Passionate About India

The IPL typically represents media frenzy, glamour and excessive of vices that supersede the sporting domain of the event; the event is taking cricket lovers for a ride as the glitterati topple the sporting paradigm of the game of cricket. IPL is packaged in a way that even those population segments that might not be hardcore cricket fans are glued to their television sets allured by the clamour of celebrities, glamour and the hysteria that goes with it. The money-spinning potboiler that the IPL is, it undoubtedly speaks of a very efficient and hot business model with all the right proportions of the marketing mix embedded in it. But with the largesse comes the cost. And the cost is the game of cricket itself. The unearthing of betting scandals, players’ complicity in spot-fixing, underworld kingpins’ involvement and monetary misappropriation are all turning the premise of what was supposed to be a perfectly innocent game – the game of the gentlemen. The IPL model follows (or at l...

Yes, it’s just one man who has won us the Cup! And it’s not Sachin Tendulkar or Yuvraj Singh... The man is Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who won us the World Cup despite everyone else putting in their bit! Just before the India-Pakistan match, I was called by IBN7 for a discussion on India's chances. There, I had said that I personally believed that the 2003 team that reached the final was more talented than the current team. But I also said that it is this team that will win the Cup, and just due to one factor – not Sachin or anyone else; but for the great leadership of Dhoni! That's the kind of importance I attach to leadership – be it in a country, or in a game; especially like cricket. The 2003 Indian cricket team had a better bowling lineup. And an equally good, if not better, batting lineup due to the sheer presence of one of the best one-day batsmen of the world and the captain who started the great Indian march forward – Sourav Ganguly! But then, Sourav failed to win us the Cup...

but for an equally irresponsible board and a self-centered political class! From the heights of magnificent popularity to the depths of controversies – the game of cricket is going through its roughest patches. The recent betting and match-fixing scandal surrounding the Pakistani cricket team is not only a sad denunciation of the most popular sport, but a huge betrayal for those millions of cricket lovers who swear by the names of cricketers. The latest allegations of match-fixing and spot-fixing by Pakistani cricket players brought back with itself the horrors of the early 2000 match-fixing scandal. The whole belief and pacification about match-fixing getting buried in pages of history (after the year 2000 fixing scandal was exposed) seem to have resurfaced as bigger monsters this time. It was the same match-fixing issue that ensured a life ban being slapped on the South African captain, Hansie Cronje, who later mysteriously died in an air crash. The same happened to the erstwhile cel...

My heart goes out for Mumbaikars! They face the worst of crisis time and again, despite being in the midst of plenty. Mumbai is our industrial capital and India’s richest live there. People come to Mumbai from all parts of India with dreams in their eyes to strike it big. Not that all of those dreams come true – 40% live in the slums of Mumbai. Yet, many strike it big and dreams do get fulfilled. More importantly, everyone is on the move and working hard – rich or poor. It’s in their culture. But then, from blasts to water clogging, issues just keep testing them and trying to slow them down – the latest one being their unending month-long water crisis, which is hitting everyone in the city, rich or poor. In the biggest and swankiest of buildings, there is hardly any water and people are now going to work very often without taking bath. Water comes from tankers and that too for a few hours only. The whole day, taps have no water. Tankers too are not easily available and there are offic...

Poor Lalit Modi. He went a little too fast with his scam and partied a little too hard in front of public eyes. As per a confidential income tax report, he bought a luxury yacht, a private jet, a fleet of Mercedes S-class cars and what not! All in the last three years! He gave every possible deal to do with IPL to his relatives and family and friends or to people whom he owed money – so that they don’t come behind him. Again, this is as per that report which came out in The Economic Times. More, he took personal stakes in disguise in three of the IPL teams and is supposed to have been himself involved in fixing the outcomes of IPL matches along with a prominent page 3 personality; again according to the same report. He is linked to Betfair – a UK firm that runs one of the world’s largest betting syndicates on the internet – and is helping it to enter the casino and hospitality business in India! This is what the Income Tax Department scooped out from Lalit Modi’s email box. And all thi...

AT A TIME WHEN IT IS NOT ABLE TO GUARANTEE RETURNS TO THE OWNERS? Unlike last year, this year’s IPL is in the news for all together a different set of reasons. Now that it has already been declared (assuming this decision to be the final one, without further change) that this season’s IPL would take place in South Africa, it is time for India to take stock of what she has lost and what not on account of this decision. But before that it is even more pertinent to question why IPL organisers accepted this in the first place? Is it that they are deliberately trying to run away from hosting the event in India, using the general elections as an excuse? And considering the fact that general elections should be given topmost priority, was it so very challenging to postpone the event by some time, and hold it later on in all the states? Why is there so much hurry to force upon a decision, and that too, to host one of the most popular sporting properties of India outside India? Is it that the o...

The world has been written about Sachin, but this is something that has gone completely unreported. That’s how Sachin wanted it to be. It was 2003. Without much expectations, my team had gone to Sachin to invite him for the launch of my book, The Great Indian Dream. He obviously was busy but he kept the copy of the book. One fine afternoon in 2004, we were overjoyed to receive a call from Vinod Naidu, then the Director of Worldtel, informing us that Sachin had gone through the book and wanted us to meet him. We had no clue what was in store for us. My colleague Deepak Shah went to meet him and what followed was a dream come true for anybody. Yes!! The Master Blaster had agreed to endorse our Great Indian Dream Foundation advertisements!! An association that lasted for 3 years!!! At that time, the market rate for a Sachin Tendulkar endorsement was Rs.4 crores per year and he had decided not to charge a penny for the same from us. Not just that, he had decided to give us one day to shoot...

The Indian Premier League Twenty 20 (IPL T20) is finally over. And it ended in the most spectacular manner one could ever imagine in any form of sport – the team which came into the tournament as least favourites and as underdogs, finally grabbed the trophy in a clincher! In fact, when the IPL was about to commence, I was very apprehensive about the success of the entire event. For I believed, that for a nation which has no history of club culture, to accept IPL – which was based on a club format – was a challenge in itself. Moreover, in India, where cricket is like a religion and players of Team India are almost like demi-Gods, to be accepted by fans to play against each other in a club format, was another challenge. Thirdly, after the debacle of the Indian Cricket League (ICL), which was almost on a similar format, the success of IPL was looking grim. But the manner in which IPL happened, completely shook up the entire nation. IPL’s success has been primarily on account of the manner...

India is a pot of crabs. Though blessed by the birth of brilliant individuals, India has forever been beset by insecure power brokers steeped in mediocrity who always feel threatened by these brilliant individuals. As a consequence, Indian history in every sphere has been witness to umpteen examples of heroic visionaries being pulled down by a system that felt threatened by the individual’s growth. Be it a Subhas or a Bhagat, an Ambani or a Bajaj, they were all forsaken by a system that should’ve nurtured them. In spite of this, they might’ve persevered and realised their visions in whatever measure possible, but that is besides the point. The point is that the same, irritatingly familiar phenomenon is painfully evident in the manner in which the BCCI is handling India’s World Cup debacle. First things first – Greg Chappell’s gone and thank god for small mercies. The high-handed Australian ruined every team he touched as a coach and it proved to be no different for the Indian team. He ...