A deafening reminder encrypted in Winston Churchill's reluctance to grant "self governance" to the Crown's prized colonies seems to be echoing across India and Pakistan these days. His references to Indians as 'rascals, rogues and freebooters', 'leaders of low quality and men of straw' with 'sweet tongues and silly hearts' reverberate ever so strongly in the administrations of most of the subcontinent's present-day institutions, and have left people blowing the dust off the rose-tinted glasses with which they had regarded their 'glorious post-colonial future'. The mysteriousness that has characterized Indian society, from the opaqueness of its deep rooted social ills to the bewildering complexity of its customs, clothing and food habits is a perennial exciting proposition to travelers and journeymen, but the stomach bug will eventually get to them.
The latest institution to fall from grace is the corporatized cricket syndicate known as the Indian Premier League. Based, not so stealthily, on it's soccer original that runs in England, it debuted in 2008 like a glamorous product launch from the Indian subsidiary of a global consumer goods multinational. Coming on the back of a successful two decades of tireless fan following of the ODI format (played over 8 hours in one day) and the more erudite fan following of the Test format (played over 5 days), IPL, as it started to be called, had all the components the burgeoning Indian middle class segment was aspiring for: short duration games to accommodate modern day work and family, multicultural teams with domestic and 'foreign' players' and some Eastern European hotties thrown around to pop out our conservative eyes on-screen. Add the jingoistic pulse of Indian ethno-regionalism to boot with each of the franchises representing North, South, East and West of the country - and a new consumer juggernaut was unleashed on to simpletons who found the offering too good to be resisted by their growing wallets and impressionable minds.
To clarify this naiveté, one needs to understand that sports has not had any strong cultural roots in India as much as fun and games. Getting together to form successful teams to score or defend a goal is as much a difficult objective off the field in India as much as on it, and sooner will the treachery of an individual lay waste to the albeit moderate labors of the thousands. Growing up in India, one learns the game pretty early - you need a bat and a ball, four wickets you can get hold of (three for the batting end and one for the bowler's end), and half decent space with restrictive rules on hitting the ball so you don't keep hitting 4s on the side which cannot man enough fielders, or break window panes or worse still, lose the ball. But most importantly, as the owner of this modest equipment, I realized very early that I had entitlement to the loose balls which gave me some chance to hit the clearly superior bowling that could easily knock off my stumps (and sometimes break them into pieces) any given day. I had my fair share of the privileged on the other side too - and it was important for me to not inflict Shahid Afridi's fastest hundred on their laughable bowling on large manicured gardens. In India, it is important to learn that no matter what your profession, you are in play because the owners 'let you play', not for the heck of playing. And when you play, treachery and tricks are commonplace - shocking leg-before-wickets and caught behinds because I did threaten as a batsman, but which I amply returned through cellotape-on-one-side-of-the-ball to 'reverse swing it' to amplify my very modest capabilities as a bowler. In the end, winning was joyous and losing did hurt but there were many ulterior motives and hidden feelings played out on the field.
Maybe this sordid tale of my corrupted youth masks the more likely mediocrity as a sportsman but it put to rest any and all qualities of true sportsmanship. But really, whatever big grounds there exist in India are either taken over by retired army generals for beautification or real estate barons for building new housing complexes, and with little or no peer pressure in anything other than the 'sexy college degree', many like me make the wiser choice of attempting in academics and management, what cannot be achieved truthfully on the sport field. In the end, really it was about a good contract at a good company and lots of money.
To those, like my sister with a keen eye for human behavior, IPL was always 'mostly fixed'. Could it be anything else, really? Maybe the Bollywood-addicted viewer has not been able to differentiate movies from sport, because like I said, it is all in fun and games here. Rochelle and Karishma dangling besides Sunny and Ramiz Raja make far more interesting viewing, as much as Navjot Sidhu's tiresome theatrics appear so stark in comparison to the staid English women's cricket team captain during pre and post match reviews. Clearly, there was a lurking danger ever present in a volatile Sreesanth, who seemed to be focussed throughout his now gatecrashed career, more on stupid antics (check them here) than fast bowling variations. The danger was seen to the keen observer when a bewildered Adam Gilchrist saw Chandilla actually appeal for a run out off a dead ball. And to those who are deep into the English League and Bundesliga, is it common for the chairman of the league's regulatory body to also be the owner of one if its franchises? And not just any team, rather one that can make it to its 5th final out of 6 appearances! Really, if it is broken, in India you can fix it.
And truth be told, I think I was a wasted talent in batting.
No comments:
Post a Comment