A few years ago, I was talking to my friend M during  one of my visits home (Banaras) from Delhi University. We happened to be discussing which yesteryear actors we liked. I mentioned Dev Anand.. he replied by saying that although he was a good looking guy with a couple of noteworthy roles to his credit, what he did as he grew older sort-of nullified that image. Romancing 16-year old starlets was the staple for a 60-year old Dev Anand. In particular, he recalled one woefully silly role: Dev Anand playing a college principal - with his daughter being a student in the same college; the daughter is raped and murdered and her underwear is left behind at the scene. Dev Anand vows to take his revenge and hangs on to the underwear, parroting throughout the movie the line "Is underwear ka badla main le ke rahoonga" (I shall avenge this underwear) or something to that effect. M's point was that by continuously inflicting these types of roles on us, Dev Anand all but erased the memory of whatever fine performances he had delivered earlier.. an antithesis of Marilyn Monroe, who became a long-lasting icon because dying young ensured that people never saw her in older age.

Basically, its the recency phenomenon at work. But why did I suddenly remember that now? Because the same is responsible for the current plight of Sourav Ganguly. His batting form has generally not been good for almost 2 years now, but he managed to remain captain.. combined with his not-so-great fielding, his cricketing image went down, specially when India were doing so well as a team anymore. When told by the new coach that he should consider stepping down from captaincy, he chose to throw a childishly arrogant tantrum which led to his downfall. His poor batting form itself was making it hard to believe that this was the same player who had more than a few brilliant innings to his name.. and by topping that with his desperate attempts to cling to captaincy and a place in the team, Ganguly - like Dev Anand - managed to all but erase the glory of his past record. Actually, even worse than the actor, since many of Dev Anand's fans have probably not seen his recent movies, but in Ganguly's case, even many of those who never used to watch or follow cricket have noticed his recent antics. Its a pity he didn't learn anything from the way Nasser Hussain handled the end of his career.. a large portion of the credit for England regaining the Ashes must go to him, for knowing when to step down.

The latest news is that Ganguly's been selected for the Test squad.. here's what the chief of selectors Kiran More has to say, "There was a suggestion to take him as an all-rounder. We discussed the matter for a long time and finally we decided to have him as a batting all-rounder. This gives more comfort to the team balance. We had to leave out Zaheer Khan although it was a tough call to make. Ganguly was taken as a batting all-rounder instead of having Zaheer who is a bowler." Ironically, Ganguly was dismissed for a duck by Zaheer himself in both innings of the East Zone -West Zone Duleep Trophy match. I wonder if even George Bush has ever said anything funnier. But then, knowing Ganguly, there's still the outside chance that his self initiated ridiculous turn of events will actually spur him on to regain batting form.

Saw a funny news report on an Indian news website: the audience at a screening of a porn movie in Balasore (Orissa), India, were rounded up by police and made to perform sit-ups at a public place..not content with just that, the police also called the teenagers' parents to witness the spectacle..ha ha.. guess its the police's new 'strategy' in their campaign against  pornography.. they say since all other measures have failed, they are cracking down on the audience.

What was even more funny was my Korean office mate asking me whether the news report was true.. apparently, this has made it into international news ha ha!