It sure takes guts to uncover something as murky as match-fixing, and Outlook and Aniruddha Bahal have been doing a commendable job of it. But reading Azhar’s fax (‘I took 10 lakhs’, Apr 18) one gets the feeling that there’s more to this mess but only he has ended up paying up for it. We would now like to see the lid off some other big names that have featured regularly in this dark corridor of Indian cricket—SG, ‘a certain Sachin’, etc. It’s obvious that while doing what he did, Azhar stepped on some big feet in the Indian cricket establishment and paid the price for it.
S. A. Ebrahim, Dubai, UAE
Does Outlook have no stories that it has to fall back on an old story and resuscitate it after three years? If you could manage to get evidence against Azhar, you could have done the same against other cricketers and the bcci management. Why are you sparing them? Is it because they have political pull which Azhar doesn’t have? Why is Outlook so selective about its targets?
Siva Prasad Koka, Dubai, UAE
Reading Azhar’s fax on various people, it only confirms one’s strong inkling that our ex-captain had heavily sullied hands. But he reveals himself as most pathetic when apropos the Manoj-Kapil affair, he says he was being victimised—"they can’t stand the idea that a person from the minority community should be in the saddle". Azhar enjoyed the best that the country offered, led the world’s best-behaved and upright cricket XI, travelled internationally, rubbed shoulders with the elite, wore the finest clothes and accessories within a few years of his representing the country. Yet he plunges to the depths of the gutters. Come to think of it, that’s where he belongs.
Kaly Bose, Gurgaon, Haryana
Flog, flog, flog. Both Outlook and Aniruddha Bahal trying reruns, just to jumpstart their ageing careers. So what if poor Azharuddin gets screwed one more time in the process?
P. Chandra, Portland, US
Any other expert would have charged Rs 10 lakh for pitch and ground info. Why punish Azza for it?
Rajesh Jha, New York
I rejoice when I see the smiling faces of Kashmiris meeting their friends and relatives from the other side of the border after almost six decades (History on the Move, Apr 18). But somewhere deep inside me, I also feel sad for the thousands of Kashmiri Pandits who’ve been deprived of their homes. The irony is that it was a Kashmiri Pandit himself who created this problem. But subsequent PMs too have been unable to cure this self-inflicted injury. Farooq Abdullah promised to bring them back to Kashmir but forgot. Now Mufti Mohammed Sayeed has said the same but we’re yet to see any action on it.
H. Rajagopal, on e-mail
The huge publicity and the high profile India gave to the bus link from Srinagar to Muzaffarabad was quite unnecessary and counter-productive. The attack on the tourist reception centre in Srinagar where the passengers were housed may have been a direct result of the hype surrounding the bus journey. Mufti Mohammed Sayeed describing it as the mother of all cbms and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and upa chief Sonia Gandhi flagging off the bus in the presence of a host of central ministers and the entire j&k cabinet were quite in contrast to Pakistan’s prudence in not raising any great expectations from the resumption of travel across the LoC!
J. Akshobya, Mysore
Somewhere you said being one day late gives you the advantage of putting in more juice (more news). How true.... Your competitors could not cover the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad highway as extensively as you could. Let’s now build confidence in the entente so that we can show American brokerage the red signal.
Vishnu Menon M., Thiruvananthapuram
My compliments to Outlook in carrying the heart-warming story on Dr Goutam Narayan’s relentless effort to save the pygmy hog (Making a Difference, Apr 18). In times infested with greedy politicians, poachers and land sharks, it’s good to hear about people like Dr Narayan. I wish his programme well.
Brinda Upadhyaya, on e-mail
Reading Animal Rites (Mar 28), I was thinking all we’ll have to bequeath to our future generations in the name of the national animal will be a few specimens in the zoos.
Jinu Matthew, on e-mail
The famous Kaziranga national park and other wildlife sanctuaries in Assam will meet Sariska’s fate courtesy organised encroachment by illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators under political patronage. Female rhinos are systematically killed by these infiltrators using high-tension power lines to wipe out rhinos from these sanctuaries so that these can be converted to agricultural land for settlement.
B.C. Phukan, on e-mail
You story Impure for Sure (Apr 4) only proves what those in the industry already know—the extent to which both quality and quantity are compromised in the purchase of diesel from oil companies. It’s surprising they haven’t even chosen to respond to your story. They spend more money on campaigns like Pure for Sure or Q & Q Station. And then trumpet about losses they’re incurring due to increase in crude price.
M.N. Subba Rao, on e-mail
Apropos Look Who is Cracking the Whip Now! (Apr 25), it’s evident the icc code of conduct is applied with discrimination. In Sri Lanka, when Justin Langer flipped the bails with his fingers and claimed the batsman was hit out—a blatant attempt at cheating in broad view of the TV cameras—match referee Chris Broad did nothing about it. Sri Lankan papers reported that Broad drank regularly with the Aussie players. How could he then rule against them?
T. Krishnan, Bangalore
In trying to be clever, Anita Roy misses the woods for the trees with her review of Tarun Tejpal’s book (Apr 11). She may have a point on the overdose on sex but The Alchemy of Desire is much more than that. It’s courageous, has expansive vision, intuitive detail and brilliant prose, besides being path-breaking in its sensual expression. The erotic writing, frequent as it may be, is extraordinarily creative, aesthetic and passionate. It is full of deep and layered understanding of people; the characters and the fine grid of their side-stories are all finely etched with sensitivity and the craft of a great wordsmith. It’s a book that keeps bits of your mind trapped in its pages long after you’ve read it.
Shibani Chaudhury, Guwahati
If you ask me, not even 1 per cent of the attention and hype being given to Jassi (Look No Further, Apr 18) is worth it. Granted, she made waves on the telly with her unique character but it should have ended there. Why is Sony spending so much resources on the much-publicised ‘makeover’? If you take an attractive girl in the first place, make her ugly and then revert to her original look, where’s the ‘makeover’?
Nitin Shashidharan, Thiruvananthapuram
The censor board should stop telling people what to watch and what not to watch (Not For You, Milord, Apr 18). Except for censoring things on TV (because kids might be watching), the choice should be left entirely to individuals. The board should restrict its role to rating content, not removing it altogether. There is a lot of money and energy that goes into the making of a film. The board cannot manipulate content just because it lacks a proper perspective.
R.S.K., Virginia, US
People have mastered the art of rejuvenating the dead and digging ashes out of the grave. I haven’t seen Black Friday but I can’t figure out why Anurag Kashyap chooses those subjects which are contentious. People like him begin to see themselves larger than life. They actually think they can change society with their films. Fact is, the impact of the film lasts only till such time as it is playing and you’re watching. People get on with their lives as soon as they are out of the hall.
Yugal Joshi, New Delhi
An interesting nuance N.S. Madhavan makes in appraising O.V. Vijayan (It’s Dusk in Khasak, Apr 11) is the suggestion that Vijayan’s The Legends of Khasak appeared at the same time as Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. One made it globally, the other didn’t (though NS hasn’t said so). Why? Maybe because Marquez wrote in a European language easily translatable into other European languages. Two, Vijayan translating himself—that too after a long gap—wasn’t a great idea. As NS points out elsewhere, in rewriting his ’60s novel into English, he made undue concessions for the ’90s pcspeak.
Mary Koshi, Kochi
It is gracious of Outlook to have done investigative work on a seemingly unglamorous subject (The ABC of Land, Apr 18). One hopes Amitabh Bachchan will now do the right thing and return the land he bought to the rightful owners. More importantly, for an influential person like him it is actually possible to bring to book cheats who happily dispossess illiterate and poor farmers. Unless the Big B himself bought the land knowing how it was acquired by the promoter.
Bidisha C., New York
If Amitabh Bachchan is to be pilloried for purchasing agricultural land just because he is not an ‘agriculturist’, then why do we brazenly justify and promote aberrations like an average Indian not allowed to buy and live on his own land anywhere in the Himalayas? A plainsman of the Northeast cannot do likewise in any of the hills he is surrounded by? That Kashmir should be exclusively for the Kashmiris, that Mumbai should equally be only for Mumbaikars? And that Indians should all be stuck not just in India but precisely in their ‘own’ individual parts of it.
Shankar Barua, on e-mail
The decline of language publications in mofussil towns Ira Pande points to (Allahabad Diary, Apr 18) is because the written word, as everything else in this consumerist world, has become a commodity to be utilised for instant, tangible benefit. This, only self-help books promise to provide.
Rahul Gaur, Gurgaon, Haryana
