Can't run away from it - Why watching IPL has become a necessity

The IPL carnival is back, and we, as always, are being sucked into it

I decided to stop watching the IPL last year after the Sreesanth debacle. I never did hold the tournament in high esteem, but this seemed to seal the deal for me. A World Cup winner being caught altering his performance, for some random man in a seedy hotel room, was the last stab in the back. And what made it worse was he was captained by Rahul Dravid, the epitome of all that is fair and honourable in many people’s minds.

But I watched all subsequent matches. I watched each and every ball, right until the point Mumbai Indians were officially the winners of the tournament.

There’s something about being in the public eye, whether for good or bad reasons, that almost confirms future success. You may get bored of your daily routine of going to work and eating the same lunch, but seeing the same faces on television and in the papers makes you want to see them even more. It’s a simple trick that B- to D-grade celebrities use to stay in the limelight, but that is also exactly the point. It helps them stay in the limelight, it always has, and for some reason, always will.

Sreesanth being caught spot-fixing, Lalit Modi’s antics before that, the seemingly shady deals before that, and a host of other problems associated with the IPL is the tournament’s equivalent to, and I beg that you forgive me for this analogy, Rakhi Sawant being kissed by Mika Singh. Except the IPL is kissed over and over, in different parts, in different locations, and it never gets old. We must see more and more, even if it is for the sole purpose of scoffing at the idiocy of it all in the end – and that usually is the case.

The past one year has without question been the most tumultuous for the BCCI as well as the IPL. N. Srinivasan’s refusal to be a civilized and honest man has tarnished the image of the BCCI in an unprecedented manner – and it wasn’t like they had a golden image before. The BCCIs reputation of being a dirty, arm-twisting bully has now gained legitimacy in the eyes of cricket fans around the world, more so after its very clear takeover of the ICC.

Betting scandals, conflicts of interest, erroneous statements, are all little parts of what has been a tough year. And all of that, all of the muck that is slowly rising and spilling out onto public awareness, is directly linked to why we all sat today to watch Kolkata Knight Riders hammer the defending champions, and why a stadium in far of Abu Dhabi was completely filled with spectators.

Just to digress a little bit, it’s a common parable in the entertainment world – ‘any publicity is good publicity’. Silvio Berlusconi first came into power solely on this wave (agreed, not part of the ‘entertainment’ world, but the kind of revelations that keep popping up about him are as riveting as any Game of Thrones episode), Bollywood actors and actresses completely rely on this mechanism of attention-seeking, and even in school, the only students whose names were remembered by teachers were the extremely good ones and the extremely bad ones, both sets masters at attracting attention (you and I just sat somewhere in the middle writing obscenities on our desks in different fonts).

Even when it’s not happening in the grounds, IPL is never off our minds

Even in our current Indian election scenario, the maxim is very clearly evident. It’s no surprise that Narendra Modi is (seemingly) ahead of the curve seeing that the most inches in the newspapers are dedicated to his doings and undoings, as are a vast number of minutes on news channels. Google Glass may not be available to the public yet, but we all seem to have an opinion about it and it’s not going to be a surprise when it gets record number of sales when it is finally on the shelves. Why? Because it’s, quite literally, everywhere on the internet.

The IPL has been in the news on a continuous basis since the end of the previous one. For once, the noise around the tournament did not die with its end. It carried forward into the High Courts and the angry throats of cricket fans, shouting for its ban or at least a proper clean-up. The IPL didn’t need any elaborate song and dance to signal its arrival. We knew it was coming right since June 2013, and have been waiting for it since.

Society loves a rowdy chap. We hoot for them when they make narcissistic statements and cheer them on when they demean another. We may not aspire to be like them, but we enjoy their presence anyway.

Take for example WWE. There’s really nothing moral to learn from the show. It’s real people beating each other up with fake intensity, all because of a large belt, and once in a while a woman. It’s misogynistic, it’s brutal, it’s everything society doesn’t need, and we love it. Twitter fell apart when Undertaker recently lost his streak at WrestleMania, even though, again, we all are implicitly aware of how inconsequential and inane the ‘sport’ is. But it’s always on our mind. For good reasons, and bad – mostly bad. No parent, or the very few (cool) kinds, ever encouraged their child to watch WWE. But that very restriction already breaks out the inner rebel within every human being, added to the fact that WWE always has something controversial going on about it.

The same goes for musicians like Eminem. On a wholly moral level, none of these things are really very good, whether you are influenced by them or not. But they’re fun, they’re good at filling your time, and they’re always on your mind.

We really shouldn’t be watching the IPL. It’s destroyed every ideal image you had of cricket and thrown it out onto a frequently crowded street. The only way we can stop something bad, is by just not thinking about it. By ignoring it, and punishing it by not giving it the attention it wants, apart from rounding those responsible up and tossing them into the nearest jail cell. Why should we waste our precious time on watching something that is quite clearly celebrating a host of incorrect things and is literally desecrating the sanctity of a sporting institution more than 150 years old?

There are far too many reasons to speculate why we still take notice of the tournament, right from social to economic to political. But one of the most damning successes (?) of the IPL is that it has seeped its way into our culture, the very essence of our existence. And it has been embedded into it far more rapidly than I thought it would. It’s hard to remember a May without knowing that the IPL is on somewhere. When we watch the World T20, and see Malinga speeding in towards Virat Kohli, we immediately associate them with our favourite IPL teams. Yes, they’re playing for their country, but we know that Srinivasan was in the newspaper we just read fifteen minutes back, and he happens to be chairman of IPL, and hence I’m now thinking of Mumbai and Bangalore. If there ever was a PR lesson, it is to be learnt from the IPL.

In all technicalities then, the IPL is controlling our mind. It fills up a certain space in your brain, which has now become its permanent location to store all its shenanigans for the rest of eternity. There’s a massive storage facility in your brain now with the words ‘IPL’ splashed across its doors, and in all probability so is the Pepsi logo (pasted over a DLF one). What was supposed to be an annual carnival has become necessary entertainment. I dread to think of a year without the IPL. What’ll we do with all our free time? What even is free time? There’s only lunch, work, travel, bath, then IPL, isn’t there?

There could be another deplorable controversy, probably involving someone you really wish wouldn’t be involved. And it will drag on well beyond the end of the tournament. Because, honestly, it’s not a tournament anymore, it’s a soap opera. It’s the one thing that keeps your mind off of real life and lets you argue about the inconsequential nature of Srinivasan and company’s apparent ‘sacking’.

We are but drones and IPL is but Big Brother. Of course we’ll cheer when the vuvuzela plays, of course we’ll scream along when the big board counts down to the start of the match, of course we’ll look at the cheerleaders instead of the cricketers who aren’t doing what we paid to watch between overs, and of course we’ll all be absolutely okay with it. Because it’s the IPL – bulaava aaya hai, bhai.