CONFESSIONS OF AN IPL CONVERT

Watching sport is inclusive, nobody has to shut up, because there are no dialogues to miss or complex plots to unravel.

It gives you a reason to party on a Monday or a Tuesday or any day for that matter.

Conversely, it allows you to be a couch potato on a Monday or Tuesday or any day for that matter.

It allows you to avoid making conversation with your spouse — all for good reason: "Honey, I'm spending quality time with the kids."

It allows grown men who no longer play an active sport to relive their youth vicariously.

It allows you to air your (completely superfluous) knowledge of the game.

It gives mothers of sons (like myself) a lead into conversation with otherwise notoriously monosyllabic teenage boys.

And finally, it allows you to show off your rocking social life when you casually let fall how you (and 500 others) partied with Virat or Bhajji or whoever.

Needless to say, this is my personal analysis of this seasonal fever, though I know my IPL-junkie friends will vehemently disown not just my theories but perhaps me as well.

To go beyond my pet peeves, it's not all bad. The IPL has something for everybody. Whether it's tamasha or the chance of celeb-spotting, it has managed to break the gender divide, garnering as many female fans of a certain demographic group as male. So, while the lads watch because it's the laddish thing to do, the girls get all gussied up, complete with blow-dried hair and team coloured eye-shadow and nail paint perhaps in the hope of catching the eye of the roving TV cameras!

If the cricket itself doesn't grab you entirely, that's okay, because there's enough camera-worthy entertainment off the field. Last year, beauty stretched the boundaries beyond the field, as Liz Hurley bonded with Shilpa Shetty who bonded with Preity Zinta who bonded with Deepika Padukone who in turn bonded with Sidhartha Mallya. Phew.

... contd.

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