The Desi Fan

The subcontinental cricket fan is a lazy, pampered know-nothing who thinks he owns the cricket teams that he supports. His sense of proprietorship is so developed that when his team loses, he speaks (or writes) of being betrayed without a tremor of self-consciousness. He is never disappointed, he's always 'let down' by the inadequate, time-serving, over-paid villains who represent him and his Nation.

The vandals who attacked Mahendra Singh Dhoni's house in Ranchi are stock characters in Indian cricket's absurd dramas, clones of the men who did the same to Mohammad Kaif's house the last time round in South Africa. Kaif's fault was the same as Dhoni's: being part of a losing Indian team.

How do these lunatics justify their actions to themselves? Most people recognize that a sense of entitlement has to be based upon some sort of contract, written or otherwise. If a statutory body like the election commission is shown be partisan or a committee entrusted with the purchase of munitions turns out to be corrupt, or a cricketer takes a bribe from a bookie and underperforms, in all these cases there is a genuine breach of trust because these are public figures who have been dishonest.

As cricket fans it's reasonable for us to feel frustrated and annoyed by incompetence but even chronic incompetence doesn't warrant a reaction as disproportionate as betrayal. Think of the Barmy Army. Here's a contingent of fat English fans who spend weeks, even months of their lives following the English team around, just to cheer their players on. In between watching cricket they get some sun, sand and sea in, but they're there for their team at considerable cost to themselves. England loses more often than it wins, but I don't notice this caravan of supporters killing themselves or threatening to kill their champions.

Why are they different from desi couch potatoes who never leave their rooms, never exert themselves except to find their remote controls and yet treat every Indian defeat as a conspiracy against the Nation Recumbent?

You can read the rest of the piece in The Times of India here