By Rajesh Ramaswamy
Greg Chappell has done it again. In one fell sweep, this amateur social anthropologist has come up with a theory on the Indian cricket team's performance that blames their current failures on their cultural provenance and family structures which, supposedly, smother leadership development and team spirit.
Published: Mar 10, 2012, 12:21 PM (IST)
Edited: Sep 10, 2014, 07:19 PM (IST)
Greg Chappell assumes the garb of an amateur social anthropologist to come up with a theory on Indian culture! © Getty Images
By Rajesh Ramaswamy
Greg Chappell has done it again. In one fell sweep, this amateur social anthropologist has come up with a theory on the Indian cricket team’s performance that blames their current failures on their cultural provenance and family structures which, supposedly, smother leadership development and team spirit. To bring in a blanket cultural tagging behind a sporting team’s performance is asinine at best. I mean, I wouldn’t pass judgment on all of Australia by interpreting their rugby team’s behaviour at a pub, as representative of popular culture, or of the fact that this kind of boorish behaviour owes to a culture of broken families and a convict mentality.
Let me take this point a shade farther: He says (and he’s entitled to his opinion, by the way) that the culture of India is one of everyone listening to their elders and not having the ability to stick their necks out and take decisions, or show an iota of leadership. How insightful! I wonder if he’s got this gem from a book on pop culture, or a sudden eureka moment in the bathtub.
Allow me to illustrate the vacuity of his statement by moving away from cricket, and turning the spotlight on another continent.
Cut to the sunny side of America and consider two scenarios comprising the prime pastimes of two different nationalities. On the one hand are the beaches of California, filled with beer-fuelled bums enjoying themselves and spending the better part of their productive lives on the dole, running away from responsibility. On the other hand are hundreds of uber-successful start-ups in Silicon Valley that have taken huge risks and have become humongous transnational corporations providing the cutting edge to technology, and employment to thousands. Those thousands also include in their ranks a majority of people who have come over to work their asses off and make their fortunes. Again, this is officially America’s most prosperous ethnic minority, a lot of whom are first generation entrepreneurs, who have crossed the seas and made a mark in a different culture – one that celebrates winning beyond all else. Surprisingly they all come from the same Indian families that our esteemed sage, ‘St. Chappell’, has denounced as little pools of mediocrity breeding unquestioning mediocrity. Maybe he, and his sanctimonious ilk, should stay with talking about the ills that assail his backyard and not talk of things like ‘culture’, where they’re a few thousand years lacking in experience.
(Rajesh is a former fast bowler who believes he could have been the answer to India’s long prayer for an ‘express’ paceman. He regularly clocked speeds hovering in the late 80’s and occasionally let fly deliveries that touched the 90’s. Unfortunately for him, the selectors were talking ‘mph’, while he was operating in the metric lane with ‘kmph’. But he moved on from that massive disappointment which resulted from what he termed a ‘miscommunication’, and became a communications professional. After a long innings in advertising as a Creative Director, he co-founded a brand consulting firm called Contrabrand. He lives in Chennai and drives down to work in Bangalore…an arrangement that he finds less time consuming and stressful than getting from one end of Bangalore to the other.)
