Whose surprise is it anyway?

The hullabaloo over Maharashtra’s election results is actually quite misplaced. It was widely known that Raj Thackeray’s MNS had already made deep inroads into the vote bank of the Shiv Sena and that the BJP was living out a death wish. Where was the surprise, I ask?

Not much had happened since the Lok Sabha elections in May to change the mood of the voters. If the Congress and the NCP had even then survived the aftermath of 26/11, a spate of farmers deaths, acute criticism of the crumbling infrastructure in Mumbai, rising prices et al, it would have needed a Tsunami of adverse opinion to make people change their mind for the assembly elections.

In the event the BJP and the Shiv Sena had fallen rapidly into disarray and how badly they have been hit is evident not just from the score-sheet, but from what happened in some key constituencies. These suggest a psychological setback that the parties may find difficult to overcome quickly.

In Ghatkopar West, for instance, Poonam Mahajan, daughter of Pramod Mahajan and handpicked by uncle Gopinath Munde, was literally trounced. This was a BJP stronghold and her lineage was impeccable.

Clearly, the BJP is currently bereft of any ammo, and while Delhi may seem far away, the Jaswant Singh controversy had exposed the shallowness in the upper echelons of the party which could hardly be ignored.

Meanwhile, in traditional Shiv Sena strongholds, the MNS either wrenched the seat away, or wrecked the Sena’s prospects which would have left Uddhav Thackeray pondering, Hamlet-like, whether he is or he is not what everybody believes him to be.

Yet, this does not necessarily suggest that the ‘Marathi Manoos’ issue has become paramount. Several from the Hindi belt won quite comfortably in Mumbai which shows that while Raj Thackeray’s vitriolic rhetoric has appeal, it is not as wide-reaching as the hype suggests.

If anything, I believe, the Maharashtra results reveal a growing disdain, especially in the young, for politics based on xenophobia and negativism.

All said and done, the biggest winner has been Ashok Chavan who had claimed to be only a `night watchman’ when he was made chief minister last year. How the `High Command’ considers his credentials for chief minister again remains to be seen, but considering what has transpired does Chavan think he is Don Bradman for the moment I wonder.

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Talking of Bradman, the Aussies are here again for another joust of cricket which seems an appropriate time to remember unarguably the most famous denizen from Down Under.
Bradman played in the first half of the previous century, but his fame has been eroded neither by the passage of time nor the exploits of successive generations of cricketers who came after him. Most of his records have been bettered but he remains still the greatest batter of them all.

Several theories abound about what made Bradman special, but perhaps the most pertinent is that he was blessed with exceptional ball sense. As a kid, he trained for cricket fitness by hitting a golf ball against the fence in his backyard, and through his career played squash, golf and cue sports with excellence.

Walter Lindrum, world billiards champion in the 1930s, was one of his close friends, and Bradman was not averse to pitting his own skills against the master cueist. In Richard Hadlee’s delightful book of anecdotes, Caught Out, one pertains to Bradman’s ability on the green baize.

Hadlee recounts how Bradman once teamed up with a mate who told him that he hadn’t played much snooker to which the Don replied, ``That’s okay, all you have to do is break and I’ll do the rest.’’ He then went on to score another magnificent 100!
When he passed away in 2001, the world was dismayed. Bradman was 93, looked in good nick, as it were. Alas this was one of the few centuries that he would fail
to complete.