The Cricket World Cup 2011

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Tuesday, 05 April 2011 17:19

Written by Anirooddha Mukherjee

The Cricket World Cup, 2011 is on. I’m writing this on the day India will take on Sri Lanka in the summit clash for eternal glory at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. In the past few weeks, I have seen phenomenal support building up for the team. Everyone sports blue jerseys, headbands, bandannas, wristbands, and every other piece of clothing imaginable. ‘Bleed Blue’ has become the new ‘One-day Mataram’. All sins are forgotten and all achievements glorified. Anything to bring the Cup home.

Text messages, from the emotional to the downright weird are being circulated as if they carried the news of Kasab being hanged. Havans, and pujas are being conducted in every major temple of repute to appease the Gods, (by the way, who is the Indian God appointed to look after the state of affairs of Indian cricket? ).

Restaurants and food joints have come up with innovative delights. You have the Afridi Kebabs, and the Dilshan Kormas, and Sachin Sizzlers and Dhoni Desserts. Cinema halls are screening matches to give the viewers a grand a view, promising Total Digital Experience for just a few hundred bucks. Enthusiastic, nay, downright fanatics of the game have urged even those who don’t follow the game to change their profile pictures to ones with the Team India/Bleed Blue badge on it. The Facebooks, Twitters and Orkuts are having a field day, literally as well as figuratively.

Even the homeless and the destitute, the hungry and the poor slept with a smile on their faces after watching India crush arch-rivals Pakistan in the semifinals. The country stands united as never before, all 1.21 billion hearts beating to the same tune- World Cup glory/ you got it, Bleed Blue.

Oh, did you know that the latest census put the Indian population at 121 crore, growing at a rate of 17.6% per decade? And that the sex ratio of children below 6 years has dropped from 927 to a dismal 914 for every 1000 boys?

Why I am mentioning all this, you ask. This is irrelevant, at a time like this, you holler. India is on the brink of recreating history, and you are thinking of population and census, you ask disdainfully.

Let me throw a few more ‘irrelevant’ facts at you. Now tax-payers can pay their income tax at Union Bank ATMs. The Bank is looking forward to extending the facility to other taxes and utility bills too.

Or take this. We may have to face another East India Company-like invasion into our hard-earned market dough as the industry ministry has eliminated the need for overseas investors to get a no-objection from their joint venture partner before venturing out on their own. So Honda won’t have to ask for permission from Hero before playing solo. Out of the game, Hero.

Still blinking your eyes? Still wondering about the relevance/irrelevance when the WORLD CUP is ON? I’ll tell you what, even when the World Cup is ‘off’, you won’t give a damn. Because, there’s the IPL after the World Cup, and then the Champions’ League, and then India’s end-of-season tour Down Under. Many more reasons for the country to stand united and pray hard again.

Frankly, honestly, I’m disappointed. Such an energized, creative lot and we know practically nothing about the direction our India is heading to as a nation, though we know perfectly well where India will stand ten years down the line once Sachin retires and Virat emerges.

Once the curtains are down on this World Cup, and YES, India WILL win (!) this time, let’s pledge to be an aware lot. Let’s take a healthy interest in what’s happening around us. Let’s get past the Sports page and the juicy gossip columns, and move over to the Nation and Global News pages too. Let’s make it a habit to utilize our finely tuned minds to think over matters of national interest, dissect the pros and cons of a repo-rate hike as incisively as we analyze the exclusion of R. Ashwin.

We know we are a capable lot, we have our heads set firmly over our shoulders. It doesn’t suit us to lament over the about the system being guilty. We are worth more than that. We are the system. We can change it, and we can overthrow it.

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