Gold and Supari

Poor Monika Devi and lucky officials! Abhinav Bindra’s Gold killed the most exciting story till then, i.e., “politics of nothing” and changed the focus to some real stuff. This is really exciting stuff. India has 9 golds in the history of the games now – same as what Phelps got in the current version of the games.

For a brief period (a few hours) I thought may be we have found a sport that Indians can excel in – first Rathore and now Bindra. It’s all about focus and concentration – mental strength rather than physical strength… then in the evening I saw the footage of Bindra’s way to glory… the moment I saw his superman like suit, I realized the sport must be beyond the reach of most of the common people.
My doubts were confirmed when I got to know that this dude is rich and practices in his personal air-conditioned shooting range (while other shooters cribbed about the lack of proper infrastructure in India).
The newspapers the next day were full of all the money showered by various – PM, CMs, BCCI, Lalu, sporting bodies et all… with the value going up to Rs 1 cr!! And what was dad’s reward to his prodigal son – ahem… a Rs 200 cr hotel!!! It not only humbled all rewards and awards (as far as $ figure is concerned), it made me realized that this dude is not rich… he is very very rich…

But wait a minute… one unlikely name in the long list was BCCI – that’s “Board of Control for Cricket in India” – Rs 30L. Why would a cricketing body which can't spend on it’s own infrastructure would do something like this? They have some of the worst cricket stadia in the world – Bangalore is one of the worst. Once I paid Rs 5K to watch a match between India and Australia – travel from Pune costed me on top. Before it was washed off by rains, I could see 2/3rd of the ground. I was given a hole to watch the match from for the Rs. 5000 I spent on these jokers. Every time there was a high shot towards the 1/3rd of the invisible ground, I had to guess and judge by crowd’s reaction if it was a catch or a 6 or a 4. And then there was a pillar right in the middle bisecting the pitch into 2 parts. Guess I was fortunate enough to be able to see the stumps, well in fact spot them from my hole.

Coming back to Bindra - one of the things the gold did was that it lightened the pain of the humiliating test series defeat in Sri Lanka. But why would BCCI reward him or pay him? Are they thankful that the attention was taken off cricket and there was less of flak for the Sri Lanka debacle?
Or may be IS Bindra (one of the top officials of BCCI) is related to Abhinav and he wanted to reward his biradari-wala!
I think the real reason is something different – it’s a Supari… yes Supari. Very clearly, Ajanta Mendis was the difference between win and defeat for India. But for him, we would have definitely won the series. And he is young, has just come in – its not only the current series… if this lad continues to bowl like this, we can kiss the next world cup good bye already… so what’s the solution? Take him out… literally! And hence the Supari to Bindra, the sharp shooter…
And what a brilliant way to pay the money – Khule-aam!!
This might sound like dark humor to you all… the time would tell…

The politics of nothing a.k.a. India in Olympics

Monika Devi tests positive for banned substance… Monika claiming innocence (weightlifter in tears – it was pretty ironical)… Monika claiming it was to get Shailaja Pujara in… Monika cleared of the charges (how does that happen?)… But it seems it’s too late and her name is already withdrawn from Beijing Olympics…

Frankly, the whole thing smells of rat, stinks... stinks big time. The timing was perfect. An announcement on a sample taken on June 6th! An announcement made at such a time that even if it turns out be wrong, it would be too late for Monika to take part. Though it’s all circumstantial and I might be completely wrong here, I think Monika played spoilsport by going to the media and making very direct statements and thus foiling the chances of Shailaja.

I saw this very funny interview given by Shailaja which was given in Telugu. The subtitles read something like this – “I have been told that I am not selected for Beijing. The only way I can go is if Monika falls ill or is caught of doping.” Dunno whether it was before or after the Monika doping news came out but hello! “caught of doping”… who says such a thing? Well she missed couple of options like “Monika running away with an Iraqi weightlifter”… I suspect Shailaja is a bit naïve but there are others who are not!!

In any case, what are we fighting for exactly? Of all the news items I have read or seen, I did not see any which even remotely mentioned that we lost a medal. While I am no authority on this subject (in fact I had not even heard of Monika or Shailaja before this controversy), I am kind of sure Monika was not even close to getting a medal…
Isn't it “politics of nothing”??

Btw, Anup Sridhar won the first round today pretty easily... Lets wish him all the best!