Falling Star
The uproar over the prime minister's threat to resign may be over with the NDA reaffirming its faith and promising to behave. But the incident has called into question Vajpayee's inclination to govern. Buffeted by crises, is he preparing for a last bow? A report.

The Political Bank
The never-dying saga of UTI pitches the Government and the Opposition into the usual slanging match. More skeletons fall out of the UTI cupboard proving that the institution has been misused by politicians of all hues.

Crouching Tiger
Discontent is brewing in the RSS and the VHP over the coalition-hampered BJP and a pacifist Vajpayee being unable to push through the saffron programme. How long will it be before they refuse to toe the BJP line?

The Centre
Cannot Hold
Prodded by the DMK to requisition the services of three IPS officers involved in the arrest of M. Karunanidhi, the NDA Government is dragged into a constitutional debate.

Unravelling The Plot
A week after Samajwadi MP Phoolan Devi was gunned down by masked murderers, all the men believed to be involved have been arrested. Yet many questions remain to be answered before the case is solved.

Space Invaders
Research reveals life on earth may have originated from outer space comets.

SPORTS: CRICKET

Captain Cowboy

It is his method and madness that make Sourav Ganguly India's most colourful skipper ever

By Sharda Ugra

If Sourav Ganguly's captaincy was turned into a musical production, what form would it take? The Sound of Music, if only because of a set of song lyrics that seem to define his personality-the ones about out-pestering pests and driving hornets from nests? How about Swan Lake with initial lyricism and grace followed by conspiracies against the Prince? Or perhaps Jesus Christ, Superstar, as an acknowledgement of the man's overwhelming sense of self? Those are tame choices. The Indian captain's saga most closely resembles a jatra, a morality play rooted in Bengali tradition, loaded with melodrama and histrionics. Except in Ganguly's case everyone, exasperated selectors, chattering commentators and a billion armchair critics, wonder whether he understands the morals of his stories.

In his 17 months as full-time captain, Ganguly has not courted trouble, he has married it and sprayed controversy all over Indian cricket like confetti. The euphoric series win over Australia is long past, and without warning his team now goes from magic to tragic and back again. They threw away a Test series win in Zimbabwe with an epidemic of kamikaze batting. Four straight one-day wins were followed by four straight losses setting off the murmurs: the Indian captain was too headstrong, he supported unsupportable players, annoyed the selectors with his contrarian ways (see box) and Sachin Tendulkar was talking elliptically about the job again. With the runs off his bat drying to a trickle, and 15 Test matches lined up in the next 12 months in South Africa, the West Indies and England, it's open season on Sourav Ganguly, captain and batsman.

A telephone poll carried out by a Mumbai newspaper asked whether Ganguly should be summarily sacked as skipper, and of 3,180 callers in a seven-hour period 2,328 said he should be. Those figures would be turned on their head in Kolkata but that's just the job. Captaincy is a lofty profession, intended for men above the ordinary who, like stars from 1950s movie posters, gaze out into the future, eyes shining into the long term. Skippers are supposed to have a gravitas, a quiet wisdom and an iron-fisted control over their feelings-all distinctly non-Gangulian character traits.

Last week, he became the first captain to be suspended for a match for showing dissent twice. His crime hardly matched the punishment-twitching in the umpire's direction for about four seconds-but the day he came off suspension, Ganguly had to be dragged away from raining profanities on Sri Lankan batsmen. He was fined 75 per cent of his match fee. There isn't another skipper in the world with such a quick lip or such a short fuse, and what's more he's Indian, that tribe which usually turns the other cheek. Ganguly, not into Gandhism, probably thinks that means being even more cheeky. A couple of weeks ago, with memories of the sudden capitulations in Zimbabwe still fresh, he asked the chairman of selectors, Chandu Borde, why they didn't consider appointing him for a year and dispense with the series-by-series appointments.

Borde brushes this off as a casual remark, describing Ganguly as a "nice boy". Many think not. Bishan Singh Bedi, a former captain as fiery as the current one, is unimpressed. He says Ganguly's behaviour has set a bad example and his poor batting has diluted his authority. A board official calls the man's captaincy "third-rate". Australian Ian Chappell once even called him "a pretty stupid captain" on air. Throw a stone anywhere and a Ganguly critic will emerge, rubbing his head, asking for Ganguly's.

Arun Lal, a former captain who led Bengal and Ganguly, holds firm, "As captain he will either go down as the best India has seen or end up being criticised to hell and back." Like the opinions about him, Ganguly swings between two uncomplicated extremes: face to face he is reasonable and urbane, at the head of his team he is instantly inflammable. When he is happy, he dances around his fielders, when he is angry, he hollers. He doesn't eat meat on Tuesday, supports East Bengal football club, and is currently an Adnan Sami maniac. His thumb rule: Shoot first, worry about casualties later.

A selector who has sat in meetings with India's past three captains says their operating procedures were as varied as their batting styles. Mohammed Azharuddin was the most "polished", Tendulkar "not pushy" and Ganguly would never die wondering. The selector says, "Sourav doesn't mince his words. What he feels, he says. Azhar would accept what you said, Sachin would ask you for a reason and never broach the topic again. Sourav will try to convince selectors again and again. He doesn't sulk, but he doesn't give up easily."

Nothing like the Ganguly of 1992 or even 1996 when he made his famous comeback. That one was withdrawn and quiet to the point of being invisible. Captaincy has come to the Kolkatan like a pat on his back. It has squared his shoulders, set his jaw and overridden that seriously uncool moustache. Some believe that leadership has only given the already lordly left-hander an arrogance above his abilities, but there are others who say he brings some missing spice to the job. "For how much longer are we going to be the good boys of cricket?" says a former player. India's most venerated leader M.A.K. Pataudi thinks Ganguly settled into the India captaincy well because "he is not overawed by the job". Going by his ICC match referee rap sheet, some would say he's somewhat "underwhelmed".

Here is where the Ganguly jatra takes a surprising turn: his team doesn't care what the world thinks. As a young player he was accused of being aloof and obsessed with his own batting. Today his teammates single out communication as his most outstanding quality. When opener Sadagopan Ramesh was being roasted by the TV experts, Ganguly told him he was sure Ramesh would finish with a better average than "those guys". Nervous first-timers are reassured with constant pep-talk. The ritual of debutants receiving their Test caps, as celebration and welcome, is now performed outdoors in front of the cameras on Ganguly's insistence.

Players don't mind being pulled up for misfielding from a captain not quite Jonty Rhodes himself. "It looks worse on TV than it actually is," says one. "It's just his way of telling us to do the right thing. It starts and finishes on the ground," says another. They are loyal to their cowboy captain because he believes in being liberal with chances. When they let him down, like in Sri Lanka he's equally liberal with criticism. "It's unfortunate but true-these guys lack the temperament to play in the international arena. They have this problem of attitude," he let rip at the young batsmen.

MetroScape

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Looking Glass

Kolkata Aroma Bar:
The Address

Delhi Exhibition: Journey-Yatra

Bangalore Restauran t: Ai Cavalli

Bangalore Ice-dems : Stem dance theatre

Bangalore Furniture : Cinnamon

Kolkata & Delhi Play: Macbeth

Mumbai Photography : R. Veeresh Babu

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Trial And Error