I have been a huge cricket fan right from my childhood. To give you an insight of the magnitude, if I have a chance to go back in time, I would like to change the result of the final encounter of World Cup 2003 between India and Australia or the very recent World Cup final of 2017 against England.
Throughout my life, I have followed cricket and cricketers with this passion and devotion. Not just the on-field matches, I bet you that I have watched almost all the cricketing interviews of cricketers who have represented the country, be it the complete seasons of ‘Breakfast with Champions’ or ‘What The Duck’. These chat shows are a really good medium to know the cricketers upfront and close. Thanks to internet!
Simply following the tradition, I recently saw just another chat show featuring cricketers really relevant today – I binged on Koffee with Karan feat Hardik Pandya and K L Rahul!
What Happened?
Little did I know, I am watching a historic episode and I am one of those rare species who will get to see this legally – as the broadcaster will take it down after a huge cricket controversy to be followed. The major part of the episode is about Mr. Hardik Pandya and his life while K L Rahul is more of a supporting actor, just like your hero’s best friend in a ’90s Bollywood film. The episode has no personal attacks and no hatred involved at any point. Only that in this episode, Mr. Pandya revealed a lot of information about his personal life – how he used to flirt with multiple women at one time and would send all of them the same text. He also said that he relates a lot to the ‘Black (read the Caribbean) culture’ and he likes to check out the moves of a girl. Basically, he showed that he is a ‘player’ who uses his fame to go out with multiple women.
Hypocrisy Takes Over
I saw the episode, forgot about it until I saw news after a few days that both these players have been suspended because of the sexist remarks. BCCI, whose CEO faced allegations of sexual harassment, another player who faced serious criminal allegations from his own wife, the coach who used abusive language on live TV a few days back wearing team jersey and the great Captain holds the record of maximum on-field abuses, he uses language targeting women in the family of opposite team members while representing the team, wearing team jersey, on field, on duty. And in none of these cases, the career of an individual was destroyed or a ban was imposed. The irony is that some of these greats are stakeholders in deciding the punishment for Mr. Pandya. What led to this sudden moral attacks? This moral policing by BCCI is beyond my understanding.
Blame Pandya Or The ‘Player’ Culture?
My biggest concern is Mr. Pandya is not the first person in this country who possess this attitude. This is nothing but a perfect example of toxic masculinity that is strongly embedded in today’s society. We all know people around us who possess a similar ‘player’ attitude and these people are very well accepted in our society, our own friend circle. Men are friends with them, women date them knowing who they are. It took me a few years to not hate them and another few years to accept them in my circle. I realized that if people concerned with them don’t have any issues then who am I to hate them? Knowing that they have cheated on multiple women in past and sometimes the same women multiple times, women are ready to date them again because these players know their game very well. Initially, I thought this is the story of my friend circles until I came across this research.
My only argument is whether people have a problem with this ‘player’ culture or with this individual. If we have grave, serious issues with this culture, then we should start with the people around us. Make them feel at least 10% of the humiliation that has been done to these two. Do you really boycott the ‘players’ around you like the way we are doing with Hardik and Rahul?
Imagine if we start behaving with every ‘player’ out there as well as his friends the way we are behaving with these two. Imagine if you get to know that any of your friends is two-timing then your entire friend circle starts boycotting or counselling them. But sadly that’s not the truth in majority of cases. This culture exists, it’s even on a rise. We are encouraging this behaviour around us but suddenly a lot of hypocrites have started bashing this guy because he made it public.
Another important aspect of this case is that Mr. Pandya comes from a small town and as told by him he never gave a pinch of his attention to studies. Hence it’s not surprising for me that he doesn’t know the vocabulary and is not equipped enough to carry on discussions around things bordering controversy. Sometimes what matters the most is ‘how you say it’ rather than ‘what you say’.
The way things are unfolding is just not the way to tackle them and I am still confused whom do we want to target the ‘player’ culture or Pandya for revealing this open secret.
Men want to be like them and women want to be with them and that’s how you fall prey to this ‘player’ culture and promote it.
Either accept that this is the new culture which is growing in the society or if you really want to curb this culture then start from the people around you and at least don’t fall prey to it. Then this culture wouldn’t be on a rise and there won’t be all those poetry on #HookUpCulture.
PS: The above article is based on limited knowledge and limited experiences of my life. Happy to hear contradicting views and learn something new.
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