Harbhajan Singh's shame

"Dad, what does Teri Maa Ki mean?", queried my daughter three months shy of turning 11, her face betraying prodigious curiosity , a natural corollary of what she had been obviously fleetingly noticing with monotonous constancy while switching channels. And also on well illuminated billboards propagating a well-known butter brand, which said "Teri maa ki-------daal". Everyone, from a stiff suited-booted CEO type to the local grocery guy, the Bollywood brigade to the political class had joined the "mother" of all parties.

I summarily dismissed it as just another "bad word", which was the most tactful way to ensure one did not have to explain the nitty-gritties of Harbhajan Singh's charitable compliments for a fellow-cricketer's ageing mother.

I know, of course, that she was not thoroughly convinced, fully aware that it was perhaps a " bad bad word", as it bought a billion plus country into frenzied unison , last witnessed during Mahatma Gandhi's Quit India movement of 1942 ( the ballooning sarcasm is deliberate).

I know that in several households, a similar predicament was enacted, and little kids all over India woke up to a newly heard rustic abuse , which was uttered with casual bravado by one of India's leading cricketers. In their learning curve, they have acquired a novel repugnant word in their vocabulary, which will be forever embellished in their impressionable minds. And these over-rated men in white flannels are supposed to be our brand ambassadors, right ? Worse, we have projected Harbhajan Singh as a sort of national hero. That I think has been the ultimate irony.

In fact, the BCCI went over-board and actually congratulated itself for getting Bhajji an easy life through it's back-room manoeuvering. The story goes that during the trial proceedings before Justice Hansen, the BCCI officials actually laughed when the " teri maa ki" was offered as the appropriate excuse. And the great Sachin Tendulkar took pains to elaborate it's finer implications to all and sundry. And I am assuming that this was done with a straight-faced sanctimonious conviction, even as Bhajji sat there poker-faced, seemingly innocent.

At no pint was there even a token condemnation of Bhajji's rude abuse. We scored a technical victory ( absence of clear audible evidence) , but somewhere exposed our terrible hollowness. Our dubious standards. Our selfish priorities. No one says the Australians are as pure as running water ( far from it, of course) , but are we really as white as the canvas we pretend to be?

Great sportspeople and popular celebrities are usually remembered finally for just one or two incredible milestones, no matter how illustrious their overall career may have been. Often defined by one event. Or a personality streak. So despite being an ultimate genius, John McEnroe will remain a perpetual super-brat in memory tanks. Nikolai Davydenko will be remembered for his alleged match-fixing in singles tennis. Shane Warne for being a sex machine. Mike Tyson for biting off his adversary's ear. Bjorn Borg for being ice cold in the temperament department. Marion Jones for drug abuse. Chetan Sharma for that unforgettable last ball sixer at Sharjah. Zinedine Zidane for that head-butt in the World Cup.

Bhajji, tragically enough, has written his own final epitaph; MonkeyGate. In India, Teri Maa ki and he have become like inseparable lovers intertwined in a permanent embrace. What a tragic farewell "speech" from an otherwise tireless, gutsy performer. But that is Bhajji's legacy to world cricket already , ironically enough, in the heydays of his playing career. Twenty years later, from Mohali to Mahabalipuram from Jamnagar to Jamshedpur, Bhajji will be reminisced with profuse amusement by young kids as the retired Sardar who called an Australian cricketer " Teri Maa ki---.

So Shah Rukh Khan gets severely admonished for public smoking, and I think personally speaking no matter what SRK says about fundamental rights et al, there is serious merit in gadfly Union Minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss's strictures. SRK may be right on the obtuse move to ban smoking in films as that looks like forced censorship ( and it is fiction anyway) , but in real life, sorry, SRK , you are skating on thin ice. Once you are a public figure , you have a certain accountability that goes beyond your immediate stakeholders. President Nicolas Sarkozy, no matter what the propensities of his private libido, had to hurriedly legitimize his amorous equations with Ms Bruni. And Bill Clinton , ex-President can justify his human susceptibilities till Hillary comes home, but excuse me Mr President, we were terrified in case the nuclear warhead was erroneously fired on good ole Russia while he was canoodling Monica the Lewinsky in the Oval office. I strongly believe that while George Bush has brought political ridicule to the American presidency through his remarkable incompetence , it was under Clinton that the US President became a butt of a joke. Made itself a laughing stock. When it lost it's magical formidable status. When anonymous best -sellers, and red-covered Clinton sex joke books flourished and reduced White House aura to that of a street-side video parlor.

It's funny, isn't it? We laughed off the " big monkey" allegations because hey, in our country it is only friendly banter. But abusing someone's mother, is that also equally cool in apna Bharat? Is it just casual calumny over cappuccino in a coffee parlour? And yet we have imperceptibly , quietly condoned and acquiesced , even applauded , Mr Singh's non-racial abuse. BCCI even scoffed contemptuously even as the nation celebrated Singh's victory with bhangra dancing and firecrackers. Somehow, it looked like such a shockingly distasteful revelry . No one said a word about Teri maa ki. Even as nonplussed kids called each other that as if it was a game of frivolous name-calling. And parents squirmed in acute discomfort.

Harbhajan Singh may have won the legal case.

But I think he was actually a loser.

And he owes the little kids of India an apology.