Sach!ndia

It’s that time in the scheme of worldly things that if you are a creature of the cricketing ecology in general and Indian cricketing ecology in particular you cannot avoid breathing the entity Sachin rather you will feel privileged to breathe him in.

Everywhere there are talks about his greatness and whether he is the greatest cricketer of all times and Times of India has even launched a poll asking whether he is the greatest sportsperson of all times. All these talks, polls and omnipresent discussions and tweets and updates are fuelling the celebration of perfection and humility by an individual.

Such comparisons are bound to happen but I don’t find them worth, reasonable and logical to do.

When I talk about him, the fan-confessed God of cricket, I don’t want to talk about those records and figures and awards and accolades which always eat so much of pulp and bits and bytes. No.

Being born as a human what are those values, qualities and personal attributes that much of the human race finds as exemplary and ones which have made the human civilization what it is.

Passion for something and so much that you live for it.

Quest for Perfection to keep on improving yourself all the time and every time even when there are no benchmarks to look upon.

Even if millions call you God, pray you like God, Humility to just be a human and nothing more than that.

Acceptance that you have been privileged to be what you are and so use that privilege to make other humans privileged, what we generally call Giving Back to the Society.

Everyone follows money, but very few are followed by it and there are still fewer who disallow it to follow them, blindly, Value the Values more than the Valuables.

Single Minded and Pure Focus to know what you want and how you want that, no matter what the world feels or says about it.

Losing is never a crime but to stop trying to win is and here is his Persistence.

Last but not at all the least, be a ray of Hope and Optimism and give Joy to the innumerous living humans.

I think I am done with my portrait of a perfect human.

The human civilization is such a glorious one because of the innumerous humans who try to fit themselves to this portrait, they might fit or not is inconsequential, they might be known or anonymous is consequential. Path is what matters, Destination is inconsequential.

Let me take the ball head on now –

Why Sachin is SACHIN?

Why there are few individuals who can be compared to him as an individual, forget as a sportsperson?

Why there are so many Indians like me who are as ardent a follower of him as one can be?

In a country like India where mediocrity is one of the bigger virtues than many others, to find someone like Sachin is like finding an oasis in the Sahara. And for Sachin, to strive for such excellence without finding any benchmarks around him must have been a greater task.

If we can dive a bit deeper into this then sporting excellence in India is rarer. Ours has been a country where sport at best used to be considered as a past time activity. Considering it as a career option for a child is as weird as it can get. But I think such a mindset is quite understandable if we look at our per capita incomes, our living standards and the sheer competition required in achieving even that much. Here, Sachin, had an advantage in the kind of support he got from his family and specially from his elder brother and this can be attributed to his natural talent to some extent.

Born in a country at a time when no other sport enjoyed much following, forget comparisons with the stature of cricket, proved to be an extra advantage for him. And arriving at the international arena at such a young age added more charm, mystery and curiosity in the minds of the cricket followers. Picture this: a young lad who looked even younger than his underage taking on one of the fiercest bowling attack of all times in Pakistan. Such were the chapters in cricketing history which helped him create huge following and even awe and respect. They captured the imagination of the entire nation and even across the borders.

Display of perfection, pursuit of excellence and craftsmanship like his would have been revered anywhere and more so in a country like ours deprived of any real joys. Being an underdeveloped country since long and now moving on to be a developing one we have always been busy in our everyday sorrows and struggles either at workplace, home, school, kitchen or wherever you can think of. And then every time in such a lull, suddenly comes an entertaining knock, a masterpiece from Sachin. It entertains us; it gives us a fresh perspective to life and it gives us a brief break to forget all that matters or I must say does not matter. For what matters in life is life and joy. And I personally have not felt such elation in my life as I had because of an innings from Sachin, again and again.

And this is one the reasons, that even when we lost to South Africa in the 1st test match at Centurion, we were celebrating his feat more than lamenting on India’s loss. I don’t see anything wrong in this. Life gives us rare occasions to celebrate and enjoy and when it does give, take it with open boundaries.

His success is often attributed to his natural talent or what people say gifted talent. There is no doubt on him being gifted; but wait for a moment and just check how many talents keep on bursting on the international arena now and then and how many actually turn talent to success? Don’t go far, take the example of Kambli for that matter who came on the scene along with Sachin and see where he is now? In the recent times, Yuvraj Singh is an apt example of a spoiled talent – being level headed is a rarer attribute than talent. And this is one of the other things which has kept Sachin on the top for so long and can again be attributed to Sachin’s family.

With love comes expectations and when love is boundless as this, so are the expectations and the pressure of Indian followers and Indian media can only be taken either by Atlas or our own Sachin. This can easily be attributed to his focus and love for the game, love for playing for the tricolor. Every time people throw stones at him, as he said, he turns them into milestones.

And let me be clear on one thing - nothing and no one in this world goes outside the purview of criticism, such is our race of cynics and hypocrites, that people who might have never held a cricket bat go on to criticize the batting skills and decisions of Sachin.

And at the same time let me also stress that everyone, including Sachin is a human and it’s only human to err, but the less the human errs, the greater he or she becomes. And being a human he too has some dreams to fulfill yet - like the World Cup.

People talk and write a lot about brand value of Dhoni surpassing that of Sachin in the recent times but then how many individuals would reject more lucrative offers because they go against the principles and values of his father, tell me how many?

Sachin is slowly on the path of becoming a legend which will live on forever, someone whose value is invaluable and hence cannot be valued in a market driven, materialistic manner. He is a joy for us, a real bliss and would be a mystery and inspiration to all those who will not be privileged to see God bat.

IPL 3, off d field!!!

Every human endeavor has as its ingredients, a few basic and crude human emotions and adjectives, take anything.

They are Awe, Jealousy, Ego, Selfishness, Greed, Love, Power, Passion, Joy, Industriousness, Forgetfulness Corruptness and Forgiveness. The final taste of the curry though depends on the proportion of the different "masalas" present in it, every time you try to cook it. And of course, yummy to one may be inedible to another.

IPL could not have been any different.

This curry's delight to a cricket loving nation,  with changing lifestyles and mindsets, was undoubtedly guaranteed even at the inception of the event. India's Love and Passion for anything and everything related to cricket is no new thing, and so the fastest version of cricket, you may call it, Cricket 3.0, the T20, found its adopted home as India. Initially cooked by the Industriousness of S Chandra of Zee, the ICL was dumped into asylum by the Power and Ego of BCCI. When it comes to cricket, BCCI's Awe and Power are felt by everyone and everywhere and not just in India. ICL could not have survived more, that was for sure.

BCCI sited the opportunity in a Selfish manner and decided, it was time for it to launch it's own league of cricket, the Indian Premier League, sorry, the DLF Indian Premier League. BCCI has always been flooded with old blood and this new format was anything but old. Chance was given to Lalit Modi to use his flair, flamboyance and youthfulness to nurse this baby, in "jee- hazoori" of BCCI. Modi won the first round, by creating the whole event with so much of Love, Passion, Industriousness and much longsighted vision than his eyes look capable of, that no one at BCCI really cared about the whats and hows. Greed was their only, lovely darling and in fact it still is. They have had become the Billion dollar Club of Cricket of India.Other cricket clubs around the world were suddenly awestruck and jealous, by this show of brutal money Power by their once, "third-world-country" cousin BCCI. But, they could hardly do anything, as their players continued to override local preferences for the IPL ones, humanly so. Who could avoid the lure of playing for the 2nd highest paying league in the world, move away you UEFA, EPL and all.

IPL was turning out to be a heady mix of all sorts of booze in one shot, Instant - fame, money, glamor, TRPs, market share, eroticism, etc. and of course Competitive Cricket, for it's stakeholders - the IPL franchisees, the BCCI, the Lalit Modi, the marketers and sponsors, the broadcasters, the players, the state cricket boards, the TV news and other entertainment channels, the previously unheard bird called, "Cheerleaders", the struggling and under skilled TV artists, the coaches and commentators and forgive me if I have missed a few others. The cricket FAN was served the most delicious curry and this Joy was his only wish.

I strongly believe that the way IPL has been created as a brand, is really a great achievement by any global sporting standards and it would hurt any fan of cricket, if IPL loses anything from here, because of this whole Mahabharat of Insiders Personal League. Lalit Modi should really be acknowledged for this effort of his and it's outcome.

But, then comes the theory of means and ends. Both needs to be taken care off and none should be hanged for the sake of the other. And, this whole commotion broke lose with a little attempt of either showing love to his love candy Sunanda or to flex his muscle and show some newly acquired political Power in India by the ever suave and UNique diplomat, Shashi Tharoor or either as a mix of both of them.
This whisper of power songs suddenly lead to a volcanic eruption that was much thicker, darker and heavier than the Iceland one. Suddenly, off the field cricket was being played in closed power rooms, on twitter pages, in breaking news bars and innumerous talk shows hosted by the hype breathing anchors and almost everywhere, where cricket had never been played before.
Suddenly, everyone's focus was only on the means, after being focused only on the ends till now -

News Channels found a way of trying to break the TRP barrier of even the IPL broadcaster, Satmax, itself. They had found a typical twisting, turning and dark script of a racy thriller, where even they were allowed to tweak the script. Wow what a great usurp by the news channels! They must have crossed their ad revenues targets for a month in a single week. WOW!

Other Cricket Controllers ie. that caste of the cricket administrators and controllers who have been sidelined by the egoistic and flamboyant, Modi style of control and execution of the IPL story. They all were skin in skin with the Modi and never cared of the whats and the hows till now, silently enjoying the IPL booze with a sip of jealousy and greed. Their time had arrived. Now it was their chance to deliver a googly. No one took side with Modi, just no one, even his patriarch, Pawar was suddenly powerless.The IPL bakra has been found and it was time for him to be bowled over.

Govt and Political Parties too came to the party. Singh's return from a critical visit of US, from the Nuclear Summit was in no way a point to be thought off, forget discussing it. Every party, is some or the other way is related to controlling cricket across India, through different state cricket boards. BCCI is the ultimate mecca for the same, the final melting point for all the leaders with a flamboyant and stylish soul. Parliament sessions were all playing IPL and had nothing to deliberate upon. Tharoor got, what many wanted and waited to give him, ever since he joined their circus as a blue eyed hero. Many including Laloo, even suggested to nationalize cricket and IPL and rightly so, to get his son included in any playing XI. And, as a very Indian way of working, plethora of committees have already been formed since then to look into the IPL.

I have never written anything so long and so much in detail and even now I am thinking that a lot more can be written. But, no; why even I, am trying to make something out of IPL apart from being a follower and fan of Sachin and KKR? Let me leave it now...no no..let me ramble a bit more.

Chirayu Amin, the Glycodin wala cricket controller has been made the new IPL Commissioner and the real wala has been suspended until proven not guilty. IT raids formality is still going on, probably just like the secret IT investigations, which government claims to be nearly 6-month old now, without yielding any result and holding any one accountable. Instant action though, has been taken on the cheer leading dances and after match parties, such things are not meant to be displayed in public I guess but in close confines and for a few selected ones.

Everyone of us are going through the tumult of questions and outcomes of all things in IPL. But, what exactly will happen, should be any one's guess. The IPL would go on, which it should, but probably in new wine cases concealing the old Modi wine, the way it should not. Transparency has never been an Indian thing and expect it no sooner to be one.

And above all else, we as true Indians, are the masters of the art of Forgiveness and Forgetfulness, brewed by our Amnesia, as truly mentioned by Santosh Desai in his book, "Mother Pious Lady", will soon forget all this.

All of those mentioned above would be again talking about the IPL, the season 4, with two more teams and with much more fervor. The party shall go on.

Waiting for IPL 4 and another Sachin Season and some luck for KKR!!!