For the last 12 years, the Indian Premier League (IPL)was an integral part of my summers. Most Indian kids grew up watching and idolising cricketers, but I was different. Like a young Voldemort, a part of my soul died when India lost an important match. I firmly believe that if India had won the final of the 2003 World Cup, I’d have been a different human being; my life choices would have been different. In my teen years, IPL offered me a form of cricket that did not require a part of my soul.
Masala cricket that I could watch and fall asleep without crying into my pillow. The IPL was a heady cocktail of cricket and Bollywood (and as I’d later find out – politics) that proved irresistible to my gullible, impressionable self. In fact, I fail to remember how I spent my summers before the dawn of the IPL. While I’d read about summer adventures in Tinkle comics, my own summers were spent stuck at home battling heat-strokes and power-cuts. My father, whose great passion it was to follow rules to the T, insisted I carry a wet cloth over my head when I stepped out, as instructed by the Government. As any child will tell you, stepping out of the house with a wet cloth over one’s head is worse than stepping out at all! The other great Indian post-liberalisation escape – the television – was no source of joy either. We had just one channel, ominously named DD1.
The IPL arrived in 2008, the year I officially stopped playing cricket, and graduated to a professional viewer. My evenings were spent in mindless babblings of ‘great shot’, ‘exciting over’, and ‘complete player’. Meeting friends despite the common knowledge that the matches were completely pointless. In spite of two teams winning the title seven times. Of working hard during the day, and mindlessly following a game between Kochi and Rajasthan that you know will be forgotten in three days. Despite purists questioning the slam-bam format, IPL firmly replaced everything else associated with Indian summers. Films were postponed, and product launches were timed with the IPL. Corruption in the league was even brought up in the Parliament.
While other global sporting leagues have cancelled their seasons due to the Coronavirus, the IPL has merely been ‘postponed’. The league has been known to pull off miracles in the past. When the 2009 season coincided with the Indian General Elections, the entire tournament was shifted to South Africa in a few weeks. The things that can happen when cricket, Bollywood and politics join hands! With the virus showing no signs of slowing, the summer looks bleak for Yours Truly.
How will I spend my summer without the ageless wisdom of Sunil Gavaskar asking me to convert ones into twos? What really is a summer without Ravi Shastri referring to cricket balls as ‘tracer bullet’ and ‘rocket’? How will I fall asleep without listening to the two-hour analysis of a three-hour match? For the first time in 13 years, the Indian Summer League will not take place. The Indian Premier League does not really have fans. It has consumers who have been hooked on to it for years now. For recovering addicts like me, it will mean re- watching old videos on the league’s official site. Or I might try stepping out in the summer evenings to see what the world looks like. Maybe eat a mango and see if I remember the taste. Or speak to other human beings and find out what they’ve been up to all these years.
Hriday Ranjan
Writer, comedian