Cricket Fever

I happened to go to a busy and happening market today. Today was also the day that the Final was being played between Australia and India. The triseries in Australia. Earlier it used to India Pakistan that used to elicit this kind of response... war... battle cry and battle lines drawn. If-you-are-their-friend-you-are-our-enemy- kind of sentiment. Now it seems as if Australia has taken the spot.

The market was quite empty of the cars that usually make it difficult to drive through or park. A few shops that had televisions were switched to the sports channel. I saw the scene that I had not seen for a long, long time! Crowds at the shop windows, watching the match, standing on the pavements- cheering each hit and each wicket. Each miss brought a collective sigh and an indrawn breath as if the crowd was a single giant not a collection of several people. Had there been a means to monitor, probably the heart beats of the individuals making up this mob would also be synchronised!

Cricket between the two nations in the past few months has been a far cry from gentlemanly game that it started off as. It has been mired in controversy. It has had its share of name calling and mud slinging. It was not just fun on or off the field where a group pf people competed with another group of people and either won or lost. It has been like a war where if one team did not win, it risked much more than life itself!

As a nation that had been under the British Rule for centuries, we have had enough experience of being at the recieving end of Racial discrimination. "Dogs and Indians not allowed" was not a comic strip; it was a real sign put up outside real public places. In our own country. We were not allowed inside public places. Our own public spots! Mostly people conformed. Some revolted. Some resisted peacefully. Each had a role in how our struggle for Independence matured and how British who came to trade and stayed to rule were finally driven out of our country.

Given our cultural and religious ethos, we have been a race that has, generally, taken all it was given with fortitude and tolerated a lot that would have riled many others. It was considered a virtue to tolerate rather than retaliate. Srishant's body language and facial expressions belied that ancestry. It was a refreshing change! If we could take with fortitude we should be able to dish out with impunity! Whites are whites merely due to absence of a certain pigment to colour their skin a darker shade. It does not change the way their heart beats nor the chemicals that drive the reactions in their brain. They digest their food by the same chemical reactions, using the same enzymes and assimilate the same aminoacids that we do. What makes the aparthied a historical fact that was ok and reverse aparthied a crime? Infact, we as a nation, have come a long way in less than a century of independence. We are a global software power to contend with. We drive the global markets significantly. We have even had a locally grown and brewed coffee chain resist a mega take-over by a global coffee giant- none other than Starbucks! Cafe Coffee Day ( God Bless Them!) replied, "We are not for sale. You are most welcome to set up shop here and we will take you on!"

Amid all this hulla gulla- it is no surprise that Australians try any means- sportsman-like or not- to rlie Indians. It is equally reassuring to see the Indians not buckling under the pressure and replying in the same language!

This attitude is what is defining today's youth. Of India that can stand and fight and chase and rise. Glory is ours to take... we are ready to take it.