India is out of the world cup in the first round itself. The only team we managed to defeat in the game’s supreme tournament was –Bermuda who were playing their first world cup by assimilating a team who are mostly part time cricket players.
I can’t think of a better example of “ANTICLIMAX” than this one.
Millions of dollars…oodles of energy…bounties of emotion…ALL OVER.
It reminded me of the sequence from the film- Forest Gump wherein Tom Hanks runs for miles on and is joined by people on the way until one day he stops-turns and heads back…one of the hundreds of people who have been running behind him says- “Now, what are we going to do?”
Isn’t that what the most of us felt! The ones whom we were running behind suddenly- stopped-turned and are coming back!!
The question is asked myself after India’s show at the cup was- Why do our lives are so intricately woven with a bunch of people who do not take their responsibility as seriously as some of their other peers do?
Why do we- the people of Mumbai (in particular) who lead these 21st century high paced lives turn our schedules inside-out to accommodate a 8 hour ritual that more often than not leaves us fretting and fuming?!
The reason is simple and is this- we don’t watch cricket out of our choice we invariably do so out of “No Choice”. Harsh; unfortunate…but true. A country with a billion people has no other sport to which they can cheer and be passionate about. There are no other icons or personalities who give us the thrill, the pride to be Indians and the adrelin rush of winning or competing.
We lead lives that drain us, we have certain differences that we don’t like but they still persists…it is a sport that gives us this opportunity to leave all our self made prejudices aside and come together and be happy or sad- ‘together’. We did’nt choose cricket, it was cricket who chose us!
But looking at the way things have turned out I see ourselves looking like nerds- voicing our disappointment or sulking in silence…we seem lost and directionless and that’s because we have no other place to go!
Hence what has happened is in a way is an eye opener to all of us, making us realise as to how we have turned our backs on the other sporting events where infact our passion and energy is needed. Its time to start exploring and encouraging other sports and sportsmen…
I don’t have anything to say or point out to the Indian Cricket Team for that’ll do no good but what’s to be done now for our own sake is that we stop turning the paper directly to the cricket section of the sports page in the morning, we need to divert our attention and energy to places where it is required.
This I hope is a blessing in disguise to us (as we have been harsh towards other sports), to the other sportsmen (who have been long wanting for our support) and to the men in blue (who might do with some shaking up).
