Bakhtin would certainly have mused at the intellectual audacity of whoever named the IPL 2 a carnival. It certainly is not carnivalistic, leave alone carnival atmosphere. "SOME ONE PLEASE BRING ON THE REAL CROWD PLEASE" Will the Real Slim Shady please stand up!!!
As the IPL 2 bandwagon rolled out on stage yesterday, this was the thought that came to mind at the end of the first over. It still is not IPL. For one, surely missing were the fans, the provincial element and the parochiality of it all that makes up for the atmosphere, the din, the noise, the clash of cymbals, the fanfare, the cheer girls from our own climes... and that distinct clamour an average Indian fan brings on as he frantically gushes and blushes upon sudden recognition that he is being covered by the tv cameras and the thought that he is for that one instant the cynosure of the world cricket watchers' eyes! Oh, the lack of it all! Alas... what boots it incessant care, as Tennyson's Ulysses says! Sachin slams a delectable FOUR and the crowd sits smug. Taylor loses his stump first ball and Kohli does a brilliant run out and Uthappa runs amuck... the crowd is unmoved, Kumble does a 5 for 5... shit happens. No Fun this Safari, I tell you.
How do you expect a Natal Ninja to understand and empathise with the Chennai Super Kings chennaiite fan? Or perhaps the IPL people must have attached a local hyphenation to the Indian teams - CSK-Cape Town Comrades or RCB-Kwazulu Natal Combine etc etc...
If Lalit 'the commissioner' Modi thought - wisely too - that England would be a bad idea to host IPL 2 1) because the English are not noisy and IPL thrives on the hoopla around it and 2) the English would be saturated with cricket by the time IPL bandwagon bids farewell and T20 World Championship starts the very next day, he was right. If he thought the South Africans with a native culture and the Zulu beats would add bindhaas to the IPL 2, he surely went wrong. The local Indians couldn't match the Indians in India and the local South Africans 1) didn't have any empathy for the teams and 2) are still white skins and for that matter too confined by their Genteel roots. I won't be surprised if during the Knight Riders match SRK invades the pitch or shouts and whistles with fingers in his mouth some voice comes over the PA System "Quiet Please. Thank you, Ladies and Gentlemen!"
IPL-Moditva has got the moolahs right not the hooplas! And what-o-what-o-what has Mandira the Extraaaaaaaaa Bedi done to her hair. I couldn't recognise the midget (in comparison) next to Simon Doull on tv before the match yesterday. This IPL is sooooooooo phoney, I would like to call it Indian Phoney League. Bring on the real crowd please!
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3 comments:
Nice blog. Only the willingness to debate and respect each other’s views keeps the spirit of democracy and freedom alive. Keep up the good work. Hey, by the way, do you mind taking a look at this new website www.indianewsupdates.com . It has various interesting sections. You can also participate in the OPINION POLL in this website. There is one OPINION POLL for each section. You can also comment on its news and feature articles.
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The Future Mantra
It all boils down to a familiar adage popularized by our friends at Pitpass; a lament lamented by lamenters of another (though worse off) sport:
"Follow the money."
Hello (sir) KK,
Indian Phoney League; "bring the real crowd in": I could not agree more on these fronts which form the heart and soul of the post. But solely for reasons allied to cricketing skill, temperament and learning big lessons, as it were, I think it is a partly good thing for this to be happening away from India. You could check my latest post for more on this.
And I completely agree with you on the fact that when Tendulkar hits a four, the cosmos seems to go berserk, while nothing else is ever greeted with salvos even bordering on the same. I am glad I am not the ONLY one who is a protestant in what I believe is an irrationally favouritistic (is there a word like that? lol) against albeit one of world cricket's greatest son. But yes, we forget from time to time that it is the game which needs and requires the greater applaud.
Enjoyed reading this first thing in the morning! Sets up my day...
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