Word play

Black Sunday and news channels saw red. Or rather the tricolour. Hum Hain Hindustani, they bellowed, enough, you k.... Oops, can’t say it, otherwise ICC will get PETA to place a three-week ban on this column for insulting “the herbivorous marsupials of the family Macropodidae of Australia...”. Okay, so: Enough you Baggy Greens, Bucknor and Benson, let’s put you in a hate sms and mail it to BCCI. That’s what 90 per cent of Aaj Tak mobile viewers did, Monday. And, yes, bring our Bhajji and bhaiyyas home.

It’s at such moments that you appreciate Hindi news channels. On a day of blunder in ‘Beimaan’ Down Under, they struck lightning quick with the thunder. While English news channels tried to play the gentleman’s game, the Hindi-wallahs were more offensive.

Midday Sunday India lost to you-know-who. “Infuriating,” complained the NDTV 24x7 anchor looking rather pleased (to be on air at that time?). “Yes,” agreed a calm M.A.K. Pataudi, “it is infuriating.”

Too mild for our Halla Bol friends in the Hindi news studios: “Yeh Beimaan Hain”, hit out Aaj Tak, “Both umpires are beimaan,” potshot Zee News, just in case you thought either Bucknor or Benson were ‘fair’ weather friends. “Recall the team”. An hour later, it had simmered down. “Sydney ke villain,” the lady anchor’s teeth chattered with the chill in Indo-Australian relations. And, if you still didn’t get it, she roared, “Benson hunts down Ganguly and Dravid is Bucknor’s shikaar.”

Times Now asked: “Umpires cheat India?”as though it had missed the match, and then its correspondent who had (watched the match) stepped up: “Clearly shows Aussies were not playing a clean game and wanted to win at any cost. BCCI suspects foul play...”

“... The spirit of the game is being killed,” dead-panned Aaj Tak. If CNN-IBN was less violent in its reaction it was because the “Sydney shocker” had stunned it. CCC (Chief Cricket Correspondent!) Nishant Arora recovered sufficiently to say it was an “ugly series... The Australians have a habit — they don’t like people pointing at them...” “Cheats!” Headlines Today pointed the finger at them.

With the umpires dead-goners, Zee decided to finger someone else: “Yuvi kamzor kadi kyon?” it asked. The answer was there on Friday and Saturday: Yuvraj Singh celebrated his birthday on Star News and Aaj Tak with a cake, candles and a red, heart-shaped balloon (Aaj Tak) that bounced off Yuvi’s chest on to Deepika Padukone’s. And Sunday, when India’s Twenty20 hero became a zero in Australia, the camera turned to find Deepika in the stands. Hmmmn.

... contd.

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