Sleeping with the enemy

The IPL is the biggest private party that anyone’s ever had in India. While we can debate who the host is, who’s serving drinks, who’s invited and gate crashing, the party is here to stay. It is a metaphor for the raunchiness that pervades a society’s mind that is coming to grips with its identity caught in the time warp between hallowed ideala and a materialistic identity. It’s about the collective subjecting itself to a sin, knowing in its conscience that this is wrong
The layering makes the case very interesting. The nomenclature of the teams has an aggressive tone to it; battle cries adorn all their team songs. Every team has a either a glamorous owner or a ravishing ambassador, the late night parties being the story of legendary exploits of players off the field. There are skimpily clad cheerleaders, being treated as feminine objects, meant to prance about in a gladiatorial setting. Every inch of space, on the ground, in the mind has been sold, franchised commercialized labeled. Real selves have been swathed under reams of commercial vinyl and paint, meant to create a make believe chimera that is psychedelic in its grip. The players are mere pawns, the teams hardly seem to matter, and it’s all to do it with the collective frenzy that gets churned, orgasmic, and foreplayed by the chants, peaking with the slog of the willow. There is a price on every player, sophisticated slave trade designed to emulate free markets, meant to challenge the spin doctoring skills of power brokers and business patrons. An essential ingredient to this concoction, is Bollywood, the other national passion, the net product being a promiscuous mixture of half baked cricket experts in short skirts and serendipitous cricketers at late night parties
The two protagonists to this tale used their own symbols and stars- Tharoor with his articulate Stephanian accent and 140 character at a time unraveling of opinions, Modi with his in your face, brash, money talks and can win any battle demeanor. The two had their own agendas to fulfill, riding on the IPL frenzy. While we can argue who the larger devil is, the point is both stretched it too far. So while the rest of us call for their heads to roll, most powers that be secretly hope that they get to ride the gravy train next, whether it is Laloo Yadav alias fodder scammer or Shashank Manohar. IPL seems to have become that mistress that everyone wants to sleep with at night, but no one wants to be seen with by day.