Sidhu's shairi, bumbling Saif and a tuneless Farhan: Please stop this IPL opening ceremony tamasha

In theory the IPL opening extravaganza sounds like a match made in heaven. Just the way a Virat Kohli-Anushka Sharma jodi is a match made in (paparazzi) heaven. It is the coming together of India’s two great obsessions – Bollywood and cricket. What’s not to love? If the opening ceremony of IPL8 is anything to go by, plenty. It was supposed to be raining superstars according to the overexcited anchor. In real life it was just raining old-fashioned rain. And the show when it finally started after more than an hour’s delay was a very damp squib. [caption id=“attachment_2188757” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Farhan Akhtar bounced around. PTI image[/caption] It’s not like IPL needs that Bollywood injection to kickstart the series. The IPL games have lost some of the excitement of the novelty value they once had but the audience is apparently holding steady. According to the Economic Times even the UAE portion of IPL 7 in 2014 saw television viewership going up by about 5 percent for the first 54 matches from 175 million during IPL-6 to 184 million. “IPL is becoming a more mature tournament,” said Rohit Gupta, president of Multi Screen Media to ET. Well, you would not know it from watching the opening ceremony. It was raining. It was late. The anchors kept talking ad nauseam about keeping their fingers crossed. The only person who seemed to be unfazed by the delay, and in fact actually enjoying it, was Navjot Singh Sidhu who got more time to ham it up with his endless shairis. And by the way, dear IPL anchors, every time you go to your female colleague on the ground you don’t have to call her “lovely” or “beautiful”. But once the opening ceremony got underway it was almost worse than Sidhu’s shairi-deluge. After the mandatory red-border white-sari Rabindrasangeet obeisance, it quickly segued to pay tribute to Bengal’s other great contribution to the world of arts and culture – Bappi Lahiri as Shahid Kapur roared into the arena on a motorbike singing I am a Disco Dancer. And then promptly almost took a tumble in his dhoti pants. After that it was all downhill. Farhan Akhtar rocked on as he jumped up and down like a trampoline bunny but sounded tuneless. When Akhtar and co. started singing Senorita, one just wished Usha Uthup, perhaps thirty years their senior, was around to show the youngsters that energy in singing has nothing to do with bouncing up and down on stage. Anushka Sharma performed her set without any hitches other than the fact that she looked as if she was wearing some kind of water proof tracksuit and her backup dancers seemed to sport plastic ponchos (perhaps a good idea given the weather). And Saif Ali Khan, the emcee, was the embodiment of a man in need of a teleprompter. As The Telegraph noted he looked like the chhote nawab in his kurta pajama and Jawahar jacket. But here’s a quick tip for him – if you really want to win Kolkata’s heart, try learning how to pronounce the city’s name correctly from your mother. Hrithik Roshan was probably the only one who eventually delivered but more so because everything else was so lacklustre before him. Even he had a distracting scarf around his neck which made for a peculiar fashion accessory with his tanktop. But at the end the mystery was resolved – it was a gift from Mamata. What is IPL in Kolkata without a Didi touch? Oh yes, there was some cricket as well. Sourav Ganguly made a few diplomatic noises about looking forward to everyone and everything. The captains came up on stage to sign the bat while Ravi Shastri told the players solemnly “Cricket should be played hard and played to win but not at all cost.” Someone should emboss that message and pass it on to N. Srinivasan, the man who wanted to be BCCI chief forever. [caption id=“attachment_2188761” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Shahid Kapoor[/caption] All this to say what was the point of it all? The IPL is an annual event. Why does it need to burn up that much money and set aside an entire evening for an opening ceremony? The Superbowl in the US also gets big names like Jennifer Lopez and Katy Perry to perform on the final night but it’s just part of the half time. The game still remains centrestage. That’s true of even the football World Cup which tacks on a short opening ceremony to the first game. The IPL is not a once-in-four years Olympics that it needs an entire opening ceremony to itself. The Olympics are meant to showcase the host country to the world and also provide a grand spectacle of the entire world coming together in the quest of altius, forties, citius. This opening ceremony was about nothing more than showcasing Bollywood, an industry that hardly needs more exposure in India. In more flush times, IPL brought in international stars like Pitbull to give the opening a little non-desi glamour. But now it sticks to homegrown talent dancing around on stage making it seem like we are just peeping Toms at a rich industrialist’s beti’s wedding in Dubai. It’s time the IPL ditched the tamasha and just got on with the game. It has enough Bollywood star power already in the team owners. A few fireworks and one high-powered opening act is all it needs to kick off the festivities. As it stands, the opening ceremony of IPL8 only served three purposes It finally gave the viewer relief from the verbal diarrhea of Sidhu. The Mumbai metropolitan court has been wondering why Saif Ali Khan did not show up as summoned on Monday for a hearing about his Taj brawl. His lawyer said he was abroad shooting an ad. Well at least if nothing else the opening ceremony of IPL8 established the whereabouts of the elusive Saif. It was as Faking News tweeted “the best way to set really low expectations for the matches to follow.” The cricket cannot but be better. Hopefully.