FLANNELLED FOOLS AT THE WICKET
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
By Hiranmay Karlekar
The Pioneer
Friday, April 8, 2011
Had Rudyard Kipling been alive, how would he have reacted to India
winning the World Cup? He would have probably sniffed, 'It is the
Idiot Box!'
Rudyard Kipling, once on the staff of The Pioneer, wrote, "Ere-ye
fawned on the Younger Nations for the men who could shoot and ride!
/Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls/
With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the
goals." The last line, a part of the poem 'The Islanders', written
when Britain's "flannelled fools" were in Australia for the 1901-02
ashes series, is sometimes cited as proof of his aversion to
cricketers and rugby players. But while the line did not reflect an
overwhelming admiration for cricketers and cricket and rugby players,
'The Islanders' was actually a stinging commentary on Britain's
skewed sense of priorities at a time when the country's poorly-
equipped soldiers were dying in South Africa during the Boer War.
Watching the tumultuous celebrations that followed India's winning of
the Cricket World Cup 2011, I remembered 'The Islanders' and wondered
what Kipling's reaction would have been had he been alive and
witnessed the nation-wide explosion of frenzy. Perhaps he would have
been a trifle flummoxed! While the absence of rugby players was
understandable, the absence of flannels must have appeared
extraordinary. The cricketers representing both India and Sri Lanka
wore colours dominated by different shades of blue. He might have
roared after Cicero, "O Tempora! O Mores! (What times! What mores!),"
in sheer disgust, noting that the degeneration has gone far beyond
cricket in white to cricket in colour.
Perhaps not. Popularising cricket among the natives was no part of
his idea of the White Man's mission. His poem, 'The White Man's
Burden', written in 1899, in fact embodied an appeal to the United
States to develop the Philippines which it had acquired after its
victory in its war with Spain. Rather, he might have hoped, with a
tinge of anticipatory relief, that with the former subjects
establishing their sway over the willow and the cherry, the former
colonial masters would now rid themselves of the "pestilential" sport
and focus single-mindedly on re-constructing their lost glory,
whatever that might involve in this post-colonial age of de-
constructing imperial legacies.
He must have been strongly impelled to do so because, whatever his
attitude toward cricket, he must have been more than miffed to see
the Brits sent ignominiously packing by the Sri Lankans and Indians
humble the Aussies in the quarter-finals. Swearing vengeance, he
might have roared, "By jingo! We will teach them a lesson!" Equally,
he might not have done so. Kipling doubtless wrote, "Oh the East is
East, and the West is West, and never the Twain shall meet,/ Till the
Earth and the Sky stand presently at God's great judgement seat." Yet
he also wrote immediately thereafter, "But there is neither East nor
West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth/ When two strong men stand face to
face,/ Tho' they come from the ends of the Earth."
Would Kipling have welcomed Britain's former colonial subjects as
among the important makers of the contemporary world? That would have
depended on whether he put them -- Indians particularly -- on his
list of strong men. But there is one thing about which there is
little scope for doubt. He would have been clean bowled to see the
emotional tsunami that cricket unleashed and wondered about the
causes of this strange phenomenon. Finally, having consulted the
ghosts of Baloo, the bear, Grey Brother, the wolf, Bagheera, the
black panther, Chil, the kite, and Mowgli, he would have growled, "It
is the Idiot Box! Make no mistake Grey Brother! It is the Idiot Box!"
And he would have been spot on. For cricket, much more than any other
sport, there are now two eras -- BT or Before Television and AT or
After Television. A person in the BT era, who could not be in the
ground as a spectator, had to be content with either reading the
reports of a match in the next day's newspaper to know the scores and
how players fared. And those who had access to radios -- there were
not too many of them -- could listen to ball-by-ball running
commentaries when these came to be aired.
Celebrated kings of commentary like Berry Sarbadhikary, Pearson
Surita and AFS Talyarkhan could weave magic into their narration and
enable distant listeners to conjure up visions of goings-on in the
field. But it was still hearing and not seeing. One had an idea of
what was going on but was not forklifted to where the action was.
Television brought the action, the game, the players, umpires, and
the crowd and the electric atmosphere into one's home, and, with
bewildering speed, spread everywhere.
A number of factors have been at work. Television has become
ubiquitous because people in the countryside, beneficiaries of land
reforms, however unsatisfactory, and the Green Revolution, acquired
greater purchasing power than ever before and bought television sets.
Economic reforms boosted industrial production and accelerated the
growth of an increasingly prosperous middle class whose strength is
now estimated to exceed 300 million. All this and the Pay Commissions
which vastly enhanced the salaries and pensions of Government
servants and teachers, catalysed an explosion of purchasing power and
caused the demand for consumer goods and services to spiral. While
globalisation and the opening up of the economy led to a flood of
imported goods, local products proliferated to feed growing demand.
The advertising industry boomed.
The end of the Government's monopoly over the electronic media caused
a hundred television channels to bloom, triggering an intense
competition for advertisements and a ceaseless search for more
popular programmes which, of course, included extensive sports
coverage, with cricket, the most popular sport, receiving the most
attention.
Sponsorships, brand ambassadorships, fees from appearances in
advertisements and skyrocketing remunerations and match fees, have
fetched India's international cricketers the kind of money they never
had before. In the midst of all this, the BCCI has been transformed
into what can be called a hugely profitable business enterprise, able
not only to pay cricketers enormous amounts but secure for them
highly qualified support staff. The result is increasing success at
the international level which in turn has caused the game's
popularity to soar further. In the process, cricket has become bigger
than BCCI and the symbol of an India that has arrived.
http://dailypioneer.com/330093/Flannelled-fools-at-the-wicket.html
More at:
http://www.dailypioneer.com
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
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Indian Posse
Also, "Cricket is a game played by 11 flannelled fools and watched by
11,000 fools" -George Bernard Shaw
Thanks for reminding us about Rudyard Kipling and "The white man's
burden". Most hear the name Rudyard Kipling and they think Jungle Book.