IPL: The Cocktail of Business and Pleasure

It’s glamorous, like we love our friends to be. It’s expensive, like we love our possessions to be. It’s controversial, like we love our gossip to be. It’s quick, like we love our relationships to be. It’s short, like we love the hemlines to be. It’s all our dreams and fantasies, teasing us on a screen just a few feet away, and yet the channel is stuck, while we continue to be seduced by its poisonous charm.

Hello there ICC; welcome to the ‘no-boundaries no-rules’ species of cricket; welcome to the capitalism of cricket; welcome to the rendezvous of ability and celebrity; welcome to the IPL.

In the family of cricket, test cricket was for the gentlemen; the 60 over matches for the working gentlemen; the one-days for our dad’s; and just so that our generation didn’t feel left out, cricket gave birth to its most speedy, spoilt, naughty and controversial form: the IPL; and I love it! It represents everything that I would have ever wanted as a cricketer - the attention, the money, the fame, and the girls; and it exemplifies everything that I would have ever wanted as a businessman - a cricket team.

More than just a humungous sporting event, the IPL is the greatest administrative project of the 21^st century sporting world. In our race to equal the developed world, the IPL has given us an enormous edge. While the financial and economic comparisons will continue to dominate India’s scale of success, we can now proudly stand up against our sporting contemporaries like the English Premier League and American Football, securely backed by the mighty Indian Premier league. In its 2 month long format, it already forces producers to shift movie release dates; it will now go further and make the calendars of all the cricketing nations of the world bow before it. The ICC will shift series to accommodate players in the IPL; and players will retire from the long formats to concentrate on the IPL. Club will be put before country, all in the name of entertainment, money and fame; and we will have no choice, but to enjoy it.

The IPL is on the cusp, if not already, of commencing a new religion in India; and this will be the religion of “Episode Cricket”. Just like our favorite American sitcoms, or like the less popular Ekta Kapoor genre, IPL will too come and go in seasons; it will only be more real; more exciting; and if your pocket allows, LIVE! Behold while the very threshold of Indian cricket in its entirety is transformed in front of your eyes. We have a bigger and “badder” equivalent of Monday Night American Football and their cheerleaders, except that the can of beer is replaced with Darjeeling tea. We have Torres waving for attention on the sidelines, while the ladies chose to drool over Kohli. Girls paint themselves blue, leaving their boyfriends striving for attention (payback’s a b****). Controversies, parties and page3 have all been brought to the cricket field. They may be dieting to maintain their legs, but the lady stars want a bite of this cake just to stay visible. IPL has and will do for this nation, what KBC once did - sweep the streets clean of humanity, and make sure that families are in front of their TVs, watching cricket, cheering victories, and consuming the latest steroid of TV entertainment.

It has made me forget how to support a team, and only cheer for boundaries and sixes. It has put me in weird predicaments by teaming up Sachin and Malinga, a week after their World Cup rivalry. It has exposed me to the idea of cricketers being commodities, merely to be bought by rich men. It has broken geographical boundaries by hiring Australians to play for Rajasthan. It has changed the face of disciplined cricketers by forcing them to party. It has brought businessmen out of their board rooms and in to the stands. It has brought controversy and corruption to the sacred game of cricket; and finally, by mixing business and pleasure, it may well have created the kryptonite of the superman that is capitalism.

Neither you, nor I know the future of cricket, but with T-20’s astronomical popularity, and the technological metamorphosis being brought about in cricket, it is time about time that we archives our favorite cricket videos and saves those paper posters from the yester-years, for you never know when cricket, as we know it now, may exist in a unrecognizable form in the next decade.

...And there she was.

...And there she was. Inching her way towards me. I could feel time slow down; to the extent that I saw sunflowers change their direction with the sun. I couldn't help but think how beautiful she was. But wait...something was different. What was it? Everything seemed the same. I was the same person. Waiting for her to come to me with the same patience. Waiting on the same step where I wait for her every Friday evening. Yes. Everything about me was the same. It must be something about her(?) But she was the same girl. Taking the same path with the same unassuming smile on her face that she had whenever she was getting closer to me. She would take the same 23 steps before she would reach me. Yes. I knew that. I knew all of that. I knew everything was the same. Yet...something was different.

And then I saw it. In a moment when the wind caught what she was wearing and took the cloth by force. In the same moment that she tried to catch the flying fabric which made her feel out of control, yet made the event seem in absolute equilibrium with the universe. In the moment that she tried to control, what was made to be uncontrollable. Why didn't she understand! Why was she trying be its master. Why was she disturbing the equilibrium. Why wouldn't she just let the cotton fly behind her and continue her walk towards me.

And while I continued asking myself these questions, I found the answer. I saw what was different. It was right there. Right in front of my eyes. It was a matter of seeing, and not just looking. The answer was draped around her like a gorgeous serpent that went and saw places where only I was allowed. It was the wind-ridden cloth, the flying fabric and the soaring cotton; it was, like it was never before; her Saree.

And that was the first time I realized something; the saree was made just with one purpose in mind: to turn men on. How could it do what it did? How could it effect, the way it did? How could a cloth that hid more than it revealed be more sensual than a skirt that made visible her smooth legs; or a tight pair of jeans that left no curve to the imagination; or a tube top which made cleavage seem like a beer cozy. How was it that I was more turned on by seeing her in this single piece of cloth, than if she were wearing the most expensive lingerie that I could buy her as a poor student. How did her bare midriff and a third of her arms, the only skin visible in her current attire, have a greater effect on my heartbeat than if I imagined her bare skin?

I failed to realize it then. But I realize it now. What turned me on was not what she was wearing, nor what she would look like when she would not be wearing it; but the process that took her from the cloth covered stage, to her completely bare self. What effected me more, was that this process was under my control.

And although I call it a process, it really required no effort. There was no unhooking; no pulling; no tearing involved. There was no need of muscle. I could have done it with my mind. I could done it with slow gusts of air; because all I needed to do was a simple action. I didn't need her to stand still while I did it. In fact movement would make it easier. Yes, movement would definitely make it easier...to unwrap. She was my gift, and I was going to have an early birthday.

And in that moment I knew a lot more than I had expected to. I knew that I believed in myself without question, that I could love the woman who was walking towards me. There was no doubt about that. I also knew that love wasn't always enough. I needed something more. We needed something more, to survive. I knew what it was. A word that occupies the same space on a page as the word 'Love' does, and yet, means something tangentially different. A word that is used to explain everything animal about the human race. Lust. And that is when I ended my session of self-realization and knowing, by concluding, that while I could love this woman religiously, if there ever were a slightest doubt to whether I lusted her or not, all I had to do to free me of my worries, was to ask her to wear a saree, and let me unwrap her.