The battle of the modern-day Pharaohs

Last week I was in Egypt, immersed in the land of the pharaohs, who lived 7500 years ago and who believed they represented the gods on earth. The Egyptians created one of the earliest civilisations on the planet. They grew cotton and invented paper, and codified many things about life and death, which define us as human beings. They also divided us humans into two distinct categories: Those who are worshipped and those who worship. It's a trend that has persisted and taken on different manifestations over the centuries, and brought us very directly to where we currently are: the age of the celebrity-god.

Back home in Madras, with the Sun God Ra making his presence very much felt, and the IPL just around the corner, I mull over what it means to be a human being who is worshipped. While swotting up on the different IPL teams in preparation for the next six weeks, I realise that I know more about Preity Zinta and Shah Rukh Khan's teams than any of the others. Why? This isn't information I've sought out. It shouldn't be in my brain. Is it just that the glamour quotient generates more column inches, and therefore by sly media osmosis gets lodged into one's head? Maybe. But with all the star power being fired about in the IPL, I can't be sure.

Some teams have "icon" players, for instance - Sachin Tendulkar for the Mumbai Indians and Yuvraj Singh for the Kings XI Punjab. Icon players are superstar players and they cost more. Okay. Then, all the teams have brand ambassadors - every single one of them is a film star, mined from the creamy top layers of Bollywood and Kollywood. Brand ambassadors are required to appear on hoardings and television advertisements, and generally cheer on their team. Okay. In a country where film stars have temples built in their honour and Parliament closes early for an important cricket match, the IPL's genius combination of filmdom and cricket makes for a heady mix indeed.

Of course jocks and movie stars have always had a thing for each other. I'm thinking Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio, John McEnroe and Tatum O'Neal. Closer home there's Sangeeta Bijlani and Mohammad Azharuddin. I read yesterday how Kollywood starlet Asin's heart supposedly pitter-patters for MS Dhoni (yes, Asin, you and a million other women). Even the language of cricket lends itself to easy romantic innuendo - maidens bowled over, gone for a sixer, that kind of thing. But in the IPL it's not romance that counts, it's business. And as we all know, the money generated by this powerful combination is huge. The biggest thing in the world of cricket.

However, I'm more interested in the love lost rather than the love gained. It's just more juicy. The recent spat between Sunil Gavaskar and SRK over the issue of multiple captaincy in the KKR, for instance. (SRK and KKR - that has a nice ring to it). Stinging comments were made back and forth in print and on television, which finally led to King Khan saying, "If Gavaskar asks me to walk on my head and run the team, I would." Really? Whoa.

As we all know, the love affair between Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio lasted only nine turbulent months. The problem with celebrity ventures is that egos tend to clash sooner rather than later, and usually it's a my-way-or-the-highway approach. With the IPL it's going to be no different. I'm just interested to see which of these modern-day pharaohs is going to come out on top. After all, we all know, that at any given time, there can be only one king in the arena.