It’s now been a week since IPL. For those of you who completely missed out on it (do email me on how that was possible), it stands for Indian Premier League. Or rather India’s Powerful Lobby. After all, BCCI did manage to get all cricket playing countries to participate – Cricket Australia gave in eventually, the British Cricket Board too is succumbing to it!!
Everything that had to be said about it has been said. But not by everyone. I had refined from commenting on it during the tournament – partly because I was too engrossed watching it – so I shall state it now.
It is said that societal behavioral habits take years to change. I defer on that statement. These are the societal changes I have observed take place in our country in flat 45 days!!
TV Remote is with the man again. Yes,it’s true in case of Bengali men too!! In fact they might hold on to it longer considering that Euro has started off.
‘Short’ and ‘Instant Delivery’ are buzz words. Most of the good things in today’s life are short and instant; SMS, Relationships, Sachin Tendulkar…… As a matter of fact, Twenty 20 was very much like the cheerleader’s skirt – short and instant enough to grab everyone by their eyeballs. This format is perfect representation of our changing patience levels. Instant gratification!!
Cheerleaders will be used more often. With every saas-bahu serial completing it’s 100th episode, or political party completing its 5 years, or MET department being successful in predicting India’s monsoon, we will see them do the jig. As a nation, we now want to celebrate our victories.
We, like British, love our royalty. Why else would 4 out of 8 teams have some mention about it. (Rajasthan Royals, Super Kings Chennai, Kings XI Punjab and Royal Challengers). Out of the remaining four, Mumbai Indians is the only name that appears creatively challenged. After a complete cycle, we have started taking pride in our royalty again. One more thing. Money can’t buy everything (read creativity) but then that’s more for Mukesh Ambani.
The reason for success of IPL lies elsewhere. Inherently, we always wanted to ‘openly’ cheer performing sports person from competing teams but swallowed it to nurse our national, patriotic pride. It’s not that we are any less democratic as a country, but it’s our own jingoist fervour that stopped us from doing so.
As IPL was not about any nationality, it liberated us from that moral restriction. It was acceptable to cheer Shaun Marsh or Shane Watson beat the s&%t out of Indian bowlers. Admit it you had always wanted to openly cheer Shoaib Akhtar bowl out the batting line up. It is only post IPL that we have really started enjoying cricket more as a sport!!!
And It’s my opinion that IPL now socially stands for India Patriotically Liberated
