Welcome to this edition of my newsletter

There is a saying in English!
“In the sway of emotions – Intelligence goes on a holiday”
I could strongly relate to this statement with the recent incident happened during RCB trophy celebration near KSCA Stadium Bangalore
it is really heart-wrenching to see people loosing their precious lives for the really not so important things!

Is the RCB Trophy really worth more than a human life?
Absolutely not. Not for me at least.

Let’s take a step back and understand this
IPL itself was created as a business model.

In the Raj Shamani’s recent podcast, Vijay Mallya the so called CHOR – clearly mentions that he bought an IPL cricket team for the business objective – to advertise, to create marketing for his liquor brand – Royal challenge – not for the passion/love for cricket. and it was named as RCB after Royal Challenge whiskey.

What sells fast in India? – Sports (Especially Cricket), people are crazy about it
So people like Nirav Modi just built a business around it and the main motto of this Indian Premiere League is to make Money and the by product is entertainment!

The organisers on one side are
– Able to achieve their business objective
– Able to make new business collaborations
– Able to advertise their products
– Able to make money
– Able to build a brand – and eventually they can sell their services/products and many more

and Players, at the end of the day – they get paid even if its win or lose
they build their face value – eventually making huge money
Nothing wrong with it – it’s their profession.

But what about the fans?
We usually get only entertainment
And in some cases, like this one, it comes at the cost of our time, energy, and even lives.

So, what exactly is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional Intelligence is nothing but the ability to understand your own emotions, manage them, and also be aware of other people’s emotions.

It helps us to pause, reflect, and act wisely instead of reacting blindly.
But in this case, emotions took over logic.
People got carried away by RCB’s win and became emotionally attached to the celebration –
forgetting everything else.

I want to ask sorry for those families who lost their loved ones and we all are equally responsible for their loss
How are we responsible?
Aren’t we the ones who glorified RCB so much and portrayed it in such a way that RCB achieved something no one ever had in the whole world!
we all are equally responsible for that grand magnitude of celebrations which resulted in that big footfall near the stadium and caused that stampede.
Now, we can do all the blame games
– Saying govt should have organised it properly,
– Management should have postponed the event,
– Police should have taken proper measures to control the crowd and should have correctly estimated the crowd etc etc

but if you ask me
being a responsible citizen/fan – everyone of us also must have thought
– What will be the estimated crowd?
– Can I handle such a huge crowd?
– Are there proper arrangements for fans?
– Is it really safe to go?

did we ask these questions?
No, we didn’t.

Because we were swayed away by the emotion.
RCB won the Cup, and we just reacted.

If we had all taken a pause and thought maturely,
maybe those 11 lives wouldn’t have been lost.
Again, my heartfelt condolences.

What’s the bigger lesson here?

We need to be aware of what we’re consuming
What are we watching, supporting, following, celebrating?
We must ask ourselves:
– Is this valuable to me?
– Am I doing this consciously or emotionally?
– Am I in control of my mind, or am I being influenced?

Because if we don’t regulate our emotions,
someone else – some brand, trend, or celebrity – will do it for us.
We need to have a **strong mindset, define our **own values**, and live by them.
Because if we don’t stand for something,
we’ll fall for anything.

More on this topic in another blog post – check it out here – Who is Influencing us? – https://atharvprasanna.com/atharvs-chronicle-15-04-2025-who-is-influencing-you/

Let’s train ourselves to be more emotionally intelligent.
It doesn’t mean you stop feeling things – It means you become smart with your feelings.
It’s okay to celebrate wins, But it’s not okay to lose yourself in it.
Let’s feel more consciously, and live more wisely.

Hope this resonated with you! See you next week!