Subir Roy: Lend me your eyeballs

OFFBEAT

Why do you want to sit there, my friend asked as I firmly headed for the corner of the club set aside for youngsters who cannot hear each other without loud music around. I can't sit there, I replied with a shudder, pointing to the vast lawn full of tables and members, all watching a World Cup match, after that Saturday's trauma (seeing Bangladesh beat India).

Then, as the whisky went down and made me feel a little better, I affirmed to my friend, deserting that inauspicious lawn, as much as I loved the tree-lined corner of Bangalore's Cubbon Park, is not enough; what we need is affirmative action.

Too late for you to start playing cricket, my friend said, giggling at his own poor joke. Curb your facetiousness at this time of national crisis, I virtually ordered him, and unveiled what had been brewing in my mind for the last few days: We must have a truth and reconciliation commission to probe this fiasco, the way South Africa did to come to terms with its past.

Begin at the end, I said and quoted coach Greg Chappell's insightful words: There are issues in Indian cricket which cannot be discussed before the media. Don't you see this defeat is symptomatic of a national malaise that runs far deeper than cricket and we have to set it right to survive, I argued with a vehemence quite out of place in a club where people come to enjoy a drink.

My friend again counselled moderation, not in imbibing but in making a big thing out of a defeat in a game. After all, the real losers will be the players and their sponsorship fees and do they deserve that, he said with obvious indignation.

I almost pounced on him or rather the chink in the armour of his argument. That's the mistake you are making, looking only at the tip of the iceberg, I declared. If we botch up our cricket like this then it will be the end of our economy, end of the fight against poverty.

The disbelief on my friend's face said that at last I had been able to engage his serious attention. So I forgot to order another round and plunged headlong into my explanation. Mark Antony pleaded with fellow Romans to lend him their ears but today, for democracy and capitalism to survive (the two go hand in hand) our leaders have to implore their countrymen to lend them their eyeballs. And let me ask, I continued with all the oratory at my command, how can you get eyeballs on a national scale without a winning side in cricket.

My friend by now looked totally puzzled. OK, cricket gets you eyeballs but what's that got to do with capitalism or democracy, he asked. Now was my moment to deliver the clinching argument. Look a little deeper, I said and narrated for him what my better eyesight saw "" no capitalism-no democracy, no junk foods-no capitalism, no eyeballs-no junk foods, and no cricket wins-no eyeballs. Having delivered, I waved for the waiter.

I get the chain but what's this about junk foods, he asked a little more respectfully. You think democracy grows on trees, it gets carried ahead by fizz, Coke conquered the world before Americans won the Cold War and secured the world for democracy. It is all about how you feel and live, and let me assure you capitalism goes better with junk food. Imagine the crores in sales all those TV advertisers will lose because of the missing eyeballs. Imagine what jitters it could give to the already jittery Sensex. Imagine what that could do to the fisc in lost taxes.

My friend replied wearily, all right finish your argument, tell me what's this got to do with a truth and reconciliation commission. Simple, I said. In this time of national crisis, you need to get to the deeper truth, as Chappell said, but you can't keep fighting and so need reconciliation, may be same captain-same coach. A commission has to put its rubber stamp on this.

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