At home we can easily reconstruct a narrative in which feudal fun-da-mentalists have feverishly announced, perhaps after consuming froth filled mugs of foreign brew in their festive frivolous gatherings, that they will no longer tolerate any attacks on their libidos. They will retaliate with their mutilated masculinity, by using their fading patriarchal authority; by using "their" women to express their lack of gratification, from "their" vociferous and vocal, but vacuously virile men; by acts of vandalizing which unfortunately and unnecessarily vilify the virtuousness and strength of the women in their culture.

As Deepa Mehta aptly put it, the self-proclaimed beer-guzzling defenders of the Indian tradition consider it part of the fabric of Indian culture that men should abuse and belittle women, since their armchair Fuhrer suggested to his mercenary soldiers to attack the stars of the film rather than the theatres. By "stars" he meant the director and the two protagonists - all women.

It is clear that "Fire" has been attacked not for displaying lesbian love, nor for showing that Indian women may be driven to lesbianism because of the failure of the Indian men to satisfy "their" women. Such a theme may well be welcome by the fundamentalists, who may use it to call for the building of cadres of macho, virile men, to close such unnatural avenues for women.

No, the real threat of the film is that women can make their own choices, reach their own self-realizations without being burdened by what "their" men might think, in matters of profession as well as sexual preference. This challenges the nerve of patriarchy, and it is no wonder that our heroes -- themselves the lost and hopefully last patriarchs -- sent out "their" women to put an end to a film which displays the autonomy of women and the helplessness of men in keeping "their" women under their control.

Having barely whet their appetites by their thrashing of a film which most of them did not see (nor understand), the surgeons of reaction have now turned from the silver screen to the brown pitches which are so dear even to their own hearts. This time the reaction is geared to preempt millions of viewers from relishing the feats of national heroes displaying their skills to the fullest in one of the greatest rivalries in sports.

When their night time vigilante activity of digging up the Ferozeshah Kotla grounds pitch brought on from the Prime Minister -- whom they think they have brought to power -- an accusation of cowardice, and the suggestion that they move out of their armchairs and put on military uniforms to defend their country at the borders, they were infuriated and responded by saying that they were of course ready to do everything for their country.

What did they actually do? There was no rush to army recruitment centres. Rather, they demonstrated their bravery by attacking a national shrine, the BCCI headquarters. This was an even greater act of cowardice because they even fell shy of accepting the blame for it, and it made Vajpayee look a genius in his earlier proclamation and challenge.

Ironically, they have insulted their own heroes, the men, and only men, they must surely take pride in: from Lala Amarnath, Vinoo Mankad, and Vijay Manjrekar; to Mohinder Amarnath, Vengarskar, Gavaskar, and Kapil Dev; to Tendulkar and Agarkar. Perhaps cricket is not part of the Indian tradition since it is an imported sport. But our lost patriarchs could hardly maintain that, since they relish watching cricket as much or more than their weekly trips to Sidhi Vinayak or Mahalaxmi mandirs.

They have pushed matters too far. One day soon their grass-root supporters will awake from their bad dreams or bad hangovers, and realize that their protectors have prevented them from the heavenly pleasure of everyone's hero, baby Sachin, lifting Wasim Akram and Saqlain Mushtaq for sixes out of Wankhade stadium into the Arabian sea, in the city which is by all counts the pulse of cricket in India.