If we all sit idle...

Controversy is media's favorite child. Just let one erupt and they lash onto it. However, it is poignant to note that a major factor behind all the derision surrounding the fundamental nature of controversies is the idle mind. Yes, if we all sit idle, all we do is to conjure mindless chatter which ultimately blows up into a controversy. Nowhere has it been more prominently on display than the two 'stories' jostling for space on live television.

It is a well known fact that in India, nothing works better than the word of God. So people claim to have received divine intervention and suggest it as a means to justify their actions. The so called 'antaratmaa ki aawaaz'. First, a harmless directive from the honorable Supreme court constituting a special committee to prepare an inventory of the speculated wealth lying around in the holy confines of the Padmanabham temple in Thiruvananthapuram. The media didn't pick up the news when a retired IPS officer and a stout devotee of the lord filed a petition praying for the transfer of the control of the temple administration from the hands of the royal family of Travancore to that of the state. They didn't pick it up when the members of the teams were announced. They certainly wouldn't have picked it up if it weren't for countless artefacts of historic (and monetary) value that started teeming out of the underground chambers. The media went into a frenzy, and a controversy was born! The debate shifted from how to protect the wealth to how it got there in the first place and who should be the owner and protector of it. I have been to the shrine situated in the capital of Kerala. I remember it vividly because I had to buy a dhoti from a nearby stall to gain entry into the temple. Yes, the rules of entry to this shrine are as stringent as any other temple you could fathom. What wowed the attention of all present inside with me was not what lay beneath, but what lay above- the reclined statue of Lord Vishnu whose darshan could be taken from three huge doors. I would have loved for it remain that way.

The topic of frenzy shifts just as seamlessly to another god of sorts. Sachin Tendulkar is one short of his 100th international century, one that is of sentimental value to his billions of followers. Yet, the debate rages on. Is he the greatest of all time? Frankly, why should anybody care. Why not simply live in the present, when the man is playing in perhaps the best form of his life. Then came the announcement of the greatest test team of all time, to mark the occasion of the 2000th international test which begins tomorrow at Lord's. While the list is definitely not what a pundit would like it to be, it is what it is- a survey of the popularity of the players who live on in the fans' memory. The point of the matter is, the so called greatest team in no way undermines the greatness or the talent of any of the great players who happened to have plied their art in an era before the advent of facebook and twitter. Dear media, let it be!