Well, this story doesn’t need an intro. The mood in the air is so palpable you can touch it without a cricket bat. Here, we have quickly compiled (quicker than a 20-20) a list of reasons why we should promote more cricket in the country.
- Cricket helps raise political awareness among apolitical, city-bred youth. Witness the finesse with which Nationalist Congress Party claimed the World Cup for itself as soon as the cricket team landed in Mumbai. For a youth born, brought-up and spoiled in the metropolis on cut-throat capitalism without political awareness, occasional sponsorship of cricket and its subsequent hijack serves to highlight the indispensability of politics in our sporting nation.
- Cricket and its celebration open up new horizons of self-expression for a sexually frustrated generation. According to a Times of India article (and a special feature) many girls, who had obviously skipped college and school, were molested by the crowds which had thronged to receive the cricket team. "I called out for help. Some strangers helped me to my feet...they moved me to a corner, surrounded me and started pawing me," Neha Soni told Times of India. "It lasted for over ten minutes," cried Neha, adding that the men even had their hands inside her jeans. "Just outside the Wankhede Stadium gates, a TV journalist was embraced from behind by a man who had unzipped himself," the report adds. Isn't this what William Wordsworth called a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings? Was he a groper too?
(This writer was not part of the mob, but wish he was)
- Cricket helps reduce overheating in the Indian economy. Currently, the Indian economy is growing at a rate of over 9%. The government and the country's central bank are worried shitless that economy may overheat due to rising productivity. Watching cricket, especially during works, will help reduce overproduction and cool down an overheating economy. This will also reduce inflation and bring down commodity prices. In national interest, cricket should be promoted during office hours so that employees who form the vital engine of an economy gone haywire are encouraged to shirk.
- More cricket helps comprehensively destroy other games like football, hockey and tennis. Who wants to watch them anyway? Let them all go to seed. India's Prime minister, President and super PM Sonia Gandhi have profusely congratulated our cricket team for winning the Twenty20 Cup. This is over and above other assorted political scum who discovered their glory reflected from the cricketers' soiled sneakers. No such platitudes were ever dished out when Indians won other games - in tennis, chess, football... Why, no such platitudes were heard when soldiers died for the country in Kargil, Colombo and Aksai Chin. Let us discriminate positively, (these are the days of positive discrimination) completely sideline other games and screw them to death. It's not politically and financially expedient to spend money on games which don't help boost TRPs anyway. We may not have been able to do justice to our soldiers' families with packages of Rs 60 lakh and crores, but we sure have them permanently embalmed in the collective memory of the nation with coffin scams and Bofors bribes. That's enough.
- We got a lot of scores to settle with Pakistan. Buggers fought wars with us -- how dare they -- and bit off a chunk of Kashmir and sold it to China. They train militants in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and send them across to India. They fan communal hatred in Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bangalore, wherever they want. Enough is enough. If we can't beat them at their game, let us beat them at ours. Let's screw their cricket teams. Let's beat them by six runs in the last over and wipe off all the ignominy of decades of infiltration. No kidding - at the victory rally, Maharashtra deputy chief minister, the warrior Maratha whose mind-blowing bravery (I nominate him for Red & White Bravery Awards) led to the shutdown of dance bars in Mumbai compared the victory of the Indian team to the victory of Indian army over Pakistan. Forget conventional warfare, this is the real War!
Twenty Twenty Zindabad! Pakistan Moordabad!
Note from editor: The author of this article has mysteriously disappeared after this article appeared. If you have seen any corpse outside cricket stadia with attack injuries, kindly alert us. |
