'83' Spirit Of A Nation

Saw 83, after the curiosity generated by watching various videos of Kapil's devils reminiscing, dancing, leg-pulling & pranking, had reached its peak! Undoubtedly it is goosebumps stuff! 

Yet, the 83 world cup win was not about Kapil & his band of boys! It was not about the hallowed Lords or the ferocity & might of West indies or our gritty show alone, it was not even only about cricket. It was about as - it was about India, it was about 3 generations of Indians, who watched and experienced the impossible, improbable, coming from wilderness victory of the way out underdogs! It was the first time we smashed the shackles of serfdom, inadequacy & inferiority and were truly liberated! It was the ultimate David vs Goliath story! A team which was, till then, an object of disdain if not contempt, with a rustic captain whose broken English provided fodder for much mirth & sneer, had the last laugh on cricket's biggest stage. And the giants of the world stage - Australia, England & finally the mightiest Carribeans fell like nine pins blown away by the Hariyana Hurricane! 

It made us, collectively, perhaps for the first, time feel good about ourselves! At that moment, when Kapil held aloft the world cup at Lords with tricolour fluttering, our chests burst with pride, even as tears of vindication ran down our eyes uncontrollably! We stood tall in our brown skins and locked eyes, gaze no more averted, with the self-proclaimed kings of the queen's game in their whiter & darker skins! The world order, with cricket as a metaphor, began its irreversible change as the sunset in & on the empire on 25th June 1983! A land that proclaimed that it was an "empire on which the sun never sets"!

Doff my hat to Kabir Khan & his cast & crew who put in an unprecedented amount of hard work, probably in the history of film making in India to get every action, step, demeanour, expression, voice, accent & emotion of the boys who became living legends right - and even more for capturing the journey of a nation to future glory which had begun on that momentous day!