I happen to be a Cricket Buff and was pretty much excited for the fact that the Indian Team was to play their match in my hometown after a long time. Unfortunately, I was amongst the many unlucky people who couldn’t get a ticket, so I had to resort to watching the match sitting in my room instead of cheering for Team India inside the Stadium. Luckily, the Team Hotel was nearby so I chanced upon the opportunity of getting a glimpse of my favorite players and went there on the day of the match. Like me, plenty of other youngsters were there waiting outside the team hotel. Those 2 hours standing under the blazing sun taught me a lot about the mindset of the people and a lesson which I won’t forget for the rest of my life.
There are some elements in the society who like being in the center of things. I don’t mind that, but is it that much important to make people laugh that you’ve to resort to throwing jibes and passing lewd comments on people you don’t even know?
I went there around 10 am in the morning anticipating that as the match would start at 1.30, players would leave around 11. There were plenty of people who were now getting impatient once the clock ticked 11 and there was still no sign of the players. But in between, just for fun, some people started passing comments on every person entering/leaving that hotel. They crossed all their limits and didn’t even spare a lady coming out of the hotel compound as all the heads turned towards her. They started passing comments about her fair skin and calling her “Bhabhi” in front of a packed crowd and as incredulous as it may sound, the crowd, instead of opposing, enjoyed it!! Imagine what she must be going through when she had to go through all this! What was most disappointing was the fact that there were girls standing in front of us and they were having quite a laugh, not even trying to empathize with her. These are the same people who talk about women rights and equality but are prepared to have a laugh just for fun!
The incident was enough to boost the confidence of these elements and they became more vocal by passing comments on every person on that street as they were now getting a response from the packed crowd on each ‘funny one-liner’. Be it calling an African tourist “Kala-kala” or a Chinese tourist “Chowmeen”, all were greeted with thunderous applauses. So much for ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’, isn’t it!?
And oh yes! All this happened with plenty of policemen and security guards around with no one having the dignity to stop the nonsense going on. In fact, they seemed to be enjoying the show! Long live such Singhams!
The time I spent there waiting made me realize how hypocrite we people are. It’s all in our blood. We can just voice our supports and concerns by sharing some random facebook page, tweeting about an incident for some time or changing our profile pictures. In the real world, we still are the same lot of people prepared to go to any lows just for little bit of publicity for a short duration. At the end, finally I think the fault is in us to encourage these elements by laughing on their made-up jokes. If only I had shown the courage or bravery to stop the bullshit. I wasn’t smiling at their jokes, wasn’t doing anything about it either and that’s when I thought I was wrong because it only takes one man to make a difference. I’m only trying to make up for it by writing this piece so that if such incidents happen in the future somewhere else, people try to counter those guys instead of applauding!
Finally, when the players came, I wasn’t even smiling. I just looked around and saw the guy who shouted the team is late because Kohli must be busy with ‘Anushka’ in a cozy room, and was now trying to get a glimpse of the young Indian batsman. It’s a strange world indeed!
Note: Image used in this post is only for representational purpose.
