In pursuit of the Fake IPL Player

At times, you have to shrug off inertia, wriggle yourself out of the comfort of your lair and even if reluctantly, respond to the call of the world.

And this was no fiddle-faddle after all.

The hitherto unflappable Barack Obama had grown fidgety; passer byes vouched there was a blood-curdling upheaval in Jade Goody’s grave in the Epping Forest; and even the stony Tiger Woods had started waggling!

It was as if the sky had dropped, hanging like a glass ceiling just above the head of a claustrophobe world which is struggling to breath in an air thick with suspense.

Who is this Fake IPL Player raking all the KKR muck?

My first suspect was Aamir Khan’s dog, which apparently shares its name with Shah Rukh Khan. Maybe spurred by its owner, the canine was out to deface...I mean defame...his namesake.

Dog running blog!

Well, YouTube is infested with videos of dogs using iPods. Trust me, some of them are more techno-savvy than most of us.

And there is a plausible explanation of the dog’s access to KKR dressing room dopes as well. Possibly it was his Colonial Cousin in SA, that same black mongrel which interrupted CSK-MI match, which is supplying him the fodder for thought!

So I ventured to get it from the horse’s...I mean dog’s...mouth but was stopped at the gate by Aamir himself.

“Have you voted? Show me your finger. Hey, what do you think of yourself, Greg Chappell? This is no Kolkata either. Show me the other one.”

Satisfied, he let me in and I politely asked the canine “Are you the Fake IPL Player?”

“Grrrrrrrrr.”

I asked Aamir to decode it but the Dr Dolittle did little other than leaving me with a muddier mind.

“From the angle of his erect ears and tail and the thickness of the saliva dripping from his quadrilateral tongue and considering the fact that he has been starving for the last three days...”

Before he had finished, I showed him a clean pair of heels and was back on the road, panting and gasping.

“It’s P Chidambaram, silly”. I heard the whisper but couldn’t see anyone in my eyeshot.

Well, not an impossibility altogether. In fact some felt it was PC who straight-drove IPL out of the country.

I sought and surprisingly got an appointment with him! Well, election time is the only time when you have access to the politicians. But his secretary made me do an MF Hussain and take my shoes off before letting me in and PC’s corrugated forehead smoothened only after he had inspected my feet.

“Sir, are you the Fake IPL Player?” I asked timidly.

“Don’t be silly. I’m too busy with election duty. Well, if you suspect someone in the cabinet, it could be Dr Ramadoss.”

Now that was an eye-opener! Indeed, every time SRK smoked, Ramadoss fumed!

“Hello, Dr Ramadoss?”

“Yes, speaking.”

“Sir, are you the Fake IPL Player writing all those dirty stuff about SRK?”

“You nitwit, I would use a log rather than a blog when dealing with that *&%$#@,” he hung up.

Well, I know it doesn't augur well for the world bu I’m afraid, Obama will continue to fidget for some more time.

Pix: Jess Bucchino, ‘The Wizard of Draws’

Bored Member Meeting on Apr 3 @ Defence Colony

April 3 meant we were two days too late. Still it was well nigh an achievement when five shadowy figures walked into a Defence Colony bar, in bits and pieces, to fret about cricket and blogging.

The Gaurav-Pankaj alter-ego had been joined by golf's own Quisling Nikhil and subsequently the most harmless of the lot, yours truly.

If Argus had eyes all over his body in Greek mythology, Gaurav had hands all over his. It seemed hundreds of spooky fielders were running around to catch a skier with only their raised arms visible to the eyes.

It was somewhere in between unreal and surreal, man!

Pankaj sat in a snug black shirt, modelling his own product, I reckoned. He confided that he has already emotionally blackmailed his toddling daughter and armtwisted the office oddjobber to contribute to his blog. He said he has plans to widen the dragnet, which basically means no one is safe anymore in Delhi.

Nikhil sat across, in a white T-shirt, all along trying to convince us that the caricature in his chest was MS Dhoni. To our credit, we eventually relented.

Like tradition-bound Bollywood heroes, John's was a delayed entry. But then you have to make concessions for someone who lent his name to John Abraham. Soon the spirit of the other John – Lenon -- possessed him for a while and he hummed a few lines, which unfortunately sunk in the surrounding din before reaching out ears. John dazzled in a shirt with bold stripes, apparently the same ones he has earned as a legal eagle.

In between, John and Pankaj vanished, which I initially mistook for a token walk-out to protest a Bored member’s obsession with mango juice. Later it transpired, they had gone out to get Anbumani Ramadoss’ goat, which was grazing outside.

Gaurav made a highly motivating speech, John provided insightful inputs, Pankaj the technical know-how and Nikhil pledged his absolute loyalty.

And all along, I kept nodding my head till it threatened to come off my shoulder. We finally dispersed just when the meeting threatened to spill over to the next day, thoroughly convinced that cricket's biggest revolution was just one post away.