IPL and Criminal Elements, Chota Chakli of My Novel

Guess it was bound to happen. This news items has it that the IPL 6 matches garnered a viewership of 140 million, which is twice that of IPL 1. Our mind boggles and so should yours. And the betting money must surely have been huge. If it doubles in six years what could happen in the tenth year, or, the fifteenth? And a drought was going on in the country, a drought that many people sitting in their drawing rooms forgot. A drought that went unacknowledged.

How did they do it? Was it the "Jabong, Jabong" jingle or the cheer girls.Then what a letdown Mr. Srinivasan. Couldn't you have done a little better? Eh? Court cases, inquiries and all that. God forbid if the inquiry finds you guilty. Going by such inquiries, nothing will happen. We have seen countless Special Investigative Teams (SITs) vacillate, prevaricate, and then sweep everything under the carpet saying nothing happened. That's all pleasing to people who would like to go home and sleep rather than lie down on the cold floor of a cell which is seven by six and wear striped prison uniform, remember Dharmendra and Amitabh? Or, whatever.

The wisdom (gyan) from all this goes thusly: whenever there is public frenzy, there will also be criminal activity. That's also the theme which we deal with in our forthcoming novel "Mr. Bandookwala, MBA, Harvard." The real estate industry is one of the top money-making business in India and it has its fair share of underworld involvement, which we explore in our novel. Our character Chota Chakli is based on one such underworld character whom we knew in our childhood. He is a short chap with a lot of daring. If you see him you won't look at him again, so unobtrusive is he. This insignificance, he turned to his advantage, as did Chota Chakli. He went a different way and we went a different way. Our paths diverged, we haven't met since.

It's a fact that Indian business is guided by such elements who control by issuing threats from abroad. So what do our law enforcers do? What are they supposed to do for godsake?