Postcard from Lahore - The Fickle Mistress
Midday India (June 2009)
(Midday starts an occasional column from across the border. Mr. Hasan is not new to Midday having written before. He is an advertising and PR practitioner and heads a multinational agency in Pakistan. His columns are syndicated in the Pakistan press and his column ‘Over the Top,’ every Sunday in the News is widely followed).
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The great social leveler of the subcontinent has to be the game of cricket, introduced here by the Brits and rather quickly taken over by the locals. Today, the Brits hang on to the game with great effort in terms of administering and controlling it, but for the sheer flamboyance and passion that this unique sport has, it is hard to find prophets such as the ones you see on the fields, in the alleys, at makeshift parks, in impossible streets and wherever conceivable a few youngsters can congregate and recreate the magic of the game.
But there is one significant difference that marks the approach of India and Pakistan to the game of cricket, a difference that has become more visible as cricket’s commercialization has continued to expand, far more in India than here in Pakistan. Nothing demonstrated this better than the recent T20 where India, the media favorites riding on a storm of hype and dare one add, hubris were regarded as the winners long before the umpires said, ‘play.’ A great deal of this buzz is generated by the India Dream of being world conquerors and the insane amount of commercial endorsement that makes soda pop figures out of some amazing cricket players. When the fizz goes, everyone pounces on the fallen angels.
Over here, Indian TV channels have a wide following. For some these are akin to religion and devotion to soaps is close to worship, but as the T20 prepared to be launched, the blitz of commercials seemed to be a flood without any let up. Perhaps this is not as clear in India as it is here. Distance is a wonderful thing sometimes in separating chalk from cheese. Audiences here, in many informal discourses – cricket remains a big subject at all times, across all spheres, thought that in India no one could sell anything unless Dhoni or Yuvraj or Bhaiji supported it. Some products were a natural fit, others simply crammed in. What Dhoni has to do pedaling ceiling fans is something that even escapes me, confessedly as I am from the same profession that sold Eve a bad apple and changed the way life unfolded on this unique planet. So as commercial after commercial bombarded Indian audiences day and night with messages of use this, buy this, try this, eat this, drink this, wear this the advertisers were flitting about across a minefield. In the mainstream this built up a huge propaganda monster that could only find fulfillment in Dhoni lifting the trophy on a June evening in London. Nothing else would have mattered. When it did not happen – most games are fickle and cricket is the most fickle of them all, the heavens broke in India long before the delayed monsoons. It is symptomatic of the failure that Dhoni’s home came under siege. Perhaps the team didn’t really do well but we all know that the media-commercial overkill just built up the pressure that exploded eventually.
Of course India is a huge market and there is intense competition to gain share of mind and share of purse of the hapless consumer but Pakistan, being by far a much smaller market escaped the unfortunate consequences. Of course they won which was another thing altogether. The team was in the doldrums, the cricket board, as always a place of intrigue and back stabbing with the occasional garroting thrown in, the country reeling under attacks of those who are as much Muslims as Jabba the Hut and on top of everything the ICC case of taking the matches away (rightly) from a country where the Sri Lankans discovered a bit of Tamil Tiger treatment. So there were no sponsors worth the name, no great endorsements, and no screaming ads. larger than life billboards and celeb appearances. No one gave the team any chances. Most thought they would be wiped out by teams like Ireland (again) and in true Paki-style, the start was a disaster only someone who scripted ‘Volcano’ or some equally inane disaster flick could have conjured. All this sent one message to the beleaguered Pakistanis – failure was on its way, but then people do forget every now and then what a strange game the ‘goras’ left us.
We all know what happened. Will this, at least in India, drive a little more sense in endorsing jocks next time another big event is approaching? What magical data do companies have in India that proves a detergent will sell if Sania Mirza is seen using it while smiling alluringly? The cricket stars see a short shelf life for themselves and would be ready for any thing even car mufflers, batteries, engine oils or whatever else that comes along. A friend of mine once said that you can’t sell a bra to a gorilla no matter how persuasive the message.
Two pictures that appeared in the newspapers early this week. Umer Gul in Peshawar eating with his family and Younis Khan mobbed outside his home. In the first, all are squatting on a makeshift floor with mattresses strewn about, eating a humble meal, in metal plates and a few ‘naans.’ Younis Khan’s house has a metal gate that you find in lower middle class houses – no Burma teak used here. In both cases, the point that comes across is that a little touch of reality is far better than those mouth-watering half naked gals in hot pants on dream bikes oozing sex and offering you the time of your life. Some of know these girls don’t exist. I didn’t see any in Mumbai when I was there before that deranged Kasb lost his head.