Tiger, Endangered Or Extinct?

After more than 25 years of horrific violence that left a blood trace of unimaginable pain and suffering the srilankan civil war has officially come to a close. The war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam, more commonly referred by their acronym – LTTE or just Tigers, and the Srilankan military has been announced to be over by the island nation’s government and military leaders alike. With the pictures of the LTTE’s iconic leader, V Prabhakaran shown shot while attempting to flee the war zone, traveling around the news and internet media, one has no idea how to react, but still cant stay untouched.
Like all rebels, jihadists and freedom fighters, LTTE was born out of the atrocities inflicted upon their kind. Tamils, the largest ethnic minority in Srilanka and also one’s own race, were oppressed by the predominantly Sinhalese authorities, civil and military for long since the republic was formed out of the post WWII British Colony. As I surfed in the World Wide Web to get some information on the beginnings of this rebel outfit, I quickly realized that very least is out there that can be termed unbiased. Some of the most humiliating and disgraceful acts were caused to the Tamils and the opposition was no less gory in its retaliation. There is conflict in who started first, but it it seems to be clear that the two sides never really saw each other as groups that can work together. LTTE wanted a separate Tamil State with autonomous rule, while Srilanka claimed complete sovereignty over the island. Seems like the only outcome of their long and bitter relationship, for the most part, was the never ending death toll.
The LTTE had strong support, both financially and politically from expatriates of same race in Europe and Canada and sympathizers from neighboring India from north. It started out as a relatively small group in 1983, one among many factions that were created against the Sinhalese oppressors, but the LTTE soon rose to become one of the most recognized terrorist organizations in south-east Asia with its veins running well into Western Europe and Canada. At its peak, the LTTE effectively controlled a third of Srilanka (north and east) densely populated by Tamils and Sinhalese government and military had all but pushed into a bystander role. Prabhakaran, who was sole commander, ruled the region with his own version of taxes, court and law managing health care and transportation.
If there was one thing missing, it was peace. Both sides took turns in inflicting as much human and material losses to each other often attacking civilians in airport, trains official buildings. The Tigers pioneered and used to deadly effect the suicide bombers and the civil war became so critical, so much so that at one point even the UN and NATO briefly addressed the crisis (supposed to be sarcastic). When the Tigers assassinated The Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, support for them dropped considerably from India, and a brief peace process broke in 2004 after hardliner Mahinda Rajapaksa took office of Srilankan Prime Minister. A post 9/11 Western countries seeing terrorism as a serious threat, intermittent attacks by the army, dwindling finances and international pressure started to erode the Tigers’ control of their land and a major sustained offensive by the Srilankan forces in the past couple of years drastically brought down the LTTE.
It is common for the Tigers to use civilians as human shields against army attacks and also uses child soldiers. With the army’s unrelenting offense and indiscriminate shelling of LTTE strong holds, it lead to tens of thousands of men, women and children killed and many more mutilated. The Tigers proposed a unilateral cease fire, out of desperation, but it seemed like the Government was bent on wiping out the rebels at any cost. In the past couple of weeks reports of complete elimination of the Tigers kept appearing in various tabloids and the final word came on May 19 2009.
The Military commander of the Srilankan Armed Forces declared that they had ambushed a convoy which carried the LTTE Leader himself and about 10 of his top officials and cross fire that ensued killed them all. And with that, after more than 25 years constant bombardment, ears in the emerald island are listening to silence.
One cannot help but imagine that silence to be anything but sickening to the stomach, because it is the silence of death. When Hinduism, Christianity and Buddhism, major relations of Srilanka, all preach love and peace and go in lengths about troubled souls, it’s horrific to think about all the souls of small children, working fathers, loving husbands, true brother and the beautiful and ever loving mothers, sisters and daughters screaming in agony throughout the land that is now silent. It is hard for such souls to find peace. Its even harder for those who survived and will live to tell the stories.
One hopes this is not the end for this part of the story. Hatred does not die on its own. The seeds of hatred planted 25 years ago had grown into this massive tree of poison ever spreading its venom, and is now brought down, only momentarily. And its in the hands of the administrators and the Tiger sympathizers to make sure that the remnants of that poisons is replaced with hope. The damage caused by this long running civil war had taken its toll on the country in every which way possible and the healing process would be long and potentially painful. But its extremely important not to repeat history in this case. Both sides should identify and acknowledge the rights of a sovereign republic and its free citizen. Both sides should accept the mistakes done in the past and look to build a future that is built on mutual respect and tolerance towards diverse outlook healthy dissent. If Prabhakaran is gone, some one else will take his place to unite the Tamils. Its pertinent that the unite towards c0existence rather than polarization.
And hopefully, the Tiger will be remembered for the spirit of its heart rather than cruelty of its claws.

To IPL or Not To IPL?

Cricket for all its elegance and style is not a gentleman’s sport, not anymore. Not that I am complaining. I started watching cricket during an era when the short curly-haired man from Mumbai, in his early twenties, was sending world-class bowlers to all corners of the ground to gather their cricket and biological balls. Sachin Tendulkar, more commonly referred by fans as ‘The Great One’ and by bowlers around the world as ‘Oh God, Have Mercy’, has changed a lot in the last couple of decades, what seems like not so long ago, moving from a swashbuckler to a serene maestro. I have always loved the big hitting aspect of modern day cricket which in some ways, I think, adds to the richness of the slow paced test cricket. But it was less about the number of sixes and fours, and more about the overall beauty and the small battles between the bat and ball that gave one-day cricket the mesmerizing effect. Cricket followers of my generation spent countless hours admiring/ fighting over the best and the worst cricketers and their skills or lack thereof. Every victorious match was followed-up by an in-depth analysis of every aspect of the game throughout the school, college, street and back yard conversations with friends and lost matches were discussed even further. Apparently, we know more about the game than the captains and players and the couches, not to mention the umpires. These days there is hardly anytime for that to happen, since there is already another match on its way and before you can say, ‘hey, I didn’t even see the toss!!’ the game is over and then the next one. This is the era of Twenty/20 cricket. This is the time of IPL, ICL, Stanford Tour, Phoenix 20/20 (that’s the local cricket league here in Arizona, in which yours truly is a player) where cricket is simply ‘that thing’ that provides a venue for eye-bulging profit, non-stop action (sans commercial break) and skin clad cheer leaders all in bright colors (not applicable to our league- [:)] and [:(] at the same time). Much like the generation of my Father and those before him who didn’t exactly like one-day cricket- the shortest form of the game at that time- who were in favor the Test version, there is some wide spread discontent at twenty/20 which is about 5 years older and not without reasons and the main culprit being the IPL.

Let’s face it- its nothing like cricket the way it was used to be. When a batsman drives sweetly a full and swinging delivery off a pacer through a desperately scrambling cover fielder, the reply was looped what often seemed like infinite times while the commentator explains repeatedly why and how that shot was considered sweet so that you never forget what and how a sweet shot looks like. I don’t think it is required to say what happens post wicket. The whole fielding team jumps in unison screaming and whooping, as they converge to pat the bowler while the batsman, crest fallen, trudges off the field, but not before he shows his emotions via actions. He may kick the bat at the ground showing self-disgust, or play the shot that got him out one more time at the imaginary ball so that people could see that he did every thing right, but it was the ball that went rouge or the classic one, looking at the sky and then back down and shaking his head as if the lord him/her-self has betrayed him.

Now as soon as such shot is played, or any shot for that matter, once that moment of play is done we cut to commercials where a tooth paste, shaving cream, deodorant or just about any thing you can think of, appears in animated fashion to explain in fifty second sound bites why you need it to score the omnipresent hot chic. I once saw a commercial in which a man wore a specific brand of Jeans (which looked rugged and blue much like – well, every other jean in the world) and then a sexy looking girl who was shown talking to some one on a phone locks hands with our jeans guy and they walk into –fade. Strange, it never happened to me or to any one I know and we have tried a lot of jeans. Anyway, that’s the state affairs in the world of cricket now. It’s less similar to ‘people with high skills competing for superiority under strict rules and gamesmanship’ and more resembling scripting a live action movie where you eagerly look forward for the sequence that is fight-song-fight-song-presentation ceremony. Next day, the tabloids show the breaking news, which is the celebrity who owns the team jumps up and down at the team dug out or makes a stupid comment about cricket which would make Geoff Boycott break into tears, not the winning captain or the team. As though this isn't already so much fun (sarcasm), now a 10 minute break is added between every 10 overs, so that teams can strategize. Come on!! Ten overs of time is what takes players to get warmed up. The pure reason -sneak in a few more commercials about love Jeans. But who cares, this isn’t sharp shooting anymore, its spraying with an Uzi. Its like watching the evolution of Mother’s day- what started out as a revered acknowledgment of everything that is great about motherhood has ended up being this commercialized extravaganza despised even by its founder,Anna Jarvis,

All is not bad about it though. As honorably mentioned by Lalit Modi, the CEO of IPL, it attracts the best talent from around the world in the form of players, coaches and support staff and thus creates all kinds of new possibilities. The young domestic players get to share the same dressing room, and learn valuable lessons that could potentially give us a very deep talent pool for national squad. The franchise itself can fuel the invigoration and development of the country’s cricketing infrastructure whether it means better pay for, at least some of, the local players or better equipment and amenities for the grounds. Oh, how I remember Deep Dasgupta’s, a former wicket keeper for India, sad remarks about how they could not even afford a good set of Four-Square brand bat and gloves and must settle for the SS type only a few years ago. All said and done, lot of money is being made and looks like every effort is made to increase it too.

The BCCI, which in a desperate attempt to control and maintain its monopoly over Indian cricket, had banned ICL and anyone associated with it before the first edition of the tournament even began. It flexed its muscles enough to make other member countries of ICC to follow suit and ban their players who are part of ICL, and the ICC has recently denied ICL’s appeal to it that it must be given an ‘unofficially-approved’ status, so that the players’ national ban be lifted. Now in a latest development, BCCI is offering amnesty to the ICL players that if they end all ties to the rogue leaugue (put down their arms, so to speak) before end of May, their ban will be lifted a after one year ‘cool-off’ period (will be pardoned of their sins and the gates of heaven shall open, so to speak). Considering the fact that ICL was started in response to the pathetic performance in 2008 World Cup by the Indian team, which in turn woke up BCCI to start its own IPL - a Paris Hilton version of ICL. The Board of Cricket Control in India, with all its political and bollywood craftsmen has, apparently, failed to consider the fact that ICL can be utilized as a lower end version for the domestic circuit providing more opportunities for more aspiring cricketers. Then again, an agency that suspended all pension benefits to its former players of India who associated themselves with ICL and calls the country’s lone world cup winning captain, Kapil Dev, a betrayer, one shouldn’t be surprised.

I guess what I am saying is, Twenty-20 good.

Actions of BCCI, not so much [:(] .