Now that Paul the octopus has emerged as the hero of the planet’s most sensational sporting event, the Fifa World Cup, our sporting banias and non-profit-making politicians attached to Indian sport are bidding to purchase the mollusc for Indian cricket; to benefit the common man through bucket shops that will then pre-empt the will of the wily Azharuddins and latter-day Jadejas of the game.

“Tor baaper jamindari bhebechish?” You bet it was, you raffish twit! Landed gentry are, for the most part, dead and gone. More’s the pity. Kalo parer dhooti, geeley kara panjabi, patent leather pumps with bows, a phaeton, a mistress in the jungles of Ballygunge, added up to making life worth living; happily and irresponsibly and playing cricket in flannels over a tankard of foaming beer on the grounds of the CC&FC in Anno Domini 1792 — the year when Lord Cornwallis justified paying witnesses two annas and a travelling allowance to attend Magistrates’ courts, much like we pay rallyists to hire mobs to further agendas today.

There is nothing wrong with being an elitist, if you understand what that really means and are willing to pay the price for offending the less genteel new-rich hoi polloi who overpopulate urban society today. It refers to those who like a couple of violins, a viola and a cello playing baroque while they lounge in corduroys, cardigans and cravats around a crackling fire pit on an open-air deck under the Southern Cross or the Great Bear blazing in the night sky above them, sipping Delamain, Macallan or Moet and some deep-cleansing grappa if there’s a lowlife prodigal in the bunch, arguing about the pitch, the weather and the one-time supremacy of the giant West Indians and banned South Africans. Those were the days when only gentlemen played cricket. The rest were ball boys and bearers.

Maharaja Jam Sahib Ranjitsinhji Vibhaji Jadeja, of Nawanagar, was described as “the midsummer night’s dream of cricket” (though I’ve never figured out why), one heard of the immaculately executed late cuts of Duleepsinhji of Jamnagar, an enchanting shot that the diminutive Hanif Mohammed was later famous for, the amazing prowess of the one-eyed ninth Nawab of Pataudi, Tiger, who often had one eye for fair maidens so that left none for the ball and the first willow-wielding Bawa, one with the most Tests, most runs, most hundreds, at least until Sunny Gavaskar graced Indian cricket, Pahlan Ratanji “Polly” Umrigar, who to the end drove around in a fashionable Maruti 800, was the first to beat the British at their game.

Those were the unflaunted Royals of yesteryear. A far cry from the bank-breaking and tasteless Challengers of today who endorse club sodas to improve our digestion of spicy and saucy cricket and who drive Humvees from Delhi to the safe asylum of their region of origin.

Incidentally, am I the only one who thinks Lalit Modi is gay? I know it seems improbable surrounded by all those raunchy cheerleaders and delicious starlets, vying with wrinkling peers for resurrection, who have all combined to make the IPL so watchable and such a success with people who watch no other sport. How else would you describe the backward and forward rhythmical roll of Lalit’s shoulders that are timed to perfection with the sway, for no other word applies, of his hips and the flatfoot footfall of his mincing steps? If convicted, this darling is going to have a lot to sweat about in a prison with limited rollovers.

As a schoolboy, I hated cricket because it was the only game that sissies scared of a kick in the shin or a bloody nose, would play. As I grew older, I realised that cricket was also the only outdoor game that vegetarians, who derived proteins from unpalatable lentils and other distasteful and flatulence-inducing sources, could play. Further, you could be fat and still be a star.

Back in my school days, those forerunners of corruption walked up to the crease like fagots; dressed in ball guards and pads and padded gloves, they checked the mark on the crease of their stump of preference, before bending over to “assume an indecent posture” as Oscar Wilde put it, to receive a ball that had been rubbed on a bowlers buttock or crotch to give it a mirror finish that soft silly mid-ons could comb their locks in. Things have only got worse.

In conclusion, here’s one for our politicians and banias to consider. Six countries will take part in the first World Tennikoit Championships at Velammal International School, Panchetti, Chennai. Ever heard of the game? It’s played with a rubber ring that you have to serve over the net without a wobble but which later you are permitted to toss in a tumble. It’s played in a badminton court, but without the hazards of either being injured by the cork-end of a shuttle cock or receiving a crack on the skull from your partner’s carbon graphite genji — that you mustn’t confuse with the softer touches of a Rupa or Lux Cozy banian.

Incidentally, the Tennikoit, which may be placed under your seat to relieve haemorrhoids while you watch a constipating game of cricket, may not be used as a floatation device in case you’re caught in the sinking of that last paddleboat of Gulidanda’s survival, the T20.