Shoaib Akhtar's Controversially Yours

Shoaib Akhtar, the Pakistani fast bowler, who announced his retirement from the International cricket  a few months ago even when the World Cup matches were going on, has come out with  his autobiography. It  appears that Akhter has just talked and it is Anshu Dogra who has made it into an intelligible book.As the title of the book suggests it has something to do indeed with controversy. The book certainly does not aim at quelling any. It may, on the other hand ,give rise to a number of more controversies.
The book  can be called a collection of complaints and grievances, some real and some perceived that Akhtar has had against  almost every body----the Pakistani Cricket Board members, it's chairmen from time to time, team members - mostly the seniors, the coaches,the Pakistani government, the umpires and even the media. It
appears that Akhtar has been fairly honest in his impressions.That is why almost nobody has been spared.
Coming from the family of a nightwatchman at a petrol station belonging to the Attock oil refinery,. Akhtar was the youngest son of the four surviving sons. A sister younger than Shoaib by eleven years was born later. Shoaib was initially the name of a brother  who died before Akhtar was born. But the name Shoaib , which means the one who unites as also the one who separates depending on the context, was so much dear to his mother that the new born Akthar was also given the same name.
Akthar's childhood was spent in poverty like that of many  other children in the subcontinent. What made Akthar's situation different were  his over weening ambition, his overabundant  energy, his complete trust in Allah (so he says)and his mother's sapience and sagacity who denied herself and her family of  most  of the small and everyday pleasures to ensure that her children got good education.His overabundant energy made Akhtar do things which to others seemed a manifestation of  a streak of madness.This streak of madness continues to dog Akthar till the time the book ends.He does not mind citing examples of this through out the book---  running incessantly on roads and forests,mocking the authority even when not warranted, playing practical pranks on fellow team mates, refusing to fall in line when needed and so on. Akhtar  feels that his seniors, coaches, PCB members etc. never understood him. They never did anything to guide and protect him and were never sympathetic when he was really injured or in some kind of trouble. Not only that,according to Akhtar if anything went wrong with the team, mostly the blame would go to him.He also feels that the Board has no consideration for  players' well-being, paying them a pittance and keeping them under a constant threat of expulsion from the team. The Board also does not protect them from harmful influences and does not do  anything to prevent the bookies' access to players. Players from modest economic background are targeted by these bookies as they are considered easy preys and that is why so many Pakistani players  find themselves  accused of match-fixing. .
Akhtar also touches upon the subject of ball tampering and asserts categorically that all bowlers do this The game of cricket is getting more and more batsmen friendly forcing bowlers to be more and more innovative. The ball tampering is one such ploy that fast bowlers resort to to counter this says Akhtar.
Akhtar has strong opinion about Pakistani cricket captains.While he is all praise for Imran Khan, not only for his having won the World Cup for the country but also for the fact that he nurtured young cricketers who had talent, he i.e. Akhtar is less than enthusiastic about Wasim Akram, who according to him, though  a great bowler, cared much less for the team members and who, even when trying most to keep the PCB members happy, eventually fell out of their favour.About Inzmam ul Haq he says that though a good guy, in his captaincy the Pakstani team became obssesed with the rituals such as namaz and roza. He declares himself a confirmed muslim but feels that rituals such as the above when required to be followed even in aeroplanes smack of hypocrisy, especially as the ones insisting on following them continue to indulge in less than honourable deeds.
Akhtar does acknowledge the greatness of some of his contemporaries and predecessors such as Viv Richards, Brian Lara, Sachin Tendulkar and Rickey Ponting and narrates with relish the episodes where he got the better of them ( not Richards). Dismissal of Dravid and Sachin with consecutive balls at Kolkata finds a mention more than once.At one place he also hints that Sachin had moved away apparently in fear when he had charged at him with an approximately 100 miles per hour ball. He also derives pleasure in recalling how his ball had almost killed  Brian Lara. Of the other Shoaib i.e. Shoaib Malik he says that he was a ghulam of the Board.
Of the chairmen of PCB, the only man who can find his name mentioned with  any amount of respect is Lt.Gen.Tauqir Zia who apparently helped Akhtar even before he was appointed as the Chairman of PCB and continued to help him till his resignation. Akhtar also speaks how Asif Zardari ,the President of Pakistan ,had to help him when the matter once became political.
Shoaib does not fail to talk about money and girls. After he became a star, he was chased by girls everywhere.Girls in dozens and scores would stand in front of the   hotels where the team stayed for hours together in the hope of meeting their beloved stars.Cricketers would also befriend them and make good use of the time and money the girls provided. Promises of undying love would also be made in some cases and there would be tearful departures at the conclusion of the tour.Incidentally, this would be repeated at almost every city hosting the  match. Akhtar  feels that avenues for earning legitimate money such as match fee, endorsements etc for Pakistani players are rather limited and therefore,players are always on tenterhooks and once they fail to get selected in the team for some time, there future is indeed dark and gloomy. Akhtar notes with regret that an ex-captain of the Pakistani team drives a taxi in London because the PCB failed to look after him in his retirement days as it fails to do for most of the ex-players.
There are more than two dozen photographs capturing momentous moments in the cricketer's life including the dismissal of Sachin Tendulkar in Kolkata and the ball which broke the 100 miles per hour barrier.
In the pages of this book, Akhtar comes out to be a wild, untamed and untameable personality that he is already known to be...The book will provide immense pleasure to those who love cricket gossip which many of us surely do. To many Indian readers, it may also provide an experience of schadenfreude, for the PCB appears much worse than our BCCI..    .

Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre part 2

Ankit, my son-in-law had obtained an appointment with Dr. Doval, the Head of Oncology Medicine at RGCIRC for Monday. the 19th September201.I was to meet the doctor at 4:45pm in the OPD on the second floor of the building. However, Ankit had to leave for the USA on the 19th morning very  early. Now, I had  to be escorted to hospital by somebody else. If my wife would accompany me ,the entire household work  would come to a standstill.The solution was offered by an old friend Mrs. Sharma. She has been a friend for more than three decades.She said that she and her son, whose name is Ankit too, would go with me to the hospital. At the last minute, however, she dropped out saying that she was superstitious and that three persons should not go together. So  her son and I went  to the hospital, he coming to my house all the way from his own residence after driving  down some twenty five kilometres and then picking me up to take me to the hospital which must have been about forty kilometres from my residence.. He is a young boy and loves driving. So he took a route that was longer but familiar. We reached the hospital at 3:35 pm  and announced our arrival to the staff.They asked us to wait and  desired that we should  be paying the consultation fee. The girl at the counter asked us to deposit Rs. 242 as the fee. We had to argue again that I was a retired employee and that the transaction had to be on a credit basis.
Then came the hard part. We began waiting and it seemed that the wait would never end, for the doctor was not there even when the appointment time was long over. The staff, however, continued to ask us to wait and we continued doing that i.e.  waiting. At long last the doctor was spotted and after a few minutes we were able to enter his cabin at 6pm. Meanwhile, the junior doctor had already seen the blood report as also the CT and PET-CT review reports.While the blood report was normal, the review reports had voiced the same doubt i.e. there could be a recurrence of cancer.
Dr. Doval pored over the reports and looked somewhat confused. He sheepishly looked at me and said that unless it was confirmed that the cancer had recurred it would be risky to start chemotherapy especially as I had not been exposed to this as yet. He said that chemotherapy could nave many unintended harmful  side effects.He further stated that since I had no perceptible symptoms it would not be desirable to go ahead with the chemotherapy. He finally advised that I should see his colleague one Dr. Zaidi, the cancer  surgeon in the hospital. Dr. Doval referred the file to Dr. Zaidi and asked me to meet him.     .      Dr.    Zaidi was a serious looking person comparatively younger but  earnest. He looked at the PET-CT plate carefully and felt that it would not be easy to reach a needle to the place in the body where the PET-CT showed a possibility of the recurrence of the tumour. ( In the absence of PET-Ct report saying categorically that there was a recurrence, the confirmation that the cancer had come back could be done only by taking a tissue from the affected part by inserting a needle there). He, however, suggested that I should go to one Dr. Chaturvedi ,the Head of Radiology department to whom he was referring my file. He also said that perhaps, Dr. Chaturvedi might have left for the day and that I might be required to see him the following day. We took the reference to Dr. Chaturvedi's cabin only to be told at their reception office that Dr. Chaturvedi had left  for the day. We went back to Dr. Doval's cabin. He was busy with a patient and therefore. asked us to wait for a couple of minutes more. When we could finally meet him he repeated what he had told us before but asked us to see him the following day with the observations of Dr Chaturvedi on the reference from Dr.Zaidi.
We came home,this time taking a different route  which was shorter.    

Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute Rohini New Delhi

Review of the progress of recovery from the surgery undergone by me for removal of a cancerous esophagus entailed undertaking some more scans  such as CT scan and PET-CT scan.CT scan suggested a  recurrence of the tumour. PET-CT scan was indicative of a cluster of nodes suggestive of  a likely metastasis. In a layman's language the cancer had come up again. Or perhaps it had  never gone away. I was never convinced  that a mere surgery for removal of a cancerous growth would have led to a complete cure.This was later confirmed when I surfed the net. The net enlightened  me that cancer could  never be  cured, it could only be managed.
The good surgeon Dr. Agrawal studied the scans and concluded that perhaps there would be a need to  undertake a chemo or radio therapy and wrote his advice that I could get it done at a private hospital approved by the C.G.H.S.(central government health scheme).Reports about the Dharmshila Cancer Hospital were not very encouraging and therefore, I had to opt for the Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre  because I found that I might not be able to penetrate the bureaucratic system of  All India Institute of Medical Sciences to get myself registered  in their cancer therapy department.The Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre (RGCIRC) was  far away from the place I reside.A visit by car would take  at least two hours.
Our first visit took three hours because before reaching that  place I had to visit the dispensary from where I get my medicines on a regular basis. The in-charge of the dispensary on the previous day had refused to grant the permission to undertake the therapies from the RGCIRC. I had  to request her bosses to intercede to make her agree to accord the permission. On the 16th of September2011, I finally got the permission letter.
At the RGCIRC the experience was more harrowing .The bureaucracy was more stubborn than the one we encounter in government offices. We were asked to fill in a form and submit that at a counter .We stood in a queue for about fifteen minutes at the counter before they were able to prepare the file.But then arose the question of payment . When we insisted that I was a CGHS beneficiary and a pensioner and that  my treatment had to be on a credit basis, the girl at the counter asked us to get the necessary endorsement from one Ms. Ghosh working at their basement office. Ms. Ghosh was a middle aged  grumpy woman who had perhaps no traces of sympathy in her personality.. She saw our papers and then curtly told us that we should get a colour photocopy of my CGHS card and submit it to her. On being told that it was not proper she shamelessly admitted that that  was indeed so but pleaded  her helplessness saying that that was a CGHS requirement.We had a black&white photocopy but that was of no use.She wanted a colour photocopy and that was final. We went out of the hospital in search of the photocopying facility.At a distance of about one and a half kilometre we spotted a Kodak laboratory on the opposite side of the road.After taking a U-turn we reached the place only to be told that that was a photographer's lab. and that  we would need to go to the  sector seven market to get a colour photocopy. We were able to  locate that sector after some time. Ankit, who had always been  accompanying me,  walked up to the first floor of a building which was housing  a photocopy shop and returned after about fifteen minutes.Two colour photocopies cost Rs.20 and two  black&white photocopies cost only Rs.two. On a photocopy of the permission letter Ms. Ghosh appended the required endorsement .We took the endorsed letter  to the reception window and produced the endorsement. The girl at the window then completed the file .At first she wanted us to deposit Rs. 242, a discounted amount for a CGHS beneficiary,as the consultation fee.But on our insistence that it had to be a cashless transaction  as I was a pensioner, she looked into the endorsement once again and relented finally.Then she directed that we should go to the second floor of the building and wait for our turn and that our file would be sent  through their own channel.Our file did reach after some time but our wait continued.We  had to wait for one hour and forty-five minutes before we could get to see the doctors.The doctors looked in to the history of the case and decided that a) I should get a complete hemogram done ,and
b)CT and PET-CT scans should be reviewed  so as to be certain that the cancer had returned.That would
 enable them to determine whether there was a need of chemotherapy or radio therapy or of both .
Again we had to stand in a queue to get us the receipts which were necessary for us to get the said tests done. While Ankit went to get the review done, I came to the second floor again to give the sample of blood. I was told that I could get a provisional report   around 4:30 pm the same day, but the final report would however, be available only the following day late in the afternoon. Similarly, the review report would also be available the following day. We came out of the building and boarded the car. Ankit got himself dropped  just about a kilometre away from the hospital and I moved  towards my residence certain that I would have to return soon.

Bail and Jail

A couple of days ago the Indian news channels went almost berserk when Amar Singh, an erstwhile Samajwadi Party leader was sent to jail.Amar Singh is a well-known figure in the Indian politics and people thought that he was so well connected that no one would dare send him to jail, no matter what he might have done.But this was proved as false and the magistrate Ms. Dhingra ordered that he be sent to the judicial custody, disregarding his plea for leniency on the ground that he was sick having undergone a surgery and a kidney transplant operation.
Of late, we are witnessing a strange phenomenon--instead of granting bail being a norm , denying it is becoming a norm. Nobody has the answer to the question :what happens if ultimately the person is acquitted? Who and what can compensate for his lack of freedom ? Perhaps ,we the people are not enough sensitive towards freedom. We do not value it enough . Amar Singh had been fully co-operating with the investigating agencies.            He is a well-known person and is not likely to run away from the law and the police. He is genuinely sick and is living on borrowed kidneys.Why is it then necessary to keep him in custody?
Not only Amar Singh, there are many other  well-known people who have been kept behind the bars for months together denying them bail which should have been  given to them in normal circumstances because their alleged crime is not in the category of most heinous crimes.They have not been accused of having committed a  murder; they have also not been accused of rape or of treason.They have been accused of having caused presumptive loss of thousands of crores of rupees to the Indian exchequer and in the process  having feathered their nest or having  caused unintended benefit  to some of the corporate houses in which they had  monetary interest.These are crimes indeed but these crimes are not such as to entail denial of bail.Then what is the reason? I think there are two important reasons---the gravity of their crimes has been blown out of proportion by the media-both print and electronic.And they are comparatively well-to- do people. In India, the spectacle of seeing the rich behind the bars is so rare that when an opportunity as such presents it self, media are far too eager to overplay it and people, who are the consumers of the media, are more than willing to lap it.That feeling of schadenfreude becomes more intense and consequently more satisfying  when the misfortune strikes those who are rich and powerful.
But all this leaves a big question  before us: are our destinies to be decided by the media? After all, it should have been media's pressure, direct or perceived,  that may have prevented the judges and magistrates from granting bail in these cases. Can we therefore expect any justice in such circumstances? The answer is an emphatic NO.Most of the Indians, at least those who are capable of thinking for themselves,  know it for certain that there is no such thing  as justice in this world and it is only a ruse used conveniently by the rulers of all countries to befool the public. We should all ponder for a minute  and ask ourselves: whether human progress, over the millennia has only meant  media becoming a tool of power in place of a piece of stone--perhaps the earliest tool used by man to exert power.