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!

Monkey madness at Down Under - Aussies see monkeys and Indians go Bananas!

The Sydney match will be remembered for all the wrong reasons and I have to say that this is one match that is going to go down in History as a case of 'Monkey madness'. I am truly puzzled by Symonds obsession with the moniker 'monkey'. After all, a name is just that, a name, so why is all the fuss being made about this?

The match would also be remembered for some of the worst umpiring decisions made in a game of Cricket. As it is, the game started out just like any other game, both teams on the edge and each wanting to best the other. Ricky pointing the ignominious captain seem all too pleased with his teams performance until Sachin Tendulkar started blasting away. All one can wonder is that kind of pep talk did Ricky pointing give his team mates before the second innings? Did he tell Symonds to go and talk to Harbajan shingh and make up the entire story about being racially abused or did he provoke Harbajan and did the mess begin that way?

Either way, halfway during the Indian batting in the second innings, Symonds walked up to Harbajan and had a few words with him. Replies were exchanged fast and it seems to me that both were out of order at the least. After all, if one is provoked to uttering a racial slur, then it is only right that both the person who uttered it and the person who provoked it, both should be taken to task. As it is, that does not seem to be the case here.

And to make matters even worse, the Aussies have proved themselves to be utterly bad sports in the sense that they cannot even begin to understand the concept of the Gentleman's game. Many a call was given against the Indian team in favor of the Australian tea, even a rank amateur could see that on the telly, yet the Aussie players did not behave with the amount of honor that this game requires of all its players.

They stood the ground when they were clearly out and the idiot of an umpire, Bucknor did not even bother consulting the third umpire before giving them the all clear. Then to further compound his mistakes, he gave the Indian team raw deals especially in the case of both Dravid and Ganguly. I have to say that the rules say that when you grass a catch, then, it is considered as a dropped catch, that is the rule, but evidently not where the Aussie team is concerned.

Now, the matter has gone beyond the point of no return, and to say that Harbajan is a racist is laughable at the best. Indians may be a lot of things but the one thing that they are not is that of being a racist.

Racism is a purely western idea and even today, there are many western societies that define people based solely on their skin color. But here in India, we have religion, caste and a whole lot of other baggage except for racism. For most of us, we tend to think of skin color as just that, skin deep, no more,no less.

The Aussies seem to have thought that by accusing Harbajan like this, they can throw off the focus of the Indian team. That may well have been their ploy, but now it seems to have backfired as it should have. The Indian team as well as the BCCI is not in any mood to take this insult and defamation to an Indian as well as to the very idea that India stands for, lying down. This is one foot a bit too big for Ricky pointing to fit into his mouth and he is going to have to eat it all, sooner than later especially with the fury increasing by the ton in the Indian camp.

We all talk to each other every single day, does it mean that by talking to you I can be accused of racism? Where is the due process of justice? Do the Aussies not know that as Indians we have been racially abused by the British for a long time until we fought for our freedom? We Indians have always stood against racism and apartheid, our record in that is truly impeccable. All in all, this does not mean well for the Indo-Aussie relations!