Indian eunuchs turn tax collectors

According to the BBC, Tax authorities in Bihar have devised a way to get debtors to pay their bills by turning eunuchs into tax collectors.This might just work and shows the desperation on behalf of the tax authorities who seem to be bullied by debtors.

Story Extracts:
Tax authorities in one Indian state are attempting to persuade debtors to paying their bills - by serenading them with a delegation of singing eunuchs. Eunuchs are feared and reviled in many parts of India, where some believe they have supernatural powers. Often unable to gain regular employment, the eunuchs have become successful at persuading people to part with their cash. The eunuchs will get a commission of 4% of any taxes collected.
In Bihar's capital, Patna, officials felt deploying the eunuchs was the only way to prompt people to pay up. “We are confident that their reputation and persuasive skills will come in handy,” said Bharat Sharma, an official from Patna.
"Pay the tax, pay the Patna Municipal Corporation tax," the eunuchs sang as they approached Ram Sagar Singh, who owed 100,000 rupees (£1,180), the AFP news agency reported.

I think it is a great idea, though we might see the eunuch mafia on the rise...I wonder if they will accept bribes, though I have a feeling, they will...

The Guardian has an interview with the funniest and most loud-mouthed rockstar of our times- Mr Noel Gallagher. Reading any interview of Noel is a pleasure, however badly written or pompous the actual article is, Noel saves it with his quotes. Though this is a well-penned piece, it is Noel Gallagher and his frankness that adds the extra zing. Here are some of the best quotes of the piece.

"Yeah, of course," he shrugs. "We're talking about the best of Oasis here. If you stop the man in the street and ask 'What's Oasis's best album?', a few might say Don't Believe the Truth, which is great, but the squares will say Morning Glory and the cool people will say Definitely Maybe. That album should just be called the Best of Oasis." He leans forward. "Look. I was a superhero in the 90s. I said so at the time. McCartney, Weller, Townsend, Richards, my first album's better than all their first albums. Even they'd admit that."

At times this year, the Arctic Monkeys have seemed almost embarrassed by their success. It's the antithesis of the Oasis way. "I've never understood that kind of thing. Like the Clash going, 'We're not playing on telly.' Well fuck off then. When we first started we said we were the greatest band in the world. We should have said we were the best band in the charts. 'Cos to me, the world is the charts. I don't give a fuck about Radiohead and all that indie nonsense. I was brought up on the top 10. Slade, T.Rex, David Bowie. If you're not in the charts, you don't exist. BMX Bandits? Four people are listening to it in Hull. I went in there to get Phil Collins' severed head in my fridge by the end of the decade."

"I came from a shithole in Manchester....Then when we got a deal, we were like: 'Bring it on!' I wanted the big hairdo, big shades, big car, big house, swimming pool, jet, drug habit, a mirrored top hat and a chimp. All of it. The Kasabian lads told me they'd only get out of bed to read about us in the paper. And what would you rather read? 'The guy from Keane's been to a rabbit sanctuary 'cos one of the rabbits needed a kidney implant, so he swapped his with it' - or 'Liam Gallagher sets fire to a policeman in cocaine madness, while his brother Noel runs down Oxford Street nude'?"

"Well, I think that Britain is a better place than it was before the Labour party took over. Personally, I'd have loved Neil Kinnock to get in. He was gonna rip Margaret Thatcher's head off and shit down her neck. Then Tony Blair came along and it was like: 'Ah, he's gonna outsmart all of these public schoolboy cunts.' But we all got carried away in 97. Once the veneer wore off - even taking the Iraq debacle out of the equation - we've all just given a massive shrug. I think the Labour party's crowning achievement is the death of politics. There's nothing left to vote for."

Never launch a rocket in your arse
here's why:
A 22 year old man suffered internal burns as he tried to launch a rocket from his bottom on Guy Fawkes Day. He was found bleeding with a Black Cat Thunderbolt Rocket inside him.

This is an extremely embarrassing incident that the poor man will never able to escape from and he sure must be learning it the hard way. His friends might be a little sensitive about it, though I doubt that. Even people from his neighbourhood will say: - oh, he is the guy who lit a rocket in his arse, isn't he?

There are two questions to ask, one funny and one not
Q1: What was he thinking, trying to launch a rocket from there?
Q2: What were the first words that he uttered when the rocket launched in his arse?

Mail me if you have any good answers

The BBC story carried an apt headline- Backside firework prank backfires

Click here for the full story

And here are a few extracts:

He suffered a scorched colon and is now recovering in hospital, where his condition is described as stable.

A spokesman for the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) said the prank could have been fatal.

Douglas McDougal, from the NEAS, said: "We received a call stating there was a male who had a firework in his bottom and it was bleeding.

"He sustained fairly significant injuries in the fact that there's huge damage to that particular area."

"And also the body naturally produces methane gas, so combine that with the firework and the exploding effect with methane's flammability - it certainly could have been a lot worse than it really was."

A spokesman for the Firework Association described the bizarre prank as "beyond belief".

He said: "We have spent a long time working with the government to create laws that make fireworks safer and better for the public.

"This incident is very concerning but hopefully an isolated one."

So all you arsonists out there remember:

Don't put your money where your mouth is
and
Don't launch a rocket where your arse is

Here are two rather rare and honest quotes by Bush after Wednesday's mid term election results.

“If you look at it race by race, it was close. The cumulative effect, however, was not close. It was a thumping.”

"I recognise that many Americans voted last night to register their displeasure with the lack of progress being made there."

REALLY?...
How nice of you to say that?

Test Tube Koala Bears

Koala bears have been infected with their version of chlamydia, which is creating a big impact both on their numbers and also affecting their sexual performance according to a Guardian story.

Here are a few extracts:

Researchers from the University of Queensland, with the assistance of the Zoological Society of London, are hoping that this new artificial insemination process will help establish a koala sperm bank. Project leader Steve Johnston describes the bank as "an insurance policy" to protect the species.

Although koalas are not yet threatened with extinction, urban development and habitat destruction have reduced their number from millions to fewer than 100,000 in Australia. Populations are classifi ed as "vulnerable" in parts of Queensland and New South Wales. Since they have become isolated in pockets of forest, inbreeding has become a concern, while diseases such as the koala version of chlamydia have left many infertile.

A sperm bank will help manage the genetic diversity of koalas, screen out diseases and reduce the need for koalas to be transported for breeding. Sperm from simple beasts like cattle and humans has been collected, frozen and used for artificial insemination for years. But koalas and other marsupials are more complicated, with their sperm less likely to recover its motility - the ability to move - after it has been thawed from frozen.

Interesting sounds a bit over the top, but i hope the humans solve the problems of these poor marsupials.

Cricket's relationship with animals

This is an extremely hilarious piece I found on Cricinfo, , it lists weird moments when man animal and the quaint sport of cricket have come together.

Here are a few instances

Botham the Pig
By the Ashes tour of 1982-83, Ian Botham was beginning to fill out around the waist and was no longer the swing-bowling sylph of his heyday. That was good enough for the crowd at The Gabba, who smuggled a piglet in through the turnstiles (by stuffing an apple in its mouth and convincing the steward he was soon to be lunch), then released him on the outfield with "Botham" scrawled on one flank, and "Eddie" (in tribute to the equally rotund Eddie Hemmings) on the other.

That is legendary, how much ever people despise beer buzzling aussie cricket fans you must bow down to this gesture. Or atleast I will.

Snakes in the stands
When Pakistan visited India in 1999, Shiv Sena, a Hindu extremist movement, were less than happy with the idea of sporting contact between the two nations. In the build-up to the Test, they threatened to release poisonous snakes onto the outfield during the game. In response, the police hired 30 snake charmers to patrol the stands and be ready to pounce should the need arise.

Well, it just goes to show that the Mumbai police are always ahead of their enemies.

Hansie the rabbit
Peter McIntosh, an 11-year-old cricket nut from Northampton, had the misfortune of naming his new pet rabbit "Hansie" just three days before the match-fixing scandal erupted in April 2000. As Cronje Sr's name was dragged through the mud, his bunny namesake sat chewing lettuces and going about his rabbity business, oblivious to the fact that he was now the talk of the town. "We couldn't believe it," said Paul's mother, Elaine. "Our nine-year-old, Lauren, has been telling everybody that our rabbit has been arrested."

Moral of the story: Never name your rabbit after a cricketer.

More posts on pigeons

NYT on a remedy to eradicate all pigeons from New York.

Well I must say I am not a fan of pigeons , though i might end up being one after all this hatred that they are being subjected to. Apparently, they are the scum that dirties our streets.

The report says

A pigeon dispenses about 25 pounds of excrement a year. Often this gunk must be blasted off hard-to-reach places using boom lifts and steam hoses. Pigeon-related damage in America has been estimated to cost $1.1 billion a year.

Here is the best quote of the piece -
“At the end of the day, pigeons are there because we’re filthy, dirty creatures,” Merchant told me. “They’re there because we’re stupid creatures who go on feeding them.” They are the heroes of a great co-evolutionary success story. One ornithologist has crowned them “superdoves.” The less deferential way of saying this is, we’ve taken an otherwise unobjectionable bird and built the perfect pest.

“Most of the pigeon feeders are in some way crazy,” he said, summarizing, rather informally, a psychological study he helped write on the subject. “It is impossible to influence these people.” The most relentless have no family and few interpersonal relationships. They adopt pigeons as surrogate children. He described women — older women — who worked as phone-sex operators and prostitutes to pay for birdseed. This may be the pigeon’s greatest co-evolutionary triumph: the black magic whereby these grubbing little birds have sought out their depredated, human counterparts and transformed them into senseless disciples.

Go and feed a pigeon, let it fly into the murky metropolis sky and then shit on you. Kabootar ja ja ja...

Pelican swallows pigeon

Was this just a one time occurence, or have pelicans been eating pigeons all this while without humans noticing it...ok well that was a bad joke. But that just happened yesterday evening at St James's Park

Families and tourists in a London park were left shocked when a pelican picked up and swallowed a pigeon.

The unusual wildlife spectacle in St James's Park was caught on camera by photographer Cathal McNaughton.

He said the Eastern White pelican had the unfortunate pigeon in its beak for more than 20 minutes before swallowing it whole.

An RSPB spokesman said: "It is almost unheard of for a pelican to eat a bird. Their diet should be strictly fish."

"There was a bit of a struggle for about 20 minutes, with all these people watching. The pelican only opened its mouth a couple of times.

"Then it managed to get the pigeon to go head first down its throat. It was kicking and flapping the whole way down."

Who is gonna eat who next...Any idea?...

What happens when your CV goes on Youtube, you dont get a job, you become a celebrity...hurray!
Imagine your CV goes online, there are two things either you make an ass of yourself or you get the chance of catching teh attention of Donald Trump and other tycoons and your life changes altogether. Not for My Vayner though, who ended up doing the former and his video CV was all over youtube.com.

Extracts from the Guardian news report
For Aleksey Vayner, "success is a mental phenomenon, not a physical one." Notoriety, however, is something else. The 23-year-old "CEO and professional athlete" has achieved a celebrity of sorts after an 11-page job application and accompanying video he submitted to a bank leaked onto the internet and turned him into the latest subject of online humiliation. Mr Vayner has decided to take a break from Yale. He is still looking for a job.

Well lets see who else went to Yale, and is now an embarrassment to his country, oh yes its George Bush.

Last of all here is the Video CV for everyone to laugh their ass off.

Fancy a rave at the Great Wall Of China
BBC reports that the Chinese government has finally banned all-night music raves and parties at the Great Wall of Chine,. It is quite sad actually, though it is quite surprising that it was allowed in the first place.


Partying and all-night music raves are to be banned from parts of the Great Wall as China imposes laws to protect its top tourist attraction.
Writing and driving on the wall are also among several activities that are being prohibited, the government said.
The rules will include the banning of parties and all-night raves which have become increasingly common along parts of the wall near Beijing, the BBC's Dan Griffiths in the Chinese capital reports.

Imagine a rave taking place at the Taj Mahal, I have never been there and don’t plan to but if it was to ever host a rave, I might think about it.

A few links

Naresh Fernandes after the blasts

Despite the long history of sporadic violence, Mumbai has always picked itself up by its bootstraps and marched off to work as soon as the trains started working again. Our ability to jeer at misfortune is attributed in the Indian press to the "spirit of Bombay," which is variously described as "indomitable," "never say die" and "undying." But our spirit has been saluted so frequently of late, all the praise was beginning to annoy me.

Before I left the office Tuesday evening, I finished a magazine article complaining that this illogical faith in Bombay's innate resilience had the unfortunate consequence of absolving the city's administrators of the responsibility of actually fixing our problems. No matter how bad things get, they seem to suggest, we have an infinite capacity to cope.


Amit Varma on Comment is Free

It has been a long time since I have posted something, will be blogging regularly from now on, here are a few of my recent articles, enjoy and give feedback, cheers

Cricket's Pink Triangle

Cricket’s detractors dismiss the game with a variety of insults, but the most ridiculous one seems to be ‘cricket is gay’. This juvenile taunt gets me pretty worked up.

So imagine my surprise when I stumble upon an advert in Time Out. ‘Graces CC, the world’s only gay cricket club, welcomes new players and supporters, midweek nets at Lord’s.’

A quick internet search throws up a few articles on them, none of which amount to anything more than a bunch of puns put together. More useful is their website, www.gaycricket.org.uk. Bowling and batting averages for every season and a discussion board show they are serious about their cricket.

With 60-odd members, Graces are fairly established on the London circuit. They were founded in the summer of 1996 with a passion for watching cricket together, but have since evolved into a serious competitive cricket team.

Duncan Irvine, founding member and honorary vice-president of Graces, is also one of the owners of Central Station, a pub popular amongst London’s gay community and notorious for its themed fetish nights.

“We are a nice, friendly little cricket side. The only thing is we are all gay, but we all are passionate about the sport,” says Irvine. “We organise social get-togethers pretty often and go along for cricket matches.”

“People think we are a bunch of poofs who play cricket in pink, but we win more than we lose.” Irvine remembers when the Brighton Argus did a piece on them. “We were on a photo shoot with them and they thought we would be dressed in pink or something. Then they lined up the players and the photographer said, ‘can you look a bit more gay’, and the guys are going, ‘how can we look more gay?’ I mean it was strange, after all we were in Brighton of all places.”

I watch Graces in action. They are playing a friendly game against the Foreign Office at the Civil Service Sports Club in Chiswick. The weather isn’t ideal: gloomy skies with a slight nip in the air and a forecast for some rain later in the day.

When I arrive, Graces are batting and the score reads 56 for two. The rest of the team are lounging in the pavilion. The next batsman is getting a few knocks in. Three of the players have been joined by their partners and they also have an able supporter in Corny, a dog belonging to one of their supporters. A copy of The Daily Telegraph lies on one of the tables, along with a few Coke cans.

Graces first hit the headlines when the press stirred up a fuss over their name. Patrick Sopp, one of the team’s founders, remembers the row. “The press got to hear about us and they went to the family of WG Grace and asked them, ‘how do they feel that a gay team is using your family name?’ There was a spat about it when they objected and few of them asked us to stop using the name, but it died out. After all it is to do with cricket and we are more concerned with cricket than anything else.”

The sticky wicket doesn’t seem to trouble the batsmen at the crease. They look confident apart from the odd mishit. James Carr, with a body and stubble resembling Mike Gatting, is in attacking mode and gracefully moves onto his half-century.

As the only gay team in the world, they hope to see gay sides elsewhere, especially Australia. “A gay side from Australia will be great, we can then play a gay Ashes,” says Sopp.

Back in the pavilion, the guys are busy chatting. “James is clobbering them, isn’t he? I may not get to bat today, thank god,” quips Jonathan Hardisty, a lawyer who has been playing for Graces since 2000. They reach 138 for five wickets in just 24 overs when rain appears and the players leave the field.


Club captain Richard Bielby is playing for the Foreign Office today as he works there. Vice-captain Stuart Knowles has taken over as skipper for the match. “It’s nice we have our own little team,” says Bielby. “We feel more comfortable here. When we have played for straight clubs, we have had to invent girlfriends and make up stories, it’s much more open here.” Their only problem since setting up their own side came four years ago when players on an opposing team made homophobic remarks.

The club president is media-savvy astrologer-cum-philanthropist Russell Grant, who is well connected with the Middlesex Cricket Federation, where Graces are based. “He’s right for the image of the club and is very big on his cricket. He’s also a very good businessman and it helps that he is quite camp,” adds Irvine.

The rain continues. Knowles decides to make a match out of it and declares. The Foreign Office need 139 to win from 24 overs.

The rain has not stopped, but these guys still seem enthusiastic. The Foreign Office batsmen are struggling, with the ball not coming onto the bat easily. Graces have a good bowling attack, although the fielding is a little sloppy and a few of them can look a bit camp when they chase the ball. Three wickets later the run-rate is beginning to creep up and Graces seem to be the favourites. But the Foreign Office batsmen start to make a game of it with some aggressive shots and boundaries.

The tide soon turns. 16 runs off two overs looks makeable – especially after two boundaries and four singles from the penultimate over. It’s in their faces - three runs in six balls, it can’t be won from here?

But a reckless final over sees the Foreign Office lose two wickets and score just two runs. Graces have win by a single run; they can’t believe it and are all over the bowler who won them the match with a tidy last over. A few of them slap his buttocks; others punch the air.

A straight team played a gay team and the gay team won. Or rather, the better team won. That’s what counts.


Medicine Man or Witch Doctor?

Outside the Peckham Rye train station in London sits Wahabu on a stool with a briefcase, handing flyers to the public. Wahabu is not distributing phone cards or flyers advertising club nights or gigs. He markets himself as someone who can treat diseases and at times even perform miracles. Wahabu can be called a medicine man, whose forte is traditional Nigerian medicine, or that’s what he says. I pick up his flyer and let him know that I will be in touch.

In simple terms, Wahabu can be classified as an alternative medicine therapist (he sells something not necessarily available in the mainstream market). Except he doesn’t seem to be the type of person your GP will recommend like those practitioners involved in Indian and Chinese medicine.

Indian and Chinese medicines have influenced our opinion of conventional medicine and are now living a healthy life on our high streets. They, come under the umbrella of alternative medicine, which as the name suggests is viewed as an alternative to conventional medicine. Both these medical systems had their origins thousands of years ago and have a rich culture and tradition attached to them. So too do the medicines from Nigeria and other African countries and yet their medicine is viewed more as quackery or a concoction of snake oil and other magic potions.

Wahabu has been treating people for the last two decades, and spends the year shuffling between the United Kingdom and Nigeria. I meet him a week later at the same place. As usual he is distributing the flyers and he seems to be wearing the same clothes as he was last week; white shirt, turquoise trousers.

“Come in the evening, personal problem or physical problem?” he asks.
“Mainly physical,” I say.
“Me busy now, meet me at Jabber Internet café, here is address,” he says and hands me a piece of a paper, with an address.

Unlike in the US these medicines have not been banned in our country and there is a huge market for alternative items both in the health and food sector. We have a long association with other cultures and lots of people from different cultures living here, which has diversified the market.

As the name suggests it consists of practices used in place of, or in addition to, conventional medical treatments. Dr. Jacqueline Young who writes for the BBC Health website says, “Alternative therapies are based on the notion that the body naturally attempts to sustain a state of balance, known as homeostasis, which is similar to allopathic medicine,” who is positive about the future of alternative medicine.

Chinese and Indian medicines have managed to gain a sense of credibility in the west, though they still have people who question the therapies. “Ayurveda and TCM focus on the whole person, with lifestyle, environment, diet and mental, emotional and spiritual health often being considered alongside physical symptoms,” says Young.

Alternative medicine still faces an opposition. On May 23rd this year some of Britain's leading doctors urged NHS trusts to stop using alternative therapies and criticised initiatives by Prince Charles (who happens to be a staunch advocate of alternative medicine), which suggested greater access to complementary therapies in the NHS.

The main cause for concern for mainstream medicinal practitioners is that its treatment has not been verified through peer reviewed controlled studies. Acupuncture being an exception.

The reality is that they are being used to treat serious diseases. Acupuncture and osteopathy are used in pain clinics, while aromatherapy and massage are frequently used in cancer care. Osteopathy and chiropractic are recognised by conventional medical colleges as being a useful treatment for back pain. Some practices have also included the services of such therapists in their clinics.
One of the main reasons why they have survived in the West is because of the ethnic communities living in the western world still hold on to their herbal remedies which have been passed down from generation to generation.
In my family like most Indian families in the United Kingdom (or anywhere for that matter), a cough is more likely to be treated with a paste of cloves, cinnamon, ginger, long pepper, turmeric or a glass of lemon juice with a few tablespoons of honey rather than cough tablets from a pharmacy.

Before the advent of the NHS most mothers in this country would also have used lemon and honey or had their children inhale the steam of hot water with Friars Balsam. Some people still continue to do so.

Likewise, in a Chinese family, a bottle of Chuan Bel Pi Pa Gao (Fritillaria Loquat Syrup) which is an oriental herbal remedy consisting of herbs like loquat leaf and apricot seeds, from the nearest Chinese herbal medicine store, helps moisten the throat and stops the cough.
And Wahabu is trying to provide that service for his countrymen living here.
For cough I recommend plantain juice with honey, two days, then throat all clear,” he tells me later, when I meet him that evening at Jabber Internet café in Peckham.
“So what’s wrong with you, what’s your age,” he asks.
“21, actually nothing is wrong with me, I want to speak to you about your profession and your treatments. I am a student doing research on alternative medicine”.
“What? Alternative medicine, this is traditional Ibadan and Lagos medicine. My culture’s medicine is very good, solve any problem.”
Here, in the west, these medicines are referred to as alternative medicine but that is not so much the case in their country of origin. There, these medicines are consumed by a majority of the population and due to their long history are integral parts of the culture.
Kalyani Ranade, a retired teacher of Indian origin, explains: “These remedies have been working for thousands of years and it is not an alternative for us, it is part of our culture. We use both conventional western medicine as well as what we have been taught to use. It is not strange for us to start with an herbal remedy and if it persists we move on to some stronger medicine or tablets.”

“I think the positive aspect of Traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine to some extent, is that it neither rejects conventional medicine nor embraces other alternative practices uncritically,” says Hilda Swenson, a salesperson at the H R Chinese Medicine Centre, a Chinese Herbal Shop situated in Bayswater, London.

“For us it is our history, for the west it is an alien medical cultural practice, but the bottom-line is that if it works, there is no need to speculate and theorize about it,” says Dr. Chenzuan-Ling, a retired Chinese doctor, who incorporates traditional Chinese remedies with western medicine.

Wahabu informs me that he will charge me for this session, even though he is not actually treating me. He says that he is going to be talking about his medicine and his life and he should be paid his normal consultation fees, (£15 for half an hour) as I am still availing of his service.

I agree after much hesitation, and feel a bit awkward at first, but at least I get him talking. “I am part sangoma (traditional healer), part doctor, I don’t con people. I have been doing this twenty years. I wouldn’t have survived this long if I was a fake.”

“I am here mainly to assist people from my homeland, and other West African countries. People from other countries are not interested and I can understand why. Different cultures have different interpretations, so I like helping my people and they like me for that.”

“Back home malaria is such a big problem, so people who come here still have that fear in their mind. Malaria can’t really survive here because of the weather. I recommend Halfan, a very effective anti-malarial drug along with some traditional Nigerian herbs. People here but it from me and back home everyone uses it.”

Halfan was a popular anti-malarial drug till it was discovered that it has dangerous side effects particularly related to the heart and is now illegal in the UK and US.

It is a long way before Nigerian medicine can be thrust into the niche that Traditional Chinese medicine and Indian Ayurvedic medicine has earned itself. With people like Wahabu, it will be long before it reaches Britain’s much-desired high streets.

On the BBC health website, rather expectedly, there is no information or resources on African medicine whereas the basics of Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese and Indian medicine are all explained.

Dr. Okonwo Bigwe, a GP from Nigeria, practising in London believes that the time for traditional Nigerian medicine is long past.

“Our medicine is dying. Aspiring doctors back home are interested in western allopathic medicine and not herbal remedies. I believe conventional medicine is the way forward. That’s the same reason I became a GP.” He is proud that more and more people from his country are opting to become doctors.

For him people like Wahabu are doing more harm than good by selling ‘quack remedies’ and giving a bad name to Nigerian medicine. “Our traditional medicine has always been dominated by faith healers who can’t be trusted.”

Dora Mohammed, a retired doctor from Nigeria who has been living in the United Kingdom for the last six years blames them for the health crisis in the country. “They should be banned; they have destroyed our primary healthcare sector. The presence of fake drugs in the market has always been a big problem and they have been the main culprits.”

Last year the BBC had aired a documentary titled Bad Medicine (which won this year’s TV Pulitzer prize) on the relentless battle against fake drugs waged by NAFDAC (National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control) in Nigeria. The trafficking of counterfeit drugs by drug barons had crippled the state’s healthcare delivery system.

When asked about the future of traditional Nigerian medicine here in the United Kingdom, she laughs and says. “There is no way it will become as popular as Chinese medicine. Can you imagine clinics and retreats with voodoo skulls and heads? Never.” It sounds slightly pessimistic coming from a Nigerian.

Her husband Kainyan is a bit more moderate in his views and feels the government needs the healers if it is to tackle the public health problem. He thinks they should go through a certification process and should be encouraged to collaborate with universities.

He says: “Collectively, healers have tremendous influence over the health of the population because of their power to instil or dispel belief, as well of the herbal treatments they offer. Thus people won’t suddenly stop using their services.”

GPs are divided on the issue of traditional medicine though there are more who are against it. Often, those of Indian, Chinese, Nigerian and other African lineage are the most vocal in their support for traditional medicine.

Dr. Pradeep Kothare, a GP of Indian descent, is however, a little sceptical about such therapies and believes that GPs should not involve themselves in ‘the new fad’. “We are professional medical doctors; our advice is followed by most of our patients, whatever medicine we prescribe they take. So, we have to be careful in what we prescribe. Giving herbs and other therapies are based more on the faith of the person taking it than the powers of the actual medicine.”

Dr. Prakash Talaolikar, a GP based in Chatham in Kent is a bit more open. He says, “I am not necessarily against it but I always ask my patients to inform me if they are using alternative medicine. Some alternative treatments may interact with orthodox medical treatments.”

In Africa, people first go a traditional healer when they have a problem. Thus Wahabu and others like him have a role to play in cities like London where many African people are based. They try to replace the traditional market present in every major African town.

Wahabu then takes me to a small room at the back of the Internet café. It has nothing but a few suitcases, three chairs, two tables and a calendar hanging on the wall.

“This is where I treat my patients. I don’t have all my equipment here as I use it in my second session after finding more about that person,” he says, as he makes himself comfortable on one of the chairs.

His paraphernalia consists of hollowed out gourds, which are then decorated with beads, filled with a green powder, along with sterilised porcupine quills and a few herbs of which he does not know the English names. “In London, luck medicine is very popular; it comes in the form of a piece of leopard skin, which if boiled in water and drunk is supposed to be extremely effective before a visit to William Hill or Ladbrokes,” he says. Then he takes me out of the room and seems reluctant to divulge any more information and quickly asks for his money as our half an hour session is over.

Ayurvedic medicine has its origins in the ancient Hindu sacred texts- the Vedas, where ayur means life and veda means science in Sanskrit. It covers a variety of subject matter from diagnosis, treatment, surgery, lifestyle and philosophy. The biggest exponents of Ayurveda in the west are yoga and massage therapy.

Anjali Karnik, a yoga teacher, based in Winchester, understands the views of those against alternative medicine but thinks they are making ‘a big noise’ about nothing. “For the Western world Ayurveda is this exotic branch of alternative medicine. For me it is part of my upbringing and I do not need to view it sceptically. The lack of research and investigation into it doesn’t necessarily make it less effective. If it works, well and good, if it doesn’t there is no need to make a hue and cry about it.”

Danny Cavanagh, one of the founders of Ayurveda UK, an Ayurveda & Yoga Retreat in Burton-on-Trent thinks Ayurveda is the world's most powerful means to relax the mind and purify the body. “The Ayurveda tradition is very practical and is ideal to help release imbalances, impurities, stress, tensions and toxins held within the body.”

Chinese medicine is even bigger than Ayurveda and it is known to be effective in treating disorders such as eczema, asthma, menstrual problems, insomnia, digestive disorders and joint pain. It is based on the philosophy of yin and yang; the universe exists because of two great opposing yet interdependent creative forces. The body is viewed as a microcosmic universe and the inner organs and their functions are classified according to their yin and yang properties. Therapies such as acupuncture, acupressure, moxibustion and herbal medicine are the most widely used.

Acupuncture is the most popular branch of traditional Chinese medicine. It involves inserting needles at selected points on the skin to balance the body's energy (chi), and thereby treating and preventing disease.

Persis Tamboly from the British Acupuncture Council (BAC) believes it to be a life-changing therapy and urges the public to only go to centres where traditional Chinese acupuncture is offered and not Western acupuncture. “These days, a watered down form of acupuncture is available, which should be avoided.” According to a report published by the BAC in 2001, 1.2 million use traditional Chinese acupuncture annually.

Wahabu then accompanies me to the door and shakes my hand and says, “Bye, boy, take care, sorry that’s all I can tell you. Have a good life and go to the doctor regularly.”

Expectedly, I didn’t come back with a huge knowledge on Nigerian medicine, apart from getting a bit freaked out by the image of someone drinking a solution consisting of leopard skin in boiled water.

The faith healers cum doctors, as they are referred to as, are the face of Western African medicine and after my experience with Wahabu I am not in the least convinced by his healing powers or for that matter even his medical advice, but I am intrigued. I must admit his advice of plantain juice with honey for a cough is tempting and might be his only tip worth taking.

The bottom-line seems to be that Nigerian and other African medicine continues to be associated with witchdoctors and shamans and till that myth is dispelled it will not rise in the west. Simple.

With campaigns like Make Poverty History and other global poverty movements drilling the fact that Africa is the poorest continent with the most number of diseased and malnourished people, it will be hard for a country like ours to embrace its traditional doctors. The use of effective and shrewd marketing techniques might be its only route to the mainstream. Saatchi & Saatchi, I hope you are listening, Wahabu needs you.

Captain Grumpy Mike Atherton finds out that cricket is back in full gear this season. Sadly, he is not there to enjoy the perks but he is still earning a fat sum commentating on Sky. Any regrets huh Athers?

Cricket equipment sales in the first quarter of this year are up 44 per cent on the whole of last year; the DVD of last year's Ashes series has sold 630,000 copies making it the biggest-selling sports DVD of all time, and a YouGov poll commissioned at the end of the one-day series in India reported that 82 per cent of those asked felt proud of the national team, up from 16 per cent two years before. The ECB's aim was to have three players recognised by 10 per cent of the population by 2009; the YouGov poll suggested that figure already stood at 43 per cent, three years ahead of schedule.

Let the good times roll for English cricket. All of which makes it a bad time for the England team to be going through a slump. All these good things trickle down from the top and if the success of the national team dries up, then it is a drought that will eventually affect the whole game.

I agree with you Athers, the last few months haven't been the best for the England cricket team, but I don't think they'l ever compete with your team of the 90s. By the way what was your success rate?...lol..just joking, thankfully you are a great writer, so all is forgiven.

The reality in the country with the world's highest GDP I never knew much about Norway besides it's fjords, death-metal bands, Oslo(the land of the midnight sun), it's governments role in the Sri Lankan crisis and now the Nepal crisis. This article was a real eye-opener and from now on I will take Norway seriosuly, infact we all must.

Arriving in Oslo, the airport terminal is spanking-new, enormous and eerily quiet; all signs of prestige spending projects funded by easy money. The bullet-style train into the city centre is the first warning of price shocks to come; £30 return for a 15-minute hop, but at least the ticket seller smiles. And I thought the Heathrow Express was the world's priciest train.

In oil-boom Oslo, one might expect rows of Dubai skyscrapers, swaggering executives and a glut of fat 4x4s. Instead, it's more like Birmingham city centre on a quiet shopping day. There's two big glass towers, but they were built in the 1960s and most Oslo-ites would happily see them demolished.

But don't be fooled by the sky-high prices; even after taking them into account, Norwegian incomes still top the table on a "purchasing power parity" basis. Though food and drink (especially wine) is at times gobsmackingly expensive, other goods are on a par with Britain. Housing in Oslo (despite recent rises) is cheaper than London.

So where's the money going? Is the government splashing out on schools, hospitals and lavish welfare projects? A brief visit suggests spending is indeed up - a new cancer wing here, a fancy new school gym there - but nothing that shouts boom-time.

For a class project
The Jumper and The Hat

In our country(England) cricket has always been romanticised as a symbol of English idyll. The meadow game with the beautiful name. A cricket match on Sunday with men in white flannels on the field, the sound of leather hitting the willow, the ladies in the pavilion drinking their tea and eating cucumber sandwiches and scones followed by a subdued applause at the fall of a wicket or a good shot. These are some of the images that come to mind when one thinks about the game. But for me, the two things that are missing here are the classic windproof cricket jumper with it shallow V neck and the crisp white cricket hat. The sport cannot be the same without them.

It does make me sound a little old-fashioned but last week when I came across these two items when I was at Lord’s for a match I realised they are still very much part of the game and I developed a connection with them, again.

Nowadays, the cricket sweater is spotted on fashion runways and not just on the cricket field. Ralph Lauren has its own version; in fact almost every major clothes apparel has one. It does have a quintessential British feel about them but is popular in other countries too because of the aesthetic quality attached to it. Compare it to the basketball jersey for instance, which does not have any character and is useless without all the bling bling and boxer shorts. The cricket sweater goes with anything, or just about anything. It’s smart, suave and for a cricket enthusiast is just more than a mere fashion statement.

During the match I came across a blonde woman, whose back has facing me wearing this vintage jumper and I was smitten. A few minutes later, she turned around, and I was awed by her and especially the sweater, obviously it helped that she was pretty but for me it was the sheer elegance of the sweater. It just made her even more noticeable, she was one in a million. It was the first time I had seen a woman wear it, and now I wish more of them do. I felt like a schoolboy who had just developed his first crush. I couldn’t stop looking at her and that image will forever be in my head.

Then at the interval, I made my way to the shop where they were selling cricket souvenirs and some apparel as well. This time, the England Cricket Team’s long white hat caught my fancy. After some initial hesitation, I caved in and bought it and even though it didn’t really suit me and I was too much of a sucker for it. I wore it for the entire day; even on my way home much to the amusement of everyone on the tube. A few odd glances made me conscious and I compared the hat to the hoodie, what would happen to me if I came across a gang of them right now? During the cricket match I fitted in with the crowd so gracefully with every fifth person wearing one and now I was at the other end. Unlike the sweater it cannot be worn anywhere. I might as well wear a Bowler hat or a trilby. But that doesn’t take away from the beauty of the hat. I am going to look after it and the same goes with the jumper, though when I get one.
But for now, they will remain in my room but I know that when I get old, and spend my summers watching county cricket games with a dusty score sheet and a pint of premium ale, they will come in handy.

The Colonial Hangover
I just finished watching the highlights of the last day of the fifth test between England and Sri Lanka and I feel a sense of pride even though I am not Sri Lankan. In reality I am a neutral outsider, I am Indian, but right now for some reason I feel like we have won
(I refer we as anyone from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh).

I can’t help but look at it from a match between an ex-colony and an imperial power at the latter’s home ground. Of course, it’s only a draw, the series is still nil all, but it feels like a victory, a well-fought battle where the brown men stuck it out, gave all they had and prevented the whites from getting what was supposed to be theirs, or so they thought.

It’s sad but it’s true, whenever England plays Sri Lanka, India or Pakistan, we brown men want England to lose, it’s our way of standing up to the empire, a feeling which exists on a very sub-conscious level. It’s a hangover of our colonial past. They gave us the game, brought it to our part of world. They were at first hesitant in teaching us the game, we were the coloured natives, we couldn’t play with them, we played amongst ourselves. Then the inevitable happened, we learnt it, we persisted, and now 150 years later we are competing with them and at times even beating them.

English people might write off these feelings as unnecessary and at times even flippant yet these same people feel the exact same thing whenever they beat Australia. The Ashes last year was the best example, I do not have to say no more about that, except that we cheered for you and were glad that you beat them. We did celebrate; your victory was our victory. We drank some pints on your behalf; we were waiting to see the face of Ricky Ponting and his brethren when they were on the other end. And our celebration was genuine, though that is because Australia is our main target, we prefer you to them, we really do.

As Sociologist cum renowned cricket writer, Chris Searle, wrote in the foreword of his book Pitch of life: Writings on Cricket with a special reference to the domination of West Indies in international cricket from the 1960s to the late 1980s and the emergence of South Asia as a cricketing force in the 90s. “Cricket is the metaphor turned around. The coloniser’s game becoming his sporting nemesis. The cricket playing subject becoming more than the equal, the master and the destroyer too. The final blackwash.”

Sri Lanka didn’t play grand cricket, in fact they were outplayed for three days and on the rest two England just couldn’t finish it off. The inexperience displayed early on was replaced by an urge to retain some respect. It was a matter of national pride.

They had been asked to follow on after being bundled out for 191 in their first innings and were expected to lose by Saturday afternoon. They didn’t and survived England’s much touted bowling attack for eight sessions, displaying character and self-confid3ence that they themselves didn’t seem to possess before then. This was their highest second innings score and the highest ever second innings score at Lord's. It couldn’t have come at a better time.

More than anything it was the way they frustrated the England bowlers and fielders.
This is the only the second time they are playing a three match test series in England after being ignored for more than a decade. In 1996, they came and played a one-off test at The Oval, while South Africa played 5 tests. Worse, still Muralitharan single-handedly wrecked the English with match figures of 16 for 220 in that match.

The minnows of the 80s are now a fairly competitive side as they have shown despite the absence of big names and stars in the current squad. Don’t get me wrong I am not saying they will win the series, England should cruise. This match has shown that they can fight and fight they will, of course only on the cricket pitch. For the media and the elite in England, they maybe meek brown people with unpronounceable names but they can play good cricket as they have shown in the past.

England did spill their chances, and over-confidence may have been one of their flaws. Looks like the series will not be as one-sided as they would have hoped. The nine catches that they dropped didn’t help either. I must admit I did laugh in my head at all nine of them but that’s because I myself am I brown man with an unpronounceable name waiting for any chance to laugh at a white man drop a dolly. It’s sad but true. You can’t really blame me though, can you?

A profile on Hugo Chavez in the Observer
Some excerpts

The far left side of Chavez politics

The ability of Chávez to prick the US has been made possible not by a large and modern army, or weapons of mass destruction, or support for terror, but by the simple fact of America's large dependence on Venezuelan oil in the middle of an oil crisis. Chávez, a visceral opponent of the influence of America in a Latin America that, like his 19th-century predecessor Simón Bolívar, he would like to lead, has found his dangerous global stage.

As self-appointed champion against 'the murderer' Bush, he has acted as ringmaster to those who loathe America's First Man: film stars, musicians, unionists, statesmen and writers. Later this month he arrives in London where he will be entertained by Mayor Ken Livingstone, a long-time Chávez supporter who has accused the US of trying to undermine democracy in Venezuela. Chávez has constructed alliances with everyone the White House hates most - including the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Evo Morales, the left -wing Bolivian President and former coca farmers' leader. And Chávez has included Morales in his 'axis of good' with Castro in his struggle with the US.


From left to pretty much right

The army answers to Chávez, as does the central bank, the treasury and the state oil-company PDVSA, which provides the vast bulk of Venezuela's revenue as the world's fifth-largest oil exporter. In 2002, when many members of the 19,000-strong company joined a lock-out strike in support of calling early elections to oust him, he fired them all, replacing them with chavistas. He has packed the judiciary with his supporters and rewritten the constitution to suit his ends. Most worryingly, he has talked about finessing the constitution to enable him to stay in office until 2030.

And it is not just because of his political inclinations that Chávez appears to be being pulled in contrary directions - between the authoritarianism of the classic South American caudillo (strongman) and democrat. His personality too appears to be elusive and, say observers, deeply unpredictable.

For a dictator in the making, as his opponents claim he is, he may have the rhetoric and perhaps some of the inclinations of a caudillo, but his record in confrontation has been more mixed. When Chávez began reallocating land from major landowners to the poor , whom he had encouraged to squat, it looked like the end for Venezuela's major estates - the latifundios - including the British-owned Vesty. But Chávez stopped short. For now the policy is one of negotiation, allowing the big businesses to keep some land in exchange for giving up a little. Then there was the confrontation with the middle classes, which resulted in the names of anyone who had signed a petition for a referendum demanding Chávez's recall (popularly known as la lista) being published by a prominent Chávez supporter. This so-called 'Tascón list' was subsequently used to deny signatories government jobs and contracts. It looked like an old-fashioned purge.


'Chávez is still in the "charismatic phase" where he is above good and bad for his people and he has cleverly separated himself from the image of inefficiency and corruption of his government. But that cannot be eternal. If he does not quickly succeed in restructuring the country's problems, people will start losing hope in him. That is his black spot. If he doesn't stop that mismanagement it will stop him.'

Links of the Day


Roly-Poly Powar on his paunch and the good side on being a fatty.

Don't trust anthropologists, Find out why?

Care for a Hug?
Mass hugging might be just the cure to the entire world’s problems, don’t you think so?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/4953430.stm

Tomorrow hundreds will gather in Nottingham to hug total strangers, this mass hugging event is an art form made popular by two Chinese artists, the Gao brothers.

This will be their first world hug day performance in Britain and it'll be interesting to see if England can prove that it’s a friendly country after all. Which Englishman or woman doesn’t like the feel of a nice warm hug? Though if he/she is a pint or a two down it makes things much easier.

The Meadow Game with the Beautiful Name

I played my first cricket match on foreign soil a few days ago. It was a practice match against a medical college on a typical English club cricket ground and everything was so picture perfect that I found myself feeling the same as I did when I saw my first live international test match when I was 10. I was in love, again.

I was awestruck by the whole atmosphere from the moment I walked on to the ground with my whites on. The lush outfield, the grass-laden pitch, (nothing like I had batted on), the old school pub, the groundsman reading a tabloid and sipping a pint of ale, the wicket keeper and slips taking the piss out of the batsman, the batting camp smoking fags and, for once, talking about everything else besides the weather, I remembered this was one of the reasons that made me come to England.

That day for me the sound of the leather hitting the willow was far greater than the strumming of a guitar, the rustling of waves, the scream of pleasure or even the rattling of drums. I was in love, again.

The sport that made everyone think I am a crazy little kid, who wants to waste his time swinging his bat rather than solving math was still very much part of my life. I was in love, again.

For someone who grew up playing on dusty maidans and concrete compounds this setting was so alien yet so blissful. No wonder, the English call cricket the meadow game with the beautiful name. I was in love, again.

The best piece of news I have read today (from the BBC website).

A group of fishermen in The Maldives got more than they bargained for when they reeled in the country's largest ever drugs haul, local media reports.

The lobster catchers found 1,697 plastic bags packed with cannabis in a lagoon, Haveeru news agency reported. The drugs on the ocean floor weighed in at over 1.6 tons in total.

Police are investigating the incident. Drug smuggling in the island paradise is punishable by death, although no-one has ever been executed for the crime.

According to the Haveeru Daily newspaper the scale of the drugs haul has caused tension among local people who are insisting that police must destroy it in a transparent manner.

New Album from Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam is back after a four-year hiatus, with their self-titled album and judging by their first single-World Wide Suicide, they still seem to have some spark in them.
Here’s the Rollingstone review:
http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/_/id/9964953/rid/10028282/
Few excerpts:

Pearl Jam have not been this consistently dirty and determined in the studio since they subbed for Crazy Horse on Neil Young's 1995 Mirror Ball.

Whenever the guitars take over, which is a lot -- Gossard and McCready's slugging AC/DC-like intro to "Life Wasted"; McCready's wild wah-wah ride in "Big Wave"; the way he cracks Vedder's gloom in "Parachutes" like heat lightning -- it reminds me that Gossard and McCready deserved to be on our 2003 "Greatest Guitarists" list. Permit me to admit it here: I screwed up.


And an interview with Eddie Vedder (again in the Rollingstone), though I find it a bit disappointing, stupid questions, but luckily the answers saved the piece to some extent.

Link:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/9961927/eddie_vedder

Excerpts:
Vedder on

∑ Music videos

“I think it's a great art form if it's approached the right way. But it's time consuming...just like interviews! [laughs] It seems like the time spent playing live and organizing shows, and putting the record and the artwork together seems to take up all the time we have. Until we can do it right...we'll see. I found a guy I'd like to do it with, but we'll see.”

∑ What Bob Dylan told Vedder recently

We were about to record our second record, and Bob passed on a few lessons to me in the corner, one of which was, "Don't read anything in the paper. Don't watch TV. Get away." I felt that same thing at the time, overly inundated and somewhat like a commodity -- you'd watch TV or open the paper and our band was there as some kind of commodity. Our band had become part of the pollution.

∑ On The Strokes

The new Strokes record is just a great piece of work. The sounds, and the vocal delivery is really great. Both those guys, Caleb and Julian. Caleb's vocal delivery is so unique and his phrasing; it's like what they used to say about Sinatra -- his phrasing is what really made it. I'm not into Sinatra, but I get that. George Jones is another thing, and even McCartney and Lennon. You listen to these songs, but it's unconscious the way they phrase things. Joey Ramone as well.

'Gee, I don't know,' he says. 'It's a pretty tough one.

Steve Waugh on the upcoming Ashes, his 801page autobiography(Out of my Comfort Zone), his departure from cricket, his charity work and strangely some words of praise for the English cricket team.
Link:
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/cricket/story/0,,1759264,00.html

Some excerpts:
Well, Stephen, do you think England can do it again?

'Gee, I don't know,' he says. 'It's a pretty tough one. I think Australia will have the edge purely because they're focused on it, really keen to make amends. But England have definitely got a show. The Barmy Army will bring huge support, so it's almost not like an away series.

This is the best England team I've seen as a group. As individuals, they've had just as good players in the past but haven't gelled as a team. They have matured as a side and they realise their strength lies in their unity, not their individuals. In the past there was a mentality of "well, if I do well, I'm in the next Test match", rather than "how are we doing as a side?"

A VJ in exile
The Observer has a moving piece on the life of Shakeb, a former VJ in Afghanistan now living in Sweden in exile.
Here’s the link: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,1756654,00.html

Shakeb Issar, a young spiky Afghan VJ bringing western, MTV style music videos to a country where such entertainment is regarded as downright porn and blasphemous is a convenient target for the religious zealots.

He looked upon the MTV culture as more of an alternative route to a better life than the commercialization aspect by which it invites so much contempt in the first world. But…well I won’t divulge it as yet. Do read the whole story, it’s a great piece.
Here are some excerpts:

'Just 10 per cent of peoples, they hate me,' he said after recording the show, the childlike enthusiasm of his voice enhanced by his habit of over-emphasising certain nouns and adjectives. 'Mullah peoples, al-Qaedas, Arabs: all are my enemies, all have made promise to kill me. I hate these people too much! But Afghan girls, they love me more. Every day I'm receiving too many text message. "Shakeb please to marry me." "Shakeb you're tooo cute!" So today I think I am the Enrique Iglesias of Afghanistan.'

There was no doubt that Shakeb had a following among thousands of young Kabulis. The ratings reflected as much. But to his enemies, he was the anti-Christ - or rather the anti-Muhammad. The country's new religious council had issued a number of fatwas against him. And al-Qaeda and the Taliban had appealed for him to be put to death immediately. Not a day went by without Shakeb receiving a new threat. They came to him by post, by courier, by phone - even by SMS text message.

'Dog Boy!' began one. 'Son of noseless whore! Bald-faced ape! Understand that as Allah is my witness, I will wipe your accursed self from the face of the Earth! To snap your neck will be as easy as picking the gristle from between my teeth.

Then his life takes a turn, he wants to move to the West, to realize his dream, and finally rather ironically ends up in a small town in Sweden and finds the ground reality. His dreams of staying in a western society with its fast money, bling-bling, page 3 girls is not as ‘awesome’ as he imagined.

The 'number one bad boy' of Afghanistan, as he used to call himself, has also found certain things shocking. 'In Sweden, all girls at 14, 15 they're having sex!' he tells me, wide-eyed.

'Up till now I never kissed a girl in my life,' he says, adding in a loud voice so all the restaurant can hear: 'I am virgin! Yes, it's true! I don't believe it's nice to have sex with girl and leave her. For me it must be someone very special.'

It's at this moment that I realise just how innocent Shakeb really is. He likes Celine Dion and dreams of meeting David Beckham. In Afghanistan, he was told there was freedom of expression and was encouraged to express himself. For that innocent crime, he's been banished from his home, a symbol of the ever-widening divide between the West and the Islamic world. But Shakeb hasn't given up. Recently Tolo TV broadcast his Swedish video diary. And he's hoping to do more for his enduring Afghan fans.

Here he sounds like a revolutionary in his own right, so what if doesn’t involve arms, a huge treatise, academic theory or any form of old school anarchy. He at least seems sincere even though his reasoning may not be that convincing.

'I believe that music can change Afghan culture,' he says. 'Because entertainment is the most powerful tool.'

But don't you still worry about eroding important cultural values, I ask him. You've been shocked yourself by how morally loose this place has become.

'People must decide for themselves,' he says, a certain maturity in his voice suggesting that he is finally coming of age. 'Nothing is worse than mullah peoples. They are murdering and always they want to control people. They are my enemies and I must fight them.'

We finish our coffees and Shakeb hurries off to play football with a local team. He's wearing shorts, something he did just once in Afghanistan because he was abused for putting on 'his little brother's trousers'.

Watching Shakeb leave, I think how tragic it is that he has been forced to flee his home and has had to choose between two cultures. But neither the missiles nor the mullahs, the Taliban nor even his isolation so far from home seem to have dampened his natural optimism. As he put it to me: 'They can abuse me, they can laugh at me, they can even beat me, but if I have music then I know I am OK. Because I love music too much!'

Sahi Bola..Hanif Bhai

This is a link to a piece written by my favourite author Hanif Kureishi or Hanif Bhai as I prefer calling him...http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1757858,00.html

He talks about his play Borderline which is now 24 years old and still runs in The Royal Court Theatre.

He stresses on the lack of social commentators in the mainstream arts scene today even though there is a great need for such voices to dilute the fear and paranoia that is being bought and sold like wares in a Sunday market.

Like most of his pieces it contains some very poignant points and examples.Brilliant....Here's an excerpt of his article in The Guardian today (These are the last three paras

"Ten years after the Southall riots, in 1989 - the year communism died in Europe - there was another significant demonstration by Asians, this time in Hyde Park, central London. It was not about racial attacks, unemployment or indeed any of the concerns shown in Borderline. It was a demonstration against the publication of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, and Muslims had travelled from all over the country to protest. A group of Asian female demonstrators (perhaps from a group not unlike the Southall Black Sisters), who were carrying placards saying "Women Against Fundamentalism", were attacked by Muslim men. As these dissident voices were suppressed, as secular and socialist Asian voices were discouraged across the community, a range of new issues emerged, many to do with the idea of speaking, books, writing, words, and the place of the artist and intellectual as critic.

By January 2006, my two eldest sons and I would be going to Trafalgar Square to watch the community demonstrating against other blasphemies - cartoons, this time. The three of us, with Muslim names and a Muslim history, had no place in what was going on and criticism didn't appear welcome. During the same period one of the young actors who took part in the recent reading - he had appeared in Michael Winterbottom's Guantánamo Bay film - had been arrested, harassed and held under the Anti-Terrorism Act at Heathrow, on his way back from the Berlin film festival, where the movie won the Silver Bear.

During the 10 years between the Southall riots and the demonstration against The Satanic Verses, the community had become politicised by radical Islam, something that had been developing throughout the Muslim world since decolonisation. This version of Islam imposed an identity and solidarity on a besieged community. It came to mean rebellion, purity, integrity. But it was also a trap. Once this ideology had been adopted - and political conversations could only take place within its terms - it entailed numerous constraints, locking the community in, as well as divorcing it from possible sources of creativity: dissidence, criticism, sexuality. Its authoritarianism, stifling to those within, and appearing fascistic to those without, rejected the very liberalism the community required in order to flourish in the modern world. It was tragic: what had protected the community from racism and disintegration came to tyrannise it."

Looks like Semi-Violence is actually a reality, and not a bunch of bullocks(which it is)
One more piece on The Onion website which doesn't seem too far away from the truth.Very frightening actually..

The character here is of an Iraqi cleric/scholar Al-Naqib who is called the apostle of semi-violence, whatever that means. Here are some of his pseudo legendary quotes.

"Violence is not the solution," al-Naqib writes in his bestseller in the Middle East, Practicing Semi-violence. "It is only approximately 19/20ths of the solution. We should not work toward the total annihilation of all who oppose us—just some of them. And perhaps it is best we practice occasional mercy for the innocent, such as the young, who can easily recuperate."

'I denounce those who kill vast numbers, for the death of a few—the death of even one, if that one is well-chosen—spreads my message far and wide."

This might be the new face of Islamic Fundamentalism, but all in all, it’s the same friggin thing.

He was imprisoned for two days for criticizing the 9/11 attacks, his assessment was that it would have been better to bring down only one of the towers.

No wonder then that, he has a huge following especially in Iraq, where he is from and other parts of the Middle East. He also is the winner of this year's Mideast Peace Prize, an award given to him by the Yemeni government this year.

The worst thing is he is being called the Iraqi ‘Gandhi’ which is obviously derogatory yet ironical in some way.

Mockery doo

Just found this article on an American news website, The Onion, obviously its false and made up because its The Onion after all, but the scary thing is might turn out to be true...its worth reading for shock value I guess.

It is also a way for Americans to mock us, but that's acceptable, all we need to do is mock their culture rather than embrace it like a blind rat. If only we could realise the significance of self-mockery.

Air India Now Offers Business Caste Seating
April 12, 2006 | Issue 42•15, The Onion-America's finest news source.

MUMBAI—Air India, the subcontinent's largest airline, announced it will offer upgraded Business Caste seating on all flights starting in July. "More legroom, wider seats—and no need to associate with the manual laborers," a spokesman for the airline said Tuesday. "Our business travelers must have lived good past lives to deserve this." Air India still ranks at the bottom of the airline industry in customer satisfaction, with a high volume of complaints about cooking fires in the climate-uncontrolled cabins, wandering cows that flight attendants refuse to remove, and the "Untouchable" Coach Caste, which is towed behind Air India jetliners in a giant burlap sack.

Knock Knock, Who's there, Freddie Who, Freddie Flintstone??...Fuckin Hell, its Flintoff,you twat

Sorry for the oversmart pompous little headline, but to get to the point Flintoof was deservedly selected as the Wisden Cricketer of the Year 2005. Three cheers for the bulky Preston lad, he is currently the best cricketer around and everyone knows there is no refuting that fact, and if you don't agree make it a point to see all the matches he has been involved in the whole of last year and then if you still stick with your gun, then call me for a duel....

here's a link to a nice lil piece by Simon Barnes on cricinfo.com
http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/wisdenalmanack/content/current/story/243786.html

Divided by Time

Just got to know about this from a BBC article:
“Sri Lanka is a country divided not just by war, but also by time. Officially the country is six hours ahead of GMT. But in Tamil Tiger controlled areas, the time difference is five and a half hours ahead of GMT, the same as in India. Now that may change. “

Imagine time besides religion being different in one country, its quite unbelievable in that sense. No wonder then that Sri Lanka's time has changed 3 times in the last ten years and this one will go back to their 1996 time. It's sad that two religions cannot even decide on a uniform time, how will they agree on other things?

I am finding it tough to find an opinion on this issue and the reasons given seem at times outdated and even ironic.

Religion
Superstition or the Divine order, I don’t know....

The country's Buddhist clergy believe Sri Lanka's "old" time will fit better with their rituals and they believe a decade living in the "wrong" time has upset the country's natural order with terrible effect.

The Venerable Gnanawimala says-"After this change I feel that many troubles have been caused to Sri Lanka. Tsunamis and other natural disasters have been taking place," he says.

Business
Sri Lanka's Minister of Enterprise and Development, Rohitha Bogollagama, feels returning to the same time zone as India, a major trading partner, would be good for business. Economics and time, what a deadly combination, would be interesting if their economy actually does improve, don't you think, but I wonder if it will have anything to do with their time.

Science
Lastly Sci-fi Guru Arthur Clarke whose been staying on this island country for quite a while now (50 years actually), is against the time change and he thinks being out of step with the GMT time, will be inconvenient (Sounds the most rational out of all them, doesn't he?)

Wicked Gaits

Young people here, (especially the ASBO generation, the ones with the hoodies, the gangstas, the chavs) walk in very peculiar way, maybe its a way they express themselves. It is suave the way in which they move their hands and feet, it is almost choreographed in that sense. Walking is one thing which should not be, though if models have to learn the sort of ramp walk why can't them, after all even an army marching is almost ballet-like in a regimental sort of way.

My cousin walks and talks like one of them, it is a ritual to him in the shallow sense of the term. He even asked me to walk like that once, He said, "If you walk like one of them(though he meant us) you will be safe and you will be deemed cool." Well of course, I didn't try it out and wouldn't manage even if I did. Luckily, it hasn't resulted in any scraps or fights, as my cousin had warned me. However, he still agrees my that my gait is not wicked enough in his part of London. My answer is a resounding 'yes, I know'. But I know one day it will come naturally,(though I hope not) just like an accent, which interestingly is still the same, the suffix of ya, ya's and bhanchod is very much there.

Take note of the name- Hugo Chavez

Forget the Osama’s and the jihad terrorists and all those other enemies of the Western world, there is a new one, in the next few years he might find a place in every newspaper. He is the latest anti US renegade of our times.

He is the president of Venezuela, and more importantly best mates of Fidel Castro. His anti US stance seems to making a lot of headlines and with elections round the corner in at least 3 to 4 Latin American countries, the leftists seem to be frontrunners to win the elections in all 4 countries.

The US seems to be in a slightly sticky situation but I am sure they have something up their sleeve. Looks like world focus is going to move to Latin America very soon.One reason why the US is a bit annoyed if at all, is that Venezuela after the Middle East has the most number of oil resources and with the draining of oil from Iraq and Saudi Arabia and the hostile political climate there, a new guinea pig is needed.

But it is surely not Chavez, who the US calls a dictator, which in the true sense of the word, he isn't. He was democratically elected, though he is known as quite a megalomaniac. Secondly, he is quite a fearless guy, and he just bought a load of military helicopters from Russia to protect the country from a 'US invasion'.

These tactics are doing little to dispel fears in Washington that Venezuela is increasing its arms expenditure and is affecting the balance of power in Latin America, yet he doesn't seem to be doing it as loud-mouthedly and lavishly as Iran's president and thank god for that.

Lastly, whoever has the guts to propose to Condi Rice on a state visit, must be respected. Don't you think so?

Link of the Day...
A nice quirky piece trying to investigate what happened to the breed of the actual Midnight's Children and The Rushdie file whose dreamlike take on the city is very much part of Mumbai literature, yet it aks how we need somone to tell him things have changed quite a bit since he was here. He knows that too but its all through his nostalgia tinted obtuse glasses and we need a new version. However, we definitely need no more Shantarams.
Check the piece out. Cheers.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1473487,curpg-1.cms

Winter is now part of the past.

Well, so looks like spring is finally here after bouts of speculation and doubt, the weather has changed. No need of a sweater, woolens, beanie caps, gloves, 3 to four layers of clothes and an excuse not to get out. Which actually doesnt work so well for me, the bug of cabin fever seems to be well at its peak.

It gets dark only at 8ish in the night, one I have actually still to comprehend, my science and geography lessons would have come in handy, if anyone knows the theory and the forces involved, please do pass a line.

So basically imagine, having your dinner and then going out and the its still bright out there, lovely isn't it...well it is..I can tell you that....