Manikarthik.com

Yesterday, while watching TV with my family, the new Pepsi ad came up. Dhoni, pepsi..and all that. Soon after the ad was over, everyone burst out into laugh – simultaneously! Reason – Sreesanth and his “some sort of a dance”.

Everyone had a indifferent, numb, sympathetic look after it, watching him dance. “Paavam .. Ingane ayallo!” (poor chap..)

I think Pepsi ad makers couldn’t have done anything better, but let him do what he is best for. Make a lunatic, loose guy out of him. I can understand my family’s reactions about Sreesanth, and that’s completely natural, after all they didn’t know that Sreesanth had a reputation management crash course done. And all this is part of a big game plan. But I knew it, right from his early days of career.

I should congratulate Mr. Sreesanth for his hard earned reputation. Who else in the Indian cricket team has done these many “carefully thought and operated strategies” to achieve his public brand image? I suspect the “Bhajji – Sreesanth” saga was a carefully executed drama, to leverage Sree’s image in public.

These days people don’t care about image being good or bad you know. People should talk a bout you, that’s all. If you are a male, you act like a lunatic, dance like a weirdo, or develop six packs, or even hang around with bollywood babes to appear in Page 3 news. If you are a female, you have very less options, but to show more skin. In fact, some young blood like Rakhi Sawant does that beautifully well on the channels.

I think there are somethings common with young strugglers like Rakhi Sawant and Sreesanth, you know they both come from the relatively unknown parts of India and they have to struggle more than the better off guys to make an impression. So I think what Rakhi did with Mika, and Sreesanth did with Priyanka Chopra is perfectly fine. Today who can imagine an Indian team without Sreesanth? Moreover, today cricket is all about emotions and drama and less “gentlemans” game. We all need more action, more fun right?

Poor Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev, in their times people did not have television at homes, and there was a limit to what could’ve been done on Newspapers.(i hear Sunil Gavaskar had made good attempts in England trying to hit a white guy with his cricket bat, and that he was the first to start the “racial abuse” controversies.) But I know why he did that, at that time, Sunil was also a struggler like Rakhi Sawant and Sreesanth.

Coming back to Sreesanth, I want to tell him hmm….one thing, yea one thing.

Sree, nobody in the world(family, friends excluded) knows that you went to reputation management classes, except me. I know for a fact that you are doing this as a part of “career management” and you are making more money than anyone else in the team.
I also know that you have been obssesed with “personality development” books like “How to win friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie from your childhood.(courtesy malayala manorama). So I’m not surprised to see you do all this “strategies”, which is actually the manifestation of the business acumen in you.

Way to go Sree…way to go. Oh yea..my question – “What’s next?”