Sunday, June 15, 2008

If you do drugs, do it the Indian way


There have been many well-known instances of cricketers from around the world getting caught with drugs. Oddly enough, all the players involved were from parts of the cricket world not including India. Which begs the question: What is it about Indian cricketers that immunizes them from the undeniable pull of recreational drugs?

On the face of it, it might seem like Indian cricketers are more responsible than their foreign counterparts? Not. If you consider the way they play, when it comes to shot selection and hare-brained decision-making on the cricket field, Indian cricketers are up there with the best of the worst. Let alone jog, you don’t even have to walk yourself down memory to come up with innumerable instances of Indian cricketers gifting away the match to the opposition on the back of something silly and uncalled for. The most recent case in point being … well … umm … heh, there aren’t that many that come to mind right away, but that doesn’t mean Indian players behave all that grown up on the cricket field. (Just Ask Mukul Kesevan, who has devoted an essay in his very engaging ‘Men in white’ to the kind of ‘boy’ he thinks an Indian cricketer is.)

Books, theories and past records apart, it would take a very brave fan to consistently bet on the chances of an Indian team closing out matches with the kind of assurance and certainty we’ve come to expect from say, the Australians. And yet, these very same, responsible, dependable, rock-solid Australian cricketers have been hauled up for immature, irresponsible and indulgent acts of drug abuse. Not – as one might have expected – irresponsible, immature and indulgent Indian cricketers.

Perhaps the social milieu that Indian cricketers come from makes them well aware of the prudish hostility with which drug ‘toking’ is viewed in ‘upwardly mobile’ country that is today India. Make no mistake, Indian cricketers will proudly abuse prescribed drugs like music, movies, liquor, clothes, credit cards, cars, women and the like. But you can bet your last rupee they won’t be seen with recreational drugs of the taboo kind. At least, not until they are legalized. After that, all bets are off.

More so than in other cricket playing countries, a star Indian cricketer caught with drugs stands to lose too much. Because in India, more than in most other societies around the world, being successful is very important. Being seen doing the right thing is very desired. (In fact, sometimes even more important than doing the right thing.) In 21st century India, making pots of money and leading the good life – which cricketers most certainly do – is a widespread obsession. Understandably so. Indians, and many Indian cricketers, have been poor for too long.

Get caught with drugs and you stand to lose all the things that make you a shining symbol of modern India. Pot smoking and company can very swiftly send you back to experience the India that cricket helped you so swiftly transcend. Much like their countrymen, Indian cricketers … no, make that Indian cricket families are too shrewd, sneaky, ambitious, careful, materialistic, forward thinking and priggish to risk so much that’s real for something as ephemeral as a THC high.

Besides, to paraphrase a Hindi saying, ‘what will people say?’ All this to say if you’re going to do something the people will vehemently, irrationally and thoughtlessly oppose, whatever you do, don't get snagged doing it. That’s the way things that ‘can’t be done’ are done in India.

2 comments:

ali khan said...

shoaib akhtar is the great bowler but now he resign after the world cup 2011
live cricket

Anonymous said...

These were fake images. Now Pakistan is launching Pakistan Super League Its good sign for Pakistan cricket