Poonam Pandey makes it big riding Piggyback on Team India (Satire)

One thing’s for certain.

We all know who Poonam Pandey is—now.

She’s that little known Kingfisher model who promised to strip nude if Team India won the World Cup.

I’m a serious kind of bloke and it got me wondering immediately why would Ms Pandey want to do this. And just who Poonam Pandey was.

Is she one of those Page 10 celebrities who frequent Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meets? A relapsed alcoholic? That would explain it.

No, you idiot, it’s the free publicity.

Maybe she’ll get a two-bit role in a Bollywood movie or in a prime-time soap.

If you need lessons joining the bandwagon or riding piggy-back, look no further than Ms Poonam.

Ms Poonam has requested the BCCI to make arrangements for the ‘great tamasha’ in no less than the Wankhede.

Logistics should not be an issue for the BCCI or the ICC. It’s child’s play.

Again,the serious bloke that I am, I recall how when ‘the sexiest man alive’ Richard Gere pecked Mademoiselle Shilpa Shetty on both her cheeks in a public display of affection, there was huge national outrage. Pictures and effigies of Gere and Shetty were burnt. Gere’s arrest was sought.

No such uproar this time. I guess, cricket is really a religion.

I decided to try and collar some former and current cricketers and get their reactions to Ms Pandey’s promise.

Ravi Shastri and Wasim Akram were more than enthusiastic.

Ravi : “We would love to have her on our show “Shaz and Waz”. She could revive the whole concept.”

Wasim (Waz): “Yes, she could prove to be the catalyst.”

For those who came in late, Shaz and Waz was a show co-hosted by the named protagonists, where three young nubile lady contestants would be voted on by television viewers as to who should be grilled by S & W for their due 15 minutes of fame. Their knowledge of the game was usually restricted to how ‘hot’ some cricketers were. Unfortunately, for Shaz and Waz, the named hot players were never them.

Shaz: “You must be a great fan to recall our (defunct) show.”

I nodded my head and made my excuses. I did not wish to tell Ravi that the lasting impression I had was of two oversized, overweight gorillas on the wrong side of 40 in under-sized half-sleeved T-shirts, slobbering over a pretty young thing (PYT). No matter how hare-brained the PYT, she would always come out smelling like roses.

If the young thing was of Indian origin, the usual reason given for being there was that “Pappa or Mamma or my friends thought it was a great idea.”

Sub-text: “Who knows I could be the next Katrina Kaif.”

I then caught up with Sunny Gavaskar.

Sunny was brief : “Tell Poonam to move to Kolkatta. It will be good for her career.”

Virat Kohli was my next interviewee:

“She’d make a great Fast Trak girl.”

Postscript: The Shiv Sena have demanded firm action against Poonam Pandey.

Postscript2: People for the Ethical Treatment (PETA) have requested Ms Poonam to bare it all for animals instead. “While we enjoy matches, animals suffer when they are skinned to make cricket balls.”