Where the fraternity has failed him, Providence will provide

From fleet-footed forward to plodding pensioner, the wheel’s come full circle for Mohammad Zulfakaruddin.

A member of India’s football squad that made the 1956 Melbourne Olympics semifinals, a peak it may never scale again, he’s been subsisting in Secunderabad, under a roof not his own, unknown and unsung, until the recent felicitation call-up to Delhi.

A vain bid for recognition found no takers at the Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh (SAAP) office a few years ago. Nobody believed he was an Olympian. An official issued an application form, more out of sympathy for the septuagenarian. Footwork for the proforma over, the frail figure began paper work for an Arjuna or Dronacharya award.

No honours

Mohd. Habeeb and Yousuf Khan, who played under him, received the Arjuna Award, while Syed Nayeemuddin, the Dronacharya. Strangely, Zulfakar, AP’s captain from 1958 to 66 — the game’s golden era that saw the Bengal bastion breached — found no mention in any honours list.

On the field an inside-left, he’s been left out by fame and fortune. The rare foray to the fore is to give away prizes at a local tournament.

His face glows when his football feats excite interest. “When AP won the 1963-64 Pentangular tournament in Ceylon, I received the trophy from the then FIFA President Sir Stanley Rous,” he recalled. He featured in India’s runner-up finish at Kuala Lumpur in the 1959 Merdeka Cup.

Feted by half a dozen heads of State, from President Rajendra Prasad to Shankar Dayal Sharma, Zulfakar also led Central Police Lines (CPL) for over a decade, the side boasting half a dozen Olympians!

Historic strike

Old-timers fondly remember his solitary goal in 1966 that fetched Andhra Pradesh the Santosh Trophy for the first time. Dodging the legendary Jarnail Singh, Bengal’s stopper back, he slipped the ball into the net, throwing the Quilon (Kollam) crowd into raptures. That triumph was especially sweet for AP, which had lost to Bengal in two earlier.

“Team spirit ran high, on and off the field,” he reminisced. After every match, players gathered at Hotel Madina in the Old City for tea or biriyani or at the Lateef restaurant, near Moazzam Jahi Market.

Reflected in competition, this camaraderie chipped in to cohesion and great understanding. Little wonder then that in Indian football’s finest hour, eight men were from Hyderabad.

Food for thought

With the wolf never far from his door, food is a recurring theme.

“Many players were good cooks too. Some handed out Hyderabad recipes to a Delhi restaurant, which has grown so much that Rahul Gandhi orders food from there,” he says. Soft-spoken and modest, he’s a misfit in a market-driven world.

A blinding love for Hyderabad and deferring to his father’s wishes, Zulfakar stayed back in the Twin Cities, when teammates made a beeline for Bengal, Indian football’s El Dorado.

Still dogged by injuries from his playing days, he takes recourse to religion, beard and skull cap in place. Where the fraternity has failed him, Providence will provide, perhaps.

(From The Hindu dated February 26, 2009. Article by A. Joseph Antony)

Slumdog: An over-exaggerated nothing

Excerpts from an article by Sandipan Deb

Frankly, I don't think Slumdog Millionaire deserved the Oscar for best film. And even more frankly, I don't think Resul Pookutty should have invoked "my country and my civilisation" in his acceptance speech for best sound mixing. India was not up there in the Kodak auditorium for approval. It was a British film financed by the indie subsidiary of an American studio which happened to be set in India and as a result they could not help but involve Indian actors (including Indian-origin Britishers) and shoot it in India. We crave too much for international recognition. A bit too much than is seemly. Even as all of us go around strutting, pretending to be a superpower.

But Slumdog has won, and we should really rejoice for the six children who acted in it, for they are the real stars of the film. We should rejoice for AR Rahman, though the music he has got his two Oscars for is not even of his average quality, forget his sublime and exhilarating stuff. But the Academy has decided. But I really think it's a bit too much if we take this as a victory for Indian cinema. It's a non-Indian film which happened to have an all-Indian cast. We shoot entire films abroad nowadays, especially in the US, remember?

Read the complete article here:

http://in.news.yahoo.com/48/20090224/1241/top-it-shouldn-t-have-won.html

An Interesting Profile

This is an interesting profile I came across on a social networking site. The description of the owner of the profile had the following content. This is interesting because if this is true, then the author has been subjected to a lot of violence. If not, this is a remarkable piece of creativity on part of the author. Either way, something’s wrong.

The author for some reason has come up with a profile (finally on a networking site,) that is a bit thought provoking about certain activities that go on in the society. I will not write anything more as the following is self-explanatory. Do leave your comments if you read this.

The following content is highly abusive and contains offensive material. Continue at your own discretion. All names have been changed to protect the interest of those involved (if it’s true)

".....am well aware that the way the world works is that i might always be dominated by bullies who r physically stronger than me and who verbally and physically abuse me like that jealous liar mur_derer Ms. ABC - my so called elder sibling 8 years older than me who did her best to destroy my body and spirit every day and night of my life .. (and beat up everybody else also) .. and whose husband Mr. DEF has un_der_world connections with Don_s and merce_naries .. i was put in jail by my violent jealous liar elder sibling Ms. ABC and i paid $000 my money to the local judicial system to get released on bail.. and by those who practise black magic, psychic practices, occult rites and other energy manipulation techiniques to play with my life.. like that $ex addicted psychic clairvoyant b@$t@rd Mr. GHI who probably trapped me with his black magic and video recorded me in his house and his b@$t@rd good for nothing lout money minded father who was monitoring my computer activity even i came to JKL(a place) .. and other 3rd rated nauseating black magic practising $ex addicted b@$t@rds Mr. MN, Mr. OP, Mr. QR,etc.

those shameless f*ck*ng d**kh**ds Mr. STU and Mr. GHI attached themselves to me during final years of college to get their work done.. no wonder everybody laughs at them - they deserve it..

also be aware of those shameless beggar scum pro$titute$ Mr. S, Ms. T, Ms. U, Ms. V who shamelessly harassed me all my life jus bcoz they lost their jobs in WXY(a place) and shamelessly attached themselves to me and my family all these years harassing me for countless favours $hamele$$ly without any self respect.. my mother had to get that sl*t Ms. U a college seat in Z college bcoz she came to my house and threw a tantrum bcoz she wanted to go to the same college as me.. apart from countless other favours that this pro$titute family has harassed me and my family for all my life just bcoz they lost their jobs in WXY and have been leaching me and my family shamelessly all my life..

even here in JKL am waiting for that oversized money minded bully Mr. A1 to transfer my phone to my name that he has cleverly registered in his name using the money that my mother gave him to buy my phone.. apart from bullying me all the time for money,etc.. his brother Mr. A2 in the WXY has un_der_world connections with don_s.also i keep away from that permanently pr*gn@nt pro$titute Ms. A3 who keeps gossiping about me to that sl*t Ms. T in WXY.

even after i came to JKL was tortured by a A4(country) national called A5 and his mother beauty who conspired with my neighbour and blasted loud music for several days and nights next to my room bcoz i did not allow her into my room and did not marry A5 ..

and also be informed of that cheat thief Mr. A6 - that Z college student who never gave me the Rs.000 that he promised me for getting the top sponsor for college show ..his N(a place) 3rd rated nauseating cheap thief bit*h Ms. A7 who stole my blue mirror work sandals,
that 3rd rated bit*h thief Ms. A8 who stole my expensive gold chain & pendant to please her sh*t ar*e brothers Mr. A9 & Mr. B1 .

coupled with my so called selfish mur_derer b@$t@rd$ p*rn-addicted @dulterou$ father Mr. B2 who enjoys himself with the servant maid Ms. B3,etc and that selfish daughter-mur_derer bit*h mother Ms. B4 .. it has been horrible surrounded by these mur_derers all my life.. the tablets that Mr. B2 gives Ms. B4 to keep her in control have still not worked..

have learnt how the world works - full of jealous liar mur_derers who will kill me bcoz they cannot bear to see me prosper .. have been surrounded by these cunning liar mu_rderer killers all my life..i hate all the criminal devilish cruel psychotic mur_derous MONEY MINDED (and sometimes $ex-obsessed) fools that have verbally and physically abused me all my life and want all of them - especially liar Ms. ABC - to be punished for their crimes....."

The Indian 'Elite'

Excerpt from Death of a Salesman and Other Elite Ironies by Tarun J. Tejpal

Politics, every single day, is killing, impoverishing, starving, denigrating, millions of Indians all across the country. If the backdrop were not so heartbreaking, the spectacle of the nation’s elite — the keepers of most of our wealth and privilege — frothing on television screens and screaming through mobile phones would be amusing. They have been outraged because the enduring tragedy of India has suddenly arrived in their marbled precincts. The Taj, the Oberoi. We dine here. We sleep here. Is nothing sacrosanct in this country any more?

What the Indian elite is discovering today on the debris of fancy eateries is an acidic truth large numbers of ordinary Indians are forced to swallow every day. Children who die of malnutrition, farmers who commit suicide, dalits who are raped and massacred, tribals who are turfed out of centuryold habitats, peasants whose lands are taken over for car factories, minorities who are bludgeoned into paranoia — these, and many others, know that something is grossly wrong. The system does not work, the system is cruel, the system is unjust, the system exists to only serve those who run it. Crucially, what we, the elite, need to understand is that most of us are complicit in the system. In fact, chances are the more we have — of privilege and money — the more invested we are in the shoring up of an unfair state.

It is time each one of us understood that at the heart of every society is its politics. If the politics is third-rate, the condition of the society will be no better. For too many decades now, the elite of India has washed its hands off the country’s politics. Entire generations have grown up viewing it as a distasteful activity. In an astonishing perversion, the finest imaginative act of the last thousand years on the subcontinent, the creation and flowering of the idea of modern India through mass politics, has for the last 40 years been rendered infra dig, déclassé, uncool. Let us blame our parents, and let our children blame us, for not bequeathing onwards the sheer beauty of a collective vision, collective will, and collective action. In a word, politics: which, at its best, created the wonder of a liberal and democratic idea, and at its worst threatens to tear it down.

And let no one tell us we need more laws. We need men to implement those that we have. Today all our institutions and processes are failing us. We have compromised each of them on their values, their robustness, their vision and their sense of fairplay. Now, at every crucial juncture we depend on random acts of individual excellence and courage to save the day. Great systems, triumphant societies, are veined with ladders of inspiration. Electrified by those above them, men strive to do their very best. Look around. How many constables, head constables, sub-inspectors would risk their lives for the dishonest, weak men they serve, who in turn serve even more compromised masters?

India’s crying need is not economic tinkering or social engineering. It is a political overhaul, a political cleansing. As it once did to create a free nation, India’s elite should start getting its hands dirty so they can get a clean country.

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 49, Dated Dec 13, 2008

Read the complete article at

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne131208death_of.asp