What Can They Talk With the Kashmir cease-fire floundering amid repeated cross-border firing, the Centre takes a major initiative to resume a dialogue with Pakistan. However, the ghosts of Lahore loom over the horizon, raising doubts about any positive outcome in the new attempt at peace-making.

State Of Mistrust
With the fall of the Koijam government, a Samata-BJP battle has erupted in Manipur. But the stakes seem to be at the Centre.

Going By The Laws
Om Prakash Chautala has launched a flurry of criminal cases against his opponents in what is being seen as political vendetta.

Badland Badshah
As India's most wanted politician Mohammed Shahabuddin evades arrest, more details come out on his alleged links with Kashmiri militants and Pakistani agents.

Crash Landing
The MD's suspension has highlighted the rot in India's flag carrier.

BOOKS

Wisdom Of The Willow

Ram Guha presents the definitive syllabus of cricket literature

By Sharda Ugra

Cricket's constant conflict between its old mores and new clothes is mirrored in this volume, throwing up the question: are the great days of cricket literature behind us, as editor Ram Guha believes, or has the vocabulary of cricket changed far too much to support something as lofty as "literature" making do with the far humbler genre of cricket "writing"?

W.G. Grace among spectators at a match in 1891

This book doesn't try to answer the question but presents instead the definitive syllabus of cricket's classical literature. And like any competitive cricket team, it's nicely balanced. There are Those Who Cannot Be Dropped (Cardus & Co) and there are the hardy bits-and-pieces men, each of whom could be replaced by an equally worthy contender. There is poetry too, a little twee for some tastes, but representative of a culture and a cricket now gone. In comparison, the writing of the Australian holies, Ray Robinson and Jack Fingleton, remains remarkably fresh and contemporary. Maybe that is what constitutes cricket literature, as opposed to a "recommended reading list". Or maybe not. It's all a matter of personal taste.

Guha has tried to include writing about every part of the cricket-playing globe (including Fiji and the US) and tried a new tack with profiles: a cricketer from one country profiled by a writer from another. Sometimes it works (Robinson on Hanif Mohammed), sometimes it doesn't (Mike Selvey on Sachin Tendulkar). The Indian component is well-represented in terms of cricketers but not writers because Indian cricket has not been exhaustively and objectively documented as it needs to be, though K.N. Prabhu-surely One Who Cannot Be Dropped-could feel a little hard done by. The great days of cricket writing as "high art" may be past because examples of truly inspirational prose don't come in the great flood that it did in the first 50 or 60 years of the 20th century. But rumours of its death are a little exaggerated. Those were less hard-bitten times and cricket carried with it the notion of an ideal "civilisation"-necessarily English-to aspire to. Cricket today means many cultures, many ways of life and many ways of playing the game. It also means many kinds of literature. In contemporary cricket writing, there are gems that could make it to any cricket anthology. It's not easy to match C.L.R. James for sheer weight of intellect, but they could stand alongside Cardus, Robinson or Fingleton for romance, understanding and flavour.

Pakistani Omar Kureishi is unfortunately neither widely read nor anthologised enough but his writing carries a rare bite; West Indian journalist Nazma Muller wrote a rollicking report of West Indies' memorable one-wicket Test win over Australia in Barbados two years ago and from India, Guha's own writing could well qualify. Why, less than two months ago, novelist Mukul Kesavan's account in The Hindu of the India-Australia Test in Chennai should make it to any future selection whether of cricket "literature" or "writing". A generation brought up on overheated television coverage could still discover the game through the beauty of the written word. It's time for a collection of new cricket writing, one which celebrates Rhodes. Jonty that is, not Wilfred.

MetroScape

The Nifty Ways
When Shubhangini Singh saw the unglamorous tori (sponge gourd) at a vegetable stall, she didn't think "great culinary potential", she thought "great design possibility" instead.
more...

Looking Glass

Mumbai Tribal Art:
Anadi

Mumbai Photo Exhibition:
Madhu Manek

Kolkata Cultural Festival: Spic Macay

A growing band of men and women in their 50s and 60s are breaking social barriers to seek companionship. And why not, asks INDIA TODAY Namita Bhandare in
Age No Bar