Cricket is not India
On FirstPost.com Samanth Subramanian questions cricket's status as a metaphor for India, and the parallels drawn between happenings in Indian cricket and India as a nation
Dustin Silgardo
25-Feb-2013
On FirstPost.com Samanth Subramanian questions cricket's status as a metaphor for India, and the parallels drawn between happenings in Indian cricket and India as a nation. A World Cup win does not mean the dawning of a new age, neither does the IPL signify economic progress, he writes.
Cricket-as-India has become the worst kind of metaphor. It is continuously interpreted to arrive at the same glib conclusions about a country that appears fated to be explained only in such shorthand. This endless metaphorizing is a part of what Amit Chaudhuri, writing in Outlook, called a new norm: “to see India not as a place, but as a concept you could experience, an idea making its way in the world.”
Dustin Silgardo is a former sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo