Dharamshala witnesses the other side of IPL


By Tenzin Migmar Khangpa

This week is sort of a week that comes once in a blue moon where you can see more Indians than foreigners here in the town of Dharamshala known as an international city within the hilly town.

Indians from all walks of life from the regions in and around Himachal Pradesh jammed up in the hilly town-much thrilled to watch the Indian Premier League that took place here in the town this week.

 It’s a moment of joy and proud to be in the stadium and watching IPL live but it was more of a great experience to observe what was going on inside the stadium and outside-along but beyond the IPL match.
Dharamshala residents including locals, Tibetans and tourists are yelling at the house owners and hotel managers over the recent born water and electricity problems.

The hotel owners were happy that their hotels become so demand with the jam of people shown up for the IPL but they blamed the IPL for the water and electricity scarcity.

Being asked why so water problem so suddenly, one of the house owners said “all the water pipes are diverted to the IPL stadium, so now we are having water problem.”

IPL seems a great entertainment for the general people; be it a stadium live match or watching live back home, but where ever the game is held, the local residents are born to face the water and electricity problems.

It is not only the water and electricity problems created by the IPL but crowd of people jammed up for the match leads to fights and racism also, some times.

It was late night yesterday where a group of people from Punjab clashed with a gang of local Indians that resulted chaos and fears in the town with stones flying in the air and some of the sexy window shops came down into pieces.

Inside the stadium

It was a great thrilling experience to see the IPL match live inside the stadium but it was an eye opener experience to see the real situation inside the stadium beyond the IPL match.

Police personnel were deployed at every corner and side of the ILP stadium but its for sure their eyes were not on the people to find out potential terrorist and insurgencies but their eyes and minds-all were all on the game.

It was so funny and unbelievable but the fact is that some of them even used to stand in front of the public chairs and watch the match by blocking the IPL scene for the general masses.

“Police are blocking the match, and I can see only half of the stadium,” an Indian who has come from Punjab to see the match with the Rs 1200 ticket in his hand said.

Dharamshala was jammed with people from all walks of life including the IPL players walking up and down around the town. It was by chance, I met a couple of players at a coffee café today in the morning, and clicked some photos that I aired via social networks immediately.

“It happens but only in Dharamshala,” one of my friends commented on my Facebook status, and ‘yes’, I do agree ‘it happens in Dharamshala only.’



 NOTE-- Tenzin Migmar is a student of M.com in International Business and Finance at Madras University, Chennai.


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5 comments:

  1. the clashes was between the Punjabi tourists and the hotel MeCllo managers instead of "group of people from Punjab clashed with a gang of local Indians".

    P.S: no offence.

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  2. But mcleo managers are also locals

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  3. I was there...the thing which I hated is the racial profiling the mcleo staff was doing. All non indians were being allowed inside whilst indians werent. In personal opinion this reason enough for me to avoid such a place.
    Of course behaving like drunken lunatics can also not be justified. Punjabi/Delhi drunken crowds can only be handled by 'delhi police'.

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  4. "group of people from Punjab clashed with a "gang of local Indians"

    there wasn't any local gang. the hotel mecllo managers was on their own. and on top of that the fight ended between the police and the Punjabi tourist.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank god no Tibetan got involved in the clash, else Tibetans will fucked off

    ReplyDelete