00:00What's happening? Why are we acting like this?
00:03India won the T20 World Cup last night.
00:04But bhai, did you feel as strongly as you felt in 2011?
00:07Did you also think they weren't talking about these victories?
00:10Well, a few people on Twitter actually said the quiet part out loud, right?
00:13Both are onto something.
00:14But neither has the full answer.
00:16There is a concept in behavioural economics called the hedonic treadmill.
00:20Humans adapt to good things.
00:22The first time something wonderful happens, it overwhelms you.
00:25By the time it becomes expected, the brain barely registers it as an event.
00:28India has won four ICC titles in the last five years.
00:31The dopamine therefore does not spike the way it used to.
00:34Not because you love the game less, but because surprise is what makes joy feels like joy.
00:39But here's where it gets interesting.
00:40Research in sports sociology makes a much larger argument.
00:43The intensity with which a country celebrates a win is directly proportional to how much it needs the win.
00:49Not wants, needs.
00:51When a nation is economically marginal, culturally insecure, still figuring out its place in the world,
00:56sport becomes a proxy for self-worth.
00:58India in 1983 was that country.
01:00Foreign exchange reserves nearly empty, per capita income among the lowest in the world.
01:04And on a Sunday afternoon at Lord's, Kapil Dave caught Viv Richards.
01:07And a nation that had never expected to win, won.
01:10People wept in a way that had nothing to do with cricket.
01:13Now, look at where India stands today.
01:15Fifth largest economy.
01:16Fourth, some say.
01:17Rovers of the moon.
01:18A diaspora running half of Silicon Valley.
01:20Countries quoting us.
01:21Not the other way around.
01:22India, some would say, has arrived.
01:23And when you've arrived, you don't need the cricket team to tell you who you are.
01:27Justice got it!
01:28Justice got it!
01:29Notice though, the India-Pakistan game still hits differently.
01:33Because that one still carries the weight of partition, not just sport.
01:36Every other game, increasingly, is just cricket.
01:39The IPL finished the job, actually.
01:41It turned cricket from a national event into a content stream.
01:44Before it, a World Cup was a festival.
01:46Once, maybe twice in a generation.
01:48Now, there is always cricket.
01:50Scarcity is what makes things feel sacred.
01:53We removed the scarcity.
01:55The sacred feeling went with it.
01:56So, is the muted feeling after last night a sign of something lost?
02:00Or is it a sign of something gained?
02:01The generations that wept in 1983 wept because they were hungry.
02:05Because they needed cricket to tell them they mattered.
02:07You don't need that anymore.
02:08The calm after a win, that might not be apathy.
02:11That might just be what a rival feels like.
02:13Do you agree?
02:14Share this video.
02:15If you do, follow me on Instagram.
02:16I'm Manish Adhikari.
02:17Thank you for watching The Culture Project On More.
Comments