CRICKET DIPLOMACY
Can you imagine a cricket match where both sides win? Absurd as it may seem, this is exactly what may happen in India-Pakistan cricket match now being held in different cities of Pakistan.
Now, cricket is not simply a game here. It's part of a bigger game between India's Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee and Pakistan's President Parvez Musharraf. The stakes are very high(more for Vajpayee since the Lok Sabha election is round the corner) and none of them can afford to lose the match. The current political climate dictates that they are at par in every respect, and under no circumstances any form of oneupmanship could be allowed into their gesture.
So the first match goes to India as a gift by Pakistan. India reciprocates by losing the second match at Pindi. Subsequent matches are most likely to follow the same spirit and pattern. I'm not sure, though, how the final and decisive match would be managed to keep the crucial evenness.
The cricketers, as revealed in today's front-page picture of most Indian dailies, have cringed to the wishes of their political masters. The forced smile on their faces and their funky look in company of general
Musharraf are a tell-tale sign of their trapped condition.
It's of course fun and hip, by today's standard, to hijack and use cricket as a tool to improve the relation between two neighbouring countries. But will anything really come out of it given that the two countries have long and deep-rooted discord?
MRINAL BOSE
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
DUGDUGI DAYS
Mahesh Bhatt, one of Bollywood's few intellectual filmmakers, can sometimes regale you with wonderful insights. His latest addition in this category is about the film actors joining the political parties now. They are dugdugis, he says.
If you don't know about dugdugi, it's a percussion instrument to attract people. In the non-tech days of yore, the street magicians and other tricksters effectively used it to pull a large enough crowd before they went about their real business.
Perhaps no one could not be more trenchant than Bhatt about the role of these film actors in politics. Parties know these people are mostly no-brainers, but have the capacity to draw the masses around them. Besides, the current media is interested in all the inanities they mouth, any tantrum they indulge. So why not use them to catch voters?
The BJP, India's ruling party, is now marketing savvy, and has arranged a crash training programme for these actors. It will teach them what and how to talk, and whom to address.
It all seems like a huge fun. Without any real issues being projected by any party, the election this time is getting to be a novel one.
These are truly dugdugi days!
MRINAL BOSE
Mahesh Bhatt, one of Bollywood's few intellectual filmmakers, can sometimes regale you with wonderful insights. His latest addition in this category is about the film actors joining the political parties now. They are dugdugis, he says.
If you don't know about dugdugi, it's a percussion instrument to attract people. In the non-tech days of yore, the street magicians and other tricksters effectively used it to pull a large enough crowd before they went about their real business.
Perhaps no one could not be more trenchant than Bhatt about the role of these film actors in politics. Parties know these people are mostly no-brainers, but have the capacity to draw the masses around them. Besides, the current media is interested in all the inanities they mouth, any tantrum they indulge. So why not use them to catch voters?
The BJP, India's ruling party, is now marketing savvy, and has arranged a crash training programme for these actors. It will teach them what and how to talk, and whom to address.
It all seems like a huge fun. Without any real issues being projected by any party, the election this time is getting to be a novel one.
These are truly dugdugi days!
MRINAL BOSE
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