Indian Premier League: The Scum of Indian Cricket!

Indian Premier League, what a beautiful name to start with! Maybe the name is a copy-cat name: a poor country cousin who is plainly satisfied to play just one silly game called Cricket, and sure does want to enjoy the name, fame, and money like the European football clubs do, the ubiquitous English Premier League’s Manchester United and others! What dreams may come!

After all that has happened and is still happening in the upstart ‘Premier League’ Indian cricket realm, it seems to me that it has already been hit for a Sixer and smacked hard in its face. Last heard it was on its way to the infamous zoo of BCCI’s Sharad Pawar-laden control-freak honchos!

Alas, after three years of IPL startup, it should have turned into a magnificent sports bonanza of a very indigenous kind where no corrupted dealers or mindless political interventionists or tax-evading cohorts can possibly operate; the one without any hideous link-ups leading to any sort of sordid happenings. On the contrary, the recent IPL baloney involving Modi, Pawar, Tharoor, Praful, and several other money-minded personnel has undoubtedly met a trashy end, sounding a death knell for the so-called brand of Indian Cricket. Whatever little reputation it miraculously had during the first 3 years of its somewhat well-deserved inception, it went kaput thereafter. The promise of great expectations from the IPL sporting extravaganza has been reduced to dirty linen left swinging in the breeze for the entire world to see. I, as a TV viewer, with somewhat little interest in cricket got kicked in the behind in their history-sheeting jaghda!

Well, I admit that I am no Cricket lover, neither long-form nor T20 short-cut. It does not appeal to me much. I enjoy the bonhomie though in a TV room, and it ends there. Stadiums packed with people give me nervous jitters. The fact that security is a big crisis everywhere and the terror-mongrels marauding in every nook and cranny is enough for anyone not to come home in one piece! I know I am being gluttonous with self-importance but sadly that is how the world works!

I favour Tennis or once-in-four-years Olympics for my sports binge. Olympics is so full of grace whereas IPL is a disgrace. One-day internationals have been a likable sort of game but Twenty-twenty has made me highly skeptical of it. Personally, I abhor short-cuts or quick-easy games which bring no value except money and so, therefore, I keep a long way off from such games. Surely, gully cricket is a different ball game altogether because it gives me an instant-noodles kind of affection and continual bonding with friends and acquaintances minus any expectation of monetary benefits from anyone at all; although I do not play gully cricket anymore. Those days are, thankfully, behind me.

Even it doesn’t matter to me whether at the helm of Indian Cricket there are great models of fantabulous players to ape such as Sourav ‘Southpaw’Ganguly, Sachin ‘Tendua’ Tendulkar, or the erstwhile punjab da puttar-ish Kapil Dev who played great cricket. Yes, I played cricket and football all throughout my boyhood days and have followed Bengal’s brand of football in equal measure: the homespun variety such as the likes of Mohun Bagan, East Bengal, or the Mohammedan Sporting. European football too makes good sense! Hahaha…

I write this piece of sports blog with no certified qualification of a sportsperson, or a sports commentator like that rabble-rousing Sunil ‘Chotu’ Gavaskar or Ravi ‘Tukku Tukku’ Shashtri who have oh-so-gladly turned themselves into a money-making industry for their own personal profit. They are, of course, the usual suspects cut out for the task of commenting from their now-famished mouths; and with the likes of Tony ‘Earrings' Craig and Navjot ‘Bullshit’ Siddhu thrown in, their collective gasp of westernized cricket commentary becomes a mortifyingly pun-intended soap opera which never comes to its concluding episode! We all know that their gift of the gab has proved wonders for themselves, and therefore they are unabashedly making pots of easy money as if there is no tomorrow. Am I making a pot shot at them? Yes, probably I am and so be it! Who cares? Do you? I care no hoots! If people are so bent on hearing those rampant rambling from their mouths frothing at the ends; God help them!

I know what Cricket means; I’ve been a former fan myself. For some it means sportsmanship and for others, it only means good business sense and the concomitant production of money from advertisements (including several other illegal avenues via betting). I mean, friends, just think about it, how can IPL or ICC T20 format result in a show of gentlemen’s game of sportsmanship? It can only bring in money and lots and lots of it for those people who are involved in it. But those who are mere spectators and are simply watching TV at home end up merely getting entertained or that’s what they keep jabbering about. The late 1990s scandal of match-fixing brought Mohd Azharuddin and Hansie Cronje to their knees as their weakness for illegal stuff like betting and fixing the matches came to the fore. I remember watching Hansie’s agony-ridden face on TV when he was found guilty of match-fixing. He must have cursed himself deeply for having committed such a serious folly. But thankfully, God intervened from above and took him away as he died in a plane crash after a few months. He surely couldn’t have carried on in his life with the sinful burden of a match-fixer or being branded as a traitor to his own country. (Who am I to say that anyway?). You have been a great cricketer for South Africa and you always will be, Hansie. R.I.P.

Mohd Azharuddin, on the other hand, was rightfully banned from playing cricket but he happily continued to attend Hyderabadi soirees and kebab parties with his second wife Ms. Sangeeta Bijlani (former film actor, sadly, with no career now), and opened a new Gym. His shirt collar always lifted up, like a hunk. Hard to believe that he became a cabinet minister - a Member of Parliament no less - from somewhere North of India and is thinking about social issues and alleviating poverty from the villages! Omigod! Thankfully nobody gave him a ticket from Andhra Pradesh.

Yes, I don’t like cricket anymore. Most certainly IPL brand of Cricket gets me the creeps. Perhaps, my confession may not make any difference to anybody but I have been saved merely by not digesting the recent news of match-fixing, tax-evading and illegal money laundering activities. It gave me an excuse to wash the nonsense of IPL cricket off me. Of whatever was left in the form of somewhat potent liking, has now left me I assure you. I dug a grave today and kicked Indian Premier League cricket into it. I spat at it once and for all. I no longer shall talk about it or fetch a pair of human ears to cock a snook at it, for it will be now below my dignity to even think about it.

I have given up my ranting, but this blog needs to come to a logical conclusion and so I am writing a little more to rest my case closed shut! After all that has happened to this supposedly gentlemen’s game, I shall continue to stay aloof of all thingies that came to roost in the IPL cricket. I likewise shook myself off of being a neck-craning fan or hero-worshipping nerd.

A piece of advice: we should cease to be third-worldly in our ways of handling expensive sports. Our nation is NOT a terror-infested American poodle Pakistan or merciless Pashtu-speaking Talibanised, jihad-mongering Pathans of godforsaken Afghanistan or the terror-minded military junta of that godforsaken state of Myanmar. Aren’t we supposed to be the world’s best democracy? We are not a degenerative society of the aforementioned neighbouring countries to hanker after ill-gotten black money and undeserved fame by ‘betting’ and ‘fixing’ things up. Whatever happened to our collective aspiration to be a first-rate country and handle our sports like Cricket, Hockey, etc. the way they are meant to be handled? Can’t we handle one great sport that India does well in? So far yes, but we clearly failed as far as our brand of IPL cricket is concerned.

What was Lalit Modi thinking? He tweeted his ill-founded displeasure on the Net: of some new franchise disagreement and tried throwing his useless weight around by showing off how to Tweet, and look what happened: the entire IPL bunch of skeletons came tumbling down from his cupboard on him. Not only his but so many others as well. The former Cabinet Minister of External Affairs Mr. Shashi Tharoor was necked out. That was expected. His personal friend Ms. Sunanda Pushkar, who is a great looker and looks like yesteryear’s Hindi film actress Helen, was derogatorily called a ‘girlfriend’. Now, in the Indian sense of prejudiced things, the word girlfriend sounds like something nefarious and improper. If Shashi’s gal is Sunanda and wants to get Ouch!-on-the-Couch then why do the television journos think of it as their private business to sneak a peek at? Or is it that in order to supply their tabloid channels with some groovy masala clips that make them behave in such acts of impropriety?

She and her family have received undue importance from the media wallas. They have been hounded for news. Ms. Pushkar was called an unprintable word and the same media did not stop there; it went on splashing fake details of her life and times all over the television screen. If she is all set to marry her friend Mr. Tharoor then it is their private matter; what business is it of the media to get its wretchedly tenacious nose to waggle in their matrimonial prospects? It was pathetically distasteful. To get mere news bytes the media broke all lines of decency and crossed all limits of decorum. On the risk of sounding saddled on a moral high horse, I would rather that the intellectually blessed Mr. Tharoor, someone of his immaculate ex-UN stature and other accomplishments like completing P.hD. when he was just 22 years of age, could have shown some restraint on his part in dealing with this well-known shrewd character called Lalit Modi (a self-styled former IPL Commissioner) and his horrendous baniya tactics. Someone should give him a tight raptaa on Modi’s face. A minister of Tharoor’s repute should not have involved himself along with his ‘girlfriend’ neck deep into some kind of filthy-sounding ‘sweat money’ equity. A case of Personal leanings being mixed up with Professional interests is bound to throw up at you.

Mr. Tharoor, this is not your advanced or high-flyer cosmopolitan New York City life; this is your Hindu India: a proud nation of secular yet perpetual contradictions and conservatism of the most vigorous kind which never go away. Each has his own mind and typical attitude towards such modern and unconventional lifestyles. Such an open display of affection can only be personal hara-kiri in such a situation. It is looked down upon as scum by many (people like your own cabinet colleagues from UP, Bihar, Haryana, and the entire cow belt of the north) and do not really approve of what you have permitted yourself blindly into. Know your facts straight about your country. You have said that in your books too. Turns out your studied posterity and self-esteem have come off loose here which made you pay the heavy price with your job. You were asked to resign; got unnecessarily treated like scum and packed off to Thiruvananthapuram, where you originally hail from. Indeed, there is more to this IPL fiasco than what meets the eye, but mercifully both Modi and Tharoor have been done away with.

I better go back to my book buying and book reading passion. IPL cricket is not my cup of tea. Let me go back to the last few pages of the two books that I am reading at the moment: The Age of Kali by William Dalrymple (Penguin Books) and And Thereby Hangs a Tale by Jeffrey Archer (Pan Books), with a cup of coffee in tow (while you guys keep watching your favourite sport!). (It’s Kalyug, Dalrymple says…the age of destruction and then…the end of the world). Meanwhile, let me prefer being a mall rat and shopping frugally and indulging in retail therapy. Even my kebab and chicken tikka party (with butter naan, chicken biryani, and paneer tikka on a platter alongside) with a like-minded friend or two is waiting for piping hot in a middle-class restaurant in sub-urban Hyderabad. Gosh, I pity those unfortunate ones who still proffer their support for IPL cricket and just keep bingeing on dark soft drinks and dry wiry chips of Kurkure while at it, and still love it like as if waiting on an estranged girlfriend who slinked away drooling after a match-fixing dude of no repute! Good riddance and goodbye!

By Arindam Moulick

DURGA PUJA: Some Notes and Few Remembrances

The smell of the shiuli and kaash flowers in the wind… Ummm… of the autumnal days and nights transport into me, quite literally, an amazing new feeling. 

The wonderful festival season meant for us Bengalis has again arrived to carve a niche – in other words, a festive epoch of a new calendar year - for much-awaited Bengali festivities to begin, and thence end, if it has to, with Kali Puja after about a month.

I love Durga Puja; it is my beloved festival. Not only has it been my one beloved festival, but also a gala fiesta that every time it brings for me - as though carefully heaped on a golden platter - its share of umpteen pleasures and of having to be given a gregarious hyperbolic whole (no less!) to all we likeminded souls who come together at the puja mandap to entertain ourselves till late in the night; and, therefore, to get a little witty and simultaneously love and be loved as well. I have so many vivid memories from my childhood days that it makes me close my eyes nostalgically and smile widely at even a mere mentioning of such a festive occasion, and that it always finds a way to tug on the strings of my heart whenever the great Durga Puja is near. Besides all else, it is perhaps the sweet sweet smell of the puja paraphernalia emanating from the vicinity of wherever I am around that is enough to make me swoon with happiness and joy.

Durga Puja in the probashi bangali setup is not just a festival but a long-standing traditional ovation to a benign Goddess who – speaking in Hindu mythological terms - fought for eternal good against evil. This Bengali carnival, in the recent past, has not only come about to be inclusive of so many things relating to Bengali caucus and genre but also, in a way, of other all-encompassing groups of people as well. But that’s a different story though.

Amongst all festival congregations that have come in vogue for over a period of time here in Hyderabad, I cherish Sarbojanin Durga Puja & Dussehra Celebrations the most. Why? Because I had literally grown up hearing the puja hymns & mantras, vernacular dramas & jaatras, cymbals & drums, and the sacred conches blown here during the time when seasonal wonders like Dussehra and Diwali come home to win through our collective consciousness. I have seen much else and also seen how all elders and young ones flock merrily to the Puja Pandals for carrying out their pujas and prayers every day, right from the Sashti Puja to Dashami’s sindoor kheyla to Dorpan Bishorjon day. I have an instant connection with this Utsav, an affection that grew as time went by.

When I was a teeny-weeny kid, I’ve always been doled out automatically with new clothes and a few extra bucks to spend for the piping hot singharas and aloo chops at the sumptuously laid out open-air cafeterias at the Pujas! I somehow was able to sense very well of the occasion that I could not have possibly spent money for more than I could hope to afford. But again, I knew how to proffer emotional yet agreeable joust of rancorous excuses for more such green wads to come forth during such eventful times as this one.

I well neigh remember: during the time when bhog prosad (khichuri) were to be given away to everyone present at the pandel, I knew I should also be one from among the jolly gang of infant brigade to get willfully into the act of distributing the fiery golden-brown tasty Doug and a couple of other ‘items’ to the mêlée of people present on the occasion. Alas, the spread-out of the hot porridge, khichuri that is, upon the large coconut bay-sized foliage was supposedly anticipated to be delectably simple and easy in taste for all the food connoisseurs lingering out there, and so it was.

During the early nineteen eighties and nineties, when I was still a little one, I simply used to be in absolute awe just by looking at the gallant spread of the steel water cans, jumbo (baltis) jugs filled with hot bhog placed openly everywhere that was used to be given away as prosad to one and all. How I and a few other jumpy kids, in a world of our own, loved waiting on being instructed and doing whatever - and whenever - we were asked to hold in one hand an extra-large steel jug filled with spicy curries and indeed a very big spatula in the other, and shot away and eventually departed ourselves for instant distribution of the bhog. All kinds of volunteers, from very young, then not-so-young to the old seniors alike were excited, innocent, and glad to be of boundless service. A sincere Thanks - in the first place - to the revered establishment of the Pujas permanent club members and all the generous contributors for what we have here as a collective religious and cultural celebration; and, therefore, the joyful rendition of the festivities is enough for each one of us to take a bow and be proud of them all!

What we have here is a perpetual, honest, and divine need to celebrate perhaps one of the superbly wonderful festivals of all times called Durga Puja alias Dussehra.

Durga Puja is so massive a festival in Kolkata that for probashi bangalis the divine need for consummating our individual lives with the performing of the five-day pujas of the Goddess Durga: The Mahishasura Mardini, along with the company of Gonesh, Kaartik, Shoroswati, and Lokkhi becomes absolutely valid a necessity for our own good. And in order to replenish our hearts, minds, and - mind you - even our stream of blood with everything vernacular in feel and of a cultural essence, almost near to that level of perfection. For us all, this avid display of celebrations is reassurance in itself for not just a Bengali way of life, but even for other beloved brethren as well.

This distinctive celebration has a great meaning and importance for us, as the inimitable Durga Puja festival just about brings in that very traditional effervescence into proper sense and sensibility for the very Bengali way of life. And for the chronic probashi bangali, this very festival becomes, no doubt, a sacred thread to keep a good hold of and, therefore, to be able to conjure up the fundamental Bengali quintessence just by being the sons and daughters of such a society immersed into an important celebratory mode during this time of the epoch-making year.

Durga Puja festivity is divine intervention in the life of every Bengali soul and this very reason is reason enough to carry on the cultural torch and blow conch shells to announce to the world that festivals are a profound way of every Hindu life - and all walks of life for that matter - bearing fruits of the all-encompassing embrace of love and prosperity therein.

May Mother Durga continue to bless us with the food on our table and bestow us with Her undivided attention of love and happiness, and forever so.

By Arindam Moulick