It Ain’t Cricket!
It’s the silly season once again – I don’t mean the fickle English summer, but the cricketing adventures that are currently on. The Brits are very, very clever, you see. They lure you with the vision of a beautiful summer out there in Blighty and when you land there, you find that it couldn’t be any more summer than it could be in early January in Delhi. It’s windy, it’s rainy, and if and when the sun comes out, it is only to torment the Indian middle order! And we, I mean the venerable BCCI honchos, who are only intent on making money for the Board, (under or over it – the reference is to the board, please) care two hoots for the weather – after all, they aren’t the ones who will don the flannels at The Oval or The Lord’s. So, poor Zaheer Khan and Abhinav Mukund brave out the chill and the bouncers from Broad, Anderson and Tremlett – on both fronts, our heroes, no. 1 in the world, haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory! They looked more like a weather beaten crowd, just making the motions on the field, rather than world beaters!
Pray, tell me, why hasn’t anyone – the administrators or the players – paid any attention to learn from the mistakes of the past tours to England? One thing is for sure: we have scrupulously followed the tradition – of losing every opening test on a tour. It is as though we shouldn’t fail the English in following traditions, in a land famous for sticking to conventions and traditions: aren’t we more loyal than the Queen herself!
So, we find an injury ridden team hanging in there, all of them looking heavenwards for the rain clouds that they last saw in India. But the heavens didn’t open up, despite fervent prayers, but Kevin Pietersen and Matt Prior and a host of others offered their broad bats to anything that we threw at them. And when their turn to throw the cherry came, only The Wall was there to offer some resistance. It was that sinking feeling once again, not the euphoria that would have come from a win at The Lord’s. So, we find Tendulkar trying to bat like Dravid, Laxman pretending to be a Sehwag, and Bhajji playing like everyone else but himself! Thankfully, Dravid played like Dravid, putting bat to ball like only he could do!
Can anyone tell me when was the last time MS Dhoni took a wicket in a test match – even against Zimbabwe or Bangladesh? Was it that the aura of the Mecca of Cricket made him roll his arm at Pietersen and Co.? And can someone also tell me what an injured Zaheer Khan was doing, walking around the ground imperiously with a bouncer for company and smiling and waving happily at anyone and everyone, as if he had just bowled out the entire English team twice over? I couldn’t also fathom the jokes that VVS Laxman was cracking from the dressing room as the Indian tail was surrendering without even a whimper. What was the joke about – was it on himself or his team mates or the millions who were watching it back home?
Speaking of jokes, Captain Dhoni says he was overall pleased with the `performance’ of his boys! Ha! And young Ishant Sharma who bowled an outstanding spell cracked another joke: “I was really tired, and asked Dhoni for a break”! Who says there is no humour in cricket! Ask good old Geoffrey Boycott, and he would say with his characteristic candour, `even my grand mom would have done better than this Indian team’!
While on jokes and sports, and games that people play, let me also revisit the Commonwealth Games and its Patron Saint…
I was petrified when I read this morning about Kalmadiji being examined by specialists (not the Tihar variety, thankfully): guess, for what? Dementia! It has now been certified by experts from a reputed government hospital that there is “diffused cerebral atrophy with old ischemic changes in brain parenchyma with calcified granuloma in caudothalamic groove on the left side” of his brain. For a second, I rushed to call a doctor friend of mine to find out what it meant for poor Kalmadiji whether he was left with his brain intact and if so whether it was in place or not. The doctor was as ignorant as me as to what the experts meant!
But all is not lost: our dear experts say that in a clinical examination for dementia, the patient is given some things to remember to check whether he has registered them or not. To check the patient’s language function – whether he can comprehend verbal commands or not – he can be asked to touch his left eye or touch his nose, with the right hand thumb – no joke, this, sachhee mein!
I was now really worried for Kalmadiji, so I called up a couple of my contacts at Tihar (Let me confide that I do have some, believe me, you!) So, the experts reached Kalmadiji’s special cell to conduct the tests for which he gladly volunteered. Our man was asked whether he remembers the Queen’s Baton Relay; Kalmadiji promptly said he can’t rely on any type of relays now, more so with all those allegations of doping! The experts heaved a sigh of relief! The next test was more rigorous. Sureshji was told to touch his nose with the right thumb – and he readily obliged and how! He started scratching some unmentionable part of his anatomy! The specialists were thrilled, no doubt! And then came the final test. The experts wanted to know what Kalmadiji thought about the cultural programme at the concluding ceremony of the CWG. Lo and behold, Sureshji broke into a dance, singing at the top of his voice, Kajraare, Kajraare…. The medical team was so excited that they too joined the dance, and soon that entire section of Tihar, including The Raja, was singing and dancing to the tunes of Kajraare, Kajraare…
But Kanimozhi chose to stay aloof – she was busy writing Tamil poems which could be set to a different tune back in Mollywood…
So, while Kalmadiji is all set to suffer from selective or full dementia, the fighting spirit hasn’t left The Raja of spectrum fame. In fact, after he went to Tihar, his memory is now coming back with a vengeance! He doesn’t believe in the latest `Breaking News’ study released from London that the older we get, the smaller our brains become! On the contrary, if we believe in The Raja’s statements, his brain cells have become a lot more active, post-spectrum! No corrosion of the brain cells for him in his Tihar cell, I am told. And that is leading to brain storming sessions and sleepless nights at the Congress Headquarters, because The Raja’s brainwaves are hitting the highest in the land, that too pretty hard! Last heard, The Raja has declared that `history will absolve me’, a la Fidel Castro ishtyle. No joke, that!
Congress Headquarters is another joke, says who else, but Mani Shankar Aiyar! hai, hai! Trust Aiyarji to speak the truth, unless it involves the Gandhis. So, Mani says those who have lost all hope and are dejected go to 24, Akbar Road: “This is a kind of mela and every Congressman has to join the circus!” But party spokesman Satyavrat Chaturvedi is not amused; so Chaturvediji has wryly observed that if one were to agree to his inference, Aiyar himself has to decide whether he is a trapeze artist or a clown! The gentleman that he is, Chaturvediji didn’t use the word `joker’, though!
Jokes apart, Jairam Ramesh says when he was Minister of Environment and Forests, he was made into a Shikhandi! I gather that Bhishma, Arjuna and Shikhandi have taken very strong objection to Jairam’s revelation! But Rameshji is in for another trouble: he was found wiping his shoes with a garland given to him by the local Congress leaders in Rajasthan! Was he dusting off more than was required? Only time will tell which other negative role awaits Jairamji!
In spite of all these jokes in the silly season, I am depressed. But after reading today’s newspapers, I suddenly feel elated: another `Breaking News’ study has come out with the finding that India has the highest rate of major depression in the world! I am not alone, after all! The culprit is the World Health Organization’s World Mental Health Survey that conducted a “Cross-national Epidemiology of DSM-IV Major Depression Episode” (whatever that means)! But a senior babu of the Ministry of Health is playing the spoilsport; he cautions that the figures quoted in the study in respect of India are highly inflated and do not indicate the true situation of the mental health problem in the country! Please enlighten me, what does the babu mean to say!
I won’t say, `It ain’t cricket’, I promise!
