C for Cinema.…C for Cricket…D for Dreams

I hope most of us may have seen at least the trailer, if not the full movie of “Rab ne bana di Jodi”, I got a very interesting comment on this from one of my friend, I will quote her “I saw a moustache bearing common man lookalike Shahrukh, looking much similar to the people I see daily in my neighborhood and I didn’t like it” no prize for guessing she hated the movie. But it started a thought process in my mind, the first thought was a question, why is that cricket and cinema are the two passions many of us follow? The answer is bit tricky as well as interesting; I think the answer lies in my friend’s comment. We are a country of a billion dreams, and many of us not only see these dreams but also try to realize them. But, pity that all the dreams can’t be realized and hence a few out of billions are able to live the way they have dreamt of. This is where the dream merchants come into business. Almost every one of us wants to live life which is perfect, some of us are very fortunate and are able to do so, but most of us only wish for the same. Ours is a nation of high disparity, people are rich and equally poor also, we have wada-pav and McDonald’s burger selling side by side in the same market and the truth is we have more wada-pav eaters then burger eaters, this is where the secret of the our two passions lie. You must be thinking that what I am saying makes sense as far as cinema is concerned, because this is one medium which takes a common man into his fantasy land and transforms him into a hero who can sing and dance in Public Park without anyone getting surprised at the stupidity of the act. He can be a perfect lover, a perfect fighter and everything else he wants himself to be for those 3 hrs he spends in the theater (more than 3 if its an Amir Khan movie), movies give him a break from his usual normal routine life and takes him/her to a dreamland and this is where my friend’s comment makes sense. Sometimes in real life too s/he tries to emulate what he has seen on the screen and this gives him/her happiness, which is exactly what s/he is searching for, all this is Ok but cricket how that comes into picture, why most of us are mad about this game. Most of the countries in the world are mad about soccer. Even England, where cricket was born has a significant soccer following. In India, we have a lot of people following soccer, but the number is still much less than the national favorite cricket. When India started playing cricket, as an independent nation there were very few countries who were even interested in this game and fewer played it at international level, during those times we did a pretty decent job in this as compared to other sports, barring hockey, which dying a painful death now as the time is passing by. Cricketers by virtue of their performance caught the imagination of a large mass and were able to keep on putting good performances because the competition was not catching up as fast as in the other sport, hockey. An average person who was stuck in the various daily life problems suddenly found his heroes in the form of Ajit Wadekar, Kapil Dev, Sachin Tendulkar and M S dhoni. People who were making sure that at least in the cricket playing nations, Indians were being respected. This helped in realizing a common man’s dream of becoming a part of the nation which can boast of some achievement in the sports arena. India is a great country, with its citizens achieving great goals and heights in the various fields but the surest way of putting a country in focus globally is to perform well or be brilliant in the field of sports, because a common man across the globe can relate to this much faster than science, space program or any other field in which we have achieved the great heights. This is the dream we as a common Indian always try to realize whenever our team is playing in the cricket field and that turns into a passion which keeps thousands of us glued, not only to the televisions but to each other also.