Horse Racing, Cricketing, Betting and the Indian Mind!

The games of horse racing and cricketing are not of Indian origin, but are legacies that my country men and women got irresistibly entangled with because of those white gentlemen officers who were bosses of their grandparents often exhibited their royal style by indulging in these games which were told as the games of the aristocrats. 

So their grandparents took it for granted that these games are symbols of aristocracy and affluence and passed on that concept to their children.

So, even after the Britishers packed off from the Indian sub-continent, the Indian mind, the majority of them, dreamed of becoming like their royal bosses of the past whom they adored for their styles and  manners. They wanted to imitate their white bosses and their families to become aristocratic like them.

They imitated their language, their club culture and their games and these things predominated their talks and thoughts most often. Perhaps they attributed the success of their foreign masters to these things and wanted to be like them by adopting these in to their lives !

They envied the whites to the extent of some deep seated hatred but loved their charming culture secretly in their minds !

When the whites left their land, they find it difficult to raise the expensive horses to continue with the horse races and the polo's.

But cricket was indeed different. It needed nothing much of that sort !

Moreover, their erstwhile masters still mentored this lazy game called test cricket which took days to come to any conclusion. Their teams were ready to play with the teams of from the neo Indian nations.

They worked hard to inculcate and indoctrinate the pliable Indian minds with a type of game addiction in such a way that even the learned psychologists would find it difficult to explain the reasons !

With horse racing disappearing the scenes and the Khadi clad puritan Indian politicians denouncing betting and making money through all forms of chance games officially, this cricket soon transformed itself from a gentle man game to that of a game of bet and gamble.

The greed for quick moneys transformed test crickets to one-day-crickets. The Indian youths who toiled to master this game and get the favour of their control board members soon became celebrities making such monies even the cine stars could not even dream.

It was the trick of money begetting more money in cricket now in India.

More and more gullible Indians were getting glued to this game even while they never ever chanced to get a feel of the game by themselves.

The hard and heavy cricket ball and the wooden bats have become symbols of attack weapons and ammunition that have deadly properties only to be handled by select heroes. So the cricket players have become real life heroes who acted without any dupes making them all the more desirable demigods for the public, too eager to worship any such gods !

Added to all these is the greed that governs the minds of many of those from this land. They are willing to do anything for amassing quick money that they themselves have ever paused to think of its utility. The glitter of money and wealth has blinded them to see its actual usefulness for them in reality. They seem to to think of getting it and not of its real value for making their lives hassle free. Had they done that, perhaps many of them would not have spend their lives living in constant fear of those official and unofficial hounds who are after them to tear off their newly added flesh of wealth !

All these complexities are part of the developing culture of India now. A civilization of race mixing and culture mixing never going too far to some acceptable amalgamation !

And perhaps that is what makes India a preferred destination for the cocktail lovers who are after those Bloody Mary's even without ever realizing its real punch !

Too complex, too complicated ! Isn't it ?

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