If the IPL, not the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex, is used as the index to the state of India’s economy, the country would emerge as affluent as any from the first world.

By Ayaz Memon

For the opening match this season, for instance, a private helicopter operator in Mumbai revealed that his business had gone up a whopping 2000 per cent. What this means in real terms is that instead of the 2-3 trips he would be on hire between Mumbai's race course (where choppers land and take off from) and Navi Mumbai (where the D Y Patil Stadium is located), on the opening day he made more than 50. May still be a fraction of trips that are made by CEOs and Wall Street sharpies in New York, but a jaw-dropping figure for India nonetheless.

Tickets for matches cost a few thousand rupees a pop at any of the venues. My first recollection of buying a ticket for a cricket match is of paying Rs 25 - and that was for all five days of the Test - which must seem like it was back in the Bronze Age. This is the Brave New Age of the IPL, as I gathered from a person who had come to the CCI for Mumbai Indian' match against Rajasthan Royals. For a family of four, he had coughed up upwards of Rs 10 k for watching 40 overs and took home memories of frenzied singing and dancing in the stadium, the presence of several celebrities in the enclosure for the owners of the Mumbai franchise, the Ambanis, India's richest family. And, of course, Yusuf Pathan's swashbuckling 34-ball century, This multi-dimensional experience must come at some cost surely.

The IPL has in its wake, of course, also spawned a whole new ethos of hedonism, and by this I don't mean lusty hitting on the field of play which has altered the way this game had been played for more than a century. The `after parties' which are held post the completion of a match, are so sought after that people are willing to pay up to Rs 30-40 k for a ticket. This includes watching the match, and heck of a lot more after that into the wee hours of the next morning.

A fashion show has become par for the course. The spread of food is lavish and sumptuous, champagne and other spirits flow without restraint to keep the mood elevated and the dance floor occupied. If you are lucky, you might even rub shoulders with Vijay Mallya, SRK, Preity Zinta, Shilpa Shetty and other popular denizens of Bollywood who you can otherwise touch and feel only on the screen of your television at home. Not to mention star cricketers.

My understanding is that the after parties in Bangalore, Kolkata and Mumbai are the most coveted. One trader from Gujarat, I came to know, was willing to part with Rs 200000 if he could be guaranteed that Katrina Kaif and Kareena Kapoor would be present along with Sachin Tendulkar and SRK. That's a pipe dream: not because this combo is impossible, but if it were to happen, the trader might be outbid by a few more lakh rupees at least.

``But it will still be paisa vasool! (value for money)'' he gushed when told about the difficulty quotient of his dream being actualised. Read this any which you want, it tells you two things clearly: (1) Cricket is India's biggest fix and (2) For the IPL, people are willing to pay anything for this fix.

Brave New World, I told you.

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