24 May 2009

IPL closing fiasco.

Miss South Africa IPL Bollywood? Well, that's a hard one to live up
to. The girl who just won is shaking to Akon's music. Akon is the
real article, but what the heck does Miss. Dune Kossatz from East
London really have to do with IPL or Bollywood? Absolutely nothing,
and she doesn't look like she will play any real part in any real
Mumbai movie either, because for heaven's sake, she is a white girl,
and very white if I may add.

Why does the IPL suffer from the insecure mindset? Who cares about
the cheerleaders and so called Bollywood celebrities at the end of the
day, when Gilly is tonking a 30 ball 80 or when Murali is weaving his
magic on the pitch? Who even cares about the thousands of people who
are already in the ground watching the match telling us how great the
IPL is and how great Modi is? Why did we have to make a TV event out
of IPL donating money to schools in South Africa? It isn't as if
there are no schools in India the IPL can donate money to, but that's
another matter all together.

We really got more than fatigued with the DLF maximums and
cheeseburger level marketing stunts that could get nothing but
"cheesy". Try putting together something Philips brilliant and
Vaseline dull at the same Timex time, Fevicol together! To add to the
endless list of senseless associations Modi can throw together in his
cart called the IPL, now we have a contest amongst women selected on
TV, from live audiences at cricket matches, ostensibly to work with
the biggest loser of them all, Shah Rukh Khan! Apart from a cheap
noise level generated amongst those curious about all things Indian,
what can this possibly do, for cricket or for the IPL in particular?

Oh, here comes Katrina Kaif, who herself cannot make up her mind
whether she is an Indian. What's with her totally fake accent, and
oh, God! Just when I thought I'd never hear this song again, here we
go with Jai Ho! What heartless organizer would make Katrina Kaif
shake to this overrated piece of crap? Those topless brown skinned
fools dancing around her look straight out of the wannabe actor failed
list. Oh, let's not forget the namaste at the end of it.

The real deal South African product on view is really good. The lamps
that lifted into the sky, the fire act, Akon himself, and the rest of
the hypnosis is not bad. Original to some extent, almost creative,
definitely not bad. The moment there is something Indian to fuse
with, they are thrown out of rhythm. How does that happen? Well, it
cannot get any better with A R Rahman's Jai Ho nonsense passing off as
something "Indian", can it?

The funniest part of the night was definitely the speech by the South
African president, Mr. Jacob Zuma. It was as if we finally had to
reduce this event to an ancient Doordarshan style underwhelmer just to
keep our feet on the ground. Zuma certainly ground us to death with
his boring speech when the spectacle was already unfolding in the
background. Pathetic, but funny. It was as if Modi had decided to
cruelly balance all his extravaganza with a little tempering of
people's enthusiasm!

I wonder if any speech by any head of state can hold its own against
the spectacular Phoenix Fire act the South Africans put up. What a
show! Phew! And the fireworks, indeed, the best part of any event,
but perhaps overdone for the IPL? If we can forgive Shah Rukh Khan's
overexposed presence at all loser events of the KKR and Shilpa Shetty
trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life when she can't
tell if her team lost or won, that is.

Another real article now, again South African - a genuine performer
again - Eddy Grant. You cannot miss quality when it is this obvious,
especially when it comes from a seasoned pro. But why do the
presenters always have to ask us if we are READY? Would the program
really wait for us if we weren't? Oh, never mind.

What we were definitely not ready for is the lousy television coverage
of the closing ceremony. It appears as if the same company covering
the cricket had been thrown an extra bit of work. A sports coverage
unit does not have what it takes to cover a stage event - they're two
different animals all together. What kind of clown but Modi to
oversee such a blunder and cover it with some more glitz? Covering
Sivamani during a Chennai Super Kings match is very different from
covering a full blown professional performer unleashing his full
bandwidth on the stage.

Now, after the "closing" ceremony, we come to the Highlights, and we
might even care to remember the trophy has not been presented! Heck,
we don't even know the man of the final! Basically, the IPL hasn't
yet been closed. But the ceremony is over. We haven't had the
winners celebrating, or the commiserations to the runners up. I
wonder who has been the most tortured by this cruel twist of event
design.

Basically, with Modi, anything goes. There are clowns like Samir
Kocchar calling the IPL trophy beautiful, while anybody with a
molecule of taste will puke at that terrible design. He can even be
forgiven for calling the closing ceremony an opening ceremony, but the
"beautiful IPL trophy"? Come on! The IPL is a monstrosity. It has
its best moments on the field, in the essence of the cricket being
played amongst some very good competitors, but the rest of it really
is like a Mumbai movie, loud and unnecessary, but always THERE,
hitting us in the face. Modi would have made the perfect "Bollywood"
producer.

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