The name Sania Mirza seems everywhere these days. Ubiquitous is what they say, I believe. In the sleazy, unimaginative headlines of newspapers. In those garish, framed boxes on websites. On sacrosanct Facebook status messages. And all-pervading Twitter, of course. For all the wrong reasons. Ok, I will concede that Shoaib Malik too is all over. Maybe more so. For all the same wrong reasons. But to me, it is Sania who matters first. That Paki Shoaib Malik is incidental, circumstantial.
Come to think of it, I am certainly missing something here. What’s wrong with people? You have nothing better to do? Nothing better to write? Nothing better to read? Sick and tired of celebrity-driven IPL, is it?
Just look. Look at that girl’s face above. Can you not, for once, see the joy on her face? No, not just on her face. It is all over her. Blind, are you? Insensitive, are you? She, as far as my eyes, senses and sensibilities, tell me, is happy. For whatever reason. And THAT should be nothing for anyone to grudge, or gossip about. What’s wrong with you people? Can’t stand a girl’s happiness, can you?
Perhaps I should not expect a saner milieu during times when journalism is so decadently celebrity-driven. People now tend to believe that it is their unfettered right to know what celebrities are doing. In their personal lives. How intellectually perverts can you be! Or maybe I should call you people cerebrally delinquent?
And oh, what this Sania girl means to me? Not a fig (I tried avoiding an expletive here; but next time I will hurl one), if you ask me. When she played tennis, it didn’t matter a damn to me whether she won or lost. Tennis after all is an indulgence of the bourgeoise, and patriotism is little more than screaming yourself hoarse at stadia. But when those demented Islamist clerics from her own city took her on for wearing those skimpy outfits, I did what I could – write in her defence. And not because I found her oh-so-hotttt (of course, that I sure did). But that I did because I thought the lovely skirts were her business. And the medieval diktat had come from the patriarchal, fascist, chauvinist fringes of society. I would fight such freaks for the right of a girl to dress even if she were my enemy.
Ok, maybe Shoaib Malik is a cheap, third-rate scumbag. Maybe Sania’s marriage will finish faster than a two-set, six-love match. But then, it is her bloody business. Not yours. If you can’t stand the joy on her face, probably something is inexorably wrong with you. Probably your marriage is screwed up, and it will give you unbridled joy to see hers f**ked up too. Go, get a life.
To me, those who are spending hours penning the salacious and frothy stuff, making those Cassandra prophecies, are a bunch of losers. And those who spend an equal amount of time reading them are just an equally frustrated bunch of losers. I am hoping you, reader, are not one of those.
Meanwhile, just let her be.
