"Swinging Fortunes,Entertainment,Politics,Adrenaline,Corruption,Glamour,Opportunity,Money "- I will run short of words and adjectives to describe the ingredients that sum up this years edition of DLF IPL 3. Yes Lalit Modi is corrupt but I am his big fan for other reasons.I am not saying be corrupt but I am saying not many could have achieved even 5 percent of what he has been able to do.Atleast here you have someone who can realize a part of his dreams.Corruption is just another modern day emotion as any. DLF IPL 3 has made it as the 6 th most expensive sports tournament in the world(fast climbing) and it is not played on the beaches of the French Rivieira or the chicanes of Monaco. Post India's independence it is for the first time that a sports moghul or the media czar in the form of Lalit Modi used the infamous "Divide & Rule" theory to create a Mumbai Indians , a Delhi Daredevils and a Chennai Super Kings and did he not make a match out of this.Move over marketing gurus like Prahlad Kakkar for Modi has changed the dynamcis of marketing.No wonder he is rated 19 by Businessweek on a list of powerful sports personalities. Packaging the regional essence of India with world class players who had reached the twilight threshold of their careers and looking for good pot of money across a window of 45 days- for what more could a retiring Mathew Hayden who spends the rest of the year snorkelling and cooking ask for. 11 is the number that actually dashes the hope of a half billion Indians right from the boulevards of Mumbai to the gallis of chunnabhatti, for it is only after trying so hard to make it to the national team that many of India's dreamy eyed are getting a chance to make some fame and get some adulation out of participation in IPL. For when a vastly illiterate village without electricity contributes to buy a television to watch Kamran Khan pull it off for the Royals we have Shane Watson who was born again post the first edition and has now has been awarded the best player award for team Australia. Taking a break from all the wild activities we have a certain x rated Shane Warne who reminds all again and again that he was "The best Australian Captain that never was". Robin Utthapa has not made it to the T20 World cup national side but has made a comeback of sorts and will sooner than later make it to the national side which was not possible without the DLF IPL 3 and the platform it gives young Indians to find their feet and knock of seniors who held the Indian colors firm for years and years to come. Move over Philip Kotler, you may have to include a chapter on in match marketing with a strategic time out designed to cash the advertising cows.Well rather than having a bald Virender Sehwag fighting it out with Gautam Gambhir over Karboon Mobile in a match of MI V CSK why not have an advertisement with a player who is playing live in the match.New phenomenon -what is the in match eyeball TRP for the product.What about companies who are working over time to make a pink ball visible on a dusky cricket pitch bound together by rich alluvial soil or for that matter meat is on the bottom of the "mongoose" bat. Bollywood actresses have often dreamed of making it to the Bond Movies but did you ever think that extra's from the same Bond Movies would be dancing aways to Bollywood music with Indian jhatka's aimed at eyeful and lustful Indian men in the form of cheerleaders wearing clothese customized to both western and Indian sensibilities. Whats more the deepika's and Katrina's have just got a new window of making money by being a poster pin girl for a IPL team.Its just not about cutting ribbons to a new showroon and bathing in the same photogenic foam for a new soap of a different color. Well the news channels may like to intice you by saying they are the first to break the news about tharoor-modi controversy .For them its not about Modi being corrupt or Tharoor being corrupt ,they just need more of these potboiler controversies to continue for days and weeks aided by increasing TRP's and a slow legal system of India. You now have prime time media presenters on every channel learning about cricket and ex-cricketers who have played 1 test match for India discussing strategies pre and post every IPL Match. The Government has finally woken up to corruption in IPL or am I twitching my ears.I think they have just woken up to a long number of zeros at the end of all the black money that classifies this corruption as the most corrupt for corruption is ubiquitous in India.What about dowry ridden Air India re-directing flights to charter IPL players. The opposition party just joined the party of long list of IPL Benefactors by making a statement about the corruption in IPL.Well its like simply joining the IPL Bandwagon for some sort of own benefit in one way or the other. Talking about benefits with Bollywood being forced to shut its shop of showcasing movies during the IPL what better to actually take a sabbatical during that time and actually get involved with this format.Heard SRK and Karan just hosted the first of its kind IPL Sahara Awards and saw pictures of Saif-Kareena enquiring about buying an IPL Team. As for the pubs and theatres mid night buffet arranged for a set of IPL Supporters and matches being telecast live in 3-D.Phew move over to a new "Avatar" of entertainment in cinema. Well MTV has taken a cue and launched IPL Parties for wannabe page 3 adolescents to hob-nob with neuve famed young Indian cricketers.What better way to tap the X Factor and tickle the sponsors a wee-bit more to plurge that much more money. Designers could not have asked for more after clothing "so less" for India's top models,they have a team of 11 players , a group of the boys next door, to dress and create a name for themselves. I do not know whether Twitter with below the line advertising pays Shashi Tharoor or no but it should sure thank Shashi Tharoor for being so media -saavvy and actually getting a huge number of Indians to join the twitter bandwagon. Well Ekta Kapoor may try telling a tell-tale a hundred ways but when Saurav Ganguly walks out to bat for Kolkatta Knight Riders the whole of Bengal just doesnt care for the soap opera on Star TV for the eden garden is reminiscent of the Collosseum where a certain Mr Russel crowe being crowned the gladiator for rising like a phoenix for Ganguly is no less of a bengali gladiator. Finally like any twisted tale,where there is a lady in the frame-thanks to Sunanda Pushkar that eventually the egos of business friends Modi and Tharoor clashed that the TRP's of DLF IPL has reached such heights that whether its on the field ,off the field its IPL everywhere. Lalit Modi may have to step down and BCCI may sideline him .But it was last year that only Lalit Modi who could shift the IPL to South Africa in record time and yet make it such a huge success. The BCCI were happy to make butter on Modi's shoulder then.The cash cow of the DLF IPL that Modi has been able to envisage and realize ,on which everyone from the sponsors to the cheerleaders to the superstars are milking money will be unique to him and for that I salute him. As Mumbai Indians vs Chennai Super Kings vie for supremacy in this clash of the titans in D Y Patil at Mumbai in a reality TV script which will unfold today evening with all the ingredients of DLF IPL Masala,I ask Kaun Banega Crorepati-may be Lalit Modi ko Lock kar diya jaye
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