A funny incident involving Ravi Shastri prompted me to write this sequel to my previous post about him, Can't recollect any other cricketer of our time who was so much maligned and made scapegoat for India's defeats. A few years earlier in October 1989 in a match at Sharjah (ascribed as Harjah due to India's frequent defeat to its arch rival at that venue) Wasim Akram smashed quite a few sixes off Ravi Shastri, ensuing Indian defeat. On the same day I happened to be in the temple township of Puri, Odisha.
As the dusk approached I saw a crowd gathering near the BADADANDA (Broadway), the famous street leading to the Jagannath Temple . A massive Bull who was dozing off a few feet away felt disturbed by the commotion, stood up and shook off briefly. Both of us raised our curious head simultaneously to take a peek at the melee. Shastri's effigy, hastily made from straw and ironically garlanded with shoes (a popular mode of mass humiliation of celebrities), was being carried on the back of a donkey. Soon it was doused in kerosene and lit with fire.
I asked one PANDA (as priests of the Jagannath temple are known as), who was standing close by, what's the hullabaloo about. While wrapping his red GAMUCHA (loincloth) around his waist to keep his DHOTI to keep it secured, he kept on showering Ravi Shastri's entire family (not sure what they had to with his slow batting) with choicest of Odia expletives. he continued adding fuel to the fire. Feigning ignorance I asked BHAINA (brother), who is this Shastri. ARE SEI RABBI (Ravi spoken in thick Odia accent) ***** (string of profanity) MAAR TAKU (thrash him). The funniest part was this guy had no idea who the heck Ravi Shastri was. He just got tagged into the procession by his fellow PANDAs and was simply emulating what they were doing. I am sure he wasn't the only one of his kind in that melee, enjoying the burning of an effigy of a person they hardly knew. At the same time thousands miles away in Dubai, Ravi Shastri would be busy shopping, neither aware of, nor caring about this incident at Puri.
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