Pawar, Badshah, Maa Ki, Dhani Dhoni, Bhajji and Friends

Pawar, Badshah, Maa Ki, Dhani Dhoni, Bhajji and friends


There’s enough stardust, lucre and pizazz in the BCCI begotten launch of the Indian Premier League (IPL) to light up the International Space Station—let alone the night matches the League plans to hold. How? Go, get your black satin top-hat, your silver-knobbed ebony cane, your cape. Strike a pose, stand firm, and yell: Hey Presto Alacazam! No? Alright, substitute the Maratha-strong-man-equivalent of Gili Gili Bicchhi, and you’ll have yourself an instant procession of Badshahs, glamour pusses, platinum-plated glitz barons, moustaches, beards and mind-its.

Be pleased to meet the brand new owners of eight city based IPL teams. There they are, still gasping from what they had to cough up for the privilege. But be undaunted. Add in Pawar-packed TV rights, tie-ons and try-ons, and then, gilied or not, there’s 7,000 more of those crore things you need to find a new war chest for.

Now call in Muhammad Ali, the “sting like a bee” boxing heavyweight champion of the world, who’s known all along that “your hands can’t hit what your eyes can’t see,” as patron-in-chief. He’ll teach you how to upstage pundit, punter and any maa ki puttar alive. It’s Ali in the know-how. Muhammad’s been there, predicting which round he’d kayo his opponent in. He got it right 17 times in a row- a veritable match-fixing bookies’ nightmare, but think of the certainty!

Meanwhile, lay on more of the Pawar-play. Set Andrew Wildblood Houdini of international sport management firm IMG/TWI to work. Have him unlock them jars of brand value, polish up those Alladin brand monetising lamps, get him moving around to spark a controversy here and rub up a spot of frisson there. Package the whole thing in the pheromones of youth, talent, promise and satellite TV exposure. You’ll see, whether Bob’s your uncle or not, a humdinger of a show under the arc lights, not just once or twice, but night after night.

Back on the tour bus you’ve got interesting people too. There are actors who are owners, the aforementioned platinum plated ones, moustaches, beards, mind-its, but also players who are dream merchants in their own right, absolute saudagar khiladis; and damned if you can tell them apart for the excitement! Houdini Wildblood knows his business. Pawar picked him because he too knows his. Wildblood got Chennai to pay the biggest bucks for a young wicket keeper cum batsman cum fielder who won the first Twenty Overs World Cup just the other day. Just like that he did it--in between super-biking around Jharkhand and thinking up what-else-cum-what he can become, especially on the advertisement circuit.

But since a little comic relief amongst competence never hurts--the next prize bull in white lip-gloss, is the most successful maa ki since Darwin demystified species homo-sapiens with evolutionary and scientific highlights. Additionally, you’ve got plenty of other shiny apples in the eight-city barrels. How’s about one fast, correction, fastest, young Brahmin bowler since Bharat turned into India? Or a lovable, motor-mouth spinning bhajji on Bondi or any other beach? You can also take your pick from an entire drawerful of oldies but goodies, in black, brown, blond and variegated. And in the middle of all this excitement, you probably can’t help feeling sorry for the rival Indian Cricket League (ICL), made up almost exclusively, of retirees, inclusive of Paaji, Inzyji, Laraji, Yanaji, and most of all for the poorly penetrative Zee-ji.

So much for cricket, but before too much red and white flows by the banks of the Baramati, one might spare a thought for the many me-too and wannabe birds beyond sport who might set about unlocking value, as if it were as simple as taking your clothes off. There they’ll be, branding away in a way that has nothing to do with tattoo parlours, monetising themselves, even bits of themselves, such as Mayawati’s wagging finger, Prakash Karat’s frown, Amitabh Bachchan’s growl, Bipasha Basu’s err best wishes.

Indeed, the era of unlocking value may have come to overtake Lalu’s Indian Railway presentations to Harvard students and Ambani-Bharti type megadreams. And for this, let the historical record show, we have the Baron of Baramati and a game involving bats, balls, wickets and sundry logos, to thank.

(700 words)

By Gautam Mukherjee
Friday 22nd February 2008
Also published in The Sunday Pioneer in the AGENDA section DIALOGUE "Money, money, money..." on Sunday 24th February 2008 www.dailypioneer.com