Let me get a bit of blasphemy out of the way first.... I think the person who deserved the Best Actor Award in 2005 (presented by every film glossy) was Naseeruddin Shah in Iqbal.

Oh, all right. I said this because I wanted to say something that would grab everyone by the short and curly and exclaim, oh now that looks like something for which I should definitely stop watching my Britney Spears-Kevin Federline sex video for the 34th time.
That apart, I really do think that Naseeruddin Shah deserved that Best Actor award. And that Iqbal is an exceptional piece of film-making. And just so that we are all on the same page – Iqbal is a film about cricket.

Sports in Hindi cinema? Let’s face it. We aren’t a sporting nation. So, I guess that in a country that has won a total of eight Olympic gold medals in the history of modern Olympics and six of them by 1956, it is but natural that sports is not a popular subject in our films. So, even though by the time P. C. Barua made Devdas in 1935, we were already churning out about 200 Hindi films a year, the first Hindi movies to have a ‘sporting’ theme happened 50 years later in 1984. All Rounder was based on cricket and was one more desperate shy by Kumar Gaurav to try and restart his flagging career. It didn’t. And Hip Hip Hurray, based on football, also did nothing for Raj Kiran’s career. (Which wasn’t going anywhere in the first place.)

On the other hand, considering that if you take cricket and movies out of an Indian, you’ve taken out most of his heart and soul, you’d think that cricket would be an extremely popular theme in Hindi films.
Well, in a manner of speaking it has been...

The cricketing greens have always been ripe breeding ground for actress-cricketer romances of which the most famous was Sharmila Tagore and the Nawab of Pataudi. Equally famous, even though it didn’t endure, was Anju Mahendru’s engagement to the then-not-yet Sir Gary Sobers. Ravi Shastri almost married Amrita Singh and Mohammed Azharuddin did most definitely marry Sangeeta Bijlani, to the din of much hoo-ha and controversy since he was already married. Some cricketing alliances even crossed borders – Reena Roy married Moshin Khan and while Neena Gupta and Vivian Richards didn’t marry, their union was cemented in a more permanent manner – with a daughter.

But the onscreen love affair of cricket and Hindi films remained a non starter. And not for lack of trying. Cricketers tried to become film stars – Syed Kirmani, Sandeep Patil, Vinod Kambli and Ajay Jadeja. And film stars tried to become cricketers – on screen, that is. All Rounder, Awwal Number, Stumped, Hattrick to name a few.
Who knows why movies on cricket flopped....
Barring Lagaan.

Naturally, the more cinema-erudite amongst us will suck in their outraged breaths, cluck their affronted tongues and remind us that Lagaan was not about cricket at all but about our Azadi ki Ladayi and that cricket was only a metaphor for the Yoke of the Ghastly Goras. Which is interesting because 60 years after we won that Ladayi, the very same Yoke is one of the biggest money spinners for independent India! The last World Cup – yup, the very same in which we emerged a glorious 13th among 16 teams – generated advertising expenditure estimated to be between 1500 and 2000 crores. Rupees, I must add because the BCCI’s revenue has crossed a breath-whooshing-out-of-my-body one billion. Not rupees, but dollars.

And, also barring Iqbal. Which is most definitely about cricket and not only performed decently in the box office but is also a shining example of how you can make a great film about anything. Even cricket...
Today, of course, things are totally different because we speak in ACDI.
Anno Chak De! India.

I saw this film in a matinee show in Mysore and to tell you the truth, I wasn’t expecting much. I can barely recognise a hockey stick, I’ve never been a fan of Shah Rukh Khan (Blasphemy Number 2?) and deprived of my siesta, I was sleepy, irritable and ready to write off the film. But even if I was in the habit of writing letters in blood to Shah Rukh Khan, even if I loved hockey, this film would have exceeded my fondest expectations.