Pritam's Blog
The Good Indians Pray For Their Country, The BEST Of Indians Get Violent, And I Am An Anti National
Seeing my indifference towards today’s match between India and Australia, a facebook friend accused me of being a ‘gaddar’, a traitor. When asked what she does for the country, she replied promptly, “Like a responsible citizen, I pay my tax. And whenever there’s a match between India and some other country, I pray…”
I know this conversation is not worth sharing. But I needed an introduction to this writing :D And I couldn’t think of anything better.
“What do you do?”, she asked, “For India?”
“I am not a responsible citizen like you. I don’t pay any tax. I am a responsible netizen though. I write on Facebook about the various social evils, cricket being one of them… And I never pray. I believe in hard work and if I succeed, I hate to give the credit to the Almighty…”
“You are the worst kind of Indian I ever met. You are a ‘gaddar’, a Pakistani, a terrorist…”, she said and blocked me before I could even reply. I was wondering what she would have done had it been a face-to-face conversation.
Just because one doesn’t like ‘Cricket’, which is not even the National Game of India could induce such hatred feeling in the heart of a cricket fanatic. I am not saying all the cricket fans of this country are like this. There are people who consider it to be a game and have that much grey matter to accept the fact that in a game one wins while the other loses. But there are others who take this game to a different level. If you bring politics, religion, patriotism and the likes into a game then of course it’s not just a game anymore. It’s xenophobia, it’s religious intolerence. It’s extreme brainlessness.
I do not have any problem with people liking cricket or as a matter of fact any other games. Of course, we need recreation. But when a ‘gentlemen’s game’ (or any other game) acts like a violence inducing drug, we need to think about it.
I still remember an article by Ramachandra Guha where he wrote that on his way to the Mumbai airport(as far as I remember), he passed through a Muslim area and he was surprised to see that every house in that area had a Tricolor hoisted in front of their house. It was not The Republic Day or The Independence Day. When he arrived at the airport, he saw in one of the big televisions that there was a match between India and Pakistan. The flags were hoisted by the Muslims to proclaim their love for India and not Pakistan. They were scared because if India lost, they would have to bear the brunts.
I will never ever forget this.
Then there are smashing TV sets, burning images of the entire cricket team. These are the same people who worship the cricketers if they win. And they also thank God. Why not blame God if you don’t win? Why smash TV sets and burn images of cricketers? Why scare the shit out of Muslims?
If a game is not played and enjoyed as a game, I will never be a part of it.
And it’s not because it’s cricket. It’s because cricket is the most popular game in India. And so it’s consequences are more grave.
And those who think that not being a cricket fan is equivalent to being a ‘gaddar’, a terrorist, a Pakistani, I have this screen shot for you… 