Shortform

The namesake - The rise and the rise of K L Ragul
- Caravaan desk

It was December 26th, 2014. Tens of people braved the sun to throng Melbourne Cricket Ground. They watched with a heady mix of emotions as K L Ragul, wearer of cricket whites, carrier of bat, striker of ball, walked out to bat. And holed out in the first innings for 3. He had arrived. A few days earlier. In Melbourne. By aeroplane.
Cut to 1990 types. Senior Ragul was a worried man as he walked to and fro in a middle class house in Bangalore. Karnataka was in a socio-political cultural situation of sorts. As if to mirror the State's vague circumstances, the birds and the leaves around the house were also inscrutable. It was an important day in Senior Ragul's house. It was the day when other important events must have been happening across the world. I mean, if you pick up the newspaper of that day or google a bit, you'd surely find some stuff. Ragul arrived in this world, a tiny child (hopefully). The hospital, Ragul, and his parents were unavailable for comment. Even the hospital janitor's now retired and untraceable.
Back to 2014. KLR failed again in the second innings. The parallel to Don Bradman, who failed famously once, in his last innings, was not lost on anyone, especially in our writing team. The world had gotten to see hardly a glimpse of KLR. KLR was undeterred.
"He couldn't believe himself. I mean the bowler", said an unrelated veteran cricket journalist who supposedly watched the match live on TV, "I mean who'd think KLR would fail miserably in both innings".
The next few days were the toughest out of the few days that KLR had played international cricket so far. 5 out of 10 days to be precise. He was in the eye of a storm. "He would go quietly to the nets everyday and come back to his room quietly", said someone who claims he was also staying at the same hotel as the Indian team. "I didn't see him at the breakfast buffet one day and I was so worried", he continued, "but then there he was! And I think he ate some apples that day" he concluded, painting a vivid picture of the storm-eye that was mentioned earlier.
KLR was no stranger to failure. He'd failed many times in other matches as well, going back all the way to street cricket. "Gully cricket those days was serious. If I hit a six I'd be in a good mood. If I got out for a duck, very bad mood", reminisces one of our writers, capturing the universality of emotions that gully cricket brings out in people including KLR.
At nets one day prior to the Sydney test, again all eyes were on KLR. And in a shocking few seconds, he took Dhoni's keeping gloves. While it was well known that KLR could keep, no one thought he would be asked to keep for the Indian team. What was going on? There was only one thing going through every onlooker's mind. Would KLR become another batsman-keeper like his namesake, Ragul Dravid?
Dravid, the wall, the gentleman, the guy who'd do anything for the team. Fun fact - Dravid once stood in a line to buy milk in the 90s. The 90s - inarguably, a period of great churn and development in the country.
But KLR in his characteristic way, dusted something off the gloves and returned them to Dhoni. Unlike his namesake, Dravid, KLR would not keep, at least not yet.
Fun fact #2 about Dravid - he has a test wicket! Of some guy.
Sydney, 2015. KLR walks out to bat. All 12 people in the crowd watch with bated breath. A cover drive. Everyone takes a deep breath. People would now speak of the other Ragul - KLR. The namesake has arrived. In Sydney, probably by air though there are direct buses also from Melbourne.

Vijayender, Sayna kick up Cannes row

Boxer Vijay and Shuttler Sayna are angry. And this time they're not acting. The jury was out, and literally, till midnight, at Cannes. It's not every day that they get a million sms's.
There have been rumours in the weeks leading up to the awards this year, that Vijay was not entirely happy that his bravura performance as himself (without the boxing stuff) in Fu.gly was ignored completely in the Palme d'Or category for best international film. Sayna Naiwal, not to be left behind, wrote a letter to the Cannes Lions jury demanding an explanation for not nominating her disturbingly brilliant portrayal of a pained athlete in the Iodex gel advertisement. The two of them launched an sms voting campaign asking for the people of India to vote for their favourite film 'in which a sports star tries to enhance his or her income by trying to act' but that backfired with Sachein winning top honours, and he wasn't even a nominee.
Not the ones to give up, in sport or in life, the second phase of the campaign was launched - 'we cannes do this' which was a plea to sms the jury members directly - CJ0001 for Vijay and CJ0002 for Sayna. These are being counted and the results will be out tomorrow. Sachein might just come up trumps once again.

An important movie

Vishaal Bard-waj’s Mirchand of Varanasi is not only one of the best movies he’s made in the last six months, it’s also an absolutely stunning literary achievement by someone we can only gape at in dumbstruck awe.

One catches an early glimpse of the auteur at work in the opening sequence. Irfan Khan who plays Mirchand tells Anayat Khan (played by Shaahid Kapur) ‘I’ll give you a loan only if you create communal harmony in India’, a subtle nuanced tongue-in-cheek dig at India’s volatile communal situation. Anayat Khan, not to be left behind retorts ‘The loan is to buy bason ka laddoo’. Doesn’t take a genius to catch the reference to Shakespeare there – bason for Bassanio – Wow!

Anayat Khan’s ship sinks in Palk strait – Sri Lanka’s human rights’ situation has never been captured as metaphorically as this – a staggeringly clever take, and he's unable to repay the loan.

Anayat, the Poor Shia (Portia?) has to now defend himself in court – an audacious reduction of wasteful characters and plot. The detailing of the court is exquisite, with a large black board saying ‘Court’ in white letters. Anayat defends himself gamely, his speech peppered with unrelated statements about various important issues thereby distracting the judge.

Mirchand is willing to accept repayment in kind but Anayat, in a hat-tip to the original, says he may take exactly one kg of laddoo and no more – which sort of backfires because Mirchand does do that – a clever departure from the original, nonetheless. The audience is visibly stunned at the denouement and also at the fact that the Bard trilogy now officially has 4 movies so there’s no stopping Vishaal from adapting another of Shakespeare’s works.

Method acting

Piggy : What's the role? It better be something meaty like Janjeer where I had 2 songs
Director : This is a biopic, based on Mari Kom.
P : Eh?
D : She's a boxer
P : So? What's the role?
D : You play her. You play a boxer.
P : God! Let me make this easy. Was this Mari girl rich or poor?
D : Poor.
P : Then say that na? So I play the Agneepath character. Poor chokri with colourful clothes. I can put on my poor girl accent which is easy - just got to say 'Ai' before each sentence.
D : She's from the North east.
P : Dombiville?
D : North east India. Manipur.
P : So? She was poor no?
D : Yes.
P : So I play Agneepath girl.
D : She won the World Boxing championships for India
P : She became rich after that?
D : I mean she's alright now. I'm not sure. She's probably not poor now.
P : I've lost you. Tell me clearly if you want me to play poor girl or rich girl? Rich girl will be Dostana girl - fashionable types. Either that or Dharavi girl where I say 'Ai' and maybe some Marathi words like 'ki haal putthar'
D : You've got to do some boxing on screen
P : Ok. Boxing. North east. How many songs do I have?
D : None. Maybe some inspiring songs.
P : There is a third option just for you, special - I can play a singer and sing my own songs with autotune. Maybe make the central character a singer instead of a boxer.
D : This is a biopic about a world champion
P : Who is a poor little girl from Manipal
D : Manipur
P : 'Coach - main boxing karthi? ayyo, achi achi boxing karthi'. How's that for Manipuri accent?
D : Er...not bad
P : Done then. I'm going to stay in character now. Mari Kaum meri naam, boxing meri kaam.

Smiti Kirani mulls setting up HRD Ministries in each state

The press got a glimpse of the ambitious new education plan of the HRD Ministry on Monday when the Minister Smiti Kirani unveiled the roadmap to creating an IIT in every nook of the nation. 'No one should walk more than 400 metres to the nearest IIT' she said. The prestigious IITs have been franchised to Cafe Coffee Day and are opening branches at a scorching pace across the nation. At the inaugural of the 10,000th outlet, the Minister said this expansion would find a new fillip in the new scheme where each state is planned to have a central HRD Ministry staffed by the retired cast and crew of 'Kyunki saas bhi...', a sitcom that was wildly popular till Smiti left it to join politics. It is rumored that the Relyance Group has approached the ministry with an 'IIM in every petrol bunk' scheme that could again change the face of higher education in the nation.

A letter to my two year old self from my four year old self

Dear two year old me,
Why did you break all those neat toys by banging them together with your bare hands? You suck. I have nothing to play with now because of you.
Be gentle on yourself. I mean don't keep banging your head against the wall. People tell me I'm a bit weird and I'm sure it's because of you.
Treasure your relationships. The old ayah in your time was so sweet, you chased her away with your bawling, now I'm stuck with this super-strict young thing.
It's ok to not have everything figured out when you're two. Hell, I'm almost 4 now, and even I have doubts about the life path that I have chosen i.e. to be a time travelling astronaut.
Worry as much as you want, but don't let worry run your life. You're more than your anxieties. You have the wall-banging thing, the toy breaking thing and the ayah chasing thing for instance.
Most of all, be yourself. You'll face all sorts of pressures from your family who'll say 'hey, two bucks says my son can make like a goat' or 'hey do that pig face for uncle and aunty if you want a chocolate' but never ever give in.
Lots of love,
Your 4 year old self.

An alternative PIL

To the honourable principal judge
Herewith mentioned are grounds for stopping the sale and purchase of Vendy Doniger's 'The Hindus - An alternative history'
- The book is too long. Hinduism is not that long. It's easy to explain, even to little children. Why should she write 900 pages? This proves mala fide intent beyond any doubt.
- The book is heavy. The hardback weighs 1.5 kg.
- It's boring. I couldn't get past...well...let's say I didn't have to read it to know what's in it. Why write so much? That too alternative history. I might as well read the correct history if I'm going to invest that kind of effort.
- It's full of factual inaccuracies. Amazon, for eg., says it's one book. Can one book have 900 pages and weigh 1.5 kg? No, it's at least 4-5 books. If you buy it and keep it in a shelf unread as you're likely to do, I'm told it naturally disintegrates into 4 books over time.
- It should be titled 'All the people who've ever lived - an alternative history'. Even if you devote one line to talk about each Hindu who's ever existed, it won't be as long as this book - so she's definitely talking about all communities. In fact I'm told she talks extensively about cows and buffaloes also. It should then simply be titled 'Everything - a comprehensive saga in 5 parts which has been made into one humongous book through a miracle of binding'.
- Free speech is fine by me but exactly how much of it is permissible? If each person is allowed free speech worth 900 pages, imagine the chaos. And that too with unsuitable titles. Let's say I write a book about fruits and flowers with no photos and in Arial 4 font covering a 1000 page sprawl and call it 'Christians - a crisp one page snapshot'. I'll then get a friend to write a blurb saying 'A quick light hearted romance. Pick this up if you have a 1 hour flight'.
- The book sees Hinduism through a very western and outsider perspective of publishing very large books with more than 900 pages which is essentially a western concept.
Given the above, I humbly seek a quick pulping or at least a severe shortening of the book and addition of funny illustrations every alternate page.
- Dinanot