For three years we observed the anniversary of 26/11 with tears and rage. This year, strangely, the wails are muted. The remembrances are scant. If anything, the saddest murmurs doing the rounds in Mumbai have come from cricket jingoists mourning India's defeat to England in the Wankhede Test.

For three years our rage simmered from the fact that we kept in our custody an unwelcome guest who fuelled our vengeful hate by the very news of his presence. As we fed, clothed, medicated and kept Ajmal Kasab alive in his high-security prison cell, we wished him dead with all our hearts. For three years we dangled justice before the world and then, in one swift surprising move, resolved it before further questions could be raised. Those who had expected more prudence from this great democracy were distraught.

Was it all a travesty, then?

It mattered not that Kasab was a mere puppet on a string, a souvenir, a prisoner from a war we can never mourn enough. He was ours for the killing, anyway. We

Do we instinctively enjoy a game more if we are not the players? What is it about cheering from the ringside that eggs us on so much and sets our blood afire? Or is it our natural instinct to turn any public event into a carnival, and in turn, an answer to all our daily problems?

'Religion is the opium of the people.' It's the most hackneyed quotation of Karl Marx. Sports, movies, and more than anything, politics, are also opiates for mass consumption. The basic requirement is opium. Something to numb the brain so we can black out something; may be everything.

To forget an empty stomach and the failure to fill it, one can drink cheap country liquor and puke. But even that bottle would cost a few rupees, and the effect would last barely a night. On the other hand, hollering with a mob at a game is free if you climb over the fence, and the effect can linger for weeks.The players can be hero worshipped, gossip about corrupt organizers circulated and enjoyed, replays watched, newspapers

By Vinutha Mallya

Dr Lakshmi Sahgal in her youthThe queue of women, most of them pregnant, kept growing at the clinic in the corner of a narrow street in Aryanagar, Kanpur. It was a day in January 2006, and the morning held a mild chill despite the bright winter sun. I sat at a distance on one of the wooden benches in the veranda. The old house located in a labour colony, which served as a clinic and maternity home, belonged to a bygone era. The veranda was not an ideal waiting room, but the anxious women did not seem to care. I was struck by the obscurity of the setting, where we were all waiting to meet the same woman: the legendary Col (Dr) Lakshmi Sahgal.

I had to wait until the women, who had come from all over Kanpur and some from nearby Lucknow, had finished their turn. Unlike them, I was there to interview the doctor. Although her staff received me politely, I knew better than to expect to receive any preference in her schedule.

Then 91, Lakshmi Sahgal had been attending to patients at this clinic since

Who said Bengalis love fish and sweets over everything else? Neither Sourav the tragic hero nor SRK the new poster boy tops the list. The one thing that all Bengalis adore, sometimes subconsciously, is self-criticism.

Let's check out some pet peeves:

• It's true that Rabindranath Tagore had won the Nobel prize, but it has been stolen.
•  Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was a great patriot, but no one knows exactly how he died.
• Presidency College has lost its glory, though it's now a University.
• Young Bengalis — that's anyone between 2 to 45 — don't know enough about Ram Mohan Roy or Swami Vivekananda or Vidyasagar or just about any illustrious Bengali, except, of course, Sourav again.
• Jyoti Basu and the CPI(M) had made the state a shamsaan, and now Mamata is adding bits of wood to the pyre. 
• Basically, it's Kaliyug, and the best thing to do is talk about it over tea and a generous helping of oily snacks.

When one proves conclusively that all Indian states and everyone else in the world too has