My Country's Fixation

I say, let’s find another sport to be crazy about! For as far back as I can remember, everyone I know has been absolute bonkers about cricket. Yours truly included. In the days when ours was still a land of single TV sets, I remember sitting around the tiny black n white set to catch the Indian team in action…. Then came color TVs… and then Sachin Tendulkar became king… and it was around that same time that pigs started flying…

And tell me if you think so too, or maybe it’s just me… but somewhere in the last decade, cricket stopped being the sport it once was. Don’t get me wrong! I’m not saying the craze is any less. If anything it’s become more of an obsession than ever before. But the game isn’t the same anymore.

You see, around the time that the game was at the peak of its popularity something else happened. Something by the name of Tehelka. It was supposed to be a good thing. And it was, to be honest. But it killed the game for me. For good. Somehow, now no matter how hard they try, however honestly they may play… there’s always this nagging doubt at the back of my mind. A small voice is always telling me “Hmph! This match is fixed”.

What beats me is why whoever may be on the team, seems to perform consistently worse every next match. It’s like they have an inside dare of some sort… as to who can do worse than ever before. They’re breaking records, yes, but somehow they’re starting at the bottom. Worst score, worst partnership, worst bowling performance… and don’t even get me started on the batting line-up… (If I can even dare to call it that!)

The problem is that we’re a very forgiving nation when it comes to this one sport (if I may even dare call it that anymore!) We have short term memory loss of sorts where cricket is concerned. Every time we watch the “men in blue” lose, we curse away and swear never to pin our hopes on the non performance of these losers again. And precisely two days later, we’re all sitting riveted to our idiot boxes, watching yet another match without blinking as many times as it is necessary. Simply so we don’t miss even a nanosecond of the drama unfolding before us. Gawking at the television - a sport second only to cricket.

Come midday and you have hordes of house wives heading towards the idiot box so a certain miss kapoor can make complete idiots of them. Come cricket season and you have an entire nation, never mind otherwise crystallized notions of age/class/caste/creed/gender, making their way towards a TV set. It’s kind of like hibernating, except it’s done with eyes (and mouths) wide open.

Cricket schmiket… lets just give up on it. Once and for all!

I Rant

Indians are fearless. We are definitely, in some way or other, descendants of the Amazons or the Spartans. Maybe even the result of a drunken, raunchy session between the two. How else can you explain our never-say-die attitude? Never mind that come any Indian festival (and there are a few hundred of those), there is an (unofficial) orange alert across the country.

Now, what does, say, America do when there’s any sort of security alert in the country – pale yellow, bright-as-the-sun yellow, peach, orange, pink, red, anything? No idea? I’ll hazard a guess. I’m guessing one section deals with the threat with rationalization-spilling-into-picketing-outside-the-White-Ho use, while another section is probably too stoned/drunk for it to even matter. Now, a very small chunk (read: White House denizens) indulges in playful repartee with the threat, a.k.a ‘terrorists’. A la will-they-won’t-they go through with it? And if they will, then exactly which nation can be attacked on the pretense of that great endeavor – America’s War Against Terror. (Which, I just realized condenses very aptly into A WAT. A what??? You see my point.)

(I must mention that I belong to the Woolf school of thought, and you will therefore find that I digress from the point I am trying to make. A lot.)

So, getting back to what I was talking about - the never-say-die attitude of Indians. I am of the opinion that only one of two things can explain our bravado – extremely courageous genes (read first paragraph), or colossally stupid ones – the kind only a cross between Brobdignagians and well, a certain Mr. GWB senior can produce. Oh wait! The progeny of that alliance already is (what I strongly suspect, self-proclaimed) first citizen of country No. 1.

Okay then, I’m going to have to change my theory about the stupidity angle. I’m going to say it like I see it and insist ‘Bush surely fucked us all’. Well, I’m not stretching the truth by much, you know. Except that this time I mean he literally did it. That’s the only thing that can explain why we’re so stupidly unfazed in the face of danger – dumb genes. That’s got to be it!

Communal (read: politically incited) riots, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters – we have it all. And yet, the day after any of said tragedies occur, India is back on its feet. Like that strange toy we used to have as kids. It had “hit me” written across its nose. Remember? You could punch it all you wanted and it would bounce right back. I don't remember/know what it was called, but that is what we’re like. People with this inexplicable “gimme-all-you-got” attitude. Like we’re saying to the myriad destructive powers-that-be, “Bring it on!”

Seven bomb blasts in Bombay local trains, and what do you think it was like the next day? Absofuckinlutely normal. Like nothing even happened. Communal riots in Gujarat. Same story. Ditto for the Babri masjid demolition and the riots and bomb blasts that ensued. Not a squeak from the masses. No rebellion, no demands for a safer city/country. Nothing!!! It was just another day (minus the unfortunate buggers who didn't make it). Yeah well, I know I sound insensitive. That is the intention. It’s called cynicism.

I have resigned myself to the fact that my people don’t have the spine to stand up for their rights. Well, that is if they even know what those rights are. And yet I write this in the hope that cynicism might accomplish what terror has been unable to. That maybe, we won’t need a Rang De Basanti to tell us that we have the power to make a difference. Not just for one Jessica Lal or one Priyadarshani Mattu, but for everyone who identifies as Indian. Never mind who you are. Never mind straight jacketed identities of caste, creed, color, gender, region or religion.

Cynicism notwithstanding, I stand guilty of being optimistic at times. And that is why I hope my country will rise to the cause of justice. I also hope that as a people we will learn to ‘live and let live’. I continue to hope that our unofficial, unwritten creed will not continue to be “We the people of India, do solemnly swear to be deathly afraid of only one explosion – the female orgasm.”

The Knight in Shining Armour

There we all were worrying about how on earth we were going to cope with the ever rising crime rate in the city… about what we’d do if someone attacked us right out of the blue or how we could possibly protect ourselves from those lecherous eve teasers…
And the answer’s been sent to us by the Heavens… and that too in a tiny can… pepper spray!!!

So listen up all you hapless victims of a cruel world. The next time someone sticks a dagger in your spine and asks for all your money, just do a Jackie Chan on him - swivel 180 degrees on your heel, dish into your pocket or handbag and douse him with a generous doze of pepper spray.

Only, it sounds a little far-fetched, doesn’t it? In the time it’ll take you to do all of that, he will have plunged the knife into you and left it there like it’s always been a part of your anatomy.

If the attacker has a revolver, you’re in even more luck. Even if you do happen to have the spray handy, by the time you’ll manage to spray into his eyes, he will have fired a round into your gut. Or if you’re lucky enough to beat him to it, don’t forget, his weapon has quite a firing range while yours only works if you’re in your attacker’s face!

Shopkeepers take heart; you still have your shop counters to duck under, so you can protect yourself for… what… three seconds… and use that time to scrounge around for the spray can. You get up, and there he is waiting for you to have complied with his order of “Hand over the cash”.

Women, the eve teaser’s going to stand by and wait for you to react after he’s done messing with your dignity. So at least you can see plausible cause for buying this practical self-defence item.

Get real. It’s only a gimmick. And unless you plan on strutting around town with the spray can in your hand like you’re some cologne salesperson at a mall, there’s slim chance it’ll ever be of much use.

But if it allays your fear at some higher, psychological level, go ahead shop away!!!