Tag: Paralympics

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-36

About: the world this week, 29 August to 4 September 2021, end of a US war, India medals the Paralympics, which in turn lessons us about keeping time, India sprints in a marathon vaccination-drive, and a famous Pop Music group is on the comeback, Mamma Mia!

Everywhere

The United States (US) seriously kept a commitment of withdrawing its armed forces from Afghanistan and did it one day ahead of the scheduled 31 August 2021. It was an inevitable good decision, though it would have been better if the ending was, ‘and they lived happily ever after’ kind. On the contrary it was unimaginable chaos up to the last flight out of the country. And the US did its best – they have fought so many of the World’s wars and deserve our support. And now they do not wish to bring about change in another country through military action – twice bitten forever shy!

The World needs to move on, and away from war: instead, spend the money, the effort, and the brains on education, healthcare, and the kind. Arm people with weapons of knowledge and missiles of clear thinking. Maybe we should be able to say a ‘Farewell to Arms’, one day?

Meanwhile, resistance to the Taliban is alive, kicking, and roaring in the Panjshir Valley, the last region holding-out, which is not under Taliban rule, in Afghanistan. News of attempts at a negotiated settlement; of the internet being cut-down; of the Resistance Forces repealing attacks by the Taliban- which has the place surrounded, are doing the rounds.

We need to watch that Valley of Resistance. I believe that are some tough people – maybe lions- out there.

The US based Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes, and trends shaping the world. And a Pew Survey conducted before the Taliban took over said that nearly 99% of Afghans favoured Islamic Sharia Law being enforced in Afghanistan. Need we say more?

If only Pew could predict Hurricanes – based on the ruffle and tremble in people’s voices? Whatever, Ida, a Category-4 Hurricane, found its way through America and smashed the State of Louisiana, wrecking havoc, rendering thousands homeless, and those who kept their homes, lived in darkness without power. The rising water levels also brought to the surface, Alligators from the deep, who easily found their footing – roads to walk (and swim)- competing with human folk. A 71 years old man was attacked and killed by an Alligator while he was walking in the flood waters. Next up for Louisiana is the scorching heat, in the days to come.

In another deluge, in flash flooding caused by remnants of Hurricane Ida, parts of New York were submerged in water and as many as 40 people were swallowed by the ‘alligator waters’. New Yorkers termed it a ‘Historic’ Weather Event. Record rainfall, which prompted an unprecedented rain and flood emergency warning in New York City, turned streets into rivers and caused subway services to be shut down. Perhaps we should keep Noah’s Ark on standby, at all times – talk to the spanking new Governor of New York. New brooms sweep well, they say. Can she sweep-off water? For a start she said, “I don’t ever want again to see Niagara Falls rushing down the stairs of one of the New York City subways.”

Otherwise, the cycle keeps cycling. I’m tired of saying Climate Change.

Paralympic Games, Tokyo

While Hurricanes and tornadoes are swirling and wandering around wealthier nations, it’s raining medals for India at the Paralympic Games.

India’s Bhavina Patel started the drizzle by winning a Silver in the Singles Class-4 Table-Tennis Tournament, playing from her wheelchair. And suddenly India struck a gold seam. Sumit Antil – wearing an artificial leg – threw 68.55 meters to win the Javelin Gold Medal, while Avani Lekhara, with her spinal chord injury – paralysed from waist down -showed real spine in consistently hitting the target in the 10m Air Rifle competition to score 249.6 and win Gold. She is the first Indian Woman to do so in this event. Later, she went on to add another medal – a bronze in the 50m Rifle 3 Position Event becoming the first Indian Woman (again) to win two medals in the Paralympics. Records are shot outside the arena too!

Then the Indian medal tally jumped high when defending champion Mariappan Thangavel, hopped on his artificial leg to clear 1.86m to win the High Jump Silver (Gold was 1.88m) and polio affected Sharad Kumar followed behind to take the Bronze with a 1.83m jump.

Nishad Kumar won the Silver in another High Jump event, clearing 2.06m, for those with a unilateral upper limb impairment. Devendra Jhajharia won a Silver Medal, in men’s javelin category for those with arm deficiency, with a 64.35m (metre) throw, while Sundar Singh Gurjar picked up Bronze with a 64.01m travel of his javelin. Paralytic limb affected Yogesh Kathuniya won himself a Silver Medal in the men’s discus with a throw of 44.38m. Polio affected Singhraj Adhana grabbed the Bronze in the men’s 10m Air Pistol Shooting with points of 216.8. On Friday, Harvinder Singh, who lives with a limb deficiency, won India’s first ever Archery medal, clinching Bronze.

In total India bagged 13 medals (Gold-2, Silver-6, Bronze -5) as at the time of publishing this Post.

Never mind the handicaps, the Paralympic Games set an example on the importance of keeping time. I am a stickler of time, always arriving well-ahead of an important event, or a meeting, or making my World Inthavaaram post every saturday morning, but many never bother to keep time…a few minutes is not all right. Malaysian shot putter Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli, along with two other competitors arrived three minutes late for the Shot Put event. And was allowed to compete as they might have a logical reason for being late, which was being examined by the Tournament Referee. Meanwhile, Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli ‘putted damn well’, and went on to win the Gold Medal. But, by then the Referee came back, after studying the evidence, and concluded that ‘there was no justifiable reason for the athletes failure to show up to the event in time’. This resulted in Zolkefli being stripped of the medal and given to the person who won Silver. Rules are rules – they must be followed as the gold standard. Tardiness can be costly.

COVID-19 Vaccination

India is going strong: after jabbing more than 10 million arms last week, it repeated the feat this week. Who said India cannot do it? Media news company, CNN, said so: that India doing 600 million doses by August 2021 is an ‘incredibly ambitious undertaking’ with its ‘poor rural healthcare infrastructure and inadequate healthcare system that is already buckling under tremendous pressure from the coronavirus’. India did over 654 million does by 31 August 2021. Hope someone in CNN is reading…and listening. It’s time the world looks at India with eyes wide open. The ‘Snake Charmer only’ days are over – everything India does these days is charming.

Please Yourself

The Return of ABBA

During the Wonder Years of my school days, in the late 1960’s and 1970’s my English music voyage began with the Beatles, Bee Gees, Boney M, Osibisa…and yes, ABBA. Songs that still sing in the mind are: Mama Mia, Dancing Queen, Tragedy, Knowing Me Knowing You, Name of the Game, Take a Chance on Me, Fernando, Waterloo…

The Swedish Pop Music group – Benny Anderson, Agnetha Faltskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, and Bjorn Ulvaeus are reuniting for a new album called ‘Voyage’, their first in 40 years. The Album will be released on 5 November 2021 and includes a Christmas song. Two tracks from Voyage, ‘I Still Have Faith in You and ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’, are already out in the air. Their 1992 greatest hits collection, Abba Gold, is the longest running album in the United Kingdom’s album charts. In July, it became the first to surpass 1000 weeks in that position, and is currently sitting at No. 14.

They have also announced a new concert experience in London, also called Voyage, beginning in May 2022. ABBA says, “London is the best city to be in when it comes to entertainment, theatre, musicals…We have always felt that the Brits see us as their own”.

ABBA was formed in the 1970’s with the first letters of the names of the group’s members, and went on to become one of the most successful pop bands ever, reaching the height of fame in the mid 1970’s. Their song catalogue is also one of the most brilliant in all Pop Music.

Knowing ‘A’ and knowing ‘B’, the letters started looking and singing to each other and they became married couples with each of the A’s taking a B. I recall most of the promotions had the B’s reversed, facing the A’s. Sadly, both couples consciously uncoupled in 1981 and it was a tragedy that by 1983 the Group fizzled out – wonder which Winner took it all! They cut their final Album in 1981. Then in the year 2016 they briefly go together to perform one song to celebrate 50 years of songwriting partnership, ‘The Way Old Friends Do’.

I still have faith in ABBA and will certainly not shut them down…not yet!

Sharks

My respect for sharks grew teeth ever since I read the Elle McNicoll’s superb book, ‘A Kind of Spark’ where the central character Addie is awfully fond of sharks and swallows a ton of books on sharks-finds them more fascinating than ‘dull’ Dolphins. These are some interesting facts about sharks that I hunted down:

‘Sharks are older than trees and have been around for a very long time. They have existed for more than 450 million years, while the earliest tree lived about 350 million years ago. Sharks are also one of the few animals to have survived four of the five mass extinctions – they outlived the Dinosaurs. There are over 1000 species of sharks with new ones being discovered every year.

And you may be surprised, sharks do not have bones- they are made up of a flexible cartilage skeleton. Shark teeth are constantly replaced throughout their life – springing up in about 10 days or several months. Typically, a shark looses about 30,000 teeth during its lifetime, and grows them back!

More teeth to grow about sharks; stories of music and comebacks will be sung in the coming weeks. Listen and swim with the World Inthavaaram!

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-35

About: the world this week, 22 August to 28 August 2021, hunted down stories of Afghanistan, the coronavirus, the Paralympic Games, and what it means to have a heart of gold.

Everywhere

I couldn’t help returning to the COVID-19 story – we have become keep-the-distance friends, and it just keeps coming back.

We got into the pandemic mode in January 2020 and have been living it through with new gadgets – face masks, new techniques – physical distancing and washing our sins as often as possible. Then we learnt to bare our arms to get vaccination shots, beginning at the end of the year 2020. It’s a tribute to human ingenuity that we could find a medicine to counter the effects of the infection and begin a scientific fight against the coronavirus so quickly. Vaccines were green lighted for emergency use across the World after the mandated testing and trials, and the number of shots made, were added to the daily COVID-19 scoring sheets all over the World.

This week, finally, one Vaccine made it to the fully approved status: Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine. The United States gave the approval on Monday, potentially boosting public confidence in vaccines. Before Pfizer’s vaccine gets lonely, finding a spot to jab, I’m sure others will join the ‘fight for the arm’.

I still find vaccine hesitancy a problem to deal with in my region of Salem District, Tamil Nadu, India. My ‘on-call’ car driver refuses to take the vaccine and has become awfully inventive in finding slippery excuses. I have told him that he will not be called to drive until he gets vaccinated: hope that drives him to take the vaccine. Many other stories are doing the rounds, with people typically saying, “nothing’s gonna happen to me, I won’t get infected”. Good luck to them!

Meanwhile, India achieved the milestone of giving at least one shot to more than half of its eligible population. And on Friday did a historic 10 million vaccination shots (equivalent to two New Zealand’s) on a single day. That’s path blazing!

Over the past weeks, one State in India, Kerala, stood as an outlier, steadfastly running away with over 50% of the total COVID-19 load in India. Looks like Kerala is determined to get everybody infected – for ‘natural’ vaccination – and the rest vaccinated by the newly discovered vaccines. You can reach the ‘famous herd immunity in double-quick time’? After previously winning many awards and citations for its ‘Model’ handling of the COVID-19 in the first wave, maybe Kerala is trying a new Model. God’s own country’s Model?

On another side of the World, another Model country, New Zealand, which recently went into lockdown over a single COVID-19 case, is seeing the numbers climb. And like the hard-to-come century in cricket, New Zealand is batting not to hit one – staying at the wicket. The are focussed on ‘zero – stump out’ the virus, whenever and wherever it enters the field.

We simply cannot declare victory over the coronavirus, not yet. In these infectious times, any time seems too soon. We need to make our own model of living with it, adopting best practices, based on evolving knowledge and the science of things.

Exit Afghanistan

The exodus from Afghanistan continues this week following the Taliban swinging into a power hold in the country. People fear a difficult, miserable life, under Taliban Rule, even as the Taliban asked the US not to encourage Afghans to leave the country. We need them, says the Taliban.

More than 111,000 people have been evacuated by the United States which vows to keep the deadline of 31 August 2021. The wild scenes outside Kabul Airport, of people clamouring to get inside the Airport and thereafter into a Plane out of the country was heart-wrenching.

The Afghanistan situation got into a messier quagmire when on Thursday over 170 people including 13 US service members were killed and about 200 wounded, when two suicide bombers and a gunman struck one of the main entrances to Kabul’s International Airport. This was just hours after western intelligence agencies warned of an imminent threat to the ongoing evacuation operation. Children were among those who died.

The IS (Islamic State)-Khorasan, a local branch of the dreaded ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) claimed responsibility calling it a ‘martyrdom operation’.

Hardline fanaticism in any religion is unacceptable and religious heads should rein-in the extreme out swingers.

United States (US) President Joe Biden vowed to hunt down the killers, but is sticking to his target of getting US out of Afghanistan. Never has the US been in such a dire situation, in the recent past. And this is the deadliest attack on the US in Afghanistan. And it stings all the more, as it happened just when the US is a few days away from fully exiting the country, after 20 long years.

Meanwhile the last standing bastion untouched by the Taliban, The Panjshir Valley, is holding-up. It has been surrounded by the Taliban and it is more 444 hours since the 4 hours deadline to surrender was shouted out by the Taliban. Maybe the Lions of Panjshir could do a No.300 Spartan story here that would reverberate throughout History, as much as the original.

I thought for a moment on what I would do if I were the President or Prime Minister of a Country. Three things rush to my mind: 1- Recognise the Vice President of Afghanistan, leading the Panjshir Resistance, as the President/Government of Afghanistan; 2- Open refugee corridors for those resisting the Taliban, and 3- Impose sanctions on Pakistan and mobilise other countries to do the same. The World should be on the same page on militancy and terrorism. One man’s terrorist cannot be another man’s freedom-fighter.

Paralympic Games

Paralympics are international contests for athletes with disabilities that are normally held immediately after the Olympic Games, called the Paralympic Games.

The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games finally opened on 24 August 2021, about a year later than planned – a year besotted by all kinds of difficulties.

These were the words of the Organisers: “Paralympic athletes know that no matter which way the wind blows, its power can be harnessed to move forward. They know that by being brave and spreading their wings, they can reach extraordinary heights.”

The opening ceremony was full of colour and celebration, strung on the concept of ‘We Have Wings’ intended to raise awareness of the courage of Paralympians. There were no crowds to watch the opening ceremony, as will be the case throughout the Games. The paralympic cauldron, placed lower than its Olympic counterpart so that competitors can feel closer to it, opened like a flower to embody vitality and hope, and was lit by a trio of Japanese Para-athletes.

In all, about 4,400 athletes from 162 national Paralympic Committees of countries will compete in 539 medal events across 22 sports in Japan’s Tokyo, the first city to hold the summer Paralympics twice, having first done so in 1964.

The Indian Oskar Schindler

With stories of exodus of people from Afghanistan hogging the media, I came across this beautiful story and it touched my heart. Most of us must have seen the Academy award-winning Steven Spielberg’s Holocaust movie, Schindler’s List, where a German Industrialist and Nazi Party member tactfully outmanoeuvred the Nazis and saved thousands of Jews from the harrowing death camps.

My story is based in India and how one man showed ‘pure gold good-heartedness’ to save nearly a thousand Polish refugees from the same Germans.

During the Second World War when Adolf Hitler attacked Poland in 1939, the Polish Army gathered about 500 women and 200 children and put on them on a Ship which they left at sea, to save them from the invading Germans. The Ship’s Captain was told to take them to any country that would be glad to give them shelter. The last thing the families told those leaving was, “if we are alive or survive, we’ll meet again”.

The Ship, with the Polish refugees onboard, set sail but was refused entry by many European and Asian Countries. It sailed on, and after a long journey and reached a Port in Iran, where it was again denied entry and thrown out. After wandering about in the sea, the Ship arrived at the Port of Bombay (now Mumbai) India. Most of India was then under British Rule and the British Governor of Bombay also refused permission.

The news then reached the ears of the Maharaja of Nawanagar, Jamnagar, Gujarat, Digvijaysinghji Ranjitsinji Jadeja, or Jam Saheb, as he was called. He became genuinely concerned, sent word and allowed the ship to dock in his Kingdom at a port near Jamnagar. He provided shelter to all the Polish woman and children and also arranged free education for the children, at an Army School. They were very well taken care of by Jam Saheb who regularly visited them with presents, and was affectionally called Bapu. He told them, “you may not have your parents, but I am now your father”.

The Polish refugees stayed in Jamnagar for nine years until World War-II ended and then returned to Poland. One of the refugees later became the Prime Minister of Poland. Even today, the descendants of these refugees come over to Jamnagar, every year, to pay their respects. That’s a wonderful India-Poland connection.

In Poland there are many roads and schemes named after Maharaja Jam Saheb and he is fondly remembered for the ‘goodness of heart’ of that day.

The Maharaja was awarded The Presidential Medal, Poland’s highest medal, when Poland broke the shackles of its wretched government at that time.

India’s School History Books need to be rewritten to reflect such glorious stories – many of which are yet to see the print-ink on paper, rather than the mischievous deeds of invaders.

More gold-tipped good-hearted stories, up ahead in the coming weeks. Stay with the World Inthavaaram.