By KL Tariang
It is heartening that Shillong Times has given sufficient coverage of the World Cup Football event in Brazil. No doubt, the world’s biggest sporting event this year is mesmerising sports fans everywhere. Likewise, the World Cup fever has cut across Indian demographics as football takes over our lives temporarily. In fact life has grounded to a delicious halt for the month long duration of the tournament in spite of the fact that India is not playing in the World Cup finals. Many of us may ruminate that India might not participate in the World Cup finals during our lifetimes, unless a miracle happens or in the unlikely event that India hosts or co-hosts a FIFA World Cup in the next few decades. Typically, this should translate into a form of indifference towards an event in a sport where India has mostly languished at the bottom. However, the World Cup stirs in Indian fans a remarkable passion for a proxy or deemed national team as we choose to support it with compelling reasons behind. Regardless of which team wins, somehow and somewhere that team will have fans in India celebrating its win and for reasons we Indians know best.
What is amazing is that the Indian media has also shown an extraordinary interest in this event. Bold headlines in the front page of leading Indian English newspapers of which some read like “Let their feet touch your heart” or “One ball, six billions eyeballs” and “The world in a cup” besides so many other catchy headlines lend tremendous appeal to the event. Add to these the two inside pages of these papers which are regularly devoted to the World Cup news with coloured photographs, snippets, feedbacks and comments and you have a complete picture and more of the earth-shattering event. The magazine sections of these papers cover articles on the game and equally most of the Indian magazines have given special articles on the World Cup. One magazine even compared our present top Indian politicians with the World Cup stars with delightful cartoons and with hilarious captions. Different Indian television news channels have also joined in and are competing with each other through programs with attractive titles like “The beautiful game”, or “The greatest show on earth”, and “The war of the world”, and so on which are televised twice daily. Even all the commercials are connected with football. For once, cricket is completely bowled out of the Indian media scene. But not for long; once the football frenzy is over, I am afraid that it will back to Dhoni and Co. or ” the men in blue” and cricket will once again dominate the Indian media, particularly on television where news of other sports are usually highlighted only after the cricket news is exhausted.
The madness with which cricket has gripped the masses of our country and the complete capitulation to its god-like worship is basically because of the constant focus of the Indian television on this sport .This also leads to its aggressive promotion in the country much at the expense of other sports. We somehow overlook the fact that this more than a century old sport has failed to entice most countries till date. Perhaps we are also shy of big competition so we prefer instead to survive on cricket where the remaining few countries which play the sport are minnows in the world of sports. Not much to be proud of our achievement here though many a times we have been humiliated here as well .
Meanwhile, it is reported that because of the intense TV coverage of the World Cup, football has given cricket a run for its money in terms of viewership in India. With such huge fans following, football can definitely grow here provided it is given sufficient support, exposure and importance as cricket is given in the country for which the media, particularly television has a big role to play. Otherwise, we would be quite embarrassed every four years by the resounding absence of India from the World Cup football. While we would be exhilarated by the matches between old favourites, we would also feel very small as we watch a sport that we have no role in. Certainly, a huge nation cut down to size!
Incidentally, what attracts me significantly in this World Cup besides the thrill of the matches and the atmosphere is the fervour displayed by the players and their country supporters by passionately singing their National Anthem which drowns out the orchestra. It is truly a moving scene. How I wish that our Indian football team was in the middle of such an arena with Indian supporters all around singing the national anthem with them. Immense joy and great pride it would have been for many. Can we hope for things to change under the new dispensation? We can only keep our fingers crossed.