in Bengali. This is his first inEnglish. 

(Published in kitaab.org)  

The Great Beijing Scribes’ Race

 

Photo: With Pradeep Paul at the Great Wall of China 

COLUMN: TUNNEL OF TIME

By Shevlin Sebastian In Beijing during the 1990 Asian Games, there was enough action on the field, but somehow, it could not quite match the action off the field. Here are a few stories of what happened behind the scenes in the Forbidden City, with its broad avenues and the massive Tiananmen Square.Adidas sponsored a media race for journalists in Beijing. Among the participants was the lean Ranjit Bhatia (1936-2014), who, as no one bothers to mention, is a former Olympian and a marathoner, a Rhodes Scholar, and in excellent physical shape. Even in Beijing, despite the late hour that he finished writing his reports, he made his morning runs.Lee Evans, the 400m gold medallist at the Mexico Olympics and now trainer of the Qatar squad, started the race.Evans, who is in his mid-forties and extremely trim, said: ‘Ladies and gentlemen (and yes, indeed, there were a couple of women journalists), I wish you all the best of luck. However, just remember to take it easy because unfortunately, there is no ambulance outside the stadium.’Nervous laughter rippled through the group. And when Lee Evans announced that the first twelve would get the expensive Torsion sneakers while fourth and fifth places would get tracksuits, the scribes shuffled their feet in anticipation.The gun cracked, and a motley crowd of ageing, paunchy, young-to-middle-aged never-was—has-beens, broke into a furious run. But it was a brief flourish. By the end of the first lap, everyone had collapsed except for Giao Biyang of Radio Beijing, Ranjit and my Sportsworld colleague Pradeep Paul. A few were panting like fish out of water, and a couple of them stood, with hands on knees, mouths wide open, puffing out air like an old man leaning on his stick trudging up a steep hill. I was lying happily in last place with India Today’s Shekhar Gupta, forming ‘Joggers Incorporated’. But as the front group slowed down, there was hope we might get somewhere. The desire to win slowly crept up like a tortoise suddenly realising it could win when he saw the hare asleep at the starting line.The threesome in the lead just went on and on and finished the 400m race with Ranjit second and Pradeep third. And since even visions of a tracksuit could not motivate everyone else, thanks to collapsed lungs, a non-smoker like me slipped with ease into fourth place.Not everyone was at ease in Beijing. Consider the South Indian journalist, whom the Indian Ambassador invited to his house for a get-together with medallists and journalists. He expected dinner, but he got samosas instead. He stood and moaned out loudly in Malayalam to a few fellow Malayali journalists about this stingy act of the ambassador. The ambassador’s wife stood nearby, and surely that was not a problem. Until a journalist walked up and whispered: ‘Just forgot to mention to you, but the Ambassador’s wife is a Malayali.’The journalist’s mouth opened like the entrance to a large cave, even as he whispered a tortured, ‘Aiyyo.’ That’s not all. A crusty, old, God-fearing Indian newsman, who shoots not only from the typewriter but also from the lip, for once lost his tongue in Beijing. A deeply religious man, he wanted to go to church on Sundays. So he rang up the telephone number given by the organising committee because they told him that was where he’d get directions to the church.The lady at the other end said, ‘Do you want women?’For once, the words jammed in his throat, like Monday-morning traffic.We don’t know what happened after that, but he certainly didn’t see any churches in Beijing.And finally, here’s the story of how optimism survives even in God-forsaken Beijing.Al-Ahmed, a photographer from Saudi Arabia, had ranted and raved about the impossibility of dating Chinese girls, but then he smiled and twirled his moustache.‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I am now waiting for eight more years and a few months.’Whatever on earth for?‘Because that’s when the 1998 Games will be held in Bangkok, the sex capital of the world,’ he said with a mischievous smile.Al-Ahmed was like a Chinese farmer ploughing his field from dawn to dusk, confident that in the end he would reap a bountiful harvest.(Published in Sportsworld, November 7, 1990)

Beijing Before the Boom

 

Pics: Panpan, the mascot for the Beijing 1990 Asian Games, in front of the National Olympic Sports Center in Beijing; the author at the Great Wall of China 
(Fear, Discipline and the Asian Games, 1990)

By Shevlin Sebastian 

Photographs: Nikhil Bhattacharya

It was an incident in a restaurant that really opened one's eyes to the lack of freedom in China.

A Filipino journalist walked in, accompanied by a Chinese girl dressed in a suit. 

The restaurant went into a flurry.

A waiter approached her and said in Chinese that she wasn’t allowed inside. The journalist mentioned that she was his guest. The waiter continued to rattle off something in Chinese to the girl. She replied, a defiant look on her face.

The journalist insisted she was with him. 

The waiter turned away, but suddenly there was a palpable tension. An elderly head waitress came in, whispered something to the waiter, and withdrew. The girl looked embarrassed now.

But that was not the end of the matter. Within moments, two big, muscular Chinese plainclothesmen with close-cropped hair came in from the kitchen. 

They walked past the girl’s table and positioned themselves near the door.

Then a balding head security man, in his mid-60s, joined them. They huddled briefly, then spoke to the waiter. By now, the look of defiance on the girl’s face had turned to fear.

It was a chilling sight: the State asserting its power against the individual. 

The individual wilted under the twin forces of fear and helplessness. She ate her meal, but there was no joy in it.

China’s authoritarian control was laid bare in that restaurant in Beijing. Yet, the city had been spruced up for the Asian Games. There were wide avenues, broad sidewalks with flower pots at every corner, flags flying from lamp posts, and, every now and then, someone sweeping the sidewalk with a broom. The roads were wide and smooth, with a separate lane for cycles. It was right-hand drive in China, although most of the cars were of Japanese make.

It would seem a modern city. But what lingered in the air was the unmistakable weight of fear. A glass wall that cuts through daily life.

Crowded, dirty and noisy, the bylanes told a different story. People spat on the streets — an act that would incur fines on the main roads, but was ignored in these alleyways.

The Chinese people, by and large, were wary of foreigners. They had been instructed not to mingle with them. As soon as they saw one, they looked away.

The government added another barrier. Foreigners had to use a separate currency — the Foreign Exchange Certificate (FEC). It differed from the regular Renminbi. Shopping was hard, especially in places not designated for tourists. Some shopkeepers flatly refused to accept the FECs. Even taxi drivers demanded Renminbi.

It was not a free country. 

A young Chinese student put it plainly: “China is not a good country to live in. People are scared all the time.”

Cosmetic changes aside, China remained poor. The average monthly income was about 100 yuan (Rs 500). But food was cheap, clothing inexpensive, and rents fixed at just five percent of a person’s salary. Still, mobility was severely restricted.

To travel from one province to another, a special permit was required. Going abroad was nearly impossible. 

“How lucky you are,” said a university student wistfully. “We are not allowed to do so.”

The government rarely issued passports. If a businessman wanted to travel abroad, he first had to deposit 10,000 yuan (Rs 50,000) as a guarantee.

And yet, ironically, despite this intense insularity, the Chinese wore unmistakably Western clothes. Men wore shirts and trousers; women wore jeans, skirts, and suits. Only the older generation still clung to traditional attire. 

The people in Beijing said that September–October was the best time of the year. The temperature hovered around 20°C, with a beautiful breeze, bright sunlight, and a clear blue sky. There was no need for a pullover and the air was so pure. 

Surely Beijing, with its numerous cycles and trolley buses, must be one of the least polluted cities in the world.

But when you went to a restaurant, they muddled your mind. 

If you ordered soup with your meals, they would serve it at the end. And if you ordered pudding, they served it at the beginning. And if you asked for a glass of water, they brought boiling water. Amazing! 

But they think we want to drink tea all the time, even at 9 p.m.

All this sounds depressing, but there were high points to the trip. 

One was the visit to the Great Wall of China. It was 75 km from Beijing. No doubt, it was one of the most incredible sights. A man-made wonder. It was only when one was physically there that one could comprehend its magnificence.

It was a testament to the will and determination of man, to build a wall like this, stretching 6000 km across rugged mountains. It was not a high wall, about 50 ft in height, but very rugged. But the length boggled the mind. 

It was built around 700 BC by the Eastern Zhou dynasty to repel invaders. The raw beauty of the place: mountains on all sides, a cool breeze blowing constantly, and the air that came from Siberia. The utter stillness. Just you, the Wall, and the clean air.

What a contrast to Chowringhee in Calcutta at office time.

To walk on the Wall was physically tiring. Up and down it went, and sometimes it was so steep that steps had to be cut into the stone, and handrails inserted, so that we could climb it. 

They say that it is the only man-made construction visible from the moon.

The other high point was a 2200-km train journey from Beijing to Canton. 

The train was an express and the cost of the hard sleeper ticket was 250 yuan. The railway clerk discouraged this writer from buying a hard sleeper ticket, saying that it was uncomfortable. But it wasn’t. It was equivalent to AC first class in India.

There were three-tier berths filled with upper-class Chinese families. For the average Chinese, 250 yuan meant a fortune. The train was clean and a worker swept the floor every two hours with a wet broom.

Outside, the scenery was exactly as in India: paddy fields, mountains, small huts, towns and trucks on the highway. Although cars seemed non-existent.

And in the midst of it, some drama: a young Bangladeshi had bought a 100 yuan (Rs 500) student’s ticket. At a station, the collector wanted to see his passport to verify whether he was actually a student or not. 

In fact, he was a journalist. 

By then, a small crowd had collected around him, curious and surprised. But the Bangladeshi was calm in the centre of so much attention. He pretended not to understand, then in sign language said that he was a refugee and brazened his way out. After a while, they left him alone. 

Later, he said, with a mocking smile on his face, “Munjia and China have good relations.” (“Munjia,” incidentally, is the Chinese name for Bangladesh.) 

When the Bangladeshi was being the centre of attention, one was reminded suddenly of how Ashwini Nachappa became the centre of attention at the Indian Ambassador’s party. 

She came in dressed in a black chiffon saree with a halter blouse. She left the Kerala female athletes’ contingent trailing in her wake.

Photographs were snapped of Ashwini, first by photographers, then with photographers, athletes, officials, journalists, and the Indian Ambassador. The poor man’s Flo-Jo had metamorphosed into the Marilyn Monroe of Indian athletics.

The train was one-and-a-half hours late. 

We arrived at 9 a.m. 

It was with relief that one took another train (and how one bought a ticket in English-ignorant Canton is another story) from Canton and out of China to Hong Kong.

The overwhelming impression is of people stifling under repressive controls, wanting to be free, and yet not confident enough in making that bid for freedom and multiparty democracy. As a student said: “We are waiting for the present leadership to die, before we can hope to make changes.”

Throughout the stay of three weeks, I was so glad to be an Indian. That I could stand at any corner and say anything about Prime Minister V.P. Singh without any fear; that there is a free press at home; that one can travel freely from one part of the country to another without asking permission from anyone, except your wallet.

(Published in The Telegraph Colour Magazine, November 25, 1990) 

When a group of South Africans met Mother Teresa

 

COLUMN: TUNNEL OF TIME

By Shevlin Sebastian

Mother Teresa walked in, her arms held akimbo, onto the verandaof the first floor of the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta. It was inNovember, 1991. The group of people who had been sitting on two wooden benchesinstinctively got up.

Awe, respect, fear and affection seemed to suddenly rise up.She came and stood in the middle of the group, a short, stooping figure, with awonderful and innocent smile and said, ‘Thank you very much for coming. If Iremember right, a group of South Africans had come this morning.’

It was 4 p.m.

‘Yes Mother,’ said Geoff Dakin, the President of the UnitedCricket Board of South Africa (UCBSA). ‘But we have come to give you adonation.’

(This tour marked South Africa’s return to internationalcricket after decades of isolation due to apartheid. The first one-day matchwas at the Eden Gardens, just days earlier. As for the Missionaries of Charity MotherTeresa founded it in 1950. Today, there are branches in 139 countries.)  

‘Oh, thank you very much for your concern for God’s work,’she replied.

She was speaking so softly that all present had to bend, especiallythe 6’2” Geoff, to hear what she was saying. And then the magic and the powerof her personality took over.

There was something peaceful and calm about her that washedover all of us. Ambition; greed; anger; frustration -- all this was swept away.In its place was this tranquil feeling. It was clear all of us were in thepresence of somebody holy, powerful and full of integrity.

‘My, what a big packet you have given me,’ she exclaimed.

‘Yes,’ said Krish Mackerdhuj, Vice-President of UCBSA. ‘There’sa hundred thousand rupees.’

‘A hundred thousand,’ said Mother Teresa. ‘Thank you verymuch. We need the money. We could open a Children’s Home in Cape Town.’

The normally loquacious and magnetic Krish was at a loss ofwords.

The two South African journalists, Carl Bongj and GeraldDekock -- one black, one white, of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, stoodsilently.

Earlier, while waiting for the Nobel Laureate, Krish, brown-skinnedand of Indian origin, said, ‘We hadn’t planned a donation. But when we saw thework that she was doing, we felt compelled to help in some way. And the Boarddecided to give this money. A hundred thousand rupees is equivalent to 10,000South African rand.’

Then he turned to Bongj, and said, ‘Hey, tell me, Bongj, doyou want to buy a baby tiger, to take back home.’

‘A baby tiger to take home?’ said Bongj. ‘Where can you getthem?’

‘You can get them at any street corner of Calcutta,’ saidKrish. ‘It’s not very expensive. It will be a good gift.’

Bongj rubbed his hair with his right hand, his eyes wide openand astonished, and then he saw the smile slowly breaking out on Krish’s face.

‘Hey man,’ he said, as realisation dawned on him. ‘You’repulling my leg!’

And then Gerald asked Bongj: ‘Where do you live?’

Bongj replied, ‘I live in Soweto, but I’m planning to moveout. There’s too much violence in Soweto.’

It was remarkable that these two men, both in their thirtiesand working for the same broadcaster, did not know where the other lived.

They seemed to be bridging the colour barrier for the firsttime.

Was this the effect of Mother Teresa?

Two people, in a building of love, thousands of kilometresaway from home, making the first tentative steps across the racial divide.

(Published in Sportsworld, November 20, 1991)

Murders Most Foul

 

Author Kulpreet Yadav focuses on seven chilling true-crime cases from all over India in his book, ‘Dial 100’. The pace is electric and the stories are heart-breaking

By Shevlin Sebastian

Best-selling author Kulpreet Yadav’s second true-crime book, ‘Dial 100,’ begins with style: Ravi Sunderrajan took the final sip of his whisky, placed the crystal glass down and looked around. Long-legged Indian and Eastern European hostesses were serving drinks to gamblers who were busy at different tables in the casino, their eyes focused and faces flushed. Instrumental jazz played, and the air smelled of whisky, skewered meats and expensive perfume.

This scene takes place in a floating casino anchored on the Mandovi River off Panjim, Goa. And just like that the reader is off and running.

Ravi, a bank clerk, tipped off two professional thieves from Guna in Madhya Pradesh about a scheduled transfer of Rs 300 crore being moved by his bank from Salem to Chennai for the Reserve Bank of India.

The motive? Money.

In the end it is a successful heist. The theft was discovered only nine hours later. This gave enough time for the thieves to get away.

The thieves left no clues. It took over two years to track them down.

In the next story, Kulpreet describes the rape and murder of a five-year-old in an under-construction building in Mumbai in exacting detail. It was painful to read.

Like many murderers, the assailant was an ordinary man. He studied in a convent school till Class 10, gained a diploma in engineering, spoke good English and worked in a company. Again it took clever sleuthing to bring down the culprit.

The next case is even more disturbing. In Kerala, a 29-year-old woman Jaya was raped. But Kulpreet’s description of the act was so lifelike it was almost like watching a movie. You get an idea of the horror a woman can go through when she is physically attacked.

Kulpreet writes about a child being kidnapped from a school in Delhi. The suspect, who was from Nepal, raped and murdered her, before fleeing the country. For three years, there was no movement in the case.

When the case was revived, the police, with the help of an acquaintance, lured the suspect back to India with the promise of a high-paying job. When the grieving parents — who had known the man — finally faced him again, the father delivered a resounding slap. It was a brief moment of emotional release.

There are seven cases in total. The crimes took place in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Kerala, Delhi, Haryana, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh.

Kulpreet keeps the pace brisk, often leaving the reader breathless as the investigations unfold.

Kulpreet had a particular reason to write about the stories. In the preface he cites a disturbing statistic. There is a low police-to-population ratio of 150 officers per one lakh citizens. This is far below the minimum 200 mark stipulated by the United Nations. In India, this is compounded by poor salaries, long working hours and lack of advanced training.

‘And yet, despite these constraints, countless police officers rise above the odds every day,’ Kuldeep writes. ‘They go beyond the call of duty, harnessing ingenuity, determination and cutting-edge technology – often self-taught – to solve crimes that seem impossible to crack. Their dedication, often at the expense of personal comfort and family time, deserves not just recognition but also admiration.’

Kulpreet worked for 23 years in the armed forces before voluntarily retiring as a commandant in the Indian Coast Guard in 2014. ‘I took part in many anti-smuggling and piracy missions in the maritime zones of India,’ he said. ‘That gave me insight into how the police work. Over time, I befriended several officers and spent time with them. I understood how their minds were wired.’

He said he hoped to send two messages through his stories. One is that the police are not as bad as we make them out to be. ‘The second message is for would-be criminals. No matter how ‘perfect’ their crime is, there will be some officer who will use his mind or technology to nab him. I hope this will deter a lot of people and make our society a lot safer.’

When asked why it is difficult to do the perfect crime, Kulpreet said, ‘The airwaves are monitored, there are cameras everywhere. Earlier, you just had to avoid leaving fingerprints and ensure there were no eyewitnesses.’

Reviving cold cases

What has excited law enforcement is that they are now able to find the murderers of cases that are over 30 years old thanks to advances in DNA detection.

Asked whether there is a particular mandate from the government to go after these cases, Kulpreet said, ‘As far as I know, there’s no such thing. But what happens is that these cases prick the conscience of officers who haven’t been able to solve them. So, an officer after 25 years might remember a case that took place years ago that has continued to haunt him. So he revives it.’

The odds are stacked against the police. ‘They don’t have the latest technology,’ said Kulpreet. ‘The forensic labs are very few and training in this subject is scanty.’

In an interview to this reviewer on the HarperBroadcast Channel, on World Book Day, Kulpreet was asked about why true crime always had readers.

He said, ‘More than the thrill of it, people want the bad man behind bars. In true crime stories, that’s how the story ends.’

He acknowledged that readers today have shorter attention spans. So Kulpreet has adopted methods to tackle this. ‘My strategy is not to beat around the bush,’ he said. ‘I get straight to the point. A story has two parts: description and dialogue. Better to keep the description between 10-15 percent. No telling, all showing is a technique I use. Short sentences. No difficult words at all.’

He said there was a time 30 years ago when people took pride in writing good English. ‘But if you write good English today, people don’t care,’ he said. ‘They want to understand a book.’

Flowery language, he believes, can sometimes become a barrier between the reader and the story. ‘I work hard to keep it simple,’ he said. ‘My writing should be like a window pane. We need to write simply to reach readers in the WhatsApp era — otherwise, we’ll lose them.’

The future looks difficult.

A few months ago, when Kulpreet was at the P3 Terminal at Delhi airport, he visited the WH Smith book store. He got a shock when he discovered that the store had shut down. ‘When book stores are not able to sustain themselves at an airport in the capital of India – a nation of story-tellers – we are in a difficult situation.’

Kulpreet has published 16 books so far. Apart from crime, he has written on military history.

As to whether he had any tips for new writers, Kulpreet said, ‘They should write on the subject they are interested in. Also read a lot of books in the genre they want to write in. Then they will be in a nice position to write a good book.’

(Published in katha.org (Singapore)

Off the Beighton track

When my friend George Themplangad showed me that printed articles could be converted into computer text on Chat GPT, the idea arose of putting up my older pieces.

I selected this article, primarily for the brilliant headline given by Sportsworld's Associate Editor David McMahon. And secondly, it might have withstood the passage of time. These type of moments can happen at a match even today. Asked to cover the Beighton Cup hockey final, I also focused on what was happening outside the field. The article was published in the Sportsworld Magazine of May 15-21, 1985. I am hoping to upload once a week. COLUMN: The Tunnel Of TimeShevlin Sebastian watched the final and monitored the crowd reaction to the matchOccasional clouds scudded across the Calcutta sky but there was no hint of rain. Standing outside the Mohun Bagan ground on the Saturday of the Beighton Cup final between Indian Airlines and EME, Jalandhar, one saw people in ones and twos, in small groups, walking purposefully across the Maidan towards the gates of the club.Paaban Bhumia is a teacher in a primary school. A stockily built 27-year-old, he had come all the way from Burdwan to watch the Beighton Cup final. ‘Well,’ he replied, on being asked the reason for coming from so far away, to witness this hockey match. ‘At least, I can see some top players.’Sailen Majumdar, 50, is a government employee who worked in Writers’ Buildings. A short man, he wore thick spectacles perched on his nose and was dressed in a white shirt and faded black pants.Why had he come to watch the game? He paused thoughtfully and replied: ‘This final features two important national teams and I want to watch them play’. Did he, by any chance, watch the matches of the Calcutta Hockey League? Sailen smiled and said, ‘The standard is so poor, that there is no use in watching.’However, unlike the hockey league, Calcuttans did not exactly ignore the Beighton Cup and the presence of star-studded teams. People began to drift in and at whistle time, there was a fairly decent crowd. The crowd was cosmopolitan, showing so effectively the diversity of the city. So, you saw the sight of a sophisticated man in a safari suit, with a helmet in his hand. Then there was the less affluent youth, wearing a cotton shirt and trousers, with mud-crusted chappals on his feet. You had the sight of a paan-chewer in a white kurta-dhoti, sitting with his palms on his thighs. Then there was the ubiquitous know-all supporter, slim and thin, who passed expert comments for the benefit of the people around him.The teams ran on to the playing field which was lustrous and green although there were a few bald patches here and there. The players began to flex their muscles and some of them took a few shots.‘Who is Number 14?’ asked a middle aged Sardarji. ‘Zafar Iqbal!’ was the slightly sardonic reply. A fat man with an enormous paunch and an unkempt beard, said very loudly: ‘Ashok Kumar is in great form. Once, in Calcutta, we had good players like Inam-ur-Rahman, Joginder Singh, and even Ashok Kumar played here once.’ The bully-off took place and the game started. The pace was fast and quick. Both teams mounted a series of attacks. Merwyn Fernandes of Indian Airlines received a pass in front of the goal and, with only the goalkeeper to beat, shot wide. A spectator commented, with a trace of bitterness, ‘There is no finish’. As the game continued, a different form of activity was noticed in the stands. A man who was selling groundnuts was roundly criticised for blocking the view. ‘Why can’t you sell your stuff during the interval?’ asked a spectator who looked fierce and angry. ‘Sorry Sahib!’ said the groundnut seller, his face showing a lifetime of compromise and endless exploitation.In a middle tier, separate and distinct, sat a young, broad-shouldered Punjabi with his new wife. She wore a purple salwar-kameez and her face looked radiant and healthy in the afternoon sun. But it was obvious that she had come to the ground for the sake of her husband because, soon after the match started, she was avidly reading a Hindi film magazine. As the match progressed, there was the occasional cheer for the good move, and heartfelt applause for a superb show of dribbling by a particular player. Sometimes, in the silence, a plaintive ‘Oh Zafar Bhai’ would be heard.Zafar Iqbal, on the left flank, roamed the area like a hungry panther. Slim and lithe, holding the stick tightly in his hands, in front of his body, he would break into a swift, furious run, the ball perfectly under his control as he flicked the ball towards the centre of the ‘D’. Sometimes, it was collected but nothing was ever converted into a goal. Sometimes, the ball went abegging. At 4 p.m, the whistle blew and it was half time, the teams still locked in a goalless draw.Spectators got up and went down the steps to the latrines. ‘Not a bad match,’ a man said, ‘at least, so far.’Suddenly, as if seeing the crowd in perspective for the first time, a bald man in a T-shirt said, ‘What do you say? This is the best crowd of the season?’ On the ground, drinks were offered to the players who slaked their thirst in obvious satisfaction. Free drinks were offered to journalists, officials and important guests. Seeing this, a spectator who sat on a bench with his friends near the corner flag decided to try his luck, but had to return, disappointed.Meanwhile, the second half started on a brisk note. Up in the sky, grey clouds ran riot completely obscuring the sun and now, the breeze that was blowing in from the Hooghly river, was cool and soothing.Indian Airline’s full-back, Veerendra Bahadur Singh, took a stinging 16-yard shot and it was collected by Merwyn Fernandes and he began a solo effort. His back was bent, his eyes on the white ball, his wrists flicking the stick this way and that, he moved down, going past one opponent and then the other. But just when it seemed that he was getting dangerous, Merwyn was suddenly dispossessed. The crowd groaned in frustration, as another attack was blunted at the right time. But, in the seventh minute, the Airlines outfit struck home. A penalty corner was collected by Vineet Kumar, who passed it on to Zafar Iqbal, and he took a shot which was deflected into the EME net through Merwyn’s stick. Airlines 1, EME 0. The latter, stung to the quick by the reverse, went furiously on the attack and they managed a penalty corner. ‘Jai Bajrang Bali’ a spectator shouted from the sidelines, ‘let there be a goal’. But the call proved abortive and as the minutes ticked away, the game began to slow down and lose direction. Very near the sidelines, a young child in a pink skirt and ponytails, barely three feet in height, ran to and fro, enjoying herself. Sometimes, when the crowd cheered or clapped loudly, she would stop, stare at the crowd with wide, curious eyes, and clap in imitation. Her father, clad in khaki, who stood a few feet away from her, smiled occasionally at her. The match drifted on and on. At 5 p.m., the whistle was blown. The players came off with tired faces. Meanwhile a few spectators swarmed on to the ground and encircled the wooden table which contained the glittering trophies and the individual awards. The announcers implored the other spectators to stay and witness the prize-giving ceremony. There was a crush of people and young players formed a barricade with their sticks. A police sergeant, with wide, bulging eyes, shouted at a constable to ‘maintain discipline’. The photographers crowded around, trying to get a vantage point.Meanwhile, the Minister for Sports, Subhas Chakravarty, was invited to speak and he said the usual stuff about the state government’s willingness to offer full support, to bring the Beighton Cup back to its former glory... etc...etc...The trophy was presented to the Airlines captain and the crowd strained to push and see. ‘Those photographers!’ a spectator said in disgust. ‘Can’t see a thing.’ The sergeant, sensing the crowd pushing forward, turned around and shouted, ‘Why can’t you all stop pushing?’The crowd fell back for a moment and as soon as he looked away, there was again a forward thrust. And, at last, all the prizes were presented and thus, the 1985 Beighton Cup came to an end.The Beighton Cup is a tournament that is still twitching, still struggling to live on, and perhaps the coverage by the radio, press and television might just about give it a new lease of life.(Published in Sportsworld, May 1985)

Awakening The Soul

 

In his book, ‘The Practice of Immortality’, spiritual leaderIshan Shivanand talks about the need to go in inwards and link up with thedivine energy for mental peace and happiness  

By Shevlin Sebastian 

In spiritual leader Ishan Shivanand’s book, ‘The Practice ofImmortality’, opposite the contents page is a quote from the BhagwadGita: 

‘The Spirit is neither born nor does it die at any time. Itdoes not come into being or cease to exist. It is unborn, eternal, permanentand primeval. The Spirit is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.’ 

And this quote sets the tone of the book. In theintroduction, Ishan tells a story: ‘Two birds perch on the same tree,inseparable companions. One bird eats the fruit, while the other looks on. Thefirst bird is our finite self, feeding on the pleasures and pains of its deeds,consuming all the anxiety, the stress, the overwhelm of this life. The secondbird is our immortal, infinite self, silently and serenely watching itall.’ 

Ishan added, ‘The universe within us. All people alreadypossess immortality within themselves — most are just unaware of it. I amsetting out to wake them from their slumber.’ 

Ishan belonged to a long line of yogis. He spent the first20 years of his life in an ashram. One day, his guru told him a parable: 

Glass can either be a mirror or a window. ‘When you look ina mirror, you see only a reflection of yourself; when you look at a window, yousee through it to the beauty and infinity of the universe around you. A mirroris painted black on one side; a window is pure, unobscured. To change a mirrorinto glass, you must purify it, removing the paint.’ 

Ishan was initiated into the spiritual life as a child byhis father, Dr. Avdhoot Shivanand, the noted yogic guru in a monastery in thedeserts of Rajasthan, near the Aravalli mountains. 

Interestingly, and with a sense of humour, Ishan said thatwhen people come to know he was a monk, they regarded him either as a healer oran oddity. Some people asked bizarre questions: Can you fly? Do you fartrainbows? 

As he grew older, Ishan came to a realisation. ‘There areonly two kinds of people,’ he wrote. “The ones who have already realised thegod within, and the ones who have the potential to realise the god within.

One of the pivotal moments of his childhood occurred when aflood destroyed their ashram. Father and son moved to the suburb of Dwarka inNew Delhi. Dr. Avdhoot was building an ashram in a swamp. In this swamp, thelocals threw their garbage and defecated into it. It was near the airport. So,the roar of planes flying in and out was incessant. And because of railwaytracks nearby, trains thundered past all the time. Apart from all this, carhorns blared constantly. Children shouted. Couples fought and screamed at eachother. Ishan found it difficult to adjust after the tranquility of the ashramin Rajasthan.  

This is how he described it: ‘Humans are a little likesponges. We assimilate the energies that are around us. I would witness peoplewho were angry, and, somehow, I would feel their anger, too.’   

So, how to reclaim mental calmness? Ishan’s way was torecite mantras. He said that is the surest way to connect with divine energy.‘Mantras are the gateway to the supreme power,’ he wrote. 

Incidentally, after every chapter, Ishan offered ameditation practice: 

Here are a couple: 

No. 1 

Sit comfortably, relax your body, and focus on a memory ofgratitude.

 Feel the positive thoughts and emotions of thatmemory. 

 Gently embrace and accept its energy, allowing it toflow into the past from the present. 

No. 2

Sit comfortably, relax your body, and meditate on thesun. 

Imagine the sun as a friend, embodying all the positivity,divinity, and strength you need.

Inhale for a count of three, feeling the sun’s light flowinto your head and through your entire body. 

Exhale for a count of three, releasing everything from yourbody through your head and into the sun. 

One, two, three — inhale deeply, three-two-one — exhalefully. 

Repeat this cycle for ten minutes, keeping your breath asdeep as possible. 

Ishan confirmed the problem with humanity is ego. 

He wrote: ‘Ego does not allow us to see what is obvious. Inhis book, The Gift Of Fear, American security specialist Gavin de Beckerwrote: “Your intuition exists, in part, to help you stay safe — to recognisewhen something isn’t right and to guide you away from danger.” But the avidya,the ego, has a trick up its sleeve: it speaks so loudly that it drowns out theinner voice of your intuition.’    

And because of the constant strictures from society, peopleignore their inner voice and follow the dictates of others. 

Ishan learned to activate the prana, the life-force energythat animates all human beings, with the help of a teacher, Mashe, who was amaster of kalaripayattu.    

As he grew up, Ishan came to a realisation about his lifejourney. He would help people to go from avidya to vidya, to move from lack ofknowledge to knowledge. ‘My job was to clean people’s minds,’ he wrote. ‘Oncethe mind was habitable, a person’s higher self could take over.’ 

Yet Ishan’s path has been unconventional. He has engageddeeply with the world even while he nurtured a rich inner life of meditation.He has deftly maintained a link between outer action and innerstillness.  

So, he is married with a boy and a girl. In Washington, youcan see Ishan in a tuxedo; in Mauritius, he conducts his ‘Yoga for Immortals’mental wellness programme for athletes; In the Himalayas, you can see Ishanswimming in a lake; he prays at the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya; he travels theAtlantic Ocean by ship; and he meditates on a frozen lake near the ArcticCircle. 

In one photo on Instagram, Ishan is on his knees with foldedpalms seeking blessings from enlightened master Mahant Swami Maharaj of theSwaminarayan Sanstha, the proponent of Sanathan Dharma, which has itsheadquarters in Ahmedabad. 

Over his maroon monk dress, Ishan had put on a sleevelesswaist jacket, which showed his bulging biceps. The Mahant Swami Maharaj lookedat his muscles and said, “Ladka Balwan Che (the boy is strong).” All the swamispresent along with Ishan started laughing. Then a very senior swami said, “Astrong body and mind are needed for the work Ishan has chosen to do.”

The Mahant Swami Maharajji gazed at Ishan with compassion inhis eyes and said, “You will succeed. I bless you.”

One can see Ishan doing weightlifting, practicing targetshooting, hitting the bull’s-eye, and enjoying video games in a mall. With athick salt and pepper beard, and a ready smile, he gives the impression ofbeing in this world and not being in it as well. Apart from being a spiritualleader, he is an international public speaker and a performance enhancementcoach. 

The yogi has earned a Doctorate of Philosophy in Humanitiesfrom the United Graduate College and Seminary International in Kampala,Uganda. 

This book is a reminder of the spiritual life that many ofus are missing at this point. From early morning until late at night, weconstantly distract ourselves with Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTubevideos. And in this empty activity, we have forgotten there is a divine energywithin us. 

This has also resulted in a grave psychological breakdownall over the world. People turn to drugs, alcohol, sex, power, fame, andfleeting relationships to fill the void within. But Ishan says, the simpleanswer but very difficult to implement is the path of meditation and innerawakening. 

He says the only way is the way inward. As Lord Buddha andJesus Christ said thousands of years ago, ‘Know Thy Self.’ Through the book,you can get an idea of how to travel into the soul, and connect with theDivine. 

It is a timeless path to reclaiming your life!

(Published in kitaab.org,Singapore)