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 • KUNAL PRADHAN: Since everybody is onto IPL these days, and you are a fantasy cricket league champion yourself, do you think IPL is like Super Selector played out in real life?

No, not at all. I personally feel it’s a catalyst that will galvanise growth in Indian cricket. If Indian cricket has lacked something, it has always been transparency and professionalism. All these people like Vijay Mallya and Preity Zinta and all corporate houses stepping in, I think professionalism will creep into Indian cricket.

• KUNAL PRADHAN: Like in England and all other places with leagues, one saw market-forces take over the sport. Now the BCCI has done this, and the BCCI, like you said, has been a very closed body. Do you think they are aware of the market forces taking over?

Well, they don’t have the divine right to rule over everything; it’s not a monopoly. People like Mallya know how to build brands. If he can build Kingfisher Airlines, he can surely build a team. He can hire a specialist to do his job, like a coach. The passion with which a Shah Rukh Khan or a Preity Zinta comes in — well equipped and absolutely close to perfection! This is the finest fillip to Indian cricket.

• KUNAL PRADHAN: How did you start cracking what are now called Siddhuisms. Did it come naturally? How did it come about?

When I was young, I was very shy. If my principal told me I had to participate in a debate, I’d take chutti for three days. If I scored 100 runs during my under-19 days and the press came to me, I’d be shelling bricks in my pants. The change came in 1998. I ultimately found solace in Swami Vivekananda. That’s when I started my breathing exercises and meditation. It changed my perspective: there is nothing good or bad; it’s your thoughts that make them good or bad. Your thought process is the real interpreter of your actions. That’s how I started tapping my mind — and minds are like parachutes, they function only when they are open. Once I opened my mind, I connected with my inner being. The sense of proportion, to see things in the right perspective, came right in front. Everything else just started flowing like a river.

• KUNAL PRADHAN: But when did these funny comments come into being?

Siddhusm is nothing. I never named them Siddhuisms. I honestly say it was my style. All these absurdities of conduct happen when people imitate others. No one can part with his individuality and become another. I always say that alag alag kuen ke paani ka swad alag alag hota hai. No two people have the same fingerprints. I just connected with myself, started being myself, and everything I said became a Siddhuism. People sometimes say I laugh too much. You know why this happens. It’s the edit panel that is very mischievous. What they do is, if anyone cracks a joke at the Laughter Challenge, I laugh, and I never laugh at a bad joke, but what they do is they edit my laughter and tag it on to bad jokes too. Now I’m dead, boss, I’m dead! You don’t know, and you think Sardar pagal ho gaya hai. That’s something that is beyond my control but that is reality, and reality bites.

• SHAILAJA BAJPAI: On IPL, how will the viewer or spectator have a sense of loyalty when you have people moving from place to place, one team to another?

You have loyalty to Liverpool and other English club. When it comes to the city format, you will always have loyalty. Any Bangalorean will cheer for Mallya’s team. When top rate players play for Bangalore, professionally hired players — if Shane Warne comes to play for Bangalore, who will not go and watch him.

• SANJAY SINGH: Today we heard Matthew Hayden call Harbhajan Singh an “obnoxious little weed”. This bickering continues. In the light of your experience, do you think there continues to be a racist tinge? How was it in your time?

We didn’t blow it out of proportion. The point is that when you judge different people in different ways it brings in resentment. If the Australians do it you call it mental-disintegration, you call it a means to unsettle people, but you don’t know what this mental disintegration is. You don’t know what a Glenn McGrath will whisper into your ear. It’s atrocious what they say. Some believe it unnerves you; but some like Manoj Prabhakar get inspired. In 1983, Kapil (Dev) paaji takes nine wickets — a world record and he’s invited by the English press for an interview. And there was one thing that he wasn’t adept at and that was the English language — he would murder the language. And I told him, ‘Let’s just go watch a movie, because these Englishmen are just going to kill you.’ So he says, ‘Sardar mein dariyaan (You think I’m scared)?’ And inside I’m thinking, ‘You don’t murder a man who’s going to commit suicide.’ So we went there. So they say, ‘Mr Kapil Dev, why can’t India produce another Kapil Dev?’ And they repeated it six-seven times. Before someone asked again, he gets up and says, ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ and I tell him there are no ladies here. He asks me to keep shut and repeats again, ‘Ladies and gentleman, my mummy is 62 years old, my father is dead, that is why we cannot produce another Kapil Dev!’ So, you know, champions think in a different way.

• DEEPAK NARAYANAN: You said the Harbhajan Singh issue was a matter of national pride. Why should all of India feel they have been called racist? When does cricket stop being a sport and start being a matter of national pride? Was it blown out of proportion?