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Indian PANGA League : IPL

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Another couple of hours will draw an end to the 3rd edition of much controversial IPL (Indian Premier League). Amidst all the allegations, scams/fraud, there was an excellent uninterrupted coverage by our *Great Responsible Media* to unearth all possible stories behind the scenes. Special kudos to those channels who went on a step ahead to show the TRP rankings through predominant news papers. Oh yeah, how can I forget a national ‘nonsense’ paper that published full of IPL related news on the front page? They certainly deserve a special mention. The media once again did a fantastic job of sensationalizing the stuff that has any importance when it comes to the “aam junta” of India Inc.

Since the media has covered all the important aspects, let me write about the less significant stuff that took the back seat during this whole IPL saga.

Day light matches against Flood Light matches – These are the summer times when kids are studying hard to crack AIEEE or other state level entrance tests to seek admission into professional courses. Our civic bodies are highly qualified to support IPL matches by supplying power to stadia while drowning the rest of the places in sheer darkness through load shedding even in nights. Now I sure do understand the importance of power supply to flood lights at IPL stadia. Doesn’t matter if we can’t provide good security to a stadium, but providing power at any cost is a must. Can I request IPL governing body to mandate all matches to be played under sunlight? It would be very wrong to focus on matters like this since it doesn’t draw any TRP!

Mandatory fireworks irrespective of the result after every match – Again, it doesn’t matter who the winner is at a given ground, the fire works is a must. How can we forget to abuse our nature to celebrate the win? These are the channels which run programs called ‘Greenathon’ to enter the records of Limca and Guinness, but fail to highlight such simple cause for the benefit of all. I can understand their pain, probably there was no sponsor for such news campaigns to make the governing bodies accountable.

Diversion/cancellation of regular flights on various routes for smooth transfer of teams – I think this is an absolute must no matter what for our economy. We should ply flights only in those routes where the matches are scheduled. Airlines is no more a service to common citizens. Those who booked their flights, later resorted to other modes of transport to reach their destination due to such diversion or cancellation will have a long story to crib about. When these airlines run into losses because of recession, govt is always pro-active to give them a helping hand and pull them back on track. Has anyone thought about whose money the government uses under such circumstances? Again, these are sober things that doesn’t draw any attention for our great TRP driven media.

There was a brief story covering storage of liquor in a state food corporation granary instead of the rotting wheat grains when the parliament was supposed to be busy discussing right to food bill. Who cares about all these things, the opposition was too involved in disrupting the Parliament proceedings to initiate a discussion on IPL controversy. Please do understand the importance of IPL over right to food bill. Shouldn’t we all be praising ourselves for sending these parliamentarians to Lok Sabha/Rajya Sabha?

Am I missing something terribly here? Whole nation is going gaga over this IPL related news, how much importance does this have when it comes to our day to day life? Players, teams, organizers and may be even some BENAMI’s too amass a good amount at the penultimate cost of millions of unproductive hours by our ‘Aam Junta’.

If I were to put all these things in the short form like what most of us frequently do on Twitter, it would just be an #EPICFAIL … Oh wait… did I too waste 30 minutes in writing this article?

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  1. Now that I think of it, I may have been shallow in my thoughts in supporting the IPL tamasha / glamour show, seeing the injuries it caused which make key players unavailable for the T-20 World Cup selection; Dhoni blaming the losses on partying after IPL, Coach Kirsten revealing players’ fitness problems and players being not able to control themselves at parties, wanting more freedom….the list goes on.

    Poor performance by Indian team at World T-20; hope we have resolved all these issues before the next World Cup.

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  2. Another thoughtful article from you….Mr. Mohan, at recent time, I feel, in general, we all(indians) are premature interms of
    what to focus,
    when to focus and
    how long to focus….

    I am working in a environment where I use to work with many people across the globe. In general I feel, we(indians) are having lots of potential but, we get indulge into attractive things very easily…..this is what happened to IPL – with Lalit Modi, BCCI, our Media and spectators (TV & stadium)…..

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  3. Very nice Post Mohan. I’m also started blogging after reading some interesting posts from you like Youngistaan Ka WOW!, Pudina story n this IPL. where is your Office in Bangalore .is it in EGL? i just wanted to meet u n want to get some tips regarding blogging and other web related stuff.by the way what we call for blogging in kannada? food for thought. 🙂

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  4. I never thought about the wasting power part, guess even I was swept away by all the IPL drama:). Great post, you should get this published in a newspaper

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  7. Brilliant analysis Mohan. The media is useless. Blogs and analysis like this come handy if you real want to know whats happening!

    Keep going!

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  9. very nice post indeed! I felt terribly sorry to see those bunch of f*#ls sitting in the parliament. One of those oldies says, the terrorist attack on parliament is like “putting a bullet at the heart of democracy” — too mean he was; the points you hi-lighted, tells how these guys are killing Indian republic.

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  10. “There was a brief story covering storage of liquor in a state food corporation granary instead of the rotting wheat grains when the parliament was supposed to be busy discussing right to food bill. ”

    I also came across a piece of news… that ‘white ants’ have been eating away most of the drugs… that our brave and dutiful police force recover from time to time. ‘White ants’ indeed…

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  11. Ah! After a long long time to blogs 🙂 And u knw my instant reaction on seeing this title was ‘No! Not again!’

    40 days of eating, drinking, sleeping and breathing cricket.. I am done! I am just done.. Let me see something else too! World existed before IPL too! I am just waiting to see this momentous phenomena to calm down little in coming years! Wat do you say? Or are you among the ones who are waiting for the next year IPL from the day IPL3 ended???!!!

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    • Welcome back! I think it is too hyped. Sheer waste of man power if I have to talk from the core of my heart 🙂 Certainly, I am not the one!

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  12. The media also missed Pankaj Advani’s historic third straight Asian Billiards Championship victory.. Oh but that wouldn’t generate TRPs so why bother wasting money on this..

    The news channels will infact use this IPL tussle to earn crores of money for a massive load of people will watch the news for the latest happenings in the IPL scam making it a great advertising opportunity and as such more money and more trps for news channels !!

    I think I shall go start my own channel for it seems way to easy to make money in media!!

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    • Yay! you got the logic of TRP now 🙂
      Wishing you all the best for your intended venture, let me know if there is some *FREE* sweat facilitation share holding you can allocate me 😉

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  13. As I see it the very fact that GC was unaware of the goings on in IPL makes one thing very clear- These thirteen people who comprised the GC were not doing their jobs. They ought to have known better. They are the ones who allowed Modi to do whatever he felt like doing. What the hell were they doing when various deals were being signed by Modi flouting all the rules and regulations? Why didn’t they ask Modi for clarifications in the last three years? What’s worse is that when this meeting was called for one of the members is said to have come to a GC meeting for the first time. I mean if that is the level of participation of the members is it any wonder then that Modi did as he pleased? How come they are now questioning the ownership patterns of Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab, something which happened three years ago? We can all go on berating Modi but these thirteen people too are guilty of gross inefficiencies, to say the very least. Mind you, it includes people like Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, MAK Pataudi, Shashank Manohar and Chirayu Amin, all these guys who are now making a big hue and cry because of the muck that has got raked up. But they themselves too are guilty, some of just plain negligence and possibly some of committing financial improprieties in connivance with Modi.

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  14. IPL is a big ocean with lots of mean minded ppl.. My views are these.. everyone is behind fame.. no one can be blamed here and if at all we have to blame..If at all someone had to be blamed, its has to be the common ppl first.. we love watching cricket.. we are the first reason for all these things happening…We,common ppl do spend 100s of rupees for a IPL match to go and watch it in a stadium..
    IPL does the remaining masala like after match late night parties, news channels needs trps so they do the page 3 or 4 ( I donno wht is it called for cricket).. And we ppl for sure browse if there is a gallery out in their websites to check all the photos published.. No one can be blamed.. its after all entertainment and presented with all sort of masala.. We like to watch it, also like to blame it..

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  15. Yup, media thrives on irrelevant news…before IPL pandora box opened up,one did not get to read anything other than the Sania-Shoaib affair. Even the 70+ jawans had to take a back seat. Dying was not good enough to hold headlines.
    But why is media irresponsible? Why do they get higher TRPs with such news? Because..apart from you and me and a few others, people revel in such news. We love to gossip about a neighbor’s misfortunes rather than step up and help them. This is human nature in all its ugliness. Even people who complain openly read every single word in secret glee.

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    • nicely put across! Yes, it is certainly the human nature which defies everything. Though most of us know what we are indulging in is not right, we sublimely fall back on ugliness. Looks like only a few are cynical about the whole stuff while the rest enjoying their world!

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  16. I should say it is definitely a good take on media. Truly speaking thou I am not a great fan of cricket, yet I like it to some extent. I do believe competetions like IPL, though not in the present more commercial state, are needed for India. I have seen here how people are crazy for Football. Football is just part of their lives. Every weekend they enjoy Bundesliga, Champions League, Spanish League, Italian League and the English Premier League. How many of us are not the fans of Chelsea, ManU, Barca, Bayern Munich. Well, there will definitely be a day when these people be fans of Chennai Superkings, MI, DC, RCB etc. Yet, IPL needs to more serene than it is today.

    I agree with you that India media is very counter productive. They just concentrate on very silly issues thou than those needed

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    • That is very true. The brand names like the famous football teams you have mentioned. It is indeed a good thing IPL is making a stride in cricket. Wish the benefits are passed onto public to develop our sporting amenities to new standards instead of milking huge masses to just the owners of these teams in the form of a business.

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  18. Very well put together cohesive argument. But having been on the other end of the spectrum – with the media circus, I must speak one line for the devil that unfortunately the public interest in the IPL is so high that love it or hate it you can’t leave it….On all the points you talk about here…I wholeheartedly agree..And I wish the money generated from IPL were put into making better cricket academies or the strengthening of sport infrastructure in a country starved of any kind of good infrastructure…

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  19. Media is business. So reporting news that will bring more TRP makes sense for the business minds. Who cares about the real important of news or the news that deservs to be covered? And who drives that TRP ? WE. We change channels when they show real issues, so who is ultimately to be blamed? Media will cater real issues if they sense people are serious in hearing them. But but but … we love cricket news, cine news and glamorous news… How many people sit for dharna protesting for real issues? no, it is fashionable to protest with candles for 10-15 minutes cos media glamorized it. We share the ultimate responsibility.

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    • Bang on. What you say surely makes a lot of sense… one way or the other, we are falling into the trap of shoddy journalism. As you have rightly pointed out, they wont change their behavior unless we change our thinking ways.

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  20. Brilliantly written Mohan. Points like this have to definitely come to the notice of everyone. Great attempt towards it, though it doesn’t grab any TRP for them 😉 as you say, but for you it’ll surely work on the fame of such an unbiased blog.
    But if channels who run Greenathon have to include these issues, what is stopping them has to be discussed too, I believe. Is that the scare or the money? If both then what has to be ideally done?

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    • Thanks Kavitha! Well, I don’t see any harm in discussing after all they debate as if every BS stuff is the ‘BIG FIGHT’. I am sure they will have not have a slot to think of things like these 😉

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  21. You’ve got it right there! We lack priority really. The thing about floodlit matches is something that’s been on my mind for a long time. Can we really afford to waste that much electricity? and surely we can ‘adjust’ with day games!

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    • Welcome here! Well, they have a point too in conducting matches under flood lights – occupancy of the stadium is a major concern as well as the viewership for the ads displayed in between some cricket on TV.

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  23. In India media gives hype and unnecessary attention to the least important things..the whole Modi-Tharoor saga was blown out of proportion…every news is highlighted with much more sensation which is not really needed. In fact Cricket is in the nerve of India..I wonder going further in future avg. Indians will give up playing any other game but Cricket..bcoz of the name ,fame and quick money it is giving 🙂

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    • Absolutely. Media lives on 4C’s – Cricket, Crime, Cinema and Controversies. Sad that the mainstream media doesn’t highlight the important that matter to a population counting over a billion!

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  24. We are to blame as well. We are lapping up all the sordid details and the skeletons that keep tumbling out of the IPL closet.

    Playing in daylight?? The players will die of exhaustion and heat!

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    • I do agree with you, if we start giving lesser importance to things like cricket, the media will understand and act accordingly. But that is highly unlikely!!! Well, that is what players chose in their life… No?

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  29. We the people are equally responsible… Its all because we waste too much time discussing, debating, watching cricket… I’m more concerned about the national waste in productivity due to cricket. Tomorrow for example, there’ll be minimal work done in most of the offices, as everyone will be discussing the outcome of the final…

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  30. You have hit the nail on the head Mohan, very very true Indian media is so irresponsible while covering controversy. They just make any allegations possible to increase there TRP. I sense some fishy here, do you remember there was a time before the beginning of the IPL 3 Mr. Lalith Modi had a tussle with media houses and broadcasters for for using IPL related shows and footage which they were cashing in? Some sought of PANGA is really happening here, the media has now got its chance to rip Modi apart and I think they are too good with their role. I don’t know whether Modi is a culprit or not, but all the media houses in India should be thankful to Modi for creating a business from which the media houses have generated crores and crores of money by making shows like after match analyis, pre match analysis and all those… blah blah blah… stuff., and recently the greatest TRP generator Mr. Modi himself!

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    • Anto, yes I do recall the tussle between IPL body and media channels. This is a good example for whatever goes will always come back around. He is still making media folks go mad after him!! Wish he gets some peace of mind after all this!

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