Move over IPL, here comes ILL!!

When was the last time you went to the zoo? Try to remember …you go to the zoo all excited hoping to see a whole lot of wild animals running around.

Imagine the disappointment when all you get to see are animals lazing away showing little signs of life…the tigers, lions, crocodiles, pythons…large intimidating animals playing dead all day.

In this milieu any animal that stirs will immediately attract a huge crowd before its cage. Its 'TRP' shoots up a la Times Now's during its shamelessly biased 'coverage' of Sunanda Pushkar.

Watching the proceedings in our Parliament leaves you with a similar sense of disappointment. Other than the one person speaking, all others pretty much behave like the motionless pythons and crocodiles in the zoo.

You keep watching hoping to catch a rare glimpse of life. If someone shifts his weight from left bum to right, moves his chin from right palm to left, and pick his nose while still keeping his eyes half closed you pretty much know the zoo trip is done for that day.

So imagine my absolute joy when I get to see these highly animated or should I say animalistic displays that in Parliament these past days. From funny man Lallu Yadav to the slumberous Sudip Bandopadhyay to Anantha Kumar.

Truly it was the J&K Assembly that pioneered the whole movement with an inspired show from its members on 9^th Apr’10. A cracker of a reality show….it was like going to the zoo and chancing across a Nat Geo moment being played out before you.

Of course all the national TV channels ensure these events get maximum coverage. After all IPL and Mr Lalit Modi have long moved out of our headlines, what choice do our media have?

I do not remember the last time the J&K assembly featured in the national news, do you?

Three cheers for Parliamentary democracy.

I think we have a winning formula here. Let's have the new IPL – call it the Indian Legislators League – ILL in short.

Have a ‘free for all’ show in every session of Parliament. Set aside some time for it…. (we have Zero Hour, call this… Hero Hour?) and allow our MPs to have a go at each other. Hammer and tongs, no holds barred.

You can follow a model similar to IPL where you start with iconic team captains (Sonia, Mamata, Advani, Lalu etc) and bid for the other players. So you can easily trade your team members once in a while. I am sure corporate sponsorship of every kind will be readily available.

If you step back and think the present set up is not very different.

The key advantage the ILL will have over Parliamentary Democracy - this would be transparent and a lot more fun.

Let the leaders we voted to Parliament at least provide us with some entertainment.

With the IPL under a cloud and allegations of match fixing, the time maybe ripe to win over the IPL crowds to our newly formed ILL.

I believe ILL's viewer ship ratings can far outstrip anything that IPL would have seen.

Long live ILL.