IPL. Period

A couple of years back, the whole world was talking about the Indian Premier League. For all the right reasons. Today everyone is talking about IPL, for all the wrong reasons. The frachise has gone from glitzy to sleazy within the snap of one's fingers and even now, the papers are filled with stories as more muck comes to the fore.

So, we've had a roller coaster ride, with Twitter being the central character here. One Union Minister, perhaps new to murky Indian politics, was consumed by the seasoned alligators of Indian politics and business, but not before the media made a spectacle of his in-office and alleged out-of-office life. Some lady who was living her own life was also splashed across the front pages of newspapers. Some other ministers vowed and swore that they had nothing to do with the whole IPL muck, only to meekly squeak out a possibly remote connection. The kind of money that has moved hands and accounts between every available tax haven is obscene and one wonders what one person would do with that amount of money. I can't build a shopping list with even the wildest of my imagination - private jet : check, BMW : check, a palace for a house, chalets in the French Riviera, and I could go on, but yet not exhaust all that money. But then again, maybe that's why common people seldom ever end up with that kind of money. And finally, we had Mr Lalit Modi make a charged up speech at the final presentation ceremony, making everyone wonder why this speech here. We got our answers the next day in the papers - Because he was suspended!

What does all this mean for a simple observer on the outside? Well, cricket has always held the imagination of the Indian population. Now, the IPL was a welcome change on the Indian television, a way out of the drab soap operas that had stultified the Indian imagination. People had a reason to rush out of work and head home to cheer for their state team or for their favorite player. There was a topic to talk about by the coffee machine the next morning at work. So, with the franchise mired in controversy, does it change anything for the average Indian? If we just walk past the roadside chaiwallah, we get to hear the opinion of the aam aadmi. And in one of my walks, I came across a discussion on the IPL brouhaha. One chap blatantly said, “Who doesn’t get involved in corruption these days? Construction companies, businessmen, everyone is involved and the common man is not so stupid as to not know of the existence of such misdemeanors. But what can you do? Just take it as a way of life and any anomaly over and beyond the existing corruption should raise eyebrows. This is everyday stuff indeed”. True. Every business has its own fair share of skeletons in the closet. This business involved top political honchos. This business involved wayyy to much money. This business had managed to capture the imagination of almost the entire Indian population. Decidedly, the magnitude of the corruption should also be large enough to match, right? So everyone is a winner here. The sport of cricket has found another interesting avenue. The initiators of this enterprise have made bundles and bundles of money. Politicians have gotten more than their 15 seconds of fame. Media has gotten itself a really juicy story that it can enjoy for quite a while and the Indian population stands to benefit the most. On one hand, we have cricket, always a pleasure and on the other hand, we have gossip and scandal, another topic that manages to scintillate the human mind. Yes, ethics have gone for a full toss. But hey, tell me something new.

Quick and dirty? I guess not...

So yesterday's post was all on how I'd like the GMAT life - quick, no waiting, life in perpetual motion. The more I think about how life is these days, I guess we are indeed inching towards that end goal.

Till a few decades ago, books and fiction had Great Expectations from the Mayor of Casterbridge or Tess of the D'urbervilles, where descriptions of the context covered more than half the book. Stories were replete with maps, descriptions of the perfect evenings, or detailed descriptions of a lady's beauty, ending with a strong line like 'Estella was between pretty and beautiful'! Short stories were so short that a 500 page tome typically housed 6 stories! I can understand the motivations behind the voluminous mode of writing back then! They were the dark ages, and unlike the days of today, people truly had precious little to do!

And then the Chase era began. The race against time and a villain to reach the truth. James Hadley Chase, Erle Stanley Gardner (maybe it was the fact that they all had 3 words in their names, that made them write crisper!). But that era pushed the erstwhile granddaddies of fiction into the hall of fame called 'literature'. A dusty corner of huge school libraries (where only the bold literature graduates dared to venture into) was dedicated to those who created the genre called fiction.

But even that got too slow, and Arthur Hailey and Robert Ludlum made their grand entry. Hailey and Ludlum, had a following, and they became 'thinking writers' - it took one some cogitative effort to fathom the plot, but the die-hard loyalists never left their side. For a while they caught the peoples' fancy, till a certain Mr. Sheldon made his foray into fiction. After that, speedy, crisp, page-turning writing became the flavor of the season.

Take cricket for instance. I know of cricket fans who to date spend their winter holidays watching the Boxing Day test match! But the proportion of such fans has since come down tremendously. At a point of time a decade ago, people spent hours watching a one-day series. Great duels were set as day-and-night matches to draw bigger crowds. Then came twenty20. If one can see 2 matches (4 teams) on one day, why spend time watching 50 overs per team? There is only so much a team can do, and what they can't achieve in 20 overs, they can't achieve in 50 overs, became the belief. Short and crisp was the mantra here as well!

Now I wonder how far this can go. Can it go the way we used to play cricket as kids? One over per team - since all of us used to want to bat (and only one kid used to bring the bat to the game)? That sure can be fun to watch, although unless the teams dressed in sharp contrasts like say red teams and blue teams, the viewer would be stumped! English country decorum of white cricket uniforms would have to go out the window! As for books - Shakespeare once wrote - Brevity is the soul of wit. Little did he know while writing Hamlet that this would indeed be personified in the art of writing several years thence! So brace yourselves for the one paragraph short story in the future. I sure don't think I can write those!! (My blog is a testimony to that :) )

A sport called life, or a life called sport?

I know I know, India breathes and lives cricket. So in a way cricket is indeed the life of the nation, a religion of sorts here. And you do indeed have a whole segment of the population that watches any available cricket match, as long as it involves 20 men, a bat, a ball and the whole 22 yards! Ask any cricket enthusiast and he or she'd say that the Government is being mean by not hosting the IPL here. Let me be frank. I sincerely care very less about the sport and people who know me would vouch for the fact that I somehow prefer sports with 2 racquets, one ball and two players or one man in a car on a road instead of the crowded game called cricket. So my point of contention is - a free and fair election in the most populous democratic country in the world is a nightmare. Security provision for all constituencies, not to mention the rallies, the speeches, the booths and so on in the remotest of villages is difficult. So, asking for a deferment in the game, is not tantamount to displaying a failure to provide security. P C even went on to say that the state government machinery could provide the necessary security as long as the match and the election do not clash in that particular state. Elections are a delicate time in the country. To ensure our next government is elected freely, fairly and without any untoward incident, I guess must be foremost on every Indian's mind. After all, if we get a weak government at the center, we could actually jeopardize the developmental future of the country, since most of Parliament's time would be spent saving the government, rather than working the government. That said, now that South Africa is the anointed location, and they too are heading poll side, I ask, what is one trying to prove? UK lost out, apparently on account of the G20 summit. So can we assume that UK cannot provide security for sport at such a time and so UK is also rather incompetent???? Or must we assume that elections in South Africa are too safe and so they can take the burden of protecting the IPL players as well? Oh yeah! We saw how Kenya and Zimbabwe vote, safe indeed.

So the fact of the matter is, that there is no fact in the matter. Some reason somewhere, roils business into politics. Yes, I say business, since IPL according to me is just A-list cricketers in multi colored outfits playing county cricket, TV rights bring in the moolah. There was a newspaper poll once, asking whether moving the IPL outside India, would make the sport lose some of its 'Indian Flavor'. I say, when was it Indian anyway, save for the names and the club owners? The case is a lot like Force India in F1. The claim that India has arrived on the F1 scene, because Mallya has a stake in a team, sounds ludicrous to say the least. Well, every F1 enthusiast knows that Mallya watches the Monaco Grand Prix, every year when he goes yachting at Monte with friends. And if you have the money, you can own a team or a club or be gifted a club like some of our Bollywood beauties were 'gifted' IPL teams!

So its just gimmicks galore in the life of sport, with people playing 'passing the parcel' with the blame, or providing expert opinions, as did Shilpa Shetty when asked where the IPL should be held. "I really don't know... The best place that best suits the sport is where the IPL will be held" !!!!

Miscellaneous Monday.... Of cricket, politics and of course a Monday...

1976. Magic number - 406. The opponents - Windies - then considered invincible. History was made. 2008. Magic number - 387. Against the Brits. Sehwag, Yuvi and Tendulkar went ahead and proved why they are feted across the world by anyone with an affinity to the willow! Till late yesterday, India was written off, in terms of drawing this test match let alone winning it. And what makes this victory even more special is the fact that the victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat. I was kinda disgusted at the way we kinda squandered a victory toward the start, and I was pleasantly surprised to see the victory flag.

Cheers to the Indian team...

Bush was booted and rebooted!!!

Some Iraqi journo had the nerve to hit the most powerful man in the world with not one, but two shoes... Yikes!! I agree, Iraqis may be miffed with Dubya for whatever reason, but shoes????????????? This just goes on to show that democracy and civilization don't belong to the world of the barbaric!

And now the Monday moment - This Monday was mixed. I noticed parts of the workplace I had never noticed so far. I cherished my friends and our lunch in the 'training room' more than I did on other days. I looked at my terrace like I never had before. I walked an extra time on the terrace. I noticed portions of my commute I'd never paid attention to before. Kids in a playground, playing as usual - yet another day in their life, thinking, knowing that tomorrow would be similar. The school would remain, and so would the park. Somehow, Enya's 'only time', when juxtaposed with the contrast between what I saw and what I was going through, appealed to me, and stayed with me all day long. For the first time - Cheers to this Monday. I'll remember it forever..................