In Indian popular culture, IPL or Twenty-20 has become a superseding synonym for cricket. The movie Hasee To Phasee, despite being refreshingly unconventional, pays pimping service to T20 cricket with shameless sycophancy. Is it a mad scientist’s influence or the director’s kinky predilection? It is a great example on how popular culture indoctrinates the impressionable minds of Indian audience.
In a scene set in 2006, the girl supposedly prophesies that cricket should be of twenty overs, hence finishing in three hours. Three hours? The length of cricket is three and half hours, not three as fiendishly proclaimed by her. Secondly, the scene is supposed to show her innovative tendencies and foresight. But in truth, twenty-over cricket was England’s invention, already in existence at that time. But of course that’s overlooked in the film. Another subliminal message given there is that T20 cricket is for intelligent crowd only.
After hearing the girl’s sick views on cricket, the boy proffers some creepy ideas about the game: a total of thirty-three players in a team — eleven separate bowlers, batsmen and fielders. (Why would anyone need eleven specialist bowlers and batsmen in a short twenty-over innings? Eleven bowlers would be too many even in a timeless Test. Eleven specialist batsmen would be wasted in T20 game. What would this stupid rule do to all-rounders?) Then he vomits a rabid suggestion that cricket should be played on a revolving ground and have two (literally) flying fielders in the inner circle. According to his sick mind, it would complete the evolution of the game. How? What? Why?
Are these mad scientists a part of the cabal formulating the tenets of cricket? No wonder why cricket nowadays is run by bolshies like Srinivasan and his rabid sycophants.
How can any sane human being spew such militant ideas on a sport? Although it’s the girl who is shown to be a “mad scientist”, in reality it’s the boy who is unhinged. Under the facade of worldliness, he is a craven and insecure flagellant. Under the delusion of pragmatism, he is a martyr of masochism. He lives in denial of not loving his girlfriend, which he professes for stability. He considers domestic violence a connubial norm. He dutifully bears abuse and blackmail from his disagreeable girlfriend, who threatens to jilt him at the drop of rain. In return, he grovels at her to save their bondage-domination relationship. He gives up too easily on his ambition of becoming a police officer because he is too lily-livered to stand up to his father. Bankrupt of self-respect, the bootlicker frequently implores his prospective father-in-law for money. He is a crackpot who blathers on asinine business schemes as an escape from his miseries. Since he has no control over his personal and professional life, he conjures a fantasy world filled with sick drivel on cricket.
The girl’s malevolent schemes for cricket are at least offhanded. It’s easy to make allowances for her because of her rough childhood, of being abused by her demonic patriarchal uncle. However, the boy is not worthy of any sympathy. He is such a rabid bore that it is difficult to blame his girlfriend for being a psychological browbeater. How can one expect her to stay attracted to that yellow belly? How can her animal instinct let her respect that doormat? It’s no wonder that she keeps him on his toes.
Every astute entrepreneur snubs his loony business propositions. (Why would a common entrepreneur be bothered with the laws of cricket?) Then he squirts his diabolical schemes about cricket to a shady businessman who looks more like a pimp. It’s no wonder that the delusional pimp — possibly a drug addict — loves his drivel. (What that pimp has to do with cricket is a mystery. And again, looking at the draconian state of contemporary cricket, you wonder if such pimps are really controlling cricket.)
Watching this movie makes one realise that this is what happens when mad scientists run the show. There are rabid suggestions that LBW rule should be eliminated since it is based on conjecture. Some fanatics recommend that boundary scores should be changed to five and ten (instead of four and six), ensuring a rounded metric system; an over should be of five balls, making T20 game a total of 100 balls instead of 120, ensuring an easier calculation of run-rate. (How stupidly they forget Tests and their pet ODIs). There are proposals for split-innings ODI matches, as if the current changes weren’t enough. A crackpot journalist, Rob Steen, made a hideous suggestion that an Ashes series should incorporate all three formats. (It happens in women’s cricket, but one must understand that women rarely play Test matches; hence it makes sense for the women’s Ashes to be sprawled across all three formats.) People like Steen are sick power brokers, in other words: trans-national pimps, who would stoop to any level for their perverse pleasures. As much as I dislike BCCI, I can’t help but thank heavens that at least BCCI isn’t infested with rabid minds like these.
In a scene set in 2006, the girl supposedly prophesies that cricket should be of twenty overs, hence finishing in three hours. Three hours? The length of cricket is three and half hours, not three as fiendishly proclaimed by her. Secondly, the scene is supposed to show her innovative tendencies and foresight. But in truth, twenty-over cricket was England’s invention, already in existence at that time. But of course that’s overlooked in the film. Another subliminal message given there is that T20 cricket is for intelligent crowd only.
After hearing the girl’s sick views on cricket, the boy proffers some creepy ideas about the game: a total of thirty-three players in a team — eleven separate bowlers, batsmen and fielders. (Why would anyone need eleven specialist bowlers and batsmen in a short twenty-over innings? Eleven bowlers would be too many even in a timeless Test. Eleven specialist batsmen would be wasted in T20 game. What would this stupid rule do to all-rounders?) Then he vomits a rabid suggestion that cricket should be played on a revolving ground and have two (literally) flying fielders in the inner circle. According to his sick mind, it would complete the evolution of the game. How? What? Why?
Are these mad scientists a part of the cabal formulating the tenets of cricket? No wonder why cricket nowadays is run by bolshies like Srinivasan and his rabid sycophants.
How can any sane human being spew such militant ideas on a sport? Although it’s the girl who is shown to be a “mad scientist”, in reality it’s the boy who is unhinged. Under the facade of worldliness, he is a craven and insecure flagellant. Under the delusion of pragmatism, he is a martyr of masochism. He lives in denial of not loving his girlfriend, which he professes for stability. He considers domestic violence a connubial norm. He dutifully bears abuse and blackmail from his disagreeable girlfriend, who threatens to jilt him at the drop of rain. In return, he grovels at her to save their bondage-domination relationship. He gives up too easily on his ambition of becoming a police officer because he is too lily-livered to stand up to his father. Bankrupt of self-respect, the bootlicker frequently implores his prospective father-in-law for money. He is a crackpot who blathers on asinine business schemes as an escape from his miseries. Since he has no control over his personal and professional life, he conjures a fantasy world filled with sick drivel on cricket.
The girl’s malevolent schemes for cricket are at least offhanded. It’s easy to make allowances for her because of her rough childhood, of being abused by her demonic patriarchal uncle. However, the boy is not worthy of any sympathy. He is such a rabid bore that it is difficult to blame his girlfriend for being a psychological browbeater. How can one expect her to stay attracted to that yellow belly? How can her animal instinct let her respect that doormat? It’s no wonder that she keeps him on his toes.
Every astute entrepreneur snubs his loony business propositions. (Why would a common entrepreneur be bothered with the laws of cricket?) Then he squirts his diabolical schemes about cricket to a shady businessman who looks more like a pimp. It’s no wonder that the delusional pimp — possibly a drug addict — loves his drivel. (What that pimp has to do with cricket is a mystery. And again, looking at the draconian state of contemporary cricket, you wonder if such pimps are really controlling cricket.)
Watching this movie makes one realise that this is what happens when mad scientists run the show. There are rabid suggestions that LBW rule should be eliminated since it is based on conjecture. Some fanatics recommend that boundary scores should be changed to five and ten (instead of four and six), ensuring a rounded metric system; an over should be of five balls, making T20 game a total of 100 balls instead of 120, ensuring an easier calculation of run-rate. (How stupidly they forget Tests and their pet ODIs). There are proposals for split-innings ODI matches, as if the current changes weren’t enough. A crackpot journalist, Rob Steen, made a hideous suggestion that an Ashes series should incorporate all three formats. (It happens in women’s cricket, but one must understand that women rarely play Test matches; hence it makes sense for the women’s Ashes to be sprawled across all three formats.) People like Steen are sick power brokers, in other words: trans-national pimps, who would stoop to any level for their perverse pleasures. As much as I dislike BCCI, I can’t help but thank heavens that at least BCCI isn’t infested with rabid minds like these.
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