India vs Pakistan. 30 March 2011 -- 303
Thank God we don’t have 47 days in months that go by the name AK or something as sinister as that acronym. Today (the day for the WC 2011 semi-finals between India and Pakistan) is just 30 March which can also be written as 303. So why is the media whipping up mass hysteria for a mere cricket match… the stadium at Mohali is no battleground and anyway a 303 is no match for its more menacing cousin.
India vs Pakistan at Mohali. Semi-finals of World Cup 2011.
Ah! Isn’t this 303 what the NCC cadets use on the firing ranges? Yes, so do most of our police force. Even I fired a few shots in my first term at the Indian Military Academy in Dehradun way back in the late seventies. Well, the connection with the match is already clear. A win for India will permanently connect 303 with the charged enthusiasm of a cadet and the dreams that will move ahead live and kicking. A lost semi-final match will relegate 303 to dawdle along with a fagged out, fuzzy and hassled police force that never seems to enter a final confrontation with anyone or anything!
To be fair, I must also mention that there is a dot before 303 when we talk of a rifle, but… and the significance surprises me, even a cricket match outcome has a placental connection with dot balls. Let the dots fill in the overs bowled by our bowlers! May our rivals in this match get inflated dots that umpires euphemistically call ducks! We are the hosts, after-all, and need to give our guests much more than we tend to get. Let scorching dots cook sizzling ducks, so to say.
There are other vital aspects of this 303 connection that I still need to write about. One of them has everything to do with training and drill. The 303 is now more known as a training rifle… would this ‘mother-of-all-battles’ cricket match be like a training session for both the teams? Whether you win or you lose, you discover that you have evolved as a player with more restraint, more control over your nerves, more focused in your thoughts while on the field… and the important thing is that even the audiences on both sides of the border are going to emerge as more evolved and responsible fans, citizen, politicians, bureaucrats, and humans. Let’s hope this match drills in some sense into our politicians and all those who swear by the name of diplomacy.
The body paint that is so evident these days in most such matches has been rechristened by the media as war-paint… they have their own staffers too strutting about within the studios as well as outside with the paint all over themselves. This is one factor that has the potential to convert enthusiasm into hysteria and vice versa… there are a few celebrities who’ve declared that they’d go for the flags of both the countries on their cheeks – one for each side – which is what injects sanity to any emotion that may plan to run amok anytime.
The day is 303. The battle-ground is a stadium. The forces have bats and cricket balls as their arms and ammo. The fans are the drummers with their job of egging on their forces clearly cut out. There will be battle-cries. There will be howls. There will be silent prayers. There will be deafeningly silent moments. There will be all the elements of suspense, drama, thriller, adventure, and romance thrown in together with a lot of ketchup of good-will for the opposing team too. All this will be there and yet there will be no blood-shed. There will be no POWs, no coffins, and no shattered homes. At the end of a few hours, there may be a few silent humans returning to their lives as it was before the match began. Everything would slowly be back to normal… ah! this is the point where I wish I have actually predicted something.
Let us hope the match, this match, has the power to bring normalcy to the region. All the best!
pakistan-vs-india-world-cup-2011
Homepage image credits: Guardian UK
