Writing in the Outlook issue of November 7, Arti Sharma begins her story on Indians' current craze for gold with this little incident that occurred during a one-day cricket match between India and England:
It happened once upon a time in Mumbai, last Sunday (October 23). Having strangled England with his banana swingers all season, Praveen Kumar rolled in to bowl yet another over in the revenge series, at the Wankhede. A boundary was followed by a wide down the leg side. Next ball, horror — another wide, this time even wider than the previous one. Skipper Dhoni lay behind the stumps, mystified at the Miser from Meerut uncharacteristically squandering away sundries.
After pondering for a while at the wicket, hands on knees, Kumar proceeded to return to his bowling mark. And, as he passed the non-striker’s end, the bowler suddenly seemed to realise the cause of his temporary strife. Nonchalantly, he put his hand inside his shirt, pulled out a gold chain thick enough to strangulate a 400-pound bear, handed it to the umpire at the bowler’s end, and returned to discover his line and length.So what? Maybe your bowling hero is Shantakumaran Sreesanth. But that action, in the full glare of cameras, captured India’s magnificent obsession with the yellow metal that now cheerfully afflicts everybody: from city-slickers to the small-towners; from women to men to medium-pacers. And, unlike in the past, when gold was what you stashed away secretly in safe deposit lockers, away from evil eyes, now you flaunt it, if you can afford it.
 |
| PRAVEEN KUMAR |
But, like a good journalist, Arti Sharma looked for the unusual and found it in a game of cricket. Isn't that something?
Loved the Article.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, when Praveen Kumar played for RCB, my friend and I noticed something very peculiar. A few of his fans requested him for a picture, he smiled and posed for the camera, but as soon as a television journalist came to ask him a few questions, he immediately took out a gold chain (it looked a bit lighter than the one he wears now) and only then spoke to the guy. Soon after the journalist was done he removed his gold chain and kept it inside. When I shared the incident with one of the former members of RCB team, and Praveen's teammate in Uttar Pradesh, he told me that Praveen only wore it when he was in front on the TV cameras.