Pointing - Charles Darwin wants to talk to you!

The description of Racism has become blurred the last few days thanks to Symonds and Ricky Pointing. These days, calling anyone a ‘monkey’ or even an ‘ass’ can very easily be construed as racism. Probably the monkeys and the asses of real life are feeling a bit insulted that their names can cause so much a flutter.

But now, thanks to Pointing it has gone way beyond the point of no return. One can very easily make out that the India and the Indians are not going to shrug this charge away and that if the right conclusion is not reached, well, the tour will be called of.

For those of you who think that it not going to happen, well, you are smoking the pipe. For one thing, with the fear of elections and the home crowd, the BCCI chairman would have no choice but to be behind his men all the way. If that means calling off the tour, then so be it.

What the Aussies may not realize yet, is that as the country with the largest middle class segment and with a population that is fast matching up to that of China, India has transformed into a homing beacon of sorts for all the corporates, all over the world. Which is why, most of the games that any team plays with the Indian team, nets the largest amount of revenues. In other words, if the tour is called off, for starters, most of the Aussie cricketers would start losing some of the meaty ad contracts that they currently enjoy. And to add to their woes, the Aussie team would no longer be welcome here in India.

What Pointing has single handedly managed to do was to throw the 100 year old cricketing relationship of India – Australia all the way back to the dark ages. It is one thing to tell everyone that you love to win but totally another to say that you will do anything to win the game. Cricket, as a game, is apart from all the other sports, in the sense that it is the one game that still earns its value by being played the right way. It is a game where the cricketers are honor bound to behave with decency, honor and decorum. I think that we can all agree that the Sydney match did not reflect any of that. It is sad to see the Aussie team resort to sledging in order to win the match other than their own talent and to compound their mistake, they had to resort to cheating as well. I guess, Pointing must have thought, ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’.

Indians , like any other colonies of the British empire, had been racially abused by the English for a long while. None of us are still able to forget the genesis of our freedom struggle. So, to say that we Indians are capable to racism is downright ridiculous and irritating at its best. We have a history of standing up against apartheid and we do understand what it means to be singled out just because of your skin color, the British gave us the lesson and it is one that we are not going to forget in a hurry.

None of us believe that Harbajan did utter those monkey words and even if he had done so, it must have been as a result of provocation on the part of Symonds. The question that is just begging to be asked is why on earth did Symonds go ahead and talk to Harbajan? Was it because, Pointing had told him to provoke Harbajan so that it will throw him off his batting? Either way, Pointing is going to realize that he will be apologizing exactly on the eve of the Perth match and even if he does so, it is one apology that none of us are ready to accept. Thanks but no thanks, you racist pig!