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TIMES NATION 11THE TIMES OF INDIA, BANGALORESATURDAY, APRIL 3, 2010

This March was2nd warmest inDelhi’s history

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: During the course of lastmonth, many Delhiites swore they hadnever experienced such high tempera-tures in the capital this time of the year.They were absolutely right. March thisyear was the second warmest in Delhisince systematic records began in 1901,the Met department said on Friday. Theonly time Delhi had a warmer monthof March was way back in 1953.

In what perhaps signals a long andhot summer ahead,the mean maxi-mum andm i n i m u mt e m p e r a -tures forMarch 2010were 33.8degrees Cel-sius and 18.6degrees C —s i g n i f i c a n t l yhigher than the normalvalues of 30 degrees C and 15.4 degreesC, respectively. Only in 1953 was themean maximum temperature in Marchhigher at 34.3 degrees C.

The month’s mean temperature (av-erage of mean maximum and meanminimum temperatures) was 26.2 de-grees C, again the second highest be-hind 26.4 degrees C for March 1953.

Ajit Tyagi, DG, Indian Meteorolog-ical Department said April too is ex-pected to be warmer than usual, as isthe rest of the summer.

“The high temperatures weren’t re-stricted to the region. Almost all of theAsian continent, including south Chi-na, has been exceptionally warm in thepast month or so,’’ he said.

The Met department attributed thewarm spell to winds coming from thewest and the south instead of the nor-mally prevalent northwesterly tonortherly winds. This was due to an ab-sence of a western disturbance, whichmade a brief appearance towards theend of the first week, leading to a cool-ing trend in the second week of March.

Pakistanis welcome ‘Sania bhabhi’ Islamabad: Pakistanis are going gaga over the upcoming SaniaMirza-Shoaib Malik wedding, with some ardent fans creating aFacebook page to welcome “Sania bhabhi”. “We welcome bhabhiSania Mirza to Pakistan” was created on the social networkingwebsite shortly after Sania and Shoaib confirmed that they weregetting married on April 15. Most fans who posted on the pagetook pride in the fact that Sania Mirza would soon be Pakistan’s“bahu”. Some others, however, regretted that the couple would bestaying in Dubai after their marriage.

Fans were asked to refrain from posting “offensive” comments.“Dear fans. Please do not write offensive or derogatory commentson this page. Sania and Shoaib are Pakistan’s pride and we mustrespect them,” wrote the creator of the page. So far, over 300Pakistanis have joined in to welcome “Sania bhabhi” to Pakistan.

Elsewhere in the blogosphere, Pakistanis are wondering ifSania would play for Pakistan or change her surname to Malikwhile some are betting on the longevity of the marriage. AGENCIES

Ayesha exposes Shoaib with ‘wedding’ papersFamilies Of

Malik, SiddiquiUp The Ante

TIMES NEW NETWORK

Hyderabad: Barely two days af-ter the wedding of tennis star Sa-nia Mirza with Pakistani crick-eter Shoaib Malik was announcedby the respective families, a Bol-lywood-style drama has the entiresub-continent abuzz. Ayesha aliasMaha Siddiqui, who has beenclaiming for some time now thatshe has been married to Shoaib,on Friday produced a nikahnamaas proof of her wedding to thePakistani cricketer which waspromptly dubbed by the Malikfamily as fake.

Ayesha alias Maha told TOI onFriday that she wants to get on withher life and that all she wants fromShoaib now is “an official divorce.”“I am not begging for sympathy,”she claimed and added that they

were well-off financially and there-fore, not doing this for money.

In response, the Maliks arenow threatening to expose Ayesha.Shoaib’s brother-in law Imran Za-far, who was shopping in Lahoreon Friday for the wedding slatedto take place in Hyderabad onApril 15, said the Malik family isunfazed by the claims of Ayesha.“Shoaib was duped and shown pic-tures of another girl as Ayesha.We have all those pictures of thegirl who posed as Ayesha. Lasttime around, when the issueraised, we had decided not to re-lease those pictures to the mediabecause it involved the privacy ofa lady. But we can’t be soft all thetime,” he said.

Imran further said that Shoaibwas madly in love with a girlwhose pictures were sent to him.“But that girl wasn’t Ayesha.Shoaib was trapped. Ayesha wouldtutor him online and have himparrot the line at some select in-terviews that they were married,”the brother-in-law said. However,Ayesha retorted by saying: “I don’tthink Shoaib is a small kid. He’s30 years old and led an interna-

tional cricket team.Asked about the name contro-

versy, the girl claiming to beShoaib’s wife said: “My name isMaha Siddiqui. Ayesha is thename given to me by my grand-mother. Maha is my name in mypassport. So ironically, when hesays the wrong name was givenduring the nikah, well, both names

belong to the same person — me.”The nikahnama produced by

her on Friday showed the cere-mony as having taken place inSailkot in Pakistan on June 3, 2002.Apart from having the names oftwo local witnesses, it has MahaSiddiqui signing as the bride andan illegible signature that is pur-ported to be that of Shoaib.

The Maliks maintain thatAyesha’s claim that the duo met inDubai and got married in 2002 wasnothing but lies. In reply, Ayeshasaid: “The only thing I want nowis an official divorce from him, butit has to be in the open and not be-hind closed doors because he canalways deny it later as he has themarriage.... Even an official ‘talaq,talaq, talaq’ will do.”

According to the versions do-ing the rounds here, Shoaib hadencountered two girls, Maha andone Ayesha, in the Gulf about adecade ago. “While Maha was fat,Ayesha was slim and good look-ing. The two girls chatted with thecricketer and left after they ex-changed contact numbers and e-mail addresses. From this point,Maha started calling up Shoaiband told him she was Ayesha.Shoaib began cosying up to herunder the impression that he wasinteracting with Ayesha. TheNikah over telephone too was per-formed in these circumstances,”it was said.

According to the reports,Shoaib was under this mistakenimpression when he visited Hy-

derabad in 2005 to play a match.While being interviewed by for-mer cricketer Arun Lal at the pres-entation ceremony, Shoaib had ap-parently said Hyderabad is thehometown of his wife Ayesha. “Itwas only later that Shoaib realisedthat the girl whose photos he sawand the girl he was speaking towere not the same,” the sourcessaid. However, if these reports aretrue, what happened to the realAyesha and why is she not com-ing forward to clear the claims andcounter-claims is still a mystery.

Both families are now threat-ening to up the ante. While the Ma-lik family said they will release thephotos of the real Ayesha, the Sid-diqui family said they will releaseto the media soon a nikahnamavideo that will prove her claim.

Meanwhile, the Sania Mirzafamily has begun distributingwedding cards for the ceremonyslated to take place in a five-starhotel on April 15. The Shoaibfamily is due to arrive in Hy-derabad on April 6. Several topsports personalities and starsfrom Bollywood are expected tograce the occasion.

OUT IN THE OPEN NOW: Farisha Siddiqui and M A Sddiqui (extreme right),parents of Ayesha Siddiqui, who said she married Pakistani cricketerShohaib Malik in 2002, address a press conference at their Banjara Hillsresidence in Hyderabad on Friday

AP-PTI

Thackeray attacks Saniaover her marriage plans

S Balakrishnan | TNN

Mumbai: Shiv Sena chief BalThackeray on Friday camedown heavily on tennis starSania Mirza for her decisionto marry Pakistani cricketerShoaib Malik. He stated in aneditorial in his party organ‘Saamna’ that ideally, it shouldnot concern anyone withwhom Sania is in love with andwhom she wants to marry. Butsince Shoaib is a Pakistani, forhim India is an “enemy na-tion’’ both in cricket and war,he maintained. “Had Sania’sheart been truly Indian, itwouldn’t have beaten for a Pak-istani,” he added.

Thackeray took objectionto the statement of Sania’sfamily that she would contin-ue to play tennis for India evenafter marrying a Pakistani.“How can this be allowed? Shewill become a Pakistani citi-zen after marriage and thereis no way she can play for In-

dia. For the sake of marriageshe goes to Pakistan, but forfame and fortune she wants toplay for India. This cannot betolerated,’’ he asserted.

Thackeray also ridiculedSania saying that only she andShoaib knew what her achieve-ments were as a tennis player.She was more known for her“tight clothes, fashion and loveaffairs and games of a differ-ent kind,” Thackeray re-

marked. He noted that in thepast, Islamic religious schol-ars had objected to her wear-ing short skirts. He wonderedif she will now play tenniswearing a burqa in a “Tal-ibanized Pakistan.’’

Thackeray also expressedsurprise over the speed withwhich Sania’s family wasgranted visas by the Pakistanigovernment. “Even an artisteof the stature of LataMangeshkar could not get aPakistani visa, but Sania’sfamily got it in a jiffy,” he not-ed. Thackeray warned Saniathat, in the past, Indian ac-tresses Reena Roy had a bitterexperience after marryingPakistanis and had to returnto India highly disappointed.

Meanwhile, Muslim clericshere are divided over the le-gality of a ‘nikah’ or marriageperformed over the telephone.Hyderabad resident AyeshaSiddique is reported to havemarried Shoaib over telephone.

NO HOLDS BARRED: Thackeray

BURNING RAGE: VHP activists burn a poster of Sania Mirza inprotest against her decision to marry Pakistani cricketerShoaib Malik in Bhopal on Friday

AP-PTI

Dattani’s playdraws Sena ire

Pronoti Datta & S Balakrishnan | TNN

Mumbai: Sara, a Hindi play on the life of a Pak-istani poet, directed by Mahesh Dattani, has of-fended the Shiv Sena. The party has threatenedDattani, the play’s producer Tarun Singh Negi andManik Sabhagruha, the auditorium in Bandrawhere the play is meant to be performed on Sun-day, with violent consequences if Sara is staged.The play was first performed on Sunday March 28at Manik Sabhagruha.

The Sena’s ‘up-vibhag pramukh’ Suresh Dube,however, denied that the party was objecting tothe play because it is written by a Pakistani. “Weare only objecting to certain extremely obscenedialogues in the play. After the play was staged onThursday, some of those who had watched it cameto our ‘shakha’ in Bandra and drew our attentionto the controversial dialogues. I then called up Dat-tani and asked him to show me the play’s censorcertificate, which he refused. We then decided tostage a protest outside the auditorium on Sunday,’’Dube told TOI on Friday. He did not say who ex-actly complained to the ‘shakha’ about the play.

Written by Shahid Anwar, the drama hinges onthe life of Sara Shagufta, who was known for writ-ing poems fuelled by her tumultuous personal life.The play is largely drawn from her letters to Pun-jabi writer Amrita Pritam, who published Sh-agufta’s first collection of poems in Punjabi.

Couple wedson highway

Alappuzha: Setting a per-sonal example against wed-ding extravaganza, a youngcouple tied nuptial knot onthe highway at Kerala’sThottappally near here.

After entering into wed-lock with Remya on Thurs-day, the groom Omanakut-tan said he preferred thewayside wedding as he want-ed to join the campaignagainst luxurious marriages.

A small improvized ‘pan-dal’ was put on the waysidefor the marriage and about100 people, including socialworkers, relatives andfriends of the couple at-tended the function.

While there was nosumptuous wedding feast,known in local parlance as‘Sadya’, guests who turnedup ignoring sweltering heatwere treated with tumblersof lime juice.

Omanakuttan, who was

a worker of CPM’s youthoutfit DYFI before becominga bus conductor, said he wasglad to have become a “link”in the campaign againstwedding extravaganza,which ruined many parents.

Some local people, how-ever, said the bride’s parentshad approached a commu-nity organization for gettingits auditorium for conduct-ing the marriage. However,they were denied the facili-ty arguing that the groomwas a non-believer and of-fice-bearer of local unit of arationalist forum. AGENCIES

MARRIAGE ON THE MOVE

Succession warworries DMK

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai: Even as a succes-sion war rages in the DMKfirst family with the siblingrivalry between deputy chiefminister MKStalin and Unionminister MKAlagiri out intothe open, theparty rank andfile are con-cerned about thefallout of thisdispute.

Alagiri’s re-volt has come ata time whenthings were goingwell for the party.It has swept all the byelec-tions. Though the assemblypolls, as per schedule, is ex-pected only in May 2011,there were indications thatthe party was planning toadvance it to December 2010.

But the emerging crisismay prompt the party to doa rethink. Though, for thetime being, chief ministerM Karunanidhi has made itclear that there will be noimmediate change of guardat the helm, it goes without

saying that he is buying timeto work out a compromiseformula. And since the fightis within the family, he hasto find a solution himself.

Stalin has an upper handin the present dis-pensation. Manyof the ministers,MLAs, MPs andparty district sec-retaries are peo-ple handpicked byhim. Even insouthern TamilNadu, where Ala-giri has a strongbase, the Virud-h u n a g a r ,Tirunelveli andKanyakumari dis-

trict secretaries are Stalinloyalists.

A general body memberfrom Nagercoil, Uma Mo-han, said, “Only somebodywho has sacrificed a lot forthe party should be madeparty leader. Stalin has beenactively involved in the par-ty affairs since childhoodand underwent severe hard-ships during the Emergencyperiod.”

But all said and done,Alagiri cannot be sidelined.

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