Monday, September 5th, 2005
Dear Sania
We’ll be watching you.
One billion Indians will tune in 36 minutes from now (this is being written at 10.54pm on Sunday, 4th September) to watch you play Maria Sharapova in the fourth round of the US Open. Never mind that all Indian households don’t have television. Never mind that of the ones that do have television, only a fraction has cable and satellite coverage. Never mind that, unlike cricket, it is unlikely Doordarshan will carry tennis coverage.
One billion is a nice, round figure and we’ll leave it at that. We don’t want to be rational. This is no time to be rational. If rational is what we wanted to be, we would have been in bed by 11pm. We wouldn’t be up watching the fuzzy telecast on Ten Sports. The telecast is pretty poor, Sania. This once, we’ll make an allowance for your black socks. They help us see through the snow.