The story in the Ramayana goes like this - Jatayu was a magnificent bird with huge wing span bearing greatest of strength. He also had a brother possessing equal, if not more, strength and propensity to show off. They both would roam the skies touching the stars at will. Then they decided to get closer to the Sun. By then they were flying on ego rather than their strength. Obviously their time had come. In their quest to assent the sun they lost everything. Jatayu’s brother was burnt to ashes but Jatayu survived. As if to teach the lesson to the future generation he was destined to pathetic life with burned wings squatting in earths’ dust.
This story is so apt for Lalit Modi and IPL and I wonder if only he had read this story and learned his lesson then things would have been much easier right now. Actually, things are still easy for him. He is still commissioner of IPL happily twittering and still arrogant in his insistence of innocence. Given the humongous amount of money raised and played around by IPL and involvement of Bollywood and given the general tendency of corruption prevalent in upper echelon of Indian society it would be incredibly stupid to think that he is clean. But right now he is just accused, not yet guilty. I think whether he is clean or not is irrelevant because his functioning rubbed so many people in a wrong way that they will do everything to bring him down. He thought he has figured out antidote for everything and in his stupefying self-importance he forgot the Sun that was coming down on him. That is, the Indian political class.
Actually it’s wrong to term those leeches as a Sun. They are black holes where incredible amount of money vanishes. They are the people who will paint their mother young and sale it to their father for profit. They are the Mafia, albeit the elected one! They want share in everything. Their blessings especially count most when you embezzle money or kill somebody. I am not sure if Modi paid his ‘dues’ to them because what Lalit Modi did was actually worse than killing or stealing.
Instead he brazenly created an empire that generated billions of dollars and needed no license, no new infrastructure and no government assistance of any sort to run. And even though BCCI is ruled by a politician, Modi managed to keep even him off the track too. Mind you, when it comes to cricket BCCI is still the supreme authority but with rapid advent of IPL they were left with lowly job of selecting Indian team for international tournaments. How sad! No big money (the selectors gets paid only Rs. 25 lakh per year for their job), no Hindi movie stars and absolutely no skimpily clad cheerleaders. Obviously they were upset and all they were waiting for was one misstep. And to their delight they found a huge blunder!
To be honest Lalit Modi is correct in his demand of Kochi franchise disclosing partners in the venture. Any professional institution should not have anything to hide. It’s their obligation to inform general populace (and the Tax folks!) the kind of people involved and the kind money paid or made. Except that for some reason Mr. Modi wanted that information only from Kochi franchise. Another complication was the involvement of a Union Cabinet Minister in Indian government. His girlfriend or future-wife got a sweet equity in the franchise and he just happens to be mentoring the franchise in their quest to win the bid. This dude, who also ran for the UN Secretary General position, is either dumb enough to actually believe in what he stated or dumb enough to think that public would believe in his story. Either way he is dumb. He lost his position in the government and his future wife had to forgo her equity in the franchise. Talk about pain! But he accused Modi of siphoning money in this fiasco.
Instead of dealing with this issue with level-headedness Modi decided to take ‘high’ road and in his dense arrogance published the detailed ownership of Kochi franchise on his Twitter. I mean common, the deal was worth$300 million and the best possible medium you could find is Twitter! Those 140 characters may prove to be the most expensive words ever spoken by him. By twittering he grabbed attention of vultures. And he is going to play heavy price for that. He will be forced out of his position for sure and once that position is gone he will fade out of the picture so fast that he won’t recognize himself in the mirror. Life without cheerleaders, four cell phones (he carries four cell phones to keep track of the business!), after-game parties, desperate hotties from Hindi film industry will sure suck.
The thing Mr. Modi forgot is that even though he single handedly created an extremely successful business model that churns out money in bushels, he is expendable. The IPL will run just fine without him at the helm. There are so many self-interests involved and so much money invested that even if he is sacked the engine will keep humming. But that’s not it. See this whole tamasha is for the viewing public and as long as they are glued to the TV or flocking to the stadiums, IPL will keep chugging forward. Modis will come and Modis will go, the king is the public and he was merely the servant.
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