Yet another post on IPL

Photo shot in Nov 2008
Gorai Beach, Mumbai

When everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody. I must be the only body to be able to churn out a post after it is all over...at least for this season. Everybody associated with it - whether viewers, spectators, players, officials, TV crew - were gleefully occupied for almost six weeks! For me too, it became the daily addiction in the evenings. I’m, of course, talking about the IPL. About cricket, the favorite boring game to many; not the insect.

How was IPL to you? To me, IPL was both a mix of the empyreal and ridiculous.

I don’t know if arrangements were made to pump nitrous-oxide in the commentary box, but I liked it when commentators hyped up about a batsman for shooting two consecutive lusty shots to the boundaries only to watch him perish at the next delivery. Or, for that matter, when a bowler was showered with heavenly praise for a few dot balls only to be seen thwacked into outer space while closing that over. Doesn’t it sound sublime, yet ludicrous? What do you have to say?

A business tycoon has said only a small “part” of his package of $1.55 million for his gora-captain was for his cricketing worth, and the rest was for the goodwill he brought to his business. But eventually it was the dear desi-test-captain (with whom I’ve had the pleasure to chat up with at an airport) who lifted the team right up to the final game!

In my house once the match began, for fear of permanent disbarment from watching TV ever again, it was forbidden to change the TV channels to watch anything else (that I am not an avid TV watcher is another matter). If I were in a group, while enjoying the company of charming folks around, the unsolicited and unwarranted detailed “expert” analysis of team performances and past matches was a part and parcel of the scenario. As if there were not enough discussion panels on TV doing the same! Those times, I won’t even begin to write about the punishment meted out to me: compulsory viewing of the annoying clockwork frequency of the repetitive ads.

Indian ads may be the best in the world and I don’t know about you, but to me the sponsor's name certainly does not entreat any positive reaction, on the contrary the attempt to surfeit is more often than not, irritating. At times I began to wonder if I am supposed to be entertained with hours of advertisements through which are sometimes glimmers of cricket. Forced on me without fail at the end of every over, when I felt I’ve had enough to the point of being driven to insanity, thankfully I've had the choice to head to the sanctuary of my cosy room where the TV remote is solely under my control and in relief hit the mute button and looked elsewhere than the ads.

There may have been times when batsmen may have spent less time at the crease than his laundry-man may have spent over ironing his shirt crease, yet cricket is entertaining. For it is a game where the batsman is equipped with a brain box (to protect the head) and a cricketer’s box (to protect the groin) though to some the latter is also brain box as apparently all the thinking is done for those right from there!

I liked to watch Pommie's flashing white teeth and dreadlocks being flung fashionably from side to side and suit-booted Shastri straining his jugular veins while spitting out majestically at players during presentation ceremonies. Oh, I am supposed to show high quality interest and excitement in the game, even when I don’t really feel it. However, where else but in cricket world could I have sought little Bruno so cutely scurrying on the ground and entertaining all, something that even cricketers, at times, fail to do?

To me, the SRKs, Zintas and Shettys, Mallyas and Reddys, Haydens and Pandeys, four-legged Brunos and long-legged cheering girls, players at slips and gals in same, Hollywood and beauty pageants, famed drummers and infamous dancers, passions and statistics, sun-screened faces and hat-tricks, beer-sippers and teetotallers, lisping and lip-kissing, bowling maidens and LBWs (to me, teams Lost Beaten Walloped), Manhattan graphs and “luck-yous”, real IPL players and fake bloggers, controversies and conspiracies, team spirits and misunderstandings, histrionics and composures, cool games and euphories, speeches and gymnastics, and through fireworks, prayers, tears, smiles, cheers and dreams in the making and crashing, the heart-wrenching losses and the elusive wins have all been engaging, and at times, thrilling.

Alas, the over-the-top enthusiasm of IPL has finally come to an end.

It’s time to get a life.

Wow, I love this sweet sound of silence this evening.

And am glad to start blogging… again!

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By now, the ‘blogworld’ might have floated thousands of posts on IPL. I shall not apologise for presenting and getting you all bored with one from my end too.

Now that my TV has been off this evening, I have had no choice but to share these few thoughts of my love-hate feelings on IPL… *yawn*

Good night folks and hey don’t forget to write here what you liked/disliked about IPL and which has been your fav IPL moment!

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