If ever there was a very colourful outburst of glitz, glamour, hype n hoopla, color and lights with a sea of people thrown in, it wouldnt have matched the IPL. Add to this 2 things which make India go crazy: Bollywood & cricket and every logic goes for a toss. The initial build-up to the IPL by virtue of its aggressive media campaign splashed all over the newspapers, TV, net & radio was something any marketing guy could learn from.
This massive IPL seduction ensured that the other IPL (Indian political league, which so many channels had cunningly christened to garner some miniscule viewership) had to be content with a shrinking fan-following.Surely, it did overshadow the election drama which failed to make an impact, at least in mumbai. Mumbai with its extended weekend had only 2 out of 5 people polling. Appalling to say the least, considering the whole hue n cry raised after 26/11 and the 'wake up' campaign. And you thought educated people would go all out to vote.
Anyways, back to IPL,some very interesting things of note;
1) The spotlight was more on the owners than on the performers. Rather it seemed as if the owners 'paid n performed' rather than 'paid the players to perform'.
2) Controvery stalked SRK like his shadow.
His gimmick of distributing golden mukuts failed miserably.
His 4-captain theory was rubbished by the pundits and thrown into the dustbin even before it came into effect ( A very popular anecdote doing the rounds on sms suggested that the 1st captain was for the toss, the 2nd for choosing the team, the 3rd for effecting the field changes and the 4th as a substitute captain)
3) Yet another anecdote on SRK after his team took a beating from every other team in the tournament was the one which likened him to Mahatma gandhi since both of them were 'insulted' in south africa!
Fair say..The knight riders had their daylights knocked out
4) Rains played spoil-sport in the initial parts of the tournament and transformed the T-20 matches into T-10 & T-5 matches (glimpse of the future??).The mathematicians had to work overtime to calculate the new scores. And the players were paid millions.
5) Men were auctioned off to the respective franchisees to the tune of millions. The only time when Shilpa & Preity would have fancied fighting over a man( in real life).
6) Man of the match awards have gone out of the window the window after Preity's "Jaadoo ki jhaapis". Shilpa" Hot" Shetty could well have her own brand of cricket (different bats,balls,cricket gear etc) just like "shilpa yoga".
7) JP duminy - $ 950000, Kevin pietersen - $ 1550000, Dada - $ 1092000.
Cheer-girls - $$$$$$$.....Priceless.
There are some things money cannot buy and those are the most attractive ones!
8) PVI - Paisa Vasool Index which measured the performance + brand value of a player, was invented . (Not long ago we discovered the zero)
9) Lalit would have had his heart in his mouth firstly when the elections knocked off any ideas he entertained of having an 'Indian' IPL and when the heavens opened up in south Africa. But he is currently on a splurging his excesses albeit for charity work in SA.
10) Its becoming increasingly difficult to decide which team to support.
I have changed my allegiance at least 4-5 times now.
(It started off with rajasthan since they won the last time, they failed miserably this time - > Mumbai indians 'cos of a dashing opening partnership, till their losing spree started...then chennai and lately its Kings Punjab. I luv Preity tll then..)
Regards
vish
Showing posts with label cricket. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cricket. Show all posts
Friday, May 15, 2009
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Global Masala!
A few weeks ago, the revered US prez stated that the global food shortage and price rice was thanks to developing economies in asia (Read India and china) wherein the middle class had become 'pretty rich' and more spendthrift towards their basic needs. Well tried Mr. Bush! But we dont celebrate thanksgivings over here!
Not long ago many of us awoke to a terrible phenomenon that India was subject to. It was called brain-drain which cost our country something more than crores n crores of rupees - talent, good talent!! The craze to study in the elite IITs, IIMs and strike it big in "Amreeka" was first and foremost on evry youngsters' mind. US visa, permanent citizenship,Silicon valley, masters, Harvard,Dow jones were the buzzmords. Then came the 'LPG' (Liberalisation,Privatisation,Globalisation) era. India opened up well and truly to the world. Many lamented that Inida was committing harakiri and would never come out of it. India caught a cold each time its big brother sneezed.
But the years to follow were something very unlike it. The India growth story finally unfolded. Bollywood overtook Hollywood. Tata took over corus, JLR. Jumbo vada-pav replaced burgers for a change. Indian fashion flooded international markets.NRIs gave up their high-paying jobs abroad and rushed to india. Bingo!4 of the top 10 billionaires were indians. Bangalore was the new silicon valley the IT heavyweights and chennai the new Detroit for global auto majors. The whole world had to stand up and take notice. Suddenely everyone vied for a share of the India pie.
What better example than the IPL T-20 tournament. The glitz, the glamour, the hype and excitement of IPL has by far overshadowed everything. One and half months later,The "Manoranjan ka baap" has beaten everything outright. Its fast, aggressive, power-packed and its there right before you, staring you in the face.
Shane Warne captains Jaipur. Shaun Pollock captained the mumbai indians. I bet,20 years ago, their "India" knowledge would have been just limited to the Taj Mahal or the poverty-stricken portrait of India featuring sadhus, fire-eaters and street jugglers. The very thought of "firangs" playing on our turf, representing different Indians cities would have just been laughed off as a figment of imagination, when Indians first took to the sport of the bat and the ball. Not that IPL has changed everything overnight, its just one of the many big things that has driven home the point. The colonial inventors of the game would be rolling in their graves if they were to witness the transormation the game has underwent a in terms of the shift of power,the way the game is played, the mooalah etc.
The Hyderabadis cheered when Symonds smashed sixes of hapless Indian bowlers(nothwithstanding his role in the racist 'monkey' controversy Down-under).The Kolkattans went beserk when Shoaib took out Sehwag with a thunderbolt. For that matter,shoaib in current form , wouldnt even dream of getting as much support from the whole of Pakistan as he got from the Eden garden crowds.
Well,just to give you an idea, consider this:
A Paki Batsman, An Australian at the non-striker's end, a West Indian Bowler, A Sri-Lankan wickeetkeeper, a New Zealander as an umpire, sweating it out in a power-packed contest at Wankhede in tinseltown mumbai's humidity. And what more proof does one need of steadfast globalization!! (Er..for your information, the cheer-girls in the opening ceremony were American and the ones who followed in the latter part of the tournament were British).
To me this is globalization at its best(est) form! Indian corporate houses and Bollywood celebrities pumped in billions saying that the game was a bit undervalued.Players were auctioned like horses and each of them had a price tag attached to him. Sponsors chipped in with their moolah. Television right were sold. Broadcaster all around the world had a field time. The crowds got their money's worth. The cheerleaders had a ball . Money changed a million hands. It was no longer cricket. Infact it was branded and marketed as cricket-ainment. New talent was unearthed. Big names bit the dust, unheard names blasted their way to the top.
As they say,change is the only thing constant and its upon us to make it a good change or a bad one. Cricket, fortunately, has adopted changes better than other sports. Move over IPL, just look at ourselves. where are we heading?what have we done? what do we speak today? We are the ones who have successfully married the paneer with the pizza,made a schezwan dosa and mineral water paani-puri.We have the largest English-speaking population in the world. So what if we dont speak it the way the brits do ,adding our own dosage of peculiar Indian accent. The point is when a country of a billion people speaks a language a particular way or adopts changes steadfastly in its own way, the other dont have a choice but to fall in our path. It wont be long before people would be trained to speak 'Indian english'.
That would be true globalization!!
Regards
Vishwesh
Not long ago many of us awoke to a terrible phenomenon that India was subject to. It was called brain-drain which cost our country something more than crores n crores of rupees - talent, good talent!! The craze to study in the elite IITs, IIMs and strike it big in "Amreeka" was first and foremost on evry youngsters' mind. US visa, permanent citizenship,Silicon valley, masters, Harvard,Dow jones were the buzzmords. Then came the 'LPG' (Liberalisation,Privatisation,Globalisation) era. India opened up well and truly to the world. Many lamented that Inida was committing harakiri and would never come out of it. India caught a cold each time its big brother sneezed.
But the years to follow were something very unlike it. The India growth story finally unfolded. Bollywood overtook Hollywood. Tata took over corus, JLR. Jumbo vada-pav replaced burgers for a change. Indian fashion flooded international markets.NRIs gave up their high-paying jobs abroad and rushed to india. Bingo!4 of the top 10 billionaires were indians. Bangalore was the new silicon valley the IT heavyweights and chennai the new Detroit for global auto majors. The whole world had to stand up and take notice. Suddenely everyone vied for a share of the India pie.
What better example than the IPL T-20 tournament. The glitz, the glamour, the hype and excitement of IPL has by far overshadowed everything. One and half months later,The "Manoranjan ka baap" has beaten everything outright. Its fast, aggressive, power-packed and its there right before you, staring you in the face.
Shane Warne captains Jaipur. Shaun Pollock captained the mumbai indians. I bet,20 years ago, their "India" knowledge would have been just limited to the Taj Mahal or the poverty-stricken portrait of India featuring sadhus, fire-eaters and street jugglers. The very thought of "firangs" playing on our turf, representing different Indians cities would have just been laughed off as a figment of imagination, when Indians first took to the sport of the bat and the ball. Not that IPL has changed everything overnight, its just one of the many big things that has driven home the point. The colonial inventors of the game would be rolling in their graves if they were to witness the transormation the game has underwent a in terms of the shift of power,the way the game is played, the mooalah etc.
The Hyderabadis cheered when Symonds smashed sixes of hapless Indian bowlers(nothwithstanding his role in the racist 'monkey' controversy Down-under).The Kolkattans went beserk when Shoaib took out Sehwag with a thunderbolt. For that matter,shoaib in current form , wouldnt even dream of getting as much support from the whole of Pakistan as he got from the Eden garden crowds.
Well,just to give you an idea, consider this:
A Paki Batsman, An Australian at the non-striker's end, a West Indian Bowler, A Sri-Lankan wickeetkeeper, a New Zealander as an umpire, sweating it out in a power-packed contest at Wankhede in tinseltown mumbai's humidity. And what more proof does one need of steadfast globalization!! (Er..for your information, the cheer-girls in the opening ceremony were American and the ones who followed in the latter part of the tournament were British).
To me this is globalization at its best(est) form! Indian corporate houses and Bollywood celebrities pumped in billions saying that the game was a bit undervalued.Players were auctioned like horses and each of them had a price tag attached to him. Sponsors chipped in with their moolah. Television right were sold. Broadcaster all around the world had a field time. The crowds got their money's worth. The cheerleaders had a ball . Money changed a million hands. It was no longer cricket. Infact it was branded and marketed as cricket-ainment. New talent was unearthed. Big names bit the dust, unheard names blasted their way to the top.
As they say,change is the only thing constant and its upon us to make it a good change or a bad one. Cricket, fortunately, has adopted changes better than other sports. Move over IPL, just look at ourselves. where are we heading?what have we done? what do we speak today? We are the ones who have successfully married the paneer with the pizza,made a schezwan dosa and mineral water paani-puri.We have the largest English-speaking population in the world. So what if we dont speak it the way the brits do ,adding our own dosage of peculiar Indian accent. The point is when a country of a billion people speaks a language a particular way or adopts changes steadfastly in its own way, the other dont have a choice but to fall in our path. It wont be long before people would be trained to speak 'Indian english'.
That would be true globalization!!
Regards
Vishwesh
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