It was with a bit of a pleasant surprise and amusement that I came across the editorial article in 15th April’s The Telegraph that rang a bitter bell against the money-making cricket businesses (the IPL and the ICL), and the correspondingly opposite state of affairs in the fields of the lesser sports (e.g. women’s hockey), those sports being treated as ‘lesser’ solely on the basis of their poor TV viewership (bluntly put) in India.
The reason why I was amused and surprised was because a thought on similar lines has been crossing my mind for the last few days as well.
To begin with, I’m really excited about IPL. Will support the Knight Riders, of course, firstly because it’s the Kolkata team we’re talking about, and secondly because it has got associations with the likes of Sourav Ganguly (my favorite cricketer—I still remember having rows with my mates over who was better- Sourav or Sachin! That was years ago!) and Shah Rukh Khan (quite simply my favorite actor in Bollywood, ever since the days of “Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman”, I remember humming ‘Sardi Khasi na Maleria hua’ and my parents ruing the missing, golden days of Indian music, “Now they’re singing about diseases!” someone had quipped!). And I’d indeed be watching the IPL matches (and get to the Eden Gardens if I can manage the tickets to at least one of the games) even after writing this blog.
Now lemme get to the point! When Jaideep Sahni and Shimit Amin made Chak de! India, that long-awaited cult sports movie, which was appreciated by the critics and viewers alike, maybe they had something like ‘money’ in mind, but their efforts to tell the story, and the plight of a sport in our ‘fair’ nation was embedded within it somewhere. But in order to make a hit movie in India, you need a banner and a big name under it! That’s where Yash Raj came in, and accordingly, King Khan. I can bet a million bucks (if I had that amount of money!) that the movie would’ve received a less-than lukewarm response from the viewers had the movie not featured Shah Rukh in the role of the ostracized coach.
Now, truth be told, I went to see the movie in the first place because Shah Rukh was in it. There’s no point in pretending like I cared for women’s hockey in the first place! I was a little intrigued as I had seen that fateful Commonwealth Games 2002 final in Manchester on TV when the Indian women’s hockey team defeated hosts Britain to win the gold, the very event that the movie was loosely based upon. But the main reason was SRK, there can be no doubt about that!
Now, besides smacking a punch on the face of the sports-loving nation, the movie popularized the phrase ‘Chak de!’, and yet, a month after the movie released, when India won the T20 World Cup final, everyone started associating the term, irrevocably, with cricket! And SRK’s growing enthusiasm in cricket only added to all that. The stars, the Chak de! Women’s hockey team got a fair bit of public attention by making public and TV appearances (full front, in those music talent-hunt shows!)… but the very source from which the stars, the very movie, got its stardom and popularity from in the first place, the real Indian Women’s Hockey team, remained in the background. I bet any common man to name a single player in the Indian Women’s Hockey squad- hell, why blame others? That’s something even I don’t know!
I know, realize, that SRK didn’t sign up to popularize Women’s Hockey Team when he signed the dotted lines for ‘acting’ in Chak De! India. So maybe it’s not fair to blame him. Why should someone pretend to like killing people only because he acted in a movie where he played a serial killer? I guess it’s sort of like that! The movie was made to create awareness, and that’s something it failed to do… looking at it from a different perspective, the movie was made to make money, and that’s what it did… and let’s face it: that’s what defines success in India!
But I feel rather bad… Chak de! was a term which should’ve been a gift (and a source of accolade and inspiration, co-existing) to the Women’s Hockey team… but we, the Indian sports lovers (read: viewers) and others (SRK?) stole it from them…
So, The Telegraph, the co-sponsors of Knight Riders, who’ve been publishing caricatured images of the Knight Rider stars with stupendous phrases accompanying them that includes their catch-line ‘unputdownable’, to over-popularize the already-popular Knight Riders, had to publish an article showcasing the plight of the Women’s Hockey team members, who haven’t been getting their paychecks regularly…
Life’s ironic!
Signing Off,
-Jagannath (Jesse)
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