Much Ado about Nothing, Its just a GAME !!!

The Indian team's challenge in the ICC Cricket World Cup is almost over after their shameful defeat to the Lankans. Surprisingly though, after all the media-generated hoopla, the circus witnessed before the start of the world cup , special prayers held in mosques and temples alike, havans, jagrans, all those jingoistic advertisements, the Indian selectors and some people related to Indian team are saying "Its just a game after all!!".

Well!!,You are right Sir, its just a game. So what if three of the Indian cricket fans died after watching the collapse of our highly rated batting line-ups with one of them committing suicide? So what if millions of young aspiring cricketers and a few more million aam janta who since decades have literally worshipped their cricket team as demi-gods, still cannot come to terms with the utter disbelief and bewilderment of Friday's shocking loss? So what if our great nation called India gets humiliated time and again at world stage each defeat being more convincing and shameful than the previous one? Who cares if defeat has become our habit and a rare win is greeted with hype and pompous adulation? So what if the belief of being submissive and fragile has seeped into our psyche and it seems to be a never ending nightmare?

But the good news is that the Indian public has finally woken up from its stupor. It can no longer be blindly led into believing false gods. They have started asking questions about their so-called greatness because this very so-called greatness has led us to this abysmal low. Excuse us please, but we do not want super humans as players but credible patriotic human beings who play for their national pride not for the money , who spend more time at the nets not in the studios or for their personal business ventures. We want those who value the blue jersey and the cap more than their own life.

Sorry sir!!! we do not want demi-gods in our cricket team because they just want blind worshippers but not their worshippers's expectations. Lets make temples for them not stadiums, and let them bask in their respective glories. Please sack the whole Indian team so that they make make way for young budding Indian cricketers who are proud of their country and play to redeem its lost glory.

Moral Vicissitudes of a Resurgent India

As i look back in retrospect, i think of the 27 years and a few months of my life as a supposedly bright individual with mediocre to modest achievements. A guy who has the potential in him, who is almost there but never actually there, much like our Team India with whom we Indians share a love-hate relationship. Co-incidentally as i write this post now, our over-hyped Indian cricket team is being mauled mercilessly by the Sri Lankans at Port Of Spain and India is on the verge of elimination from the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 .Well, as the paper tigers bite dust in the Caribbean backyard without even reaching the Super-8 stage, all the commotion and media-generated hullabaloo dies a sudden death. The writing is on the wall, the Blue Billion Express has derailed and the real Asian tigers Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are here to stay. Tomorrow, newspapers shall write obituaries and an epitaph outside the Indian dressing room would read ..

"Adios Team India !!!! You disgraced one-sixth of humanity. Cricket is no longer our religion and Sachin is NOT our God.""

Well !!! , being one of the thousands perhaps millions of the public school educated guys hailing from a middle class family born and brought up in the morally and intellectually deprived Capital of India, I witnessed Delhi becoming increasingly ruthless to the people who are not rich. The have-nots of the society who may not have that much money but they do have the etiquette, the civic sense or at least the moral righteousness to show courtesy towards the fellow motorist on the road, the elderly, the neighbour next door, the lone lady walking down the street who does not want to be stalked or teased by hawk-eyed males and just wants to have her right of reaching her home safely in the day or the night. The rickshawallah who can file a criminal case or simply an F.I.R. without greasing the palms of the omnipotent police and risks being shooed off because he did not have any of the two privileges, the second most important being "Right political contact".

The sheer inability to do something in order to solve this conundrum haunts our generation and as the billion hopes sink tonight in the Caribbean, there is still some hope which floats as an eternal optimist sum where hollers and says, "East or West - India is the best !!!! "