Came across this wonderful article called
“Any which way but lose!”by
Sandipan Deb, Managing Editor of Outlook. He’s my hero!! I’ve culled out half of it to make it readable in a decent length of time, so please read it through and through.. Here’s the
Full Version, if you want it!
What is the reason for this strange thankless futile irrational time-wasting passion that we as Indians nurture in our hearts, wear on our sleeves, are casually willing to make enemies about? Why do we forget all our problems, all the indignities that we suffer every day, the moment the talk turns to cricket? Why do we invest so much of our time and energy on this game? Why is it that, more than the prime minister, more than our soldiers, more than anyone else, 11 young men in flannels have to carry the burden of national honour?
Is it because we have nothing else but this? This game? Among all the countries in the world, India has the highest number of the impoverished and the penurious. In a poll conducted by The Hindustan Times on the attitudes of Indian youth, more than 50 per cent of the respondents said that given a chance, they would live in some other country. But even when they do go away to some other country, they have the rediff live cricket scorecard open surreptitiously on their computer monitors throughout their working day. They stay up nights in the US to watch India play in England. They participate in detailed analyses of the Indian team’s strengths and weaknesses in countless Internet chat rooms. And they turn out in daunting numbers at the stadium whenever India’s playing in their adopted country.
The truth is that, even though we are loath to admit it, as Indians, we have very little to be proud of. We go into a national frenzy when an Indian film is nominated for the Oscars and are left stunned with the sheer nonchalance with which John Travolta quenches our billion hopes by opening a sealed envelope, casually reading out the name of some other film and that’s it, folks, it’s over, it’s like your dreams never breathed. This hunger for recognition from the world leads us to trumpet our supposed superiority to everyone else at the drop of a hat, yet give the game away with our penchant for affixing the term “internationally acclaimed” before some achiever’s name, also at the drop of a hat.
But we’re no fools. We have figured out, I think unconsciously, that among all forms of human activity, cricket is the one area where we actually can be the best in the world. There are only nine major contenders for that crown, so we have more than a fighting chance. As a direct-though-paradoxical-corollary of cricket being our only chance to have a crack at world domination, we Indians are not the least bit interested in domestic cricket. We spend no quality time discussing the extraordinary number of things that are wrong with our cricket system and which directly impinge on our ability to produce players of international class. We don’t care, we aren’t interested.
All we want is 11 young men to appear by some magic, some process that we can’t bother ourselves with right now, thank you, we are still arguing about who was a greater batsman, Gavaskar or Vishwanath. We want these 11 immaculately-conceived players to go out and beat the opposition, whatever opposition, every damned time. When they win, we prostrate ourselves before them, tattoo their faces on our breasts, name our children after them and beat our wives up if they ask us to change the channel. Every time they lose, we vilify them, condemn them, burn their effigies, and, given a chance, would stone them to death.
We do not want to know what their problems are, why some teams could actually be much better than ours (and this can hardly be our players’ fault), why even the best team in the world can lose a match once in a while, why playing cricket day in and day out throughout the year can tire out the greatest athlete and blunt the most extraordinary batsman’s edge. We don’t give a damn; we sent you out to come back with the world in your pocket so we can all feel more virile and bask in the glow of our pathetic, vicarious thrills. And we don’t want no excuses.
Can we win the World Cup? On the day India played Australia, I was taking a flight from Delhi to Bangalore. By the time I reached Bangalore, the match was over and long dead. That night, for dinner, I met an old friend of mine, now an extremely senior banker. After the ritual half-hour India-bashing, we confessed guiltily to each other that both of us were the typical Indian suckers who still believed that this team would suddenly rise like a phoenix and do something extraordinary. As far as cricket went, we, hard-nosed banker and cynical journalist, both believed — admittedly in a sheepish sort of way — in miracles.
In other words, Yaar, mujhe to lagta hai India ka isbaar chance hai.
Definitely. I mean, what the hell else do we have in this country but hope?
Posted by snkutty 
The Lion\'s Share 
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