First we win…

…Then, more often than not, we lose.

It’s a cycle that typifies Indian behaviour, in some strange way. Even as I write this, the office is going mad with joy. All day the televisions have been on, blaring every move on the cricket field as India and Australia slug it out Down Under, over the last hour or so, people have gathered around the TV sets, staring fixedly up at the screens, breathing heavily or not at all, cheering when not gasping or going into little huddles of hectic parlay on who played what shot hot and why they should have done otherwise, who was doing what when while that shot was being played, etc etc etc. and then, as it got closer to the end, the volume went up when something good happened for Team India and switched almost completely off when it didn’t. and then it happened. That last shot made sure we won…after a pause when the decision was finally taken and announced by the power that was and then, after a micro-second of stress-induced silence, everyone leaped and cheered and hugged each other, on the field, in the stands and in the office.

So India won the tri-series, or whatever it is called. Our team – please note the jingoistic ‘our’ there – did their best, sledging and all, and mustered up all forces to beat the rather persistently rude Australians quite comfortably, thus challenging all the nay-sayers to make themselves heroes. So when they come home – as they did after the first Twenty/20 match that they won – they will be feted and lauded and celebrated and all those good things that essentially mean the same thing every which way. There will be parties and bus rides and bouquets and champagne and more endorsements and so money and more adulation and more everything that will make the collective and individual heads of Team India and the country in general swell with pride… and get so inflated in the process that it will no longer fit through the door that opens into success.

Yes, that kind of falls flat every now and then, almost as an inevitable cycle of what goes around comes around, without fail. But it is true. It may be an Indian trait engendered by the weather, as someone once said and backed it up with some highly tenuous research, which makes us so complacent and smugly self-satisfied that once we get what we fight for, we give up and let it all slide into ignominious failure very soon after. If that is what will happen to Team India and its game, all the battling on the field and off in Australia will hardly be worth it.