For the past few weeks the brand new fast food avatar of Indian cricket and the grand old juggernaut that is the Indian democracy, though colonies apart, have managed to keep us hooked, despite rising temperatures, shrinking pockets and other circumstances that make you feel like the biggest loser if you are still alive. When cricket and politics vie for your attention in what may in the agonizing Dickensian parlance be termed as the best and worst of times, it becomes interesting to draw parallels between both.
For starters there is enough drama in both to give the now ubiquitous daily soap a run for its money, or to teach the most emotionally challenged person the meaning of hysteria. Obvious cracks in a hitherto perfect team or alliance, followed by days of speculation, accusations and denials, and then a moment of revelation-could we ask more from even the longest running, most adrenalin pumping, tear jerking joint family saga?
Both have leaders who, by example, lead their team to reign or ruin, and wannabe leaders who wonder how the rest of the world could have missed the halo around their heads; leaders past their prime looking for the final encore and those in their quixotic salad days, taking risks that would put the most adventurous gambler to shame.
Both have upstarts that suddenly capture popular imagination with their skills on the field or their campaign capers, pulling rabbits out of an innocent looking hat; and old war horses that live down titles of 'has been' or 'might have been', but aren't ready for their last bow just as yet.
However well begun, it is the slog overs -the "death overs"- that matter in both. It is then that the proverbial slip between the cup and the lip or the kursi and the …never mind… is as likely to occur as not. It is then that the underdog suddenly reveals that he is after all, Superman behind those horn rimmed glasses and can, with a grand sweep of his bat or a subtle political sleight of hand or play of words quite turn the game on its head, leaving the formidable adversary to wonder just what went wrong.
Both in the end are about winning- and hence about losing; about realizing that tons of publicity and propaganda, of thumping your chest and patting your back, aren’t enough to move you from where you started-at the bottom. That you might as well, while you are at it, mint the moolah as long as it comes-and guts and glory be damned.
Not to forget that both while they last give the average Indian the feeling that he is about to witness the "Hand of God" at work. That while he may pray for his team and vote for his leader, he might as well leave it at that, as the ancient scriptures remind him not to worry about the fruits of his action. That he might as well enjoy a good game while it lasts, cheering for his favourite, and keeping the faith through it all. That when the winner finally surfaces, the spectators, the electorate applaud not because their choice has been vindicated but because, all said and done, it was a fight to the finish.
Till next time…
