The Best Thing For Indian Cricket

....fans since the 1983 World Cup victory is this ignominious exit. India has crashed out (bar a miracle on Sunday) and though I am heartbroken, I actually think something good can come of this.

1983 and 2007 will hopefully bookend an era of excesses in Indian cricket and more importantly in the Indian cricket fan. While 1983 turned cricket into an unhealthy obsession in India, 2007 hopefully will douse those all consuming passions. We needed this bad.

We need to clean house in Indian cricket starting from the very top. Heads should roll. No more part time BCCI executives please. Having part timers is one of the biggest reasons why Indian cricket has suffered so much. These part timers are less interested in developing the sport and more interested in the moolah they can make in their tenure. A full time executive on the other hand can actually be paid for developing the sport. What a concept!

Out with the Pawars, Shettys, Vengsarkars. Why stop there? Out with Chappell, Dravid, Tendulkar, Kumble, Harbhajan, Sehwag. Heck if Laxman can stay out of the team because he wasn't a good fielder, Ganguly can surely be shown the door. And while we are talking of cleaning, can someone cut Dhoni's hair?

Any self respecting bunch of people would see and smell the rot in Indian cricket. However, self respect is peripheral when the powers that be have put blinkers of lucre on themselves. Suspend all international matches for a year. Get rid of every guy on the team who makes more money from corporate endorsements than from match fees. Pour money into domestic cricket. Raise its standard so that we can fill stadiums for Ranji matches with people who would gladly buy the tickets. Get the best of them to tour other countries. Select the best of those into a national team.

We have put the international horse before the domestic cart for too long. And the Indian cricket fan has a lot to answer for. We have accepted too little, been happy with lesser still. Let us shun the tamasha and remember that customer is king. We don't want tamasha, and they won't give us tamasha. We want cricket - and we demonstrate that - and they give us cricket.

I for one accept responsibility for my celebrations for Tendulkar's centuries in meaningless matches in Sharjah. And for exulting Sehwag's sixes in one more unending one day series named after Pepsi, or Hero, or LG, or Sahara. I plead guilty to staying up at night and following meaningless run chases in Kuala Lumpur on my computer. Thankfully I never ordered (for $30) a stupid blue jersey made in Tirupur with Dravid's or Tendulkar's name on the back.

But I know people who have. And I hold you the Indian cricket fan responsible for this Bollywood tragedy that has become Indian cricket.

Khasnis

Raghavendra Khasnis, one of the better known Kannada short story writers passed away yesterday. I read about this in The Hindu and was shocked to learn of the treatment he got from the Directorate of Kannada and Culture. He was suffering from Parkinson's, and according to this directorate's official who delivered the payment, this disease wasn't in the list of diseases covered in the health scheme.

The tragedy of it. Do these people even know what culture is? Forget about this official's knowledge of Khasnis or his work, was he lacking in even basic manners?

The fact that Sri Khasnis refused help from fans and admirers only strengthened my respect for him. This is I think part of the greater tragedy that has become Kannada literature, and specifically publication.

Writers are frequently taken for a ride by publishers (speaking from experience in my family). In their old age, idealists like Khasnis refuse help from others. And we have the philistines in the government as the last resort.

Is it a wonder then that no one these days wants to pursue the arts as a career? Who is losing out?

"Young" MP?

The Hindu today carried a story on something Rahul Gandhi said, where he was referred to as a "young" MP. The dude is almost 40 years old. Is that young?

One could argue that since our politics is like an old age home, 39 something years is really young. But half our country's population is under 25 years of age. Shouldn't we be redefining what is young and what isn't in politics?

Well at the end of the day, this doesn't really matter. But look again at the title of this blog to see why I posted on this topic.

300

I saw the move 300 last week. It was an excellent visual spectacle. It is the story of a group of 300 Spartans meeting the Persian hordes somewhere in Greece in battle.

The fact that I am taking the trouble to post something about this movie means that it has done something to my sensibilities.

Outright we are told that this story is one of protecting freedom against the dark forces of the east. Such assertions get my goat. The movie shows the Persian envoy to Sparta being lectured about how men and women are free citizens in that republic compared to the life of tyranny under Xerxes. This from a people which literally threw away babies they deemed unfit for their martial lifestyle.

The movie then proceeds to glorify Leonides, the king of Sparta who led this band of 300. In the process it also glorifies all the values which - surprise surprise - also happen to be very American ones, or at least the ones appropriated as American.

The director obviously thought every viewer was a fool, so thinly veiled was the attempt to draw parallels with the current Iraq war. There was the small brave force with the "right" set of values, greatly outnumbered by the mystical, tyrannical, even evil east. There is this dilemma whether to go back home when they all know the situation is hopeless.

Oh and the caricatures. All the Spartans are magnificent looking men with chiseled bodies, and conveniently naked to show them off. The Persians are all featureless, dark and downright weird who make use of all kinds of witchcraft to subdue our valiant heroes.

Now I understand that it is necessary to take artistic liberties to tell a gripping story. Does it need to be offensive or untrue?