We don't need no pretty faces

Greetings from Goa!

Some time ago, a friend invited me to stay at his resort in North Goa for a week. It's the kind of resort that doesn't believe in dragging the outside world in with you. No newspapers, no television, no radio, and if you're an Airtel customer, you have to walk halfway down the beach to a particular grove of coconut trees before a bar of life appears. Basically, not a great place to do any reporting from. Luckily they do have Wi-Fi in the dining area, (they installed it when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie came to stay), and my friend, when I explained my predicament, had a television and cable connection installed in my room in a very hush-hush manner, so I wouldn't miss out on the IPL action. It is the smallest television in the world, but never mind, it's in a room a few metres from the ocean in one of the remotest parts of Goa, and it works. I'm not complaining.

Day one of the IPL proved very exciting indeed. I managed to catch most of the action in between running out to the sea and watching the sunset. Of course, the defeat of the Chennai Super Kings (my team) was a little disappointing, but they were outplayed by a superb effort from the Mumbai Indians, and Subramaniam Badrinath going for a duck was the point in the match that signalled it for me.

But it was the second match that was the real thriller. Playing against last year's champions no one expected the Bangalore Royal Challengers to win, but win they did, and how!

What preoccupied me most of yesterday though, was not so much the cricket, but an extension of what I was talking about earlier - the effect of Bollywood on cricket. I read in the papers, while waiting to board my flight, that Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty were going to choose a woman from the crowds as the next potential Bollywood starlet, and they were going to pick her based not just on the way she looked but on her ability to "mesmerise."

Now I understand the allure of reality television just as much as the next person. I've watched that Youtube clipping of Susan Boyle singing "I Dreamed a Dream" three times already, and I think it's great when someone is discovered for a talent they didn't think they had, but finding another "mesmerising womanly face" feels like an overtly sexist move to me. It's just another excuse for the camera guys to linger lovingly on all the pretty women in the audience. As if it doesn't happen anyway. Why can't Bollywod have a hunt for a new hero instead? That would be far more interesting. At least to the women in the audience.

Hits:
The 11-minute dog interlude in the first match
Jacob Oram (minus the spitting)
Abhishek Nayar's sixes
Tendulkar's and Dravid's half-centuries
Anil Kumble's five wickets
Shane Warne's wizardry

Misses:
It's only day one, and I already hate the Jindal Man commercial.