Soon after becoming the new world chess champion, Viswanathan Anand, in an interview given from Mexico City, said in a semi-jocular, semi-wistful tone that he had heard about the stupendous welcome that had been given to the T20 world cup winning Indian team that had just returned home, and he would be interested in seeing what kind of reception he got when he came back.
We all know Anand won't generate even one-fifteenth of the mass hysteria that the Indian team generated, and yet he is a world champion in his own right, having beaten (or drawn with) the best in the world, and having performed consistently in the international sports arena over the years with excellence. Surely he is worth as much as Piyush Chawla or Dinesh Karthik. But he won't get his "due". We know chess or billiards (yes thank you Pankaj Advani) or hockey don't get one-hundredth of the attention that cricket gets.
And the reason is not that cricket has sponsorships and hype going for it like no other sport has. Those are there because cricket has something going for it that no other sport in India has. It's a team game that makes spectators proud to be an Indian. "I proud to be Indian" you can say at the end of a game well won. Can you say that as--with all due respect--Anand's bishop takes unpronounceable Russin's rook, or whatever?
Yes you can say it all right when you watch Chak De India. But when was the last time you danced with joy watching India play hockey? Yes they might have beaten South Korea and lifted (heinyoo) the Asia Cup (now only if our weightlifters would stop doping they would be allowed to lift something too) par is kahani mein drama kahan hai, emotion kahan hai? A few years back Jugraj Singh was able to set our hearts on fire with his penalty corners and his penalty corner blocks, and we beat Pakistan, and for a brief moment, the box office crackled--but then he took somebody's good luck wish too literally and well, went and broke a leg. (These Jats!)
It's been done in India before in sports other than cricket, you know, and you don't have to be 96 years old and go back to Mohun Bagan beating Yorkshire Regiment in the IFA Shield final in 1911. (Bagan apparently played barefoot; was that why they refused India a game in the Olympics decades later when the players said they couldn't afford boots and would play barefoot? These Indian dervishes, you can't trust them and their bare feet.) In 1978, Bagan beat the fancied Ararat Sports Club in--ahem, again--the IFA Shield. If you are more than thirty-five and a Bengali you will remember that day--or rather, night (Ararat sedin sararat kendenchey--Ararat that night cried and cried). It felt like we had won ourselves independence anew.
It's a country that likes grandstanding. We are driven by mass hysteria. That's how we got our independence. Not through planning or politics--but by a chappie making salt from sea water, and going on fasts, and walking about in loincloth that would do Sherawat proud. Much as Om Puri might fume in Maachis, azaadi isi ne la ke diya, bhai.
We want to see Misbah down on his knees, felled just one stroke away from victory. There's a ring of destiny here--it reminds you of Karan and Indrajit and so on. Bishop takes rook just doesn't swing it, man.
So, Vishy, don't go expecting the reception that the India team got. You ain't gonna get it, baby.
And why do you want it? If the Other wants for itself the privileges of the Self, we are going to go around in colonized - postcolonial circles, aren't we? You aren't the cricket team, but you are a world champion. Why not make your own space? Be eklavya. (Ok oscar debate not this post.)
2 comments:
yes, its interesting these post colonial circles, aren't they? When we are 'abroad' especially in the spaces of the erstwhile colonizer, we love to introduce ourselves as the 'thinking' people. We are here, doing well, because we, apparently are more clever AND more hardworking than the locals. This is how most NRIs represent themselves and take a swipe at the citizens.And yet, we respond, not to the thinking man's game, but to the mass hysteria. But Anand will be the greatest mastermind, Porsche or no Porsche.
ahem, silent sam II here. not wishing to sound too loud and er ... draw too much attention ... entirely agree with your viewpoint; somewhere along the line there is a divider between team sports and solo sports (or whatever they are called). The former makes room for mass hysteria and the latter isolates itself from the mass. That's the way I see it, almost a binary (gee, I still can't make a statement without qualifiers and qualifiers...).
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