“In society today, people are looking for more and finding better ways by which they can get aroused. In the good old days, man’s brain levels and hormonal levels were considered to be at a even keel throughout. He would have very little to do except work in fields and go home. In modern societies the constant stimulation we receive from the world draws us to any kind of arousal that is available to us.” Hey, hold on, this isn’t an article about the changing pattern of arousal stimuli over centuries, nor is it about finding more and better ways of arousal in our environment. This is about a certain event and its audience, who together supposedly put India on the global map. And the above lines are from a piece in Times of India, wherein a certain man of medicine ( a doctor in Mumbai) is trying to possibly explain the psychological reasons responsible for a huge turnout in the maiden F1 Grand Prix in the rape capital of India.
From a psychological view point, he says, the motor car is one of the few ways by which a human being can actually project his maleness through a machine. The everyday surges you can get by driving your motor bike or car aggressively, do makes you feel like a doer and imagining that you are in control. No doubt, the haves in India have found a new means to stay more in control through such fast moving and damn expensive machines. What is fresh in the mind is a certain Mohd. Azharuddin gifting his 19 year old son a 1000cc sports bike for Id-ul-fitr, and what followed was headlines for national news channels. There have been many such instances of aroused kids speeding their fast moving BMWs onto the pavement dwellers. Actually, these machines on Indian roads serve a dual purpose. Firstly, they do communicate the Marxian class consciousness of the haves to the have nots; they control the powerful machine, the roads, the space and above all the fruits of production in this 9% GDP story. Secondly, as our doctor friend suggests that they take care of the modern day arousals (thus they know how to control their arousal as well).
Coming back to the primary issue of 95,000 people turning up for the grand event, making it a global success, how many were arousal led. According to this theory, arousal occurs whenever there is something new. The hormone of arousal is dopamine which is stimulated whenever there is any form of new arousal. Thus, Delhiites are looking for a dopamine rush when they come for such sports that are designed for a dopamine stimulation (as they say F1 has curves, both on and off the track). No doubt, exactly a year ago the same city hosted the largest sporting event in the form of Commonwealth Games, and quite obviously the games were not arousing enough. May be the F1 bosses who worked hard to sell the F1 dream (a mirage rather) to the Indian audience had a measure of this arousal syndrome of Delhiites, and that is why Delhi was chosen over other Indian cities.
For the tiny section of genuine F1 enthusiasts (not driven by the arousal and mostly non-Delhiite), who were easily outnumbered by the aroused species, it couldn’t get any bigger than this. But the aroused species is the one which made all the difference – both numerically and monetarily. It could afford to buy individual tickets to the race @ 8K – 12K (approximately 30K for a family of 4). And also came along dada, dadi, munna, munni, chachu, chichi and so on. Going by the sheer affordability of the tickets, this species is not common and the sport isn’t either. This species was also surprised to discover that neither Vijay Mallya nor Karthikeyan were able to win the race, unlike the Indian cricket team which won the world cup in India a few months ago. The species was also happy about the fact that their staple diet was supplied at the venue at affordable prices (Chole Bature – Rs 250/-, Biryani – 450/-, etc.). They also concluded that, had the roads in Delhi been like the ones in the circuit, even they could clock 300 kmph in their Maruti variants. For once I was happy about cricket being a dumb sport vis-à-vis F1, and India being a one sport country. And thanks to the IPL, all our cricketing dopamine has been done away with.
Clearly this is an audience of excess and at another level it will make Incredible India more fascinating with all its wild contrasts and baffling contradictions. Here is a sport which is imported fully from the West, and here comes an audience fully home grown. Not surprisingly, the rape capital didn’t know exactly what to do with this new arousal, and rushed for a certain Lady Gaga show, for which the tickets were bought @ Rs 40,000/- per person.
