Desh ke liye ... ya paise ke liye?

This is not really a cricket post but since related to sports, here goes. U guys must be aware of the Commonwealth gamesh which were held in Australia some days back ... well, next games r in Delhi and hence one of the events in the closing ceremony of the Australian games was something akin to "handing over to the next host". Several Indian stars like Aishwarya Rai, Saif Ali Khan, Rani Mukherjee among others (don't know other names) went there for this event and when the newsmen chased them for sound bytes, gave whoppers / lies / whatever. There was Aishwarya gushing on some news channel about "I am proud to be here as part of the Indian contingent ... always feel honoured when I can do something for my country ... blah blah" ... and it turns out that each of these stars got fees in the range of a few crore rupees for being there and doing their part in the event. I read some report relating to the total expenditure for getting these Bollywood stars to be somewhere around Rs. 30 Crores or so. I wonder how much money Samresh Jung got ... he won 5 or so gold medals (not 100% sure how many ... he narrowly missed the record for the max no of golds in one edition of the games) and as far as the commonwealth games goes, that counts slightly more than Aish shaking her booty at the closing ceremony.

And what about the Sports Ministry who spent this money on getting the stars for the show ... coz it was "India's pride" at stake ... Question for them - how much money r u planning to spend on training and facilities for the sports people who will bring honour to India at those Delhi games?

As for the Bollywood bimbos ... I don't mind their taking money for their acts ... after all, we can't expect any better from them ... but why give that sickly smile and croon "desh ke liye" dialogues?

The Chuckster has always been against this concept of "desh ke liye" this and "desh ke liye" that ... whether it be film stars or cricketers. I personally don't count any of the cricketers in my list of "heroes of the country" ... they get huge amounts of money for what they do ... I am sure they evade their taxes ... and we know they beg for waiver of import duties for their Ferraris. Sure ... take all the money u can earn ... that is the smart thing to do ... but please don't yap about "desh ke liye".

Cheers

The Chuckster