Indian fans: Boyz will be boyz

NEW DELHI: The defeat to Australia is history. The vandalism that followed is at best an embarrassment everyone will like to forget. While the Indian team has matured from Boyz to Men, how’s the fan scoring?
Ramachandra Guha, social historian and cricket writer grades them poorly: ‘‘The average cricket fan is just as immature or hysterically nationalist as he was.He’s happy now that the Indian team has been doing well, but if we lose today, he’s bound to react violently. Problem is, a win is seen as national exhilaration and a loss as national humiliation, he expects the cricketers to redeem the failures in all other spheres of life.’’
Havn’t we learnt any lessons at all? Yes, says Anil Kapoor, who has had to cancel his South Africa trip because of the war. ‘‘The World Cup has been tremendous for fans as well, somewhere along we have learnt to take an adverse result in their stride. A catharsis has happened. The team has convinced the fans that they have given their best to the game.’’
The catharsis, says Shatrughan Sinha, Union Minister for Shipping is mainly the result of our win against Pakistan. ‘‘Our anger subsided only because we defeated Pakistan. We were not playing the World Cup we were playing the India-Pakistan Trophy.’’ This aggressive nationalism has, if anything, made our aspirations soar.
Says sociologist Ashis Nandy: ‘‘The performance of the team in the latter half is no indicator that the fans have matured. They have only deteriorated and become unthinkingly nationalistic.’’
The media-bashing of the unruly fan may be well-deserved, but Rajdeep Sardesai, executive editor, NDTV, is somewhat defensive: ‘‘As far as cricket goes, boys will be boys. Even now there’s a certain innocence to the game, something that brings out the child in us. When we win we celebrate with abandon, when we lose we grieve with abandon.’’
He then adds, ‘‘This, of course, is no excuse for vandalism.’’