what has the Sri Lankan cricket team got to do with anything

Wonder what is happening in this patch on the globe called Pakistan. With all due respect to the Pakistanis I’ve met in person during my foreign trips who have all been really nice friends, going by the news, there seem to be so many armed and dangerous segments of its society that generally seem to be having something against the whole world! For example the latest attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team, though one can’t imagine what they have got anything to do with anything…

March 03, 2009 10:11 IST
Last Updated: March 03, 2009 10:22 IST

Gunmen killed at least four people in an attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team’s bus on Tuesday as it drove to the Gadaffi stadium in Lahore [Images], according to witnesses and cricket officials.

Sri Lankan media, quoting the sports minister, said four players received minor injuries in the attack — Kumar Sangakkara, Ajantha Mendis [Images], Thilan Samaraweera [Images] and Tharanga Paranavithana.

Pakistan television channels said four people were killed.

I’ve been an occasional reader of the Pakistani newspaper Dawn. In the past few years, and maybe it was a series of wild coincidences as I’ve only seen it at random times, it seemed to be more of an anti-Indian rather than a Pakistani newspaper! Most of the headlines had something or the other to do with something bad that India was supposed to be up to! Today I saw it after quite a while, and was pleasantly surprised to see something refreshingly different. Apart from having more Pakistan centered news and nice improvement to its site design, it also had something positive to say about India…

Indian women of brilliance and grit
On the hope that ever so often springs up from the deep recesses of India.

Hopefully this will kindle the idea that Indians aren’t so bad after all, esp considering cases like the four year old Pakistani boy’s heart surgery in India recently.

A four-year-old Pakistani boy, Mohammed Moshin, a ‘blue baby’ – born with a congenital heart defect-, was cured of his ailment in Chennai at the ‘Frontier Lifeline’ hospital of the Dr KM Cherian Heart Foundation, named after the ace cardiac surgeon who pioneered heart transplants in India.

“We performed a very complex and rare heart surgery to rectify the congenital defect by relieving the boy of the obstruction without touching his right ventricle,’ Dr Cherian who led the team of doctors to successfully accomplish this task, told reporters here today.

Though we’re witnessing the results of some dark past… this kind of positive turn in the media and opening up to the world by means of the blogosphere in the same site, should facilitate good reason for optimism going forward in the future.