And Man Created God... then God Frustrated Man

“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.” —Steven Weinberg

Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes. Marx called it opium, which helps people forget the suffering. Marx was not right (pun intended), and religion may not be all that bad. I am a religious person, though I do not consider myself belonging to a particular religion. I take part in rituals but I cannot claim to have any great faith in them. It’s just part of the greater game called life. I go to temples as and when I feel like it. I visit gurdwaras, dargahs and churches with the same devotion. I am religious about the upkeep of my home cinema, receivers and speakers. I am religious about many things at work. I wish I wasn’t. Being religious can bring a lot of joy in life.

And pain.
What happened last night in Port-of-Spain caused a lot of pain here in our homes and hearts. Most people I know had their TV sets on, eyes fixed on the screen and a prayer on their lips. Dravid and his 10 dwarfs were so consistent in their performance, nobody had a heart attack. Thank God for small mercies.

We call cricket a religion and religion does make you blind. We demolish mosques, shed blood, burn people alive in the name of religion. Since the cricketers were out of our reach, some of us burnt their posters, spat on their mugs and garlanded Chappell with chappals. Just the other day, they were tigers roaring to go. MetroNow frontpaged a story headlined There Is Only One God, next to Sachin Tendulkar’s photograph. It’s true. He is God to the followers of the religion called cricket. We worship him and his friends. The problem is Gods aren’t supposed to fail. So when Sachin failed, self-declared statisticians tossed figures from the past showing how the master blaster has never won us a match, how Sehwag is a disaster, how Dravid is a failed captain, how Sourav could have saved the day, why Dhoni should play at no. 3 and why the paanwaala should be the president of the BCCI.“How can we lose to Bangladesh?”

This question started criss-crossing phone lines and airwaves since 2.30 on Sunday morning. No one bothered to say even hello before going off like a bomb: “Shameful.” Eleven people losing the country’s izzat on a foreign field! In a few hours, a billion best wishes had turned into a billion abuses.

A country desperate for heroes had put all its ego... err... eggs in one basket and sent them to hatch in the Caribbean climes. Out came chickens. Now we are crying over what comes naturally to chickens. We all know the chicken verb, don’t we? And the chicken joke. No, it didn’t cross the road. It fell off a cliff, pushed over by some teenagers termed minnows. A chicken has wings but it can fly to just about a couple of yards. Chicken don’t soar.

The real joke was on the moneybags sponsoring these cricketers. Ladega to Jeetega, World Cup Ko La, None of These Can Get You to Play for India. These commercials were a comic relief during breaks between scenes of Dravid devouring his nails in a not-so-nail-biting match. Our boys had given up the match much before Bangladeshi boys took it away from us. So, dear heart, stop howling and hurling abuses at 11 losers on the rolls of a private concern called BCCI and advertisers. They aren’t the national team, BCCI has said it on record, neither is cricket our national game. But logic was never religion’s cohort.

Experts have already asked Team India to do some introspection. But why only the team? Why not the fans including the fanatics. Where is our sense of outrage when our national investigative team or the CBI loses to Quattrocchi in the hide-and-seek game? Where does our idea of national shame go when police kill innocents, brand them terrorists and bury them denying them dignity even in death? Where is our sense of pride when Naxalites kill 55 policemen and civilians at one go, at will? Our heads don’t hang in shame when a girl is raped in a train while people look the other way. Perhaps honesty, propriety or moral uprightness is yet to become a religion in this country.

Postscript: If India beat Bermuda, the marigold garlands will be back. If India beat Sri Lanka, we will reclaim our Gods. If India enter the Semifinals, we will forget Bangladesh. If India enter the final... okay, let’s not talk about heart attacks now.