A forgotten letter from Ganguly

                      ** The Royal Residence of His Ganguliness, the Prince of Calcutta **

Dear Suresh Raina,

It seems to me that you , though highly talented, have got your priorities mixed up. A few days ago, I heard from Duncan Fletcher that you have been working extremely hard on playing the short ball because you want to excel at Test Cricket. This is a phase that I myself went through which led to my humiliation at the hands of Laxmipathy Balaji and a couple of old Australians . After this nadir, I decided to reflect. And now, eight years later I am in a position to advise.

In my inimitable style, I shall begin by calling a spade a spade and telling you that on air, Nasser Hussain called you a short ball donkey.
A cursory glance at the statement does not indicate much danger. After all, Nasser Hussain has used the D word before. Furthermore, IPL owners seldom watch Sky Sports (where Hussain commentates). And , let’s be honest about it,  they are the ones that matter these days , when international tours have become a gamble - with  bowlers  being permitted to bowl over 140 kph and groundsmen being allowed to grow grass on the pitch.


Let us, however, examine the identity of the man who has made the statement. Former 'English' captain, Nasser Hussain. Note my inverted commas please. For how indeed can an Englishman be named such? I have discussed the matter with Ravi Shastri and we agree that the jealous ECB have conspired to name their English captain with a subcontinent name. The mind games had already started when Hussain made his debut, not merely before this series as has been suggested by Sunil Gavaskar.

This ECB employee is is dangerous and will stop at nothing; he has now made disparaging remarks about the three most exciting Indian left-handers of the last decade: Myself, Yuvraj, and you.
In 2001/02, Nasser Hussain’s England and I were locked in a confrontation which was to cause me severe distress. I had a dream once: Nasser Hussain was entering Kolkata and was immediately greeted by a crowd of my subjects screaming "Nasser, go back". So far, so good. But then, all of a sudden, he turned into a bare-chested, cricket ball tossing Andrew Flintoff. The proud Calcuttans were replaced by nasty old men in suits and hats. And I was suddenly in the middle of Headingley stadium, frozen, as Flintoff rushed in towards me. He bowled a bouncer and then… then I woke up.

Variants of this dream occurred for months - all of them had two things in common: Nasser Hussain, and Andrew Flintoff without his shirt.

My rivalry with the English and an innate, unnecessary complex about the short ball were at the root of this. I soon got my revenge though, and it has gone down in the annals of Natwest Trophy history. After I had done my singularly unique act of imitation, tiresome Englishmen did not enter my dreams any more. I was able to sleep comfortably and I felt more secure about my status as the captain that ushered in a New, Aggressive and Fearless India.

Why have I told you this? So that you may listen, and learn. You are a bright young star and you too have a problem with the short ball. Remember not to waste your time trying to correct it - it is already too late and simply not worth the effort. The point, my boy, is believe in yourself. Be fiery. Do not hesitate to make a display. Play to your strengths. Which is clearly IPL cricket and limited overs matches in the subcontinent.

Which brings me to my final point. You may hear Me, in my commentary, regularly referring to how you should be tackling the short ball and how you should prepare properly for Test matches. Take it with a pinch of salt. What I really have to communicate to you, I have done so in this letter. Retire from overseas cricket, Suresh. You have a long and fruitful career record ahead of you. Don't ruin it.

Your Prince, philosopher and guide,

Sourav Ganguly

Why Fast?

Fasting has a rich and colourful history. After all Jesus did it for forty days, Gandhi did it for plenty of days and I continue to do it every Good Friday. The results of the fasting by the aforementioned : the defeat of the Devil , the defeat of the British and grand effects which remain to be seen.
However, my friends, there has lately been a besmirching of the grave tradition of fasting. For yesterday, five thousand rickshaw drivers sat cross-legged beneath the peepul trees outside the transport department, subsisting purely on a diet of air and and dust. That's right, our rickshaw drivers  decided to go on a Fast - one that promises to be more gruelling than that of Baba Ramdev and nearly at par with Mr. Modi.
One can sympathise with both Baba Ramdev's and Mr Modi's fasts. After all , Baba Ramdev is a yoga instructor and yogic instructors who don't periodically go on fasts are simply not the real deal. With Mr Modi, again, we understand. In a territory of political unrest such as Gujarat, there is nothing that soothes the rage of the fiery condemners like the knowledge that their prime target is going without three square meals.

But the rickshaw drivers?
At every step of the way, the connections don't quite add up. Let's take a possible series of connections :
I had my meter corrected -> I feel hard done by -> I fast.
Examine the first connection.. My meter has just been corrected. As a responsible citizen of India, shouldn't this be my reaction ? : "Excellent, one more substandard object in my country is now functioning as it should. Particularly since I deal directly with it. I will hold my head high, clap my grubby hands and laud the government hoping that the next item on the list is the foul roads".
Contrary to all expectation, the reaction of the rickshaw drivers was p-p-p-petulance.
And now, for the second connection:
 I am irritated and angry and therefore I fast.
Wouldn't this be more appropriate?  : "I am irritated and angry, therefore I drown my sorrows in food and drink". For I have noticed that Catholics are liable to be  irritable on Good Friday for no other reason than lack of food. And because it is self-imposed. If I, catholic, am on the street without anything to eat and no means to assuage my hunger, I would feel quite supplicant towards God and the public - an avemarie never too far from my lips. However , I am not destitute and not on the streets. Therefore, on Good Friday it is quite a different emotion that gnaws at my consciousness  - extreme, palpable irritation. And if I have another reason to be irritated before the hunger starts taking over, God help the poor fool who attempts to pronounce my name wrong.

Why have I said all this? Merely to point to the fact that if you are  a)Not Gandhi b) Not Baba Ramdev and c) Not Mr. Modi , fasting is simply not the solution .

However, for the rest of us, this debilitating fast which kept the rickshaw drivers off the road meant good news. The roads were cleaner, better, brighter. There were fewer cockroach like structures, and the ones present did not have  streams of red paan periodically shooting from their orifices (wherefore I infer that rickshaw-fasting includes abstinence from paan-chewing) . Furthermore, if one looked sufficiently far, one could see the odd rickshaw driver running away from a mob of other drivers determined to flog him. I gather these drivers-errant were caught  in the act of surreptitious ice-cream-indulgence by the fasting masses.

And now, I must become serious.
For I have a plan, O my brothers. In this modern mayhem called Modern Mother India, it is extremely easy to call a fast. Let's fast. You and I. I and you. Let's abstain from the cockroaches, let's use our God-given legs. This will cause the amusing incidents mentioned above to continue while improving our much battered health - battered further by the excreting cockroaches. For my part, I don't mind the enforcement of Pest Control till Andheri. Maybe we can all get used to that eventually. Whatever happens, if we adhere to this we will be in a position to assert that it is we, Homo Sapiens will be in control, and not the three legged insects.