Poor Sunil Dev. He probably thought that he was following in the famous footsteps of England football team manager Fabio Capello who, in 2010, when the country qualified for the 2010 World Cut, said that his players would be able to see their wives and significant others only the day after any match. It was supposedly a disciplinary move, since the team was “there to play, not for a holiday”. The Indian team manager became the butt of every wag (sic) who haunted social networking sites for his assertion that taking wives along on tour is fine, but a girlfriend….no no no! The unfortunately pilloried Dev was being practical in his own way, albeit a trifle traditionalist, when he insisted that a non-spouse accompanying person would be against the culture of India. Which implied that while the pretty Sakshi Dhoni trailing behind her almost as famous husband MS Dhoni was a digestible morsel, the vision of Band Baaja Baraat star Anushka Sharma wandering hand-in-hand through New Zealand with rumoured beau Virat Kolhi was paap, maha-paap! Shocking and all that, the stuff of tabloid headlines, the stories that would make any good Indian shudder in their sports socks, the fuzzy photos that could drive even the most level-headed caption writer to drink more of a newspaper office’s dreadful coffee.
The Anushka-Virat…ahem…dosti is not the first of its kind in contemporary Indian cricket, or indeed in any sport. Many years ago there was the famous Sharmila Tagore-MAK Pataudi rishta and then others less famous, like the Reena Roy-Mohsin Khan debacle, the Mohammed Azharuddin-Sangeeta Bijlani shaadi , the Neena Gupta-Vivian Richards love fest that produced fashion maven Masaba, and the less seen but much spoken of love-links between Isha Sharvani-Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj Singh-Kim Sharma, Harbhajan Singh-Geeta Basra, Zeenat Aman-Imran Khan, Anju Mahindroo-Gary Sobers, Suresh Raina-Shruti Haasan and many more. Of course, if the romance leads to a socially accepted bond like marriage, the lady is seen almost everywhere with the lad, going with him on tour, to parties, at events and more. And every time there is an on-field disaster it is the off field activities and the pretty participating others that are inevitably blamed – as happened with Kohli recently in England. On the other hand, there was Sakshi, witness to husband Dhoni’s relative success with the bat as well as to his failed captaining and wicket keeping skills.
A wag’s life is not an easy one. On the one hand – or should that be ‘foot’? – while a dog on the pitch could need to hightail it off that green patch, albeit only after leaving a patch of its own making without being vilified forever, the wife and girlfriend (WAG, got it?) brigade has a huge responsibility to shoulder. She has a function, true to her form. One school of thought believes that a wag is an essential accompaniment to a player in order to make him perform to par if not better. It is not just her looks, fashion sense or pretty presence in the stands that matters, but her function, in the very basic sense, of providing a means of R&R to her exalted partner, ie: sex. Gary Kirsten, coach to the Indian cricket team in 2009, just ahead of the Champions Trophy matches issues a four-page document asking his wards to indulge themselves before each game with their partners, or by themselves if no one was available. “Not having sex for a period of a few months causes a significant drop in testosterone levels in both males and females, with the corresponding passiveness and decrease in aggression,” he posited. Of course, it proves nothing conclusively, not to anyone who had faith in his theory and perhaps not to himself, that India was soundly beaten by Pakistan and eliminated from the tournament. So is that why Kohli played so badly? One cannot help stop and wonder!
The life of a wag is not all gloss and glamour. To be absolutely fair, wags are successful in their own right, not just as consorts of rather better known men. Consider perhaps the best known of them all, Victoria Beckham, aka Posh Spice of the erstwhile Spice Girls, who found footballer David Beckham and never let him go, rumours of dalliance swept aside with typical insouciance. She may have started out in tabloid life as the definition of the wag, but she is now an internationally respected fashion designer, her creations worn by everyone who is anyone, from Beyonce to Priyanka Chopra. Many wags are models – Irina Shayk (footie player Christiano Ronaldo’s ladylove), Jessica Michibata (of race driver Jenson Button fame) and Mashoom Singha (now wife of Australian cricketer Shaun Tait), for instance – while some are businesswomen, a few are journalists, others entertainers (Shakira, who has the dishy Gerard Pique to her credit), a few prefer to stay home and not be seen or tweeted about. And then there is the ‘side’ business that they are instrumental in building. If Sakshi Dhoni is seen carrying a new LV bag, the same design will make its way from the tony brand’s stores on the high streets of London, Paris, Milan, New York, Mumbai and New Delhi to the pavements of DN Road and Chandni Chowk, Petaling Street or Victoria Street Market, thus feeding a whole ecosystem of manufacturers and vendors. Ditto Victoria Beckham’s shoes, Irina Shayk’s bikinis and Shakira’s lipstick, not to speak of Anushka Sharma’s distressed denims and snazzy sandals.
So there it is. While a wag lives a seemingly high profile life, each one of these gorgeous women has to battle the endless insecurities of being the love interest of a very desirable man, apart from the various other jousts she must compete in, from the bulge to the shopping stakes. She has to keep on her best supportive and loving mask no matter what her man may be cited for – be it match fixing or getting too…err…friendly with another pretty woman – and has always to look her most glamorous (is she ill?), her slimmest (is she pregnant?) and her happiest (is he cheating on her?). Who would want a life of this kind? Wag once to choose….
