It's cricket all over. The dream has come true. A team totally devoid of stardom is bringing home the Cup of Joy, Pride and Victory! 3 Cheers to Indian cricket.
While you may read all the positive stories in other sites, I feel pressed to express a not-so-pleasant angle to the rhetoric around the heroic episode of Dhoni's men.
Before we get there, this week has seen the young constable steal all limelight and be crowned the Indian Idol! Congrats Prashant, your humble background and your rise to stardom will inspire millions. And, India celebrates.
But hey, what's this all about? To a novice with no exposure to the Indian media, mention of "Indian Idol" and the question would pop up, "Indian Idol? How many lives has he changed? What's his story? Is it one of sacrifice? Has he revolutionised Indian governance? Has he arranged a pound of bread every day to the starving millions?"
One would have to respond, sheepishly, "Well, he sings"!
Does our Indian Idol do anything more than that, by any chance? Why is this hype then? Why would a country go crazy over someone because he has been able to imitate a few classics and item numbers? Where's the value? What's the point?
It was shocking when Ravi Shastri announced that the ICC has awarded a million dollars for the Indian team and "A crore of Rupees" for Yuvraj Singh, because he had hit, ahem, six sixes!
I was left wondering what one could do to the needy in a country like India with a few crores of Rupees! I was perplexed why half the number of voters in Indian Idol never care what governance, or the lack of it, is causing to the fibre of the country!
It's good to find a young team emerging out of nowhere; may be they think they deserve the prize money; and perhaps Yuvraj created a sensation which would go down in History as a golden episode in the first ever Twenty-twenty World Cup.
But I fail to see any coherent argument that would justify squandering crores of rupees on 15 people merely because they scraped through the final, because of one mis-hit by the Pakistani batsman.
Dear ICC organisers, my fellow country-men, are you in your senses?
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