The Cricket Fever in India ……

Cricket- cricket- cricket…….!   I can’t count the number of people who literally worship cricket. It is the most famous and most played sport in India. India’s national sport is hockey, but now it looks like in a few years, cricket will be as good as the national sport of this country.

One of those who - as I said- worship cricket and follow it, is my own twin brother. He’s mad behind it and has an ambition to become a cricket player too. In his free time- either he does balling practise, batting practise or play something with the ball. Sometimes he even carries the ball while we are going out. But, I’ve never seen anybody like him who has detailed information of every match that was ever played. He writes a blog on cricket too. That is really worth appreciating!

People go crazy when especially during big tournaments like the World Cup or the IPL. When India won the World Cup in 2011, my family and I had gone to celebrate the victory, to Naturals ice cream parlour. There was already such a crowd there that people had come till the road! People in countries like Sri Lanka, Pakistan are also crazy about cricket.

Children and adults alike play cricket in some or the other way all over India. Mumbai's Gully Cricket is famous. This is played in all those small gullies where it is impossible even for cars to go. They break a lot of glass doors and windows, but they enjoy their game. I have even seen cricket tournaments in small compounds. And not just in gullies, but also in big societies, children play cricket. Shops are making a lot of money with the number of bats, balls and cricket kits they sell. My brother also plays very good cricket and has joined a club for it. Sometimes he also tells me to play with him. They have built separate grounds just to play cricket, and no other sport.

Cricket is appreciated a lot in Mumbai. If people cannot play the game, they just watch it and enjoy.  They wear t-shirts, those fake curly colourful hair, paint their faces, and what not! But, they enjoy the time of their lives while watching it.

Cricket is really worshiped in India! No wonder my brother has a blog on cricket named "Religion Called Cricket".

Our Participation in the Society

Just a few weeks back, I had a group activity in school regarding our Civics textbook. We were supposed to do a Role play on “Our Participation in the Society”.  First, we had to identify a local problem affecting the society and show how the problem could be solved by people’s participation. We showed this through a skit. We took a problem that the buildings of a colony were very old and were about to collapse. The skit showed how people could solve this problem by going to Government officials together. It was a nice idea. What if this really happened….

If our area or colony is facing a major problem – like the gutters dirty or the roads are not clean - we just say “That’s such a dirty road. Don’t go from there. It smells.”

Do WE ever do anything about it? Do we at least pick up the litter that we have thrown?   Instead of just leaving the roads and gutters smelling like that, we could participate in the problem and help solve it. We – the common people – can come together and go to government authorities who are responsible for the problem. If there is no response from the Government, people can come together and arrange a peaceful rally. We can also include the media if we want to. There are chances that the problem could be solved then.

Even the Government has taken initiative to help common people in such situations. It has introduced what is called the “Right to Information” (RTI).  For this, we have to fill a particular form and ask for the information that we need and post it to RTI department. After a few days, we get the information that we wanted. Though not many people are aware of this, but it is quite a successful initiative. Due to this, the people’s participation increases. Through RTI, common people can question various government departments and agencies and push them to solve our problems.

With this, we – common people- can bring about a great change in the society. All we have to do is take initiative to solve the problem, and things aren’t that hard then!