India Insight

Tendulkar’s batting magnificence has been chronicled so much over the years that anything written about him generates as much passion as he does on any cricket field.

His 200-run spectacle against South Africa was another opportunity for his fans to erupt, cheer, sing and write praises.

But with such performances come expectations. So much that almost every time this champion comes in to bat, high expectations generate a sort of fear — in the stadium, homes, TV stations, internet and wherever he is revered.

If he failed to perform, disappointment and even a rare criticism would follow.

His every shot, movement and stint on the ground is monitored not by commentators and experts alone, but by every single cricket fan.

Do dead terrorists lose all right to any respect? I ask this because my post Should India cremate Mumbai militants, spread ashes at sea? last week has prompted a surprising wave of comments suggesting these corpses should be desecrated. Readers have been proposing (and we have been deleting) graphic and crude scenarios for disposing of the nine corpses still lying in a Mumbai morgue. The proposed solution of cremating the bodies and spreading the ashes at sea - originally from a blog post by Leor Halevi in the Washington Post - seemed far too tame for them. (Photo: Gunmen at Mumbai train station, 26 Nov 2008/Official CCTV image via Reuters TV)

The Mumbai militants were murderers. Once they're dead, though, what purpose would it serve to dismember them, feed them to crocodiles or turn them into a stoning pillar? What would it say about the Indian government if it disposed of these bodies without even the barest minimum of respect for the dead? Indeed, what does it say about readers who want it to do just that?

BTW the majority of comments - even those that are understandably very angry - call for a minimum of respect for the dead, no matter who they are.