Anybody who is following the IPL will not disagree with this. With malnutritioned Cheer Girls imported from USA and crackers worth lakhs (or may be more) fired before the matches begin, shows how much IPL means to the parties owning the teams. So much of money, attention, marketing, glamour and what not! And as far as bollywood is concerned, it seems all the stars sans work these days, come and sit with Sharukh to prove their loyalty to the game or the king khan... just like my mumma goes to a majority of navratra keertan, just for the sake of making an attendence.

And the media...! OMG, the Indian media has fallen to some unimaginable depths. They actually are not left with any standards. "Dhoni 6 crore main bik chuke hain.. yeh sauda sasta tha ya mehenga.. hume 57575 par sms karke bataiye"! Sheesh... and double Sheesh for all those who actually send sms to tell this. On some channel.. a few anchors have declared themselves the fans of a particular team and keep arguing like "hamari team hi jeetegi". "Hamari", smart people, they made it hamari without any bids.

Sometimes the craze (or the madness) for cricket in India annoys me. Is it still a sport for us? I have not been to Australia or England or South Africa or Pakistan or NewZealand to see the craze for cricket, there. But believing on my instincts, I can say that they wont be as velle as we are. For eg. My dad. He cannot stick to one channel for more than 10 seconds. The habit is so irritating that we refuse to watch TV with him. But while cricket match is on air, the scene is different. Taken from all pre to post cricket bakwas to ads and etc etc stuff - he'll watch just everything and will keep the remote with him so that no body changes the channel. Now I understand, why they have a separate TV for all family members in western countries. Any kind of domestic violance is forbidden.

And he is not the only cricketomaniac. I know hundreds of males like him and few females too, who are completely obsessive about cricket. Their blood gets boiled, if you talk even a slightest rubbish about this holy game. What is this? They call it passion. I call it pagalpan. After all, getting glued to the TV for hours and hours - is this what means getting passionate about cricket? Proving that those who are not much interested in know-hows of the game are useless being, is the way to express your committment towards the gentleman's game? If you are really serious about it then follow the sportman spirit that lies in the heart and soul of any game. People who abuse cricketers or burn their effigies for not performing well, can never be the true appreciators. Neither those, who switch off the values that a sport teaches you as soon as they switch off their television. If they are so passionate, why dont they do something that could really help the game and produce cricketers in every home. But no.. we can not do anything. We can just waste hours before TV... can make cricket stadiums look like ant colonies.. can invest so much of money into it that India becomes a Mecca of cricket..

Its really disheartening that we are so much cherishing the sight of some half-naked girls.. or some stupid anchors .. or some non-performing and well performing cricketers.. while some really major things are lying in doldrums. I wish these cricketomaniacs remember that the inflation rate has reached an all time high.. future of hundreds of students are in doldrums due to dirty caste politics.. an IIT-K student committed suicide on Friday last.. etc etc.

Okay.... may be I sound too harsh.. but that's the way I feel.. and I dont mind if some cricket crazy people swore to kill me for being so offensive towards such a sensitive issue.

Btw.. it was fun watching Symonds, Ponting, Gilly and McGrath, struggling for the victory of Indians... the only gud thing, I guess.