The day of January 19, 2021 is just not getting passed into my unconscious and subconscious thinking. Well, how can it go! This is because this 19th January of 2021 has created an unending, as well as brazen memories and flashes. I have scratched out some of them onto the scrap-house of my Facebook Account Profile Page in the following order -
"1991 - November 29, Gabba, Flashbacks - A 10 wicket victory for Australia (Javagal Srinath's Debut, Paul Reiffeil's Debut)
Personal Reflections - The 11 year old boy from any background working hard by getting up at 4.30 am everyday at the age of 11 doesnot need to leave cricket but can just look at siraj, saini, natrajan, shardul, washington sundar, rahane, rohit and the list is unending as the history of the page has just started. "
The above scratchy notes to myself were immediately also countered by some other scratches in the Twitter world which threw open certain facts - "A quote by Kunal Kamra - Congratulations Byjus on Winning Border Gavaskar Trophy". The quote was followed by the glorified statistics of the Twitter world highlighting - 2.6k comments, 3.4k retweets, 49.9K likes.
I ponder in the yonder of my lost childhood in the leftover grasses of Vivekananda Park, Deshapriya Park where I could see the day at the age of 11 when I went for the last time for a cricket training session in Kolkata following India's massive defeat at Gabba in 1991.
My images are gradually stopped in a time machine by the mind, space and solemnity scavenging statistics of - 2.6K comments, 3.4K retweets, 49.9 K likes. I thought, 2021, January 19 was all about a brave (B), bold (B), bruised (B) Indian team fighting out cultural supremacies levelled by sports. A leveler where the same dressing room of a national cricket team is shared by an auto driver's son in deep agony, pain and loss matching up with the abdominal sprain and pain of another ace pace bowler who hugged the minority boy from the lowest strata of the society at the end of the match singing together in Marathi, Urdu and Hindi. It was all about bashing and thrashing the gender stereotyping of toxicity through the tears of the same minority boy of the auto driver son who could cry publicly when the national anthem was played before the Test Match started.
I thought this Gabba is a hope for every 11 year old lad who wont have to leave cricket when they will look onto the stories of Washy, Shardul, Rohit, Shiraj who fought the childhood adversities of their social positions and made it to the final stage making the country proud. I thought this victory was all about a cinema and a script and a magical fairytale which can easily be a fiction any time. At the same time, this victory was also about the fact that there is always a truth too within fiction which is far more magically real than the fiction itself. For two days after the victory I was lost in the ocean of this magic realism of this victory which only told me before the celebration of 23rd and 26th January that nothing better than this victory can happen. It showed us the promise of castelessness, equity, new gender norms and every little word that we have written in policy documents, papers, books, preached verbosely in class lectures; and yes, the 19th January result of Gavaskar - Border trophy had all of it. But then the effervescence of this lostness suddenly got halted by the twitter statistics.
I saw that at the same time while I was lost in my own effervescence of the 19th January victory of India at Gabba, the Twitteratti was also lost in its own effervescence of 49.9K likes of a post by a standup comedian on the same magic realism of the victory. The question which made me come out of my ecstasy was then - "Who are the people in Twitter liking the statistical seducement, seduction in a dark, comical, commodifying, conflictual labelling of the Gavaskar - Border trophy win?"
The more pertinent question was to think - "Most of these likes are coming from an Indian and then why are they liking it?"
Does that mean, the fellow country men prioritized the business subjugation of a country's team and certain norm wins over the cinema created by the victory itself on 19th January, 2021.
The more unnerving question is - "Why the same people from the same land are prioritizing the Twitter quote over the celebration of an auto-driver's son, a poor lad's win from Chennai, a bruised body jaded against the red canon balls from Australian seamers."
Does that mean, it is actually a clash between the dreams of the son of the autodriver, poor lad from Chennai, Mumbai with the 49.9 likes in Twitter and Byjus as a brand is just insinuating this clash between the 49.9 likes and the dreams of the minority boy to a new extent? Does it mean that my ecstacy is actually a naivety?
Because the same cinema for which I was lost for few days also meant a clash between the 49.9 representative likes of an Indian society and the tears of a human being bashing gender stereotpying, cliched irrelevant, old cast and class narratives of the same country. Will it mean that tomorrow again when say another time - Deepa Karmakar wins another Olympic Gold Medal for us supported by Go Sports Foundation, the twitteratti wont celebrate her tears after the win but will celebrate more a similar post on the sponsorship with a stand up comedy pun to it.
Will it mean that, when tomorrow, a cricket coach will try to mentor a young lad about bravery, courage, parenting, motherhood of protecting a team interest by narrating how - "Cheteshwar Pujara during the Melbourne and Gabba Test of 2021 was taking the ball on the body as the unusual pitch cracks were immaculately used by Pat Cummins to snick the gloves and the body; and to avoid the risk of getting out and exposing the tail; thereby highlighting parenthood, courage, bravery, responsibility, duty, team before an individual ", the young lad will rather not listen to the coach but will open his or her smart phone and retweet a stand up comedy post on the same act. The same Gabba, which brought to me a scrapbook of memories and ecstacy before 23rd January celebration of valour and courage also trembled, unnerved me with some uninvited tremors of sneers, mound of darkness of a societal dream, magic realism and its fragmentation with the inoculation drive of a deep politics of global investments, buying and selling at the backdrop of deep data and technological penetration into our lives. I don't know whether some day if next time when we stop having tears with a medal win of Deepa Karmakar it will turn out to be the biggest stand up comedy of comedians as ourselves at the cost of a new virus whose vaccine is still not there. Fortunately, the Covid-19 Vaccine has arrived and I will strongly hope for the other vaccine to arrive soon before it is too late for the human society as a whole.
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