Is cricket everything?

It is a shame that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is bent upon calling back the England team for the Test series when hundreds of innocent people have been lost in cold blood by a handful of blood thirsty terrorist in Mumbai by turning the 'city of dreams' into a battle field.

Why are the Indian cricket board officials, who seem to be getting greedier by the day,bent upon going ahead with the Test series when there has been so much of pain and suffering around us is something one fails to understand. Every Indian, particularly the cricket loving public of India, should hang their heads in shame as the action of the BCCI officials only shows disrespect to the dead and suffering.

Is cricket everything for these people, who don't care a damn about hundreds of lives lost without any cause. It would have been a fitting decision, if the officials had announced that no cricket matches, including the Ranji Trophy matches, would be held till next year as a mark of respect for the departed souls and hundreds of injured, who are still battling for their lives in a handful of hospitals in and around the city.

Have the cricket officials too become inhuman like our cash-rich politicians, whose only interest is the vote banks and for them the value of a human life is next to nothing? Should the BCCI president Sashank Manohar, vice presidents Lalit Modi and Niranjan Shah and the CAO Ratnakar Shetty be reminded that cricket is not everything and is just a sport while the terrorists actions, which is increasing by the day, should be the cause of concern for every individual, who calls himself an Indian.

It was in these two hotels - Taj and Oberoi - in the past, that people like Shetty, Shah, Modi and former BCCI chief Sharad Pawar - have addressed many press conferences and to see the land-mark hotel in flames and totally destroyed on TV by a handful of lunatics was shocking and a tear-jerking experience.

The people of Mumbai have not only taken these kinds of assaults on their city laying down for a long time but have also managed to bounce back with lot of courage and conviction but one wonders how long this will go on before the Mumbaikars realize that they have been taken for granted time and time again.

Now, with the cricket board officials' pathetic inclination to see that the Test series goes on as scheduled, one wonders if they are really human. If the same officials, who are leaving no stones unturned to accomplish their mission, were to face a similar situation (death) in their own family, will they still have gone ahead behaving as if everything was fine.

Does human life have any value anymore in this country? I remember when the Sunami created a havoc accounting for thousands of deaths in India and Sri Lanka, hundreds of Mumbaikars and Bangloreans did not celebrate the following New Year and it would have been a fitting condolence to the dead and the injured if only the BCCI had called-off all cricketing activities till next year.

I am sure many Indians will agree that cricket is not everything and human life deserves to be respected and given more importance than it is being done now in this part of the world.