"Sanctity of Cricket"

The recent controversy on cheerleaders performing in India Premier League cricket matches inspired me to write this post. Cheerleaders, many imported from abroad, were hired to liven up India's new $900 million domestic cricket league in which eight teams play a shortened version of the traditional game. The cheerleaders have been introduced into the IPL as part of moves to add glamour and entertainment to the game. The sight of many foreign women and Indians dancing in high boots and skimpy shorts sparked anger from both Hindu nationalists, who opposed their open sexuality, and some leftist parties who said it crudely copied Western culture.




One of the nation's leaders Mr.BT even said "the sanctity of cricket has been lost as the promoters have turned the stadium into a dance bar and the cheer girls have been brought to seduce the crowd."

For crying out loud, since when cricket rather any sport was a holy game?? Some games are "holey" but definitely not a single game is holy!!! Are we supposed to go to stadium like we go to a temple? Is watching cricket going to replace visits to temple? Are our cricketers replacing our Gods? First of all cricket is not an indigenous game...its an after effect of the British Raj in India. And Mr.BT of all the people should not create a hullabaloo. He is the father of the protest against celebration of Valentine's Day in India because its Western culture. Second, what this thing of Marathis against dance bars? Its just a supply to the demand. Third what seduction are you talking about? Its an open stadium not some private strip club. Don't you seduce potential voters by hollow words? Seduction is everywhere Mr.BT, in various forms of varying degree.


He also said "At a time when farmers in Vidarbha and Marathwada region are committing suicide because they are burdened by debts, it is not clear what the people, who are pumping money to bring cheer girls, want to convey."

Ohh is that so, Mr.BT? What do people try to convey when they pump enormous amounts of money in holding rallies and election campaigns for you? What about the time when your followers and henchmen destroy public properties and nowadays fellow Indians? All that comes from the taxpayers' money,Sir. When so many politicians are "pumping" money outside to Swiss accounts and "pimping" India's valuable resources, then what is the harm in pumping money in creating cheer and pimping cricket? What did you do when you were in power to stop these suicides? If all the followers and supporters were put to work, the annual flooding of Mumbai can be stopped by cleaning all waste.

Indian police say the organizers of the new tournament transforming world cricket could be fined if cheerleaders are deemed to be dressed indecently. Organizers could be fined for violating the norms of the entertainment licence they had secured for allowing performances in the stadium.

I do not say that the cheer leaders are not skimpily dressed. They do wear very short skirts and display midriffs. My point is that its not such a critical matter that it should have been discussed in the Parliament. When an important issue is to be discussed or a bill has to be voted upon, our MPs are absent or too busy breaking furniture of the House. But they consider this issue important enough to be discussed. Whereas each one of them secretly enjoys displays of flesh and I'm sure several of them have many skeletons in their cupboards. Are there no norms of the entertainment provided by movies? Because if the cheer leaders could be fined for indecent dressing then our heroines like "Marathi Manoos" Urmila Matondkar should be fined for films like Rangeela, ...or Kareena Kapoor for Tashan.....Bipasha Basu, Udita Goswami.....the list is endless....

An actor-turned politician lashed out at organizers of IPL matches for bringing cheerleaders to the stadiums and making a "mockery" of cricket. He said it was "difficult to find cricket in these matches". He appealed to the cricketing bosses to seriously ponder over the issue to save the glory of the great sport.

Dear Sir, if you would take your eyes off the cheerleaders you would find mostly cricket in 4-5 hrs duration. Aren't sports like basketball or football where the cheerleaders originally perform glorious or great enough? Or because they have cheerleaders, these games are not serious enough?

A minister of Maharashtra has said "We live in India where womanhood is worshipped. How can anything obscene like this be allowed?"

Oh my god!!! Well I suppose this worship can be understood from this information.....

Rape is a social disease in India. Hardly a day passes without a case of rape being reported in Indian newspapers and media. Women belonging to low castes, and tribal women are more at risk. What is sad about rape in India is the lack of seriousness with which the crime is often treated.Statistics from 2000 showed that on average a woman is raped every hour in India.

According to a recent report by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) up to 50 million girls and women are missing from India' s population as a result of systematic gender discrimination in India. In most countries in the world, there are approximately 105 female births for every 100 males. In India, there are less than 93 women for every 100 men in the population.

Diagnostic teams with ultrasound scanners which detect the sex of a child advertise with catchlines such as spend 600 rupees now and save 50,000 rupees later.

And dont even get me started on eve teasing. What worship are you talking about Mr.Minister? Celebrating Navratri or Durga Puja can't be counted as worship of womanhood. How can you allow more obscene scenes and dialogues in Hindi movies which is seen by the Indian family more than cricket? Stop being a hypocrite.

"The manner in which semi-clad girls keep shaking their limbs is in bad taste," said another leader of a hardline Hindu nationalist party.

What about the song "Dhak Dhak" or "Choli ke Pichhe" by another "Marathi Manoos" Madhuri Dixit? Infact what about every other song in Bollywood movies? These cheerleaders are shaking only their limbs,if you know what I mean. We should be thankful for that.

There have been reports in the Indian newspapers of cheerleaders complaining of sections of the crowd jeering at them and making lewd comments.

This news item is another example of the famous worship of womanhood. Why can't Indian men show decency towards these professional cheerleaders and just watch and enjoy? Why do they assume that when a woman is dressing skimpily she is looking for trouble and naturally inviting comments and cat calls and find it justified to tease her? And this goes even for a girl wearing a very decent top and jeans.

At a time where there is acute shortage of water and inflation is hitting hard, our leaders are busy watching cheerleaders and then creating a unnecessary issue quoting the "Indian culture" as always and still continuing to watch sneakily. The fault mostly lies in cameramen on the field. They take close ups of these cheer leaders at various inappropriate angles and are crucial to sparking this controversy.

And is our hundreds of year old Indian culture so weak that few cheer leaders can destroy it? It definitely is not.

14 comments:

Swathi said...

Hey Reema,
Superb post!!! well written thought! i totally agree with ur point of view!!! now ur blog will be among one of my regular visiting blog!

Arvind Iyer said...

:) I have no clue how you landed up on a post written in Sep 2005!

Anyway - I hope you felt better after venting your anger on the blog post. Because hypocrisy and false moral jingoism is eternal. They will gain more attention than a logically penned piece.

Maybe after a long while, diverse opinions of real people will hold more credibility than a few loud false voices (like in Movie Reviews ! Race had 3.5 stars in TOI. morons)

The hope remains.

Will read this regularly now.
cheers.

Unknown said...

A very good post.. but too long :)
Loved readin git.
ha.. had u been here, infront of me.. i would have enjoyed a very good debate with u.

Agree with few. But not totally.
I contradict few,in some cases.
But the way.. u have put your point forward and the points you used to support ur arguement.. are really really.. good.

- btw, how hav u landed up in my blog..!?

Reema said...

@Jagan...I came upon ur blog thru indiblogger....the length of my posts (any) shows the indignation behind it :).. thx for ur comment

Unknown said...

"Politicians are like diapers, almost always full of crap; if not, it's just a matter of time.."

And we dare expect something good from these rotten scoundrels ? Shame on us. Hypocrisy runs in their veins like blood.

Sadly we in India deify some women, demean most and use culture(parampara) as a tool for either. A good medium in between these extremes where women are treated as equals does not appeal to these morons..

Good post !

Madhu
www.indimag.com

Reema said...

thanks madhu

Sudarshan said...

You put things together very perfectly.Even if I disagree on some points, I cannot point it out clearly. :-)
Why don't you join wordpress. Its more flexible and readers find is simple to use too.

Sudarshan said...

And you can import your blogger posts along with comments there. I did.

Reema said...

Thx Suda ...yes wordpress does look better.

Anonymous said...

@ Sudha @ Reema

- Wordpress looks better only if you host the blog somewer else. So, it's not free.

And a free wordpress.org hosted blogs doesn't look good.

- Have a look at my blog and you people for saure have to agree.. Blogger rocks..!!

Reema said...

Is that so? Thx for the support Jagan! and on behalf of Suda its Sudarshan (Short Suda) not sudha :)

Ur blog is very nice!!

Unknown said...

On Wordpress(WP) vs. Blogger, WP is head-shoulders and some better than Blogger. I maintain a couple of blogger blogs for friends and recently started a WP group blog.WP has 50-75% content publishing features on the lines of Joomla or Druppel, but is a lot easier. It has some of the most amazing themes, a bevy of coding by open source community and fantastic support.

At the cost of tooting my horn, take a look :

www.indimag.com

Reema said...

Thx Indi...its a cool site!!

Now people I think we are losing track of the original topic!!! And due to mounting pressure on me I have made a WP username. :) :)

Reema said...

To end this Blogger vs WP issue check out this link (just scroll below)

bloggerschoiceawards.com/main/winners

(put www.)