Dressing Room

Gone are the days when cabinet expansion used to get total media attention. Now cricket is hogging the limelight and team selection is the most debatable issue inside television studios before every series. Gone are the days when political king makers, who played a major role in selecting the ministers, used to grab unprecedented attention; now it’s the turn of national selectors. Gone are the days when, after every general election, media-persons used to spend sleepless nights talking about the likely allocation of the portfolios. ‘Which batsman is going to play at what position’ seems to be their major concern now. Gone are the days when psephologists used to be media’s prize catch. Now former cricketers who can become good in-house guests are in demand. Gone are the days when people used to wait for general elections with bated breath. The World Cup is the most awaited event now. Prime Minister of the country is still a powerful man, but the captain of Indian cricket team can give him a run for his money as far as popularity and media attention is concerned. Nothing reflects this better than our television screen. From dawn to dusk, from womb to tomb cricket follows us. Some of my friends say that it’s a metro trend, but I can say that it’s catching up in far and remote areas of the country as well. Often people complain about why we have extreme reaction on Team India’s performance. Swami Vivekananda, who taught his disciples to worship God like heroes, used to say: "There must be no fear, no begging, but demanding–demanding the highest. The true devotees are as hard, as adamant and as fearless as lion." In our generation, politicians failed us as they became synonymous with corruption. Bureaucrats failed us as they stood for delaying rather than getting the work done. Film stars gave us momentary feel of bravado, but then they were reel and not real-life heroes. In our search for heroes, we zeroed in on the cricketers. And this is the reason as to why we react extremely to team India’s performance. Cricket is more than just a game, it’s a matter of emotion for us. Cricketers are more than just players; they are heroes for us. We react extremely as we love them and are emotionally attached to them. If there is one place on earth where all dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest, when men began the dream of existence, it's India. In its infancy, cricket was very much an English sport but today it is the voice of India. The game has become so ingrained in our society that it's often said–"If you want to know India, understand cricket." To bring about social equality in our representative institutions and policy-making bodies, our political masters followed the policy of positive discrimination. On the contrary, the game of cricket has broken regional and other traditional barriers in the talent-based environment. From the game which was confined to Rajas and Maharajas, today it has percolated deep down to the grass-root level. Team India’s dressing room is truly reflective of this transformation; it is equally, if not more, representative than the Indian parliament. Most of the members of the Indian dressing room come from non-cricketing backgrounds. The most charismatic batsman of present generation is the son of a teacher; his opening partner’s father used to sell farm seeds (wheat and rice). The next all-rounder hope of the country is the son of a muezzim and the Adam Gilchrist prototype of team India is the son of a government employee who retired as a pump operator. Most of the members of the present- day Indian dressing room come from non-cricketing environs. If Munaf Patel is from a village called Ikhar in Gujarat, Kerala-born pacer Sreesanth is from Kochi. Most of the members of the present Indian dressing room had nothing in the name of sports facilities. And, yet, they managed to find a way in because they dared to dream and dream big. If the social transformation brought about change of the personnel in the dressing room, a cricketer from the football-passionate state in India brought about a change in mindset. Dressing Room is an effort to understand this process of change.