83: The India we still can be
Sometimes, the most profound of ideas can come wrapped as a bit of a cliché. We are living in such times, when the idea of India, oft derided and much contested in ways that threaten to tear our democratic fabric at the seams needs a mass reiteration. The film, 83, whose trailer released online had over 50 million views within hours, could be just the ointment an angry, offended, and a divided nation like India circa 2021 needs.
Post Independence, we as a nation much questioned, doubted and written off, dubbed the anarchy that functions and the dark sub-continent, found our greatest of collective moments, of benign pride, of kind nationalism, when Dev’s Devils, an underdog of a team, made us world champions for the first time. True enough, hockey, our de jure national game, did give us honours aplenty but it was cricket, the de facto national game, that found its finest hours in June 1983.
The team comprising Kapil Dev, Syed Kirmani, Balwinder Singh Sandhu and Roger Binny, was a classic poster of a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christian coming together as one India, and such an Indian team a composition with courage to defy odds, proving a secular DNA made a nation strong enough to be a world champion.
Cricket became India’s escape, along with our movies, Bollywood and of regional languages, an aspiration as well as a collective joy; where talent alone mattered, where an unknown lad from some hinterland could take the crown on the global stage.
Cricket and movies come together again, in 83, and not since Lagaan will be a movie draw us together, as a society, as a nation, as a people to relive the fairy tale scripted by the Dev’s Devils. We will also finally fulfil an impossible fantasy held for long to watch Kapil Dev’s innings of 175 not out against Zimbabwe, even if by mere fictionally celluloid recreation.
But above all, it will be a naive innocent balm that will show a mirror to us, and we will get to see, pause, think and decide on if we want to be Dev’s Devils too, forever, as Indians, Kapil, Kirmani, Binny and Sandhu, and as one.