I was wrong.I thought racism meant discriminating /victimising someone simpy on the basis of his race.Or the belief that certain races are inherently superior to the others.You know, the kind that led a vegan-dog loving-painter to decide that the  Aryans were superior and hence,let me get myself a funny moustache and while I am at it I might as well finish off with them Jews.

Or much before that when the British decided that it was after all the White Man’s Burden to tame the uncivilized, brutal tribes of Africa and Asia.

I was horribly horribly off the mark.

According to journalist (?)Tashneem Nashrulla ,of HT, racism is daring to cheer for your team in a cricket match, when you are in a pub in the opponent’s country,and worst of all,imbibing wine made in that country.What affrontery.Sorry,such mild words will of course not exist in Ms.Nashrulla’s words.Such blatant display of racism will make for better headlines.

Click here to read how the entire nation has been hurt/insulted/abused by three woman,when they rooted for their country in a silly T20 cricket match, which let me remind you, is not even half as good as the original fifty-over match:-)

According to her, she,along with her friends were watching the match between India and England at a cafe, and when a wicket from England, fell the crowd cheered wildly.But moments later when Pietersen whacked Harbhajan for a four “the three girls bereft of any British manners , cried themselves hoarse”.

Of course, manerless English tarts, I say.What gall, to cheer for Pietersen instead of Bhajji.Don’t they know any better?

According to the said journalist(seriously,did she even graduate?) , she is all for team-spirit, but “when you are in India, in a cafe filled with Indians,who worships crickets,it is impolite to make your sentiments so blatant“.(sic,sic and now I AM SICK..)Aah, the final diktat.It is hereby announced that any person in the territory of foreign soil,shall from now on ,support the home team -home being where there arse is at present and definitely not where the heart is.Else risk being painted in racist colours by ignorant story seeking columnists of said foreign soil.

So,this went on for sometime,with each group cheering for their team ,but of course, till one Indian shouted out”England sucks’ and this set of the crowd who started chanting.This is of course not racism,because new diktat says locals can behave as monkeys,for all anyone cares.

The obvious happened.India got hammered, and like any self respecting individual would do, these three girls shouted out loud ,loud enough to be heard above the din  ”Suck on that”.Quite brave I must say,given that they were totally outnumbered.

I don’t know how this makes her point stronger,but the columnist then goes on to say that though no one got violent(thank god for that),some of the Indian retorted with comments like “White Trash” and “British bitches”.

The last lines left me confused…”I am strongly anti- racist.But in the heat of the moment, bearing those women insult us in our own country,I felt antagonistic towards them.But there is a fine line between racism and patriotism and I am not sure whether I crossed it.”

Cross from racism to patriotism? All I can say is that,the crowd was stupid AND you have tried to turn a funny harmless scene into a  OJ Simpson drama with all all the racist overtones.

More I read un-informed articles like these, see journalists push mikes on grieving relatives, and Arnab invite a panel of 6 experts and letting them talk for precisely 7 seconds, the more I feel like switching to MTV.Atleast Splitsvilla has no aspirations in terms of being intellectuals.