If Farah says that it is ‘dil jumping zapaak’ that happens every time there is a catch or every time a batsman hits a six or even gets out during the IPL matches, so be it. Which simply means that it is ‘dil jumping zapaak’ days that are back and will go on to stay with us all from 03 April to the 26th of May 2013… around fifty-five days of ‘bow chika wow wow’ and ‘waka waka’ and all the other sounds of excitement that the human brain can possibly create.
IPL’s sixth edition kicks off in Kolkata today. Shah Rukh is slated to perform with Katrina and Deepika in opening ceremony. Fake IPL Player @_fakeiplplayer tweeted on 24 March: ‘SRK performing at the IPL inauguration is like the father of the bride being the hired dancer at a wedding.’ But the IPL isn’t just about movie stars hijacking a show. The teams are gung-ho and the audiences are excited… there will be cricket on the field, cricket in discussions, cricket splashed all over the internet, cricket spilling on to pages other than the sports page, cricket enthusing even the nay-sayers!
Some people swear that the IPL is about everything else than cricket – you have people like Gabbar Singh @GabbbarSingh tweeting this: ‘If IPL is beer, Cricket is the alcohol in it, only 5%.’ Well, I’d add that there is also the thoroughly animated #whistlepodu from Chennai, the waves that spectators create inside the stadiums, the bum-shakes and the complex moves of Farah that the TV watchers would be repeating after every catch, even the most insipid ones… in short, the IPL isn’t just the Indian Premier League of cricket but an All India Mela that even beats the Kumbh fever hollow!
There are a few other things associated with cricket and IPL 2013.
Rajdeep Sardesai @sardesairajdeep tells us about the first IPL connect with this tweet: ‘Suprabhat. Birds in park looking for water. Maybe we should send them to an IPL ground?’ Quite obviously, the Maharashtra water scarcity issue this year is a major concern and the water consumption to maintain IPL pitches is what people are talking and tweeting about. DNA @DNA tweets about the alarming figures: ‘Today’s front page story: 22.5 lakh litres water down the IPL drain during #mahadrought http://dnai.in/bkfz by @dabrahamm’. But one must realise that all of this 22.5 litres of water isn’t anyway going to reach the drought-stricken area. So it is fair to say that the spout of joy is worth the water being poured! In another tweet, Sonia Singh of NDTV @soniandtv talks about what Sunil Gavaskar said on NDTV: ‘Why target IPL for wasting water? First cut down on parties in your houses. Stop scoring brownie points off IPL.’ Well, Sunny, won’t the IPL parties be included in this insight from you? @indiantweeter adds through his tweet: ‘I think preparing grounds for cricket matches require loads and loads of water. IPL should not be organised in Maharashtra this year.’ It is obvious that it will be worth observing the relationship of Maharashtra with IPL this year. I’m not sure if my dil would jump zapaak if the Maharashtra pitches are given more water than the people in the villages there!
Talking of states, Tamil Nadu and IPL too seem to be confused about what to do. As Ushy Mohan Das @UshyMohanDas tweets: ‘Amma returns! Writes to Silent Buddha! Raavans not allowed entry into MummyNadu! #IPL’ Ha! This tweet is just too loaded with political innuendoes, but what is vital is that the Tamil-Lanka issue makes the matches in this state too a bit incomplete. Ah! I sincerely hope Farah makes Amma do the dil jumping zapaak moves and she calls the Lanka-ban a no-ball!
No, IPL isn’t just about controversies, unless one wants to drag Ravi Shastri on the blogger’s turf to give him a thorough belting, as The Bad Doctor @doctoratlarge did in his tweet: ‘Ravi Shastri says that this series win sets up India nicely for the IPL. Sigh! This man deserves every stone ever thrown at his house. Idiot!’ The series he is talking about is the recently concluded India-Australia series. I’d say this is plain dil-jumping-zapaak humour… nothing controversial anymore about Ravi Shastri being called an idiot.
The newspapers and all the sports writers, the letters to the editors, and even Siddhu with his Bigg witticisms will, I’m pretty sure, be pouncing on IPL performances, the way too much cricket is showing on the batting and bowling averages and how Test cricket decelerates cricketing responses. These are going to be the zapaak moments in many ‘exxtra innings’ telecasts and all the reviews and views in the media.
This post is all about a few pre-IPL observations and fears… and I’d like to add this pithy tweet by Priya James @james_priya in the concluding paragraph: ‘Today is IPL inauguration. Therefore, please trend this hashtag people –> #BanIPL’ No, I’d say, because IPL is not just going to trend on twitter and the rest of the digital and non-digital world, but is also going to create smart new trends starting right from the inauguration ceremony at Kolkata… almost like this smart sneaky Nestle ad concept:
IPL_ad_bypass
Arvind Passey
02 April 2013
2 comments
Rickie Khosla says:
Apr 3, 2013
Some of the tweets you shared had me in splits! The GabbarSingh one, expecially.
People are so creative that it disturbs me (as in, why am I not as much?) 😀
Don’t care much for IPL, really. Especially after (repeatedly) watching Farah Khan’s take on it!
Arvind Passey says:
Apr 3, 2013
Even I hardly qualify as a cricket fanatic… but then, I just want to do a few IPL posts just to get into a sports-writing mode.