India Vs Pak - A game or more?

Dogmatic beliefs and fanatical polarization of the world, on grounds of religion, economy or culture is the root cause for turbulence across the world since recorded history and it only continues unabated. The Indo - Pak semifinal as usual has taken on monstrous identities and has a life of its own. What is unusual about this? - one may say... The one factor being the 26/11 attack which was a blatant war on democracy is still a festering wound with the one symbol of that carnage still very much alive and well, and the Pakistan Government has been doggedly dodging all efforts (have enough been made?) to get them to bring the perpetrators to book. And now, Manmohan Singh invites the Pak PM over. Was it necessary? Was it justified? I have a friend down from the US at home who tells me the perception of Indians there is one of being push overs and sissies. Are we saying "Enough is Enough" on one day and the next proferring the proverbial other cheek, so to speak? Its a wonder the cheek is not in bloody tatters, the number of times we have done so...are we really push overs? Are we really cowards who hide conveniently behind the 'non - violence' tag? Or is it a fashionable misnomer? That said, was the freedom struggle non-violent at all? Periodically we had Chauri - Chaura, Jallianwallah Bagh and of course culminating in the horrendous Partition which in 1 1/2 years claimed more lives than the 6 years of WW II including Hitler's ethnic cleansing ops? How can we claim that we got our freedom through Ahimsa? And how can we forget that a depleted Britain after the Second World War was in no position to monitor or run its colonies and would have divested them anyways, they had bled the colonies of all the resources and squeezed the blood of the locals too by then and nothing more was to be gained by hanging on to these colonies which were by then more trouble than they were worth and better relinquished than have them as a yoke round their fragile economy's neck? Those days the unrest and dissatisfaction with the British was so much that one man who sounded sane and came with a halo of success from South Africa managed to cobble the Indians together in a rag tag bunch...can he do that today? Can he genuinely recognise the party which claims to have gotten us our freedom is today fighting a losing battle with its own allies, a PM who is so spineless, he admits to being helpless as he is running a corrupt, coalition government, beaten into submission by the likes of Karunanidhi and Mamata Bannerjee. Where scams have become so regular that you sort of expect to see one the moment you open the newspaper and don't go into the details as the scams have the same MO, its only how much of our hard earned money paid as taxes have been looted each time. Does such a government have the moral right to make the sports arena a battlefield? Just an eyewash proving everything is done to mitigate all issues is not enough...how different is this from the Berlin Olympics of 1936...?? Given the history and baggage the two teams carry, its a wonder they even manage to get on the same field together. And now, Their Interior Minister who as it is suffers from a bad case of "foot - in - mouth" disease is already giving Pak a way out if they lose - by calling it a fixed match! Who are we kidding? Should we avoid taking Pak players in the IPL and play them in the World Cup? How can the World Cup not be hosted by Pak along with the other 3 countries in the sub continent citing security reasons and then give 5000 Visas to fans from Pak, when we are still trying to hunt those who have come in a similar fashion earlier and never returned? Does this not pose a security risk? Why do people talk of Pak hospitality as if they are doing something out of this world, when after all they are from the same cutural background and Indians have practically rolled out the red carpet for them every time? A very small group having romantic notions of the past unified India, living in denial for the last half a century and more wants to re-live those times...what they are missing out is the three generations after that have no clue of how things were then barring an odd movie or an article, there after all is no way to preserve a way of life, it can only be in the memories of people who lived them. These subsequent generations have only been exposed to the huge divide in the two countries fiscal to cultural policies, way of governance to way of life, and care nothing for the past. These romantic notions hold no water for the generations rooted in practicality of the here and now. And the reality is that there are too many issues which have caused too much of pain and bad blood between the two countries, may be because of the politicians or terrorists or religion or merceneries, whatever the reason, the PM is naive to say the least for expecting such simplistic overtures to even make a chink in the walls built high after 1947 to keep unwanted people and memories out. With so many questions unanswered, what right does the PM have to make an already emotionally charged match a pressure cooker with political undertones? Why is a good game of cricket not left at just that? Why can't we get our attitudes right? Do we want friendship or not? Do we want to avenge our fallen heroes and the indignity heaped on us or not? Can we have a little self respect and stop disguisinging someone's stupid agenda to take flak off himself from Wikileaks and the sheer politics of pandering to vote banks as our greatness and tokerant attitude please? As the Bhagavad Gita says "To allow to be sinned against is a greater crime than sinning". Why invite the Pak PM and the fans across from Pak (they have TVs at home don't they?). This has led to unnecessarily making sports murky and puts irrational pressure on our team. What should be a beautiful game has been made ugly. We have to stop confusing weakness for goodness, in this case. Now thanks to all this unnecessary pressure, if India doesn't perform well, then, we blame the cricketers...Anyways whats done is done, I guess, Let Team India play well and hope they thrash their opponents...I am hoping for a super game!