Basically I love sports, even though I don’t understand any of them – including cricket. But I can jump up and down happily if I read about some team or the other (especially Indian) doing well in a tournament. And like all cricket fans – I mean crazily-in-love-with-cricket fans – I too wanted to be the captain of the MEN’S team and “lead them to greater heights”. Ahem. Well, I had so many crazy dreams when I was in school.
My favorite football team used to be Real Madrid. So having read about those highly exciting football matches in Europe and about the County cricket mela in Britain, I thought I’ll up soon (*cough#cough#cough*) and start a big “Bharatiya Sports Mela” (BSM) which will be a perennial tourney with all zonal sports teams competing for the most coveted titles in their respective sport.
I had even decided the names for the zonal teams; Nico Ninjas from Andaman and Nicobar, D(w)eep Sea Devils from Lakshadweep, Saffron Soldiers from Kashmir, The Rajputs from Rajasthan, The Laughing Sardars from Punjab (they’ll have the last laugh it seems aarrghhh), The Assamese Ulfas (rumba overla?) and the Naga Cobras for the whole of North East. I actually have no idea how I came up with these names. I also had named the BSM trophies you know, most of them after my favorite sportspersons. The BSM Sachin Tendulkar Cup for men’s cricket, The BSM Mithali Raj Cup for women’s cricket, The BSM Dhyan Chand Cup for hockey, The BSM Bhaichang Bhutia Cup for football, The BSM K.T.DharmaRaja (my chittappa) Cup for basketball, The BSM Vishwanathan Anand Title for chess, The BSM Leander Paes Cup for tennis, The BSM Jhansi Ki Rani Trophy for women’s fencing, The BSM Prithviraj Chauhan Trophy for men’s fencing, The Raja Raja Chola Cup for water sports and…okay enough. I myself feel like saying, “onakku rumba than di”.
I had such big dreams even before I could finish my 10th std. A couple of years later suddenly some old men came up with this ICL thingy with teams throughout the subcontinent, from Chennai Superstars to Lahore Lions. I was like, “Hello?” The format was my idea okay and these old men simply copy it. Well, yeah, I copied it from the Europeans, but that’s not the problem now. KAPIL DEV STOLE MY IDEA. But then, ICL being a cricket tourney (the sport I love the most) a rebel one at that (I hate the BCCI) I started following it as much as I can (newspapers didn’t give much importance to it) even before the matches started. By the time they did, BCCI endorsed IPL was ready to go. I was like, “What the hell?” I create the BSM in my mind, Kapil Dev comes up with ICL and I accept it because its cricket then immediately this Lalit Modi guy brings in IPL? Hello? But then again IPL being cricket I started singing, “S-U-P-E-R-K-I-N-G-S Idhu Chennai Chennai Super Kings, Namma yellow jersey end rum wins” (Should add more salt in my food)
Actually I loooooooooooooooove the CSK (count the o’s) but I hate IPL. The first edition last year got over with Rajasthan Royals winning and me fuming (Chennai? Runner? Dude, are you kidding me?) This year I’ve decided I’ll hate UPL all my life. We have general elections this summer which is more important than cricket even for me. These BCCI b*****ds take IPL out of the nation because they won’t get the amount of security they want. I’m sure this sent out a very clear message to the world, “India can’t afford a high level security to ‘anyone’. Mumbai incident is because of India’s poor defense mechanism. South Africa had their elections too. In three phases and all of them started after the IPL inaugural. Forget the ‘democracy’ there. Whatever is the case they would’ve provided more security to voting booths than hotels and stadiums. Adha BCCI pothindu ethukkuma? Jharkand took the elections in two phases both of which began after IPL did. So did MSDhoni, the superhero of the nation’s youth vote? Did the others vote? Will they? What about the iconic Dravid and Kumble? Karnataka elections got over when they were in SA.
They chose to ignore their fundamental democratic right. Will they do the same with their other rights? NO! They’ll scream, “As I am a citizen of India…” I know you feel like saying shut up Sahithya, but I have one final thing to say. I HATE IPL.
