May 4, 2008 IPL: Cricket-Sangeet
is a Much Simpler Option By Chitra Padmanabhan
Word is that event
managers of weddings across the country have been looking glum since
the tinsel start to the Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty20 cricket
series. They fear that the BCCI might take over their space, so
attuned is it to the crackle of money in potential revenue models.
It might start organizing pre-wedding ceremonies like cricket-sangeet
contests in three overs, between the girl and boy's side. Their
theme: taking cricket to the family. Naturally.
Imagine a banquet green decorated as a television screen; cricketers
in sherwanis battling for 'auspicious' scores like 51 or 101; Shah
Rukh Khan and Co. in boxers and T-shirts with plunging necklines (no
pigeon chests allowed) dancing to the tune of item numbers and a few
millions; the umpire dressed as a pandit, of course.
The sangeet's highlight would be a morality play. One cricketer
slaps another to symbolise marital discord only to have the bride
and groom pledge before a red cherry never to go that way. Enacted
to the score of "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..."
What a spectacle!
The IPL series is no less a Bollywood spectacle, billed as 'manoranjan
ka baap' or father of all entertainment (we like our mothers only on
pedestals). That the series is aired on a movie channel and not on a
sports channel is a helpful hint on how to approach this jamboree.
And as befits a nation with eight percent annual economic growth and
a rising presence in the Forbes' list of the world's richest people,
the hallmark of this series is several zeroes in excess,
choreographed to the last decimal point.
The IPL slogan seems to be sensory gluttony, monetised to the last
pixel. The smear of pumped-up excitement in floodlit stadia follows
the principle of split screen television with a sensation a minute.
The glamour of film stars here, the titillation of bouncy cheer
girls there, even if over-draped, and the adrenalin of star owners
flaunting their team ownerships: it's like sitting in a pub watching
models on a mute, flat screen TV, with music blaring from another
source. It's the stuff of a speeding age with fleeting and
fragmented experiences.
Lastly, there are the private armies of cricketers many of whose
names we don't know. All we see - excel sheet with their auction
prices in hand - is several zeroes scampering across the field. That
is not counting the increasing rash of vital spots on their bodies
lent out by their owners as ad slots. The umbilical link is clear
between these 'body shops' and field hoardings, which snake
invisibly across to television screens. The screen shrinks
frequently for ad zones, left, right and centre.
The way the media has frenziedly toted costs of every IPL star wave,
brand ambassadorial smile and cricketers' boundaries has made us
understand - inadvertently - the extent to which the mesh of cricket
green and TV screen has become one of the most potent marketplaces
in India today.
So, the real IPL players, apart from BCCI, are the corporate owners
of the teams. Middle class India sees them as success stories in
fast growing sectors, vying for national and global presence - from
energy and infrastructure to entertainment and media.
Middle class India has also noted the panache with which the team
owners have mastered the hip global language of smart branding. A
reigning film star owns a team a la Russell Crowe; a liquor baron
vies to be a Richard Branson; an infrastructure group builds an
airport in Turkey; and an energy giant leads the charge of India's
billionaire brigade.
The IPL seems more like a rite of passage for these new centurions -
in which the machismo of jingoism usually accompanying cricket
played between nations has been replaced by the testosterone of
money.
Whether audiences buy into IPL's idea of non-organic, city
affiliations, is not clear. But the idea of representing
'city-states' would be attractive to team owners as a brand building
exercise. Interestingly, the IPL cities represent a new map, which
promises an economic 'miracle' - from West Bengal's emergence from a
Rip Van Winkle-like slumber to other metros and prosperous regional
hubs like Chandigarh and Jaipur.
A better IPL slogan would be, 'They also play cricket'.
Is corporate India ready to displace the livery of the state when it
comes to cricket in whatever form? The answer probably is no and for
the same reason.
The IPL's attraction lies in seductive lubrication by mega bucks.
But the middle class Indian who has just begun to brandish brand
India before a world that sees a 'sleeping giant' awake is heady
with the sensation of aggressively backing India against rivals, old
and new.
Does anyone realise the effort needed to play in an internationalist
IPL brigade? Maybe the strain of having to remember so many foreign
names in his team led Mumbai Indians' stand-in captain Harbhajan
Singh to slap S. Sreesanth. Last heard, all eight teams have signed
up for a crash course in memory building.
Perhaps the Board of Control for Cricket in India should reconsider.
Cricket-sangeet is a much simpler option.
(Chitra Padmanabhan is a Delhi-based journalist. The views expressed
are her own. She can be reached at chitrapadmanabhan@yahoo.co.in)
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