Friends,
When I was a young boy, I used to listen to cricket matches and generally loved it. Also used to read magazines like Sportstar etc. for additional information. The same must be the case for the youngsters today. With time, my interest in the game waned down and a time came when I completely stopped watching it.
So far, it was all right. But now the problem with me is that I have started hating the game and many of its players. I get extremely irritated when I see many a young players on the TV screens or on the cover page of the newspapers.
I have very solid reasons for this. I know, as all of u, that a games and sports are necessary ingredients of a socio-cultural milieu. One can't take it away. For variety of reasons cricket has taken an advantageous position vis-à-vis other games in this country.
Hence, it is now part of our national psyche.
So far so good. But the Question is- "Is cricket the most important issue of our life? Can we eat, drink and sleep cricket? Are cricketing players so big entities that their personal affairs and escapades become the defining moments of our life? Are these cricketers God?
What exactly is this game giving to the Nation? And finally isn't it coming in a big way in pushing back all kinds of important issues concerning our nation?"
I think it was a player called Yuvraj Singh who had a brief get-together with daughter of Prakash Padukone, possibly in Australia. To make it the prime-time news article is not only unethical and unjustified, it is also criminal and malicious. Similarly, there is a cricketer who often has brief skirmishes of all kinds. Whether he is slapped a fine by BCCI or CCCI or ICC shall not be a matter of national concern. These and many such issues make me think that we are living in Fool's paradise where the real facts of life are being overtaken and overpowered by escapist and hypnotic illusions.
This could be allowed in developed countries of the West where they can afford it. But in a country like India with so many pressing problems, when we immerse ourselves in these pleasures, it seems no different from the way we behaved during the early 18th century paving way for foreign rule.
I really feel pained when even senior ministers and bureaucrats are found immersing themselves in such nonsensical talks as Dhoni's strategy and its implications. Let Dhoni take it. He is being paid exactly for that and is being paid hugely, much-much more than he or any of these cricketers deserve. A worker struggling all through the day gets 100 rupees in our country. And these people get millions for fooling u and me.
If one adds things like BCCI and IPL to this, the story turns much more darker and murkier. I strongly believe that this is nothing but a huge conspiracy- to sway the public thought from all the Dantewadas, Kashmir, simmering North-easts, poverty, flood, draught, illiteracy and so on.
A nation that can not distinguish between its true greats and the false ones is bound to pay thru its nose. We do not have dearth of people like Nanaji Deshmukh, Anna Hazare, Baba Amte and thousands more who are doing much-much important service to the Nation. Let us give them their due and let us stop treating these fake ones like Demi-gods.
For all that they are, they are cricketers and entertainers and no more.
The day this sense of proportion dawns on us, things will certainly start turning for the best. Otherwise, this narcotic substance will sink the entire country. I think we need to come in a big way to spread this message around.
Amitabh Thakur,
An IPS officer presently on study leave at IIM Lucknow
# 94155-34526
amitabhthakurlko@ gmail.com
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