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My dear Kapil...

I don't know if you will ever read this letter. However, that hasn't stopped me from writing it. For some days now, I have been wanting to write to you desperately, ever since I witnessed your emotional bare-all on BBC.

At first I thought I'd switched channels by mistake, to one like Zee or Sony, and was watching what looked like a bad actor trying to come to grips with a pathos-filled scene. Your face was familiar of course, which made it worse. In a few seconds, I had to accept two facts; the first, that it was really you up there, and the second, that the channel was really the BBC as I feared, not one of those 24/365 soap-opera channels.

Why did you cry, Kapil? And if you had to, why do it so badly? Surely you knew how many people, all over the world, must have been sitting in front of the tube; wholesome families and corporate members and even perhaps celebrities. All of us, and I'm sure I speak for the vast majority, wanted to hear your dignified defence of yourself, to see your chin-up attitude. Alright, perhaps a discreet tear or two would have been permissible, but not this embarrassing rendition of the dying-mother scene lifted from a 70's Hindi film.

For that matter, was it ever a crying matter, Kapil? No judge had indicted you, no proof had been presented. Strange, I never saw our Prime Minister, or you for that matter, cry when thousands were reported to be dying of thirst. But that's an injustice to you. I never cried too. Natural and man-made calamities are so frequent and intense these days that it makes no sense to go on grieving seven days a week. You just try to think of some way to help, however small, however insignificant.

And that is where you disappointed me. You didn't help the cause in any way. You, a leading figure of Indian cricket, could have done your own finger pointing on prime time. No, not in a spiteful look-at-me way like some are doing, but with as much honesty as you could muster. You've been there, done that, seen everything. In all these years of being in the thick of things, there is every possibility that you know the black from the white, the innocent from the guilty, the match fixers and match throwers from the match winners. You could have told us as much as your integrity allowed.

And we would have listened. And cheered. And by now, things might have been taking a different turn altogether. I believe you when you say you are innocent, but I wish you would prove your love for your country and for the game not by snivelling, but by coming out of the closet with the dash that you reserved for some of the best bowlers of all time.

Instead of which, you chose to waste your allotted time on histrionics. I don't know whether to pity you or admire you. Contrary to the unkind remarks many made, I doubt if you could have stooped so low as to stage an act. Those tears were genuine. But the mystique has been tarnished. The hands that held the World Cup were seen to be flailing about ridiculously.

Is that the real you, Kapil? A man who is governed by what makes him sad or happy and reacts accordingly? Like a little boy with his friends? If it is so, then do us all a favour and grow up. We need your help with the big men who are under your tutelage.

Yours sincerely,

Sujata Prakash

Sujata Prakash