Is Sourav the last icon of bengal??

DADA is back to the team. congrats to him. the timing was perfect and the CNN-IBN was more than happy to run a show yesterday over a topic called – Is sourav the last icon of bengal? that vulturess Ms Ghosh anchored it and put up some extremely silly issues like a dearth of bengal industrialists, leaders, entrepreneurs etc to the so called experts – an overt Suhail Seth, a confused Rahul Bose, the editor-in-chief of pioneer (who read it anyway) and clearly embarassed Rituparna Sengupta. i like Rahul Bose so much, so a bit of advice wont be much to ask for – do not be at such shows rahul, they are so dumb. i hope you understood that right after the show.

i was asked by a coleague a few days back – “is cricket dead in bengal?“. i tried to put up a brave face then, though i knew what the reality is. i have been told that there are celebrations across bong land when india loses a match. i couldnt say that to him, i was clearly embarassed. the scene during the last year’s SA match at eden gardens was so foolish. let me try to figure out why such high emotions fly when it comes to dada.

the factual analysis: sourav popped up at a time when bengalis were going through a long cultural, social, and intellectual dry patch. after the 80s, the golden era was simply gone. dried up was the pool of iconical figures that bengalis always associated themselves with. with nobody to represent them, bengalis, who were always proud of their bong sons – tagore, netaji, amartya sen, ray, kishore etc etc, suddenly were pale and prideless. so, we desperately clung on our past glory to prove a point over any discussion. in such scenario, came the bengal southpaw who did well on the field and eventually became the captain. bongs, like sinking souls, latched upon him. sourav became synonymous with bengal; albeit undeservingly though. the unimaginable bong sentiment over anything that has ‘sourav’ is not worth the talent in question. if people threw stones to him, we took it as our personal abuse. if someone dropped him from the team because of his poor show, we thought as if we were betrayed. so, we turned hostile to our own country, only to show the world that we are bengalis first and indians second. pity to us. it’s like we would abandon our freedom fighting and join british forces because netaji was ditched by gandhiji and forced to resign from the president post in congress. waah bong waah – “dravid utkal-o bang-o..”.

sourav is a good player, and he truly did us proud but so did he to the other indians. he got his due adulations too, not to mention the millions he makes. but if we continue to be over sentimental, tend to turn a blind eye over everything – good or bad, that he does, protray as if he’s the only one we’re proud of, and forego the national interests for his sake, then we are losing our senses. let us be concerned about other bong achievers too. we have done just too much – let’s keep the sanctity, let’s cheer the team – with or without dada, with or without greg; it’s our country – move over the XYZ. and finally, let’s dont create a situation where someone would tempt to ask “IS SOURAV THE LAST BENGAL ICON?”. please…