I, PL

It had been a long time since I wrote my last article on mool-dhara and there wasn’t any exciting news around that would have made me jump on my seat. But the recent Tharoor-Modi spat or rather Modi-Tharoor spat (or else Lalit Modi will sue me for defamation) gave me just the right spark that was much needed to write an article. This season Indian Premier League is not about cricket (actually it has never been about cricket), not about the hot bollywood stars, no more about cheerleaders as well. It’s about a threat to the sole heirship of the world’s fastest growing league. There is a danger to the "one man show idea" of the Great Indian League.
Every year since its inception, IPL or rather DLF IPL (after all DLF has paid 200 crores for being the title sponsors of the tournament for 5 years) have had some or the other controversial issue surrounding it during the course of one month when the greatest festival of Indian cricket is celebrated once a year. In the first season it was the cheerleaders and the huge amount of money involved on one crazy idea and also the ICL. While the second season had the fake KKR player episode, or even the clashing of the tournament with the general assembly elections of the nation! But there has been one man who has been a undefeated napoleon in this journey-He came, he saw, he conquered. That’s Lalit Kumar Modi for you. He has fought such apprehensions about IPL bravely to an extent that he went on to take on the Home Minister of India, who humbly requested him to postpone the tournament by a week last year in the view of elections that were to be held in the country. In reply the Great Man took the entire tournament out of the country but he did not compromise.

Lalit Kumar Modi was born in a wealthy and a successful business family. His father is the chairman of Rs 40 billion business empires that was founded by his grandfather Raj Bahadur Gujarmal Modi (and for those who don’t know Modi Nagar is also founded by their family). He is not only the chairman and commissioner of of Indian Premier League, he is the chairman of Champions League, vice president of Board of Cricket Control for India (BCCI), Vice president of Punjab Cricket Association and also the president and managing director of Modi Enterprise; that speaks volumes about his managing skills, no wonder he can sell two new franchisees of 3 a years old cricket league for a staggering Rs 3250 crores and run a Rs 15000 crores DLF IPL while tweeting on his blackberry!!!

His vision changed the way the whole world looks at cricket. Now the organizing committee of Olympics is also thinking of including cricket in their list of sports. His idea of bringing together two biggest source of entertainment in India-Cricket and Bollywood-on the same platter is selling like hot cakes. As popularly believed, the idea of league cricket wasn’t his own idea, Essel owned Indian Cricket League had conceptualized this whole idea first. But as they say there is nothing right and wrong, there is only power and power was on Modi’s side. So when he started 'his own' league (IPL), he made sure ICL never gets recognition from the International Cricket Council(ICC), the players who play for the rebel league are never allowed to play even domestic Ranji matches, and no major cricket grounds of India were made available to host ICL matches. As a result, ICL could not gather the sponsorship and failed to take wings even before it could come out of its cocoon. But three years down the line, who cares; after all no one asks Bill Gates if he copies everything from Mac.

A convict for possessing drugs and charged with assault and kidnapping, Lalit Modi has made the $4 billion game in his favor in such a suave manner that today the soul of IPL is Lalit Modi. He is the epicenter. He favored his own party members to make IPL remain his empire.

• Emerging media, the owners of Rajasthan Royals were favored in the auction despite of the fact that Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group also bid for the same team. Emerging media is backed by Lalit Modi’s brother-in-law Suresh Chellaram.

• Mohit Burman the co-owner of King’s XI Punjab is also the brother of Modi’s son-in-law.

• Also the global cricket ventures which own the digital and mobile rights for IPL till 2017 belongs to Lalit Modi’s step son-in-law.

Then one day another lion ventured in the IPL jungle, a lion (Shashi Tharoor) who was an eligible candidate for the most high profile job of the world, secretary general of United Nations. So when this “twittering” lion gate-crashed into the IPL jungle, which already had a dominating lion of its own, clash of the two lions was inevitable. And the real owner of the jungle (Lalit Modi) would pull all means to make sure the new lion cannot outwit him. Consequently Lalit Modi is trying all his tricks, even going to the extent of scratching his paws on the rebel female lioness (allegedly). So what if the taxmen are tightening their noose about Modi, he will make sure he will take down Tharoor(and his alleged lioness) along with him. But he will not let anyone else rule his territory.

People might call IPL as India Proxy League, Indian Potboiler League, Intrigue Premier League, Indian Paisa League but for Lalit Modi it’s all about the pronoun 'I' in it because from day one of its inception, Modi has been handling all the things unilaterally. And business routes and decisions taken by him are the ones that have satisfied him the most monetarily. After all he is the real business of the league. He is behind the recipe of the dish that has spell bounded the Indian and the world audiences alike-money+political power+glamour+dancing girls and cricket (Yes cricket comes in the end!!!). After all he “modi”fied the game of cricket for us.