by Kartik Kannan
One often wonders, whenever Yanni performs an orchestra, how well he manages to coordinate the group to play to his tunes, as he prances along the stage swaying the stick in his hand. There are a few other men who also wield the stick, making a nation dance to their tunes.
Cricket is more than an orchestra. Put a few performers like Sachin, Saurav and a bunch of cricketers in a 22 yard strip, nothing much is more important to the people in the country than following the fortunes of a bunch of 11 men, who don the shades of Blue.
A question most parents ask their children watching cricket is ” The Cricket players have earned their money by playing, how far have you got in your studies by watching them play?” . It was a perfect question that was never meant to be answered, or even worth thinking, as the sheer thrill of missing out on watching a Sachin glance would be missed in the time we wasted thinking about it. The question passes the full circle when we become parents and ask the same to our children. We know that we don’t expect an answer and the legend continues even though we as parents feel like asking the question. Whenever activities are done furtively from childhood, they seem to have a great sense of remembrance and make good nostalgia while sharing a few beers on the house. Cricket, almost inevitably gets into those set of activities which may range from placing a radio under the bench and listening to commentary at school, to ALT-TAB’ing the office work with the live Cricket scorecard.
Cricket invariably is a bit like the city of Mumbai, it grows on you, amidst great opposition and all of a sudden it’s that part of your life, which you keep rewinding and playing in an infinite loop to make you feel good. Cricket probably did more to social networking than Orkut and the Facebook did, as it has this innate ability to make the guy selling ‘cutting chai’ network on a level playing field with the tired investment banker who comes to get refreshed. Every time a Harsha Bhogle on television or a Ravi Chaturvedi on Radio, pitch their voice up and down , a million people across the country go through instant mood swings and more so towards the happier side if India is closer to victory.
Though it may be inappropriate to talk about cricket, in the light of the recent terror attacks, if there is one thing that lifts people up, and makes them proud that they are Indians is the mere presence of 11 men in Blue. Cricket could just be the tonic that the terror stricken subcontinent could do with, to get on with life amidst the tragedies that present itself every other day. Cricket is pretty miniscule when it comes to discussing more important matters of the nation like terror attacks or floods, but cricket could just be the miniscule David that will help face the the Goliath of terror by bringing more unity amidst we Indians. May it be Byculla, Ayodhya or Panjim, nothing unites India more than the single prayer of India winning in cricket. Cricket is no solution to terror, but it would definitely helps us face the crisis in a more united way.
