Some of you may raise an eyebrow, while others may give me a virtual whack for saying "I observe that Indian cricket is one phenomena which unites the entire country. We all easily forget our 1000+ differences and rally behind the set of 11 men identified as Team India."So what am I saying new here? I know, everybody is aware, we are called cricket crazy nation for nothing...Cricket is a religion, not sport..and cricketers Demigods !
Frankly I do not care about the game and probably don't understand it much ( Yes, i am the minority, and may require constitutional laws against Cricket-loving people looking down at us and treating us like an outcast.)
However, I do have to give its due to this game for bringing this diverse country together every-time this game is on. So I am interested to know how they achieve this unlike other major influence-rs of our country & society like cinema, religion or our leaders. In-fact some of the other influence-rs have bought in more division than unity.
Sports usually have the tendency to evoke passions (positive) as well as obsessions (negative) among the fans and followers around the world.
Cricket is our passion, but why do we identify so much with this one particular game that other sportspeople are almost living a ghetto life...I think it started during the British rule in India, probably we as Indians wanted to beat Britishers at their own game and excel at it ( a la movie Lagaan) or probably like other things just wanted to ape them and consequently a false pride in playing the game of so called superior race instead of our native sports .
British legacy or not , It is our game now. And it brings us together like no other. I believe it is because we play against the world with one Team, and the whole country identifies and rallies behind this one team,we all become part of this team, which has one language and one religion - Cricket.
We know that this team has players from diverse background, different religions, states etc. but instead of looking at differences, we look at their merit. And this is no mean achievement.
Of course since this game evokes such strong passions, there are also some negative backlashes in case the team disappoints fans.
One may ask, why rant so much when I proclaim to not care about cricket. Yes, I don't. It's the game's ability to bring people together that I am always in awe of.
Looks like this is all changing now, this last bastion of indivisibility seems to be not so strong anymore,now with the onslaught of new shiny shimmery format of 20-20 game with the extra dose of all things beautiful and promise to make us play against each other...time to put the notion of one Team India in the back-burner for now.
Frankly I do not care about the game and probably don't understand it much ( Yes, i am the minority, and may require constitutional laws against Cricket-loving people looking down at us and treating us like an outcast.)
However, I do have to give its due to this game for bringing this diverse country together every-time this game is on. So I am interested to know how they achieve this unlike other major influence-rs of our country & society like cinema, religion or our leaders. In-fact some of the other influence-rs have bought in more division than unity.
Sports usually have the tendency to evoke passions (positive) as well as obsessions (negative) among the fans and followers around the world.
Cricket is our passion, but why do we identify so much with this one particular game that other sportspeople are almost living a ghetto life...I think it started during the British rule in India, probably we as Indians wanted to beat Britishers at their own game and excel at it ( a la movie Lagaan) or probably like other things just wanted to ape them and consequently a false pride in playing the game of so called superior race instead of our native sports .
British legacy or not , It is our game now. And it brings us together like no other. I believe it is because we play against the world with one Team, and the whole country identifies and rallies behind this one team,we all become part of this team, which has one language and one religion - Cricket.
We know that this team has players from diverse background, different religions, states etc. but instead of looking at differences, we look at their merit. And this is no mean achievement.
Of course since this game evokes such strong passions, there are also some negative backlashes in case the team disappoints fans.
One may ask, why rant so much when I proclaim to not care about cricket. Yes, I don't. It's the game's ability to bring people together that I am always in awe of.
Looks like this is all changing now, this last bastion of indivisibility seems to be not so strong anymore,now with the onslaught of new shiny shimmery format of 20-20 game with the extra dose of all things beautiful and promise to make us play against each other...time to put the notion of one Team India in the back-burner for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment