Lillee could be bowling on a beach, in informal games 24/7, and no one would think twice about it, but I did not want to watch him play beach cricket for money. Even though he was swinging the ball prodigiously. I did not want to watch, for Lillee’s sake, and for the sake of my memories of that extraordinary bowler. I did, but purely out of morbid fascination.

But anyway, that was an England-Australia game. Let’s look at India. We have ruined most of our classic film songs through remixes, whose only contribution to the originals is one or more of the following: speed up the song, underlay a synthesised beat to the vocals, or have some deep voice growl “Ooh baby” and some hip-hop nonsense in between stanzas. Our highly popular stand-up comedy contests on television thrive almost exclusively on objectionable male chauvinistic jokes, and the hosts and the studio audience laugh themselves silly at each one of them. At our political talk shows, the participants spend most of their time shouting at one another, and often the moderator outshouts them all. In our print media, we ask pretty film stars to expound on the future of the unity and integrity of the nation. I recall one of them being quizzed on who started the modern Olympics, during her run with the Olympic torch in Delhi before the last Games, and she answered: “Was it Hitler?” But her comments on global warming and world peace find space equal to that of a Nobel Prize winner.

... contd.