A whiny letter to a country that probably doesn’t need it
Dear India,
I speak to you as a single entity because that is what you are. You are a nation today. Not every part of you understands this but your brain probably does and in the end it is all we need. You have won a world cup. You are champions. You are amazing. In one day, you have erased years of pain and hatred and sadness as you lift a cup, feeling the immense pleasure only victory gives you. You feel proud of how you have something which makes you number one in the world. I should be feeling proud of you. I should be feeling incredibly proud and happy. I am not. All I can feel is sadness. The moment you picked up the cup I felt I would cry.
Don’t misunderstand me. I love you. I love you and I am a part of you. I might be a parasite or a kidney stone but I am as much a part of you as anything ever could be. I probably will not be able to live without you and will lose meaning if you were to not exist. I love you . And I am sad because you’ve won a world cup. Why would I be sad? Why should I be sad? I am sad because you’ve won and tomorrow you will forget everything. You will forget that you are all Indians tomorrow and you will forget that you were all one tonight. Tonight, when you sat in that stadium you did not wonder what the religion of the man sitting next to you was. As you watched the match, you didn’t say to yourself that the state of the country is awful because of its foul youth. Tonight, you gathered on the streets and sat in front of TV stores trying to catch a glimpse of the match and you didn’t fight or call anyone bad names if you were pushed. You smiled and said “Sorry”. I know this because I went and pushed people who were watching the match. Today, my untoward attire or my youthful appearance or my holding fat books in my hand meant nothing to you. Today, we were all one.
Riding down the streets with a friend when I asked truck drivers the score, those people who would have normally said nothing smiled and apologised if they did not know. When I asked other bikers or people in cars they smiled and said “72 runs in 75 balls” instead of scowling and turning away. Today you forgave everyone. Today I saw people sing and dance in the streets abandoning everything and befriending anyone. There were smiles. Today, I saw no one being rude or cheap to women, at least overtly, and today my heart broke because we would win the world cup and in a few days all of this would be forgotten.
I wanted you to lose today because you’ve called the people and the cricket team of Pakistan terrorists. Maybe their government is bad and maybe some people are evil but what about your country? Your country steals from your own countrymen and destroys millions of livelihoods. People are murdered in connections to oil adulteration businesses and by great sugar barons year after year and yet you do not see fit to call yourselves a nation of terrorists? Why? Because you are a democracy and your politicians are bad? Because you cannot change the way things work and are powerless? And then you thoughtlessly say that people from a different nation are ALL terrorists because they’re bound by practically the same rules as you are?! I wanted you to lose so that you remember that sometimes things don’t work the way you want them to and maybe it isn’t your fault. Maybe the fault lies with the people in charge of the thing. You would have blamed your team if you would have lost not yourself. You would have blamed the coach. You should have blamed a government, not the citizens.
“Today, with tears in my eyes, I am proud to say I AM INDIAN” says a friend’s status message on Facebook. I am glad that he is. I wanted you to lose so that more of you would be not as proud of being Indians and more of you would worry about the deplorable state of affairs in your country. I wish more of you would worry about how we’re also number one with the infant mortality rate or how the ratio of women to men is going from bad to worse and I feel horrible about destroying your victory orchestra with my irritating kazoo but I need to give you reasons.
I wanted you to lose so that you would stay banded together for a few more weeks in your united disappointment and sigh in unision every time you hear the words “cricket” and “world cup” instead of forgetting all your togetherness and unity after the celebration of a night or two and I wanted you to lose so that more of you would regain your humanity and at least smile at each other for longer, in solidarity.
Don’t get me wrong though, I love the fact that you have won. I love the celebration and the jubilation that is rare and unique. I love the way the streets are shouting and people are laughing and there is little despair and there is a lack of care. I love how it is not offensive now that people are bursting firecrackers and everyone who complains about the noise on Diwali is now probably one with their booming, ringing happiness. And I hope that this may never be lost. But it always goes, it always has and I do not want it to. When you’ve had something and it goes away, it is worse than having never had it. “To have loved and lost is better than having never loved” is not always true and most of the time is a bullsh*t thing people say to console each other, at least I think so and hopefully, maybe, I’m wrong.
Anyway, all of this is a bunch of stuff I needed to say. I don’t hate you and I don’t wish that things were awful or horrible for you. You have probably deserved your victory and much more and probably don’t need this letter or anything but just on the off chance that you might, I thought I would give it to you.
With all my non-patriotic love and affection,
yours truly,
etc. etc.
The celebration and the jubilation IS surely rare. And yes, it will all soon be forgotten. But, not sooner than Japan’s incident, I presume.
It is sad, that.
Quite a long write-up in short while, Visa.
I cannot agree more. So many people should read this, but even if they do, they won’t get it. It’s so very upsetting.
Very well said. Very. Every Indian should read this.
WOW. this was exactly what was running thru my mind as i was watching the match yday. I live abroad but the feeling of watching the players cry and citizens celebrate was so overwhelming. But what was even more painful to watch was the fact that I knew after the glory sets in, the country would be back to its state of corruption, disunity, carelessness and just be apathetic to everything else. If only the country came together as one and stood together to make right decisions and improve its standards in Politics and other social Issues, India would be real champions. Not just in cricket.
Still, congratz to the team that made their 28 year old dream come true.
PS: funny how for a game like cricket, people dream and desire for a world cup for past 28 years. But 64 years since independence and we haven’t yearned moved forward with nation building.
Wow! Very well written! Awesome
i think its mostly BS… but everyone has an opinion…
Everyone needs inspiration. If we had lost yesterday, we would not repent on our actions, instead we would become even more cynical. And this would not have led to any good. At the least this win can be a motivation to many! Yes the win was needed and its wonderful to have it!
I agree. It is wonderful to have it and maybe we would have become a more cynical nation but right now as we speak the government is handing crores of tax payer’s money to the team which is already well paid and earns a ton in endorsements while we all applaud and all the good that money could have done in development or even in fixing our own roads or sewage systems is just gone. Maybe, we need to become a bit more cynical or dissatisfied with our country, that is all I am saying.
And the win, however inspirational and beautiful and necessary it was might not have given us that. It is like the failure that an errant student sometimes needs, to realise that things have gone far enough and now there needs to be a serious effort to change the way they are. But you aren’t wrong either.
I got a link to this blog by means of a comment on a facebook status of mine which basically echoed these thoughts. You can’t get closer to the correct perspective (if one exists; its all perception), but unfortunately you will probably be criticised for ‘not being patriotic’.
This is BS.Agree that India is not the most clean country,but it is not amongst the most corrupt countries either.Our country has many wrongs,but its moving in positive direction in very high velocity.we are just sixty years old,and much ahead than any other country of the same age…..And India has lost all the so many dammn times..did that make any difference??Atleast Winning brought country together and made people happy..
i had the same thoughts, the moment i knew Indians were going to win. Nothing is permanent. Is it ignorance or stupidity or just bad memory? i do not know. But i really wish we all could see that. Well written and i am proud that people, if not many are aware of this.
We need it. We just don’t know how much we need it. Not sure what losing would have done (except been very very very amusing in terms of fallout), but we certainly could do with half as much unity over a cause that mattered. Maybe if we got Sachin to do a “please go vote” ad?
We definitely need the unity and if Sachin were to do such an ad it would make definitely make a difference. What would be even better is if he could make people understand what their vote means and how a single candidate can make a change for the team and to make a choice that will guarantee a better result for the team and not just for a player or two. That would be the best thing ever. It would totally justify the god status he has :P
Hello Flowerpowerboi,
First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge your opinion and let you know that we respect it.
All in all, from your detailed post, I could make out that you were not interested in cricket and feel that it is resulting in waste of time by lot of individuals or most of our country.
But, I do not see why you feel that your space of disinterest has been lost in this celebration.
I understand completely and without doubt respect the men who are fighting for nation, cause and many other wonderful sports than cricket. But, how do you want people to change their thoughts about it? Do you want everyone to stop cricket and automatically learn all other sports and support them?
I am sure as you appear to be, you are very knowledgable about the people of India and their pulse. Since you appear to be well read, you must be knowing various cultures of humanity too. At the end of the day, every country/community irrespective of their financial status needs Arts and Sports as the cultural backbone to let the lives go on a better way than the inevitable complexities which sorround them otherwise. Now, there are multiple arts and sports, and every community picked the ones which majority liked.
Please note this is irrespective of country’s poverty or its age as an independent nation. Amercans watch Baseball, Nz watch rugby, Brazilians watch football, Subcontinent watches cricket.
As simple as that. When nothing else is uniting nation, this is one aspect which we all like. And, celebrations are bound to happen when a united nation is happy. Now, how do you want them to celebrate? By sitting in their houses mourning in silence. My dear, I too like silence but its not the nature of celebration in human race, any where any time. Also, please note that I have no disrespect to the very-young&very-old people of our community. I wish/hope people did not cross their limits to that extent. But, coming on to roads and celbrating should be perfectly allowed.
Why I said all above is because I still could not get your perspective of not having your space of dis-interested. Just because some of your friends bullied you does not mean society does not accept you. If I get teased by someone for wearing pink pants should I say that I am not having my space??
Also, you havent provided any thoughts on how you think this should change. You cannot expect people to sit down and learn every sport and pick the one they like. (I also see that you ignored support to various sports in various parts of countries.. Kolkata dies for football. Hyderabadis love Badminton). Anywayz, for various sports to flourish, it needs government-media-literacy-society partnership.
Its a long discussion of how that can happen, but, point is we cannot blame people for watching cricket. You cannot say that people won’t come for Tsunami relief. So, people have a right to enjoy together only when they can do charity together is it? I am very sorry but everyone have their right to join and detach in any kind of social activity as per their interest. Its unfortunate that we Indians lack the amount of community-feeling required, but that cannot be releated to Cricket.
PS: I stopped watching cricket 9 years ago, and total number of matches I watched in last 10 years is 3. (They are last 3 matches of this worldcup).
“When nothing else is uniting nation, this is one aspect which we all like. ” – This is the point of my ‘post’. Cricket, it seemed to me, was the only thing that was uniting us or our country and it is really sad that either cricket or some great tragedy will unite us.
As a country, we are not cohesive even in our own respective states, at least cricket turned us into a nation of people for once. I am not blaming people for watching cricket or for celebrating, I just wish there were things other than just cricket uniting the nation.
I am not judging anyone or telling anyone to do anything and I have not been bullied by my friends. I haven’t provided thoughts on making things change because I don’t know how things will change and if I can lead to a viable change in any manner. I don’t think sports are a waste of time but even in other nations, there are factors other than just sport being the uniting factor.
I hope that answers all your questions! Thank you!
Aah, another post from an arm-chair intellectual who only talks about serious issues like sex-ratio and illiteracy and poverty.
Get off your high horse and let the aam junta have it’s ten minutes of unadulterated happiness.
God, it must suck to be you.
I haven’t been going around to the ‘aam junta’ with printed copies of this and I haven’t really promoted it much either.
I have mentioned how it is a whiny letter and that should generally give a person a general idea of the fact that it is a whiny letter which will whine about things. Maybe you shouldn’t read it after knowing that it is whiny.
And I totally agree with your assumption that it must suck to be god. It does. And how.