Sporting a Cause

Patriotic fervour ran so high in the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium last Sunday that a young man who refused to join the slogan shouting Pakis...

Patriotic fervour ran so high in the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium last Sunday that a young man who refused to join the slogan shouting Pakistan, hai, hai was grabbed by the collar, and when he still refused, was denounced by all as Pakistani!8217; And each time one of the stars shouted Vande Mataram into the mic, the spectators joined in with such gusto that the venue for the Cricketers vs Filmstars football match organised by the Sahara Group in aid of the welfare of soldiers at Kargil seemed ready to collapse.

They waited with bated breathlessly for more than three hours and cheered hysterically each time a star made a grand entry: emcee Shekhar Suman in a cream safari which he soon traded for black sweats and white tee to look more sporty, Shankar Breathless Mahadevan and M. F. Hussain started off the parade. They were followed by the Big B made bigger by the recent listing as one of the top stars of this millennium, Kapil Dev, A. R. Rehman8230; the list is unending.

The cricketers, clad in orange, trooped into the stadium, followed by the film stars in green, amidst wild cheers as the spectators tried to identify who8217;s who. Once the game began, it was obvious that the cricketers would win. Win they did. But at half-time, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Defence man George Fernandes and I amp; B Minister Pramod Mahajan walked in and shook hands with all the players. Dev, the man who8217;s getting increasingly visible in public life these days politics next? escorted the ministers and directed them to write a message for the jawans.

The Cricketers won 6-2, but when Filmstars Captain Shah Rukh Khan pleaded with the audience to give them an extra 15 minutes, they happily agreed. Even Suman left his jibes on the sidelines to pitch in for the Filmstars, urging khubsoorat Filmstars8217; moral support-giver Raveena Tandon, 8220;Dikha do ki tum Jhansi ki rani ho!8221;

The Cricketers, led by Ajay Jadeja 8212; the coolest one 8212; had no problem with the crazy crowd, and Vinod Kambli kept breaking into soccer-style jigs every now and then, but the Filmstars 8212; all sweaty, shorts-clad and non-performing 8212; were rather self-conscious about ruining their super-macho images.

And after the match, there was another treat in store: a musical extravaganza, which had Remo bursting forth in broken Hindi, Javed Akhtar, Kavita Krishnamurthy and Sapna Mukherjee 8212; all singing patriotic tunes. Over-excited spectators, who dashed madly towards the stage were chased, and ultimately lathi-charged by the cops, though that didn8217;t deter them from breaking into ecstatic dances.

All the stars took turns to mouth promises about how they are ready to fight on the Kargil front if required, though a humble handful stuck to the fact that since they8217;re not qualified to fight battles, the football match was their way of showing support for the jawans. We also got to know that Mohammed Azharuddin and Akshay Kumar have decided to donate five lakhs each to the Army Central Welfare Fund. With the former drawing flak over India8217;s World Cup funeral and the latter8217;s flagging career, it seemed a good PR exercise. But at the end of the evening, the two crore collected for Kargil was worth it all.