So the World Cup was this weekend. And India won, oh joy… I’m no cricket fan, it’s just a game where a bunch of people throw, hit and catch a ball, with seriously limited activity while doing so. Probably why the Indian cricket team is so unfit. (Read “fat”).
Even though I don’t watch the cricket, I did have to sit through the game, and all the news coverage after. The news bit was interesting. People are saying the team has done wonders for India, and that they pretty much are “world dominators” who have taken India above and beyond, and done great things for the country. Fair enough…
But…they won a World Cup, surely that doesn’t really mean that governments from Tamil Nadu to Himachal Pradesh need to be gifting them crores of Rupees, plots of land, or houses in different states? How do they just have that much money to give away? If they have that much money, what have they been doing with it all this time? Just keeping it in a vault while the roads go to shit and people die all around them of starvation or disease? Technically, couldn’t just Rs. 1 Crore (like $225k) be more than enough to help a slum somewhere? Isn’t India meant to have a third of the World’s poor, with about half our population living under the poverty line? Dhoni alone has made some 400 million from endorsements alone. What’s he going to do with the rest? Oh and what annoys me more is the “lifetime free railway travel” thing – Let’s think about this…Ok, I have 400 million Rupees, and people mob me when they see me. Yeah, I’m really going to travel on a train to my destination. Maybe after that, I’ll go buy a thatched hut and a cow.
(Okay, here I have to say that I know nothing about the government, or where the money they have goes, or whether they do anything good for in general. And I know even less about how much money they have put aside to waste on cricket, or anything else, so all this is just my rant because it annoyed me that cricket is on this pedestal, while everything else is shot to hell.)
On the radio yesterday, the lady is all praise for Dhoni (the captain), saying that he’s saved India and deserves all that they’re being gifted/given. I think she asked him what he thinks of all the stuff they get, and he just says something like “Well uh ofcourse yeah…it’s expected after such a victory…”. Oh and she agrees later saying that having saved India, they deserve everything and more. Seriously? Tool. What about people who are actually saving India? Or scratch that, that’s too deep, what about Hockey?! Isn’t it the national sport of India? Didn’t they too win a World Cup (or some cup?)? Did anyone even watch a match? What happened to giving other sport any importance at all? Cricket needs no support, it’s already King, so even if there’s zero media coverage, it will still be the most watched, most sponsored, most worshipped sport. But for any other sport – well, not even dear Shah Rukh Khan can save them with a film or two.