Long Long ago, so long ago, no one knows how long ago, when God, who was on a creation spree, accidentally added the chemical X to his latest recipe of thakkali sadham, a new species was born with a unique sixth sense - that of perception and thought. Several millenia later, these thinking organisms started playing around with other movable and immovable objects and creating stuff of their own. Precisely at that juncture, an apple fell on two creatures' heads. One useless man thought why the apple didn't go up and in that process ensured his name on the "Most Abominably Admonished People of All Times" incurring the unanimous wrath of all subsequent generations of innocently ignorant students. The other, a rather entreprising organism, an elephant, thought it would be an entertaining prospect to throw the apple around and hit it with its trunk, especially if there were other elephants around. Contrary to popular belief, they invented cricket.
Several Centuries later, when Homo Sapiens were taking over the world, establishing their supremacy in everything, they also managed to route Elephants, and a huge horde of other jungle animals (for the game had spread far and wide by then) in the game of cricket and rewrote the history of the sport, giving no credit to the original inventors. Gradually Indians, like everyone else learnt how to play the game from Elizabeth, Captain Russell's sister, and under their first Captain, Aamir Khan who hit a blistering century on debut, managed to beat the Englishmen - Yes, Cricket was born in India. Inspired by Aamir Khan's cricketing skills, several men with a heavy purse decided that it was time to start a Board for Cricket Control in India. And the BCCI, in a desperate bid to spend all their (black) money away before Lokpal Bill was passed a few years later, decided that it was time to start the Indian Premier League. To cut a long story short, before long IPL-4 started.
When IPL-4 started, little did I expect that I would end up despising it so much. But, I am hopeful you will agree that what happened to me was an extremely natural thing to happen to anyone who had seen what I saw that fateful day - a sight of a purple turbaned Navjot Singh Sidhu. Legend has it that a young boy hit Sidhu on the head with an extremely hard cork ball for talking too much and since then, with brains addled, Sidhu has been wearing the turban. Sadly however, he never stopped talking. Another famous story is that of the word 'Verbiose' which famously went into depression and subsequently committed suicide after listening to Sidhu talking. Verbiate, the son of Verbiose, is also said to have very cold relations with Sidhu. In fact, sources from Buckingham Palace also tell me that the rare occasions when she watches Extraaa Innings, the distressed Queen considers giving up speaking English, or on other extreme occasions, giving up speaking altogether. This disease is however not restricted to the Queen alone. Its a WHO certified epidemic sweeping the planet commonly called Sidhuism.
Extraaa Innings watchers however find solace in the fact that the programme breaks into breaks longer than the length of the program. And momentarily, their pulse rate drops back to 72 from the soaring 100 plus rate after seeing Sidhu. The commercials start looking real interesting. Peace reigns and the viewers start feeling upbeat and hum songs when a seemingly innocuous advertisement starts playing. A cute Ranbir Kapoor stands on the stage and makes an audience "laugh". And over the next 2 minutes, depressed, I'm forced to question the purpose of my existence. The idea that any "Vivekaha" (a person who can perceive goodness and badness) will laugh at the Docomo jokes even if every cubic centimeter of their blood is pumped out of the body and refilled with 100% concentrated Nitrous Oxide (Laughing Gas) is baffling to the point of loss of faith in human sense of humour. The ad has had many fall-outs. Primarily, PJ's (Poor Joke) are sueing Ranbir Kapoor for defamation to their rich and popular heritage. And elsewhere in the planet, frogs are known to have committed mass suicides after seeing themselves imitated by Ranbir Kapoor in the ad. This is not it, however. As a parting omment, Ranbir Kapoor calls other MNO's "Silly". Oh really !! Look who's talking ?!?!?
Thoroughly depressed after the twin shocks of Sidhu and Ranbir Kapoor, the viewers switch off the TV and come back just in time to watch the match, right on the dot. A few overs pass by and the faith in cricket starts restoring itself finally. Harsha Bhogle and Robin Jackman give us a few glimpses into the dying art of cricket commentating, until, for some unfathomable reason, feel a desperate urge to go down to the centre for a podcast. Thats when you wish you were never born. Obnoxity in the extreme form of Archana smiles at you widely, making you wonder if the tailor working on human skin up there in heaven missed a few stitches on her mouth. She picks on players who so ignorantly didn't notice the sly shadow of the devil slowly approaching them. When she is too close to run away from, the interview starts. The interview format roughly includes she asking a question for 1 minute, taking the mike close to the player's face for 10 seconds and then annoyingly laughing on the mike for the remainder of the interview. Archana's interviews are especially flabbergasting to cricket fans because they strongly felt that the worst of cricket anchoring ended with the abhorance called Mandira Bedi. Mandira Bedi, now, however looks like a cool, sensible cricket analyst.
Several Centuries later, when Homo Sapiens were taking over the world, establishing their supremacy in everything, they also managed to route Elephants, and a huge horde of other jungle animals (for the game had spread far and wide by then) in the game of cricket and rewrote the history of the sport, giving no credit to the original inventors. Gradually Indians, like everyone else learnt how to play the game from Elizabeth, Captain Russell's sister, and under their first Captain, Aamir Khan who hit a blistering century on debut, managed to beat the Englishmen - Yes, Cricket was born in India. Inspired by Aamir Khan's cricketing skills, several men with a heavy purse decided that it was time to start a Board for Cricket Control in India. And the BCCI, in a desperate bid to spend all their (black) money away before Lokpal Bill was passed a few years later, decided that it was time to start the Indian Premier League. To cut a long story short, before long IPL-4 started.
When IPL-4 started, little did I expect that I would end up despising it so much. But, I am hopeful you will agree that what happened to me was an extremely natural thing to happen to anyone who had seen what I saw that fateful day - a sight of a purple turbaned Navjot Singh Sidhu. Legend has it that a young boy hit Sidhu on the head with an extremely hard cork ball for talking too much and since then, with brains addled, Sidhu has been wearing the turban. Sadly however, he never stopped talking. Another famous story is that of the word 'Verbiose' which famously went into depression and subsequently committed suicide after listening to Sidhu talking. Verbiate, the son of Verbiose, is also said to have very cold relations with Sidhu. In fact, sources from Buckingham Palace also tell me that the rare occasions when she watches Extraaa Innings, the distressed Queen considers giving up speaking English, or on other extreme occasions, giving up speaking altogether. This disease is however not restricted to the Queen alone. Its a WHO certified epidemic sweeping the planet commonly called Sidhuism.
Extraaa Innings watchers however find solace in the fact that the programme breaks into breaks longer than the length of the program. And momentarily, their pulse rate drops back to 72 from the soaring 100 plus rate after seeing Sidhu. The commercials start looking real interesting. Peace reigns and the viewers start feeling upbeat and hum songs when a seemingly innocuous advertisement starts playing. A cute Ranbir Kapoor stands on the stage and makes an audience "laugh". And over the next 2 minutes, depressed, I'm forced to question the purpose of my existence. The idea that any "Vivekaha" (a person who can perceive goodness and badness) will laugh at the Docomo jokes even if every cubic centimeter of their blood is pumped out of the body and refilled with 100% concentrated Nitrous Oxide (Laughing Gas) is baffling to the point of loss of faith in human sense of humour. The ad has had many fall-outs. Primarily, PJ's (Poor Joke) are sueing Ranbir Kapoor for defamation to their rich and popular heritage. And elsewhere in the planet, frogs are known to have committed mass suicides after seeing themselves imitated by Ranbir Kapoor in the ad. This is not it, however. As a parting omment, Ranbir Kapoor calls other MNO's "Silly". Oh really !! Look who's talking ?!?!?
Thoroughly depressed after the twin shocks of Sidhu and Ranbir Kapoor, the viewers switch off the TV and come back just in time to watch the match, right on the dot. A few overs pass by and the faith in cricket starts restoring itself finally. Harsha Bhogle and Robin Jackman give us a few glimpses into the dying art of cricket commentating, until, for some unfathomable reason, feel a desperate urge to go down to the centre for a podcast. Thats when you wish you were never born. Obnoxity in the extreme form of Archana smiles at you widely, making you wonder if the tailor working on human skin up there in heaven missed a few stitches on her mouth. She picks on players who so ignorantly didn't notice the sly shadow of the devil slowly approaching them. When she is too close to run away from, the interview starts. The interview format roughly includes she asking a question for 1 minute, taking the mike close to the player's face for 10 seconds and then annoyingly laughing on the mike for the remainder of the interview. Archana's interviews are especially flabbergasting to cricket fans because they strongly felt that the worst of cricket anchoring ended with the abhorance called Mandira Bedi. Mandira Bedi, now, however looks like a cool, sensible cricket analyst.
All in all, the oldest cricketers – the elephants – have the most to lose out of IPL-4. Not only has their gentle (later gentleman’s) game become a living insult to their senses, to top it, Sreesanth is a ‘Kochi Tusker’. Sigh! Thank god I am not an elephant. I only have to tolerate it from a distance and am not a part of the joke myself. The elephants aren’t that fortunate. And ya, the word ‘joke’ sends shivers down my spine. Ranbir Kapoor haunts my mind. If there ever was a sincere prayer, it is this. God save cricket !!
P.S: In the first draft, CSK featured in more than half the length of the post.
