da luck： Match fixing, One naming the other, Impotent administrators, Delhipolice and transcripts, Cronje disgraced, King Commission, CBI report,Five Indians suspended, Good guys chasing bad guys..
Santhosh S22-Nov-2000Match fixing, One naming the other, Impotent administrators, Delhipolice and transcripts, Cronje disgraced, King Commission, CBI report,Five Indians suspended, Good guys chasing bad guys… Sounds like pulpfiction, the prime time soap opera or the script of a Bollywood boxoffice hit, ‘Blame it on greed’! Actually it is the cricket fan whohas been hit on the box!Wise man says, “I either want less corruption, or more chance toparticipate in it” It holds true to this mortal life on earth. TheDemocrats feel that the elections in Florida were fixed by the use ofthe butterfly ballots, and the holes being punched were draining theGore votes. This is the world we live in; A shameless world, wherecorruption has been entrenched into our psyche. Wise old Confuciussays, “I have not seen one who loves virtue as he loves beauty”This is a world bereft of values, like it or not the truth is, this isa ‘dog eat dog’ world. The winner takes it all. We have become a meanpeople. This is the land of the Buddha, Mahatma and the Pokhran. Thisis the land where hundreds get killed in communal/election violenceand bomb blasts… A land where young girls are burned to death in thename of dowry, this the land of monuments and scams. We have forgottenBofors, The Bombay bomb blasts, The Harshad Mehta and the securityscam, The lost fodder worth 900 crores in Bihar that would have fedthe helpless cattle… the list is too long. We had a government thatfixed the results of a ‘no confidence’ motion in Parliament and howdare we vilify the five cricketers who are accused of fixing theresults of cricket matches which doesn’t have a thing to do with thelives of the ordinary people of India? We have an IPS officer who wasaccused of molesting another civil servant becoming the chief of theIndian Hockey Federation. Virtue! Mark Antony talks of Brutus, “Heonly, in a general honest thought; And common good to all, made one ofthem; His life was gentle, and the elements; So mix’d in him thatNature might stand up; And say to all the world ‘This was a man!”.Gone are those days. There is a subtle effort to put all the blame onthe in(famous) five cricketers for all the sins in the Indian life.The media has pounced upon this as the vultures gorge on carcass. Whatis good for the gander is good for the goose too. If these cricketerswho were lauded by the nation till the other day (the whole nationloved Jadeja when he hit Waqar and Pakistan out of the World Cup in1996) are to be sent to the gallows, let us get the act together andsend each one of those corrupt administrators and politicians to thedungeons. These five men do not represent the ills of our society,there are bigger and dangerous demons amongst us who make our livesmiserable. If the politician has the proverbial ‘nine lives of a cat’,the cricketers seem to have one. Wise old Confucius says,”when youpoint a finger at another, there are three more fingers in the samehand that points towards the self”. The whole case has been made outon the basis of the testimonies of the bookies. How many bookies havebeen arrested? Will they be produced in a court of justice (not aswitnesses)? Or like the JMM MP’s will they be made honourableapprovers?!Cricket will be better off without the rotten apples in the basket.This story will go on for a while till we find an even worse episodespread all over the media. We could all shove the previous eventsunder the carpet and live in a ‘make believe’ world as if nothinghappened (as the cat drinks the milk with its eyes closed). Willlessons be taught and learned? I heard someone say, “If you see thelight at the end of the tunnel, certainly you missed the train”.