Nov 05, 2024
Nov 05, 2024
The entire India seems to be agitated today about the cricket and the mushy gambling. The socalled gentlemen game of cricket had been made into the ‘poorman’s game in this country and gamble had started long back.
But, today the media and the public are waxing eloquent on this ‘Match fixing, Spot fixing’ since they have almost exhausted with the other scams.
However, can we say that this type of gambling with the game is something new to India? Not at all. It had started in the Dwaparayuga itself when the Pandavas and its head the most upright and revered gentleman Yudishtra started playing the game of dice with his opponent Sakuni and Duryodhana knowing well that it would not have been a game of honesty. Further, he gambled not only his country and its people; but his entire wealth, brothers and wife too. All these happened when Lord Krishna (avatar) was very much around.
So what is new about it when a supposedly straightforward, honest, law abiding who carried the name ‘Dharmaputra’ himself had fallen a victim to gambling why you find fault with the Kalyug’s most corrupt and greedy mortals for doing it?
Our country was and is a country of vices, avarice, malice and treachery but keeps talking all the time about our great legacy, philosophy and faith in God. If only we don’t do it, it would be an anachronism.
Our rulers are highly corrupt, our Godmen are womanizers, our leaders are self centered and our public is nonchalant and irresponsible. What else can happen in a nation like this where the population keeps increasing at the rate of many of the country’s total numbers?
We will never change and we cannot change. The only thing which we will do is keep talking about all evils at the same time executing those evils with greater vigor. So let us keep talking about cricket scam till the next one surface.
25-May-2013
More by : G Swaminathan
Dear Swaminathan, Sorry for subjective phrases, but let me put them here for quick reply ... Thoughts coming out of negativity often lead to wrong conclusions. Your perspective seems to have negative approach. It's more than 5000 years since Mahabharata age, things have changed, our social norms and the then social norms are very different. What looks illegal and immoral today was norm then and what happens now was immoral and illegal then. That the offer to gamble should not be rejected was norm then, that the brothers and kingdome can be put in gamble was also norm then (lets not forget that trained kshatriyas were the kings hence governance had certain benchmark which every king met, so people got above some level of administration from any king). Anyways, this argument needs more details and time - I am ready to discuss over several weeks on FB Regarding Cricket scandal, please refer to another article and comments in the link: http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Articles&ArticleID=14472 |
Dear Mr Bohre, Thanks for your erudite explanantion. Yet, I am not still convinced of certain facts. It may the 'dharma' of Dwaparayuga for a king to accept an invitation from another king to play dice. Well, did the same 'dharma' alone 'allowed' him to pledge not just his country but even his brothers and wife without their consent. If that was the 'dharma' of India at that time, we should feel ashamed of framing such a dharma. Still I dont understand why the media should cry so loudly about the game scandal. It is after all a game and government hardly has any role to play in it. (Ref: Sri Kabil Sibal's statement today!). Film industry is promoting the biggest gamble one can ever think of. A film's success or failure is just a gamble and the distributors indulge in it everyday. Share market is another greatest gamble where millionaires and paupers are made in no time. Horse race is another gamble which was in vogue for a long time. In fact, every act of our activity in the modern world is an invisible gamble. First of all, the magnificent importance given to cricket and its players are the biggest nonsense and anything which is considered money spinning and popular will easily become corrupt. As for as Bhishma's Promise it is once again a wrong one and he stuck to it because of his ego and nothing else. He was also a part of 'adharma' which he himself accepted when he was on the bed of arrows waiting for his death. Please understand I am not trying to draw morals from our history. Our history is replete with all sorts of corruption, vices and chicanery. They are getting repeated in different forms during different socalled 'Yugas'. Period. |
Dear Swaminathan, Ignorance and misconceptions most often lead for wrong conclusions. I am afraid your conclusion is wrongly derived. "So what is new about it when a supposedly straightforward, honest, law abiding who carried the name ‘Dharmaputra’ himself had fallen a victim to gambling " Then in dwaparyug, the law abiding, follower of 'dharma' were supposed to accept invitation to the game of dice... But, this is not the case in modern world, a law abiding person is supposed to reject such invitations to gamble according to the current laws and untold 'dharma' as per the social norms today. You can also compare the value of promises made in dwaparyuga, such as promise made by Bhishma Pitamah about his marriage and vow to serve Hastinapur WITH THE PROMISES MADE (in Kaliyuga) BY OUR POLITICIANS IN LAST 60 YEARS and draw altogether a different conclusion. |