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India
  Photo: David Maczkowiack
India
  Photo: Ranjan Chari

India: A Gentlemen’s Game (cont.)

Ultimately, everyone is anxiously awaiting one match: India versus Pakistan.  It is not just a match--it is a release of seething national tensions.

On the Sunday morning before the battle begins, I am on the street attempting to navigate the migratory rush to see the match. I made a requisite stop to pick up a blue jersey and cap to wear. Less than two hours before the event, the department store is almost out of jerseys, and I have to settle for an extra large fitting of team spirit.

I attempt to speed off toward the British style pub where I plan to catch the game and find myself among hundreds of other cars full of squirming, wildly impatient cricket addicts racing toward a television set.

Forty swerving and whip-lashed minutes later, I had settled myself into a very comfortable leather armchair in the pub amongst friends and notice that no one else is sitting down. The air has begun to haze over with nervous puffs of cigars and cigarettes. Apparently, I am the only one who remembers about lunch and happily chat with the waiter about the menu and the scrumptious looking buffet that has been set up for the match.

My friends shuffle their feet and fiddle with cigarette packs. I ask them repeatedly without conclusion if anyone is hungry. Nothing else, save this upcoming war-in-disguise, occupies their minds.

Once the match begins, I don't have to ask questions to know what is going on. When India is playing badly or has lost a batsman, I am in the midst of agonized exclamations, curses and banging fists. In the next instant there could be a delirious pandemonium of chanting and strangers hugging when fortunes change. Superstitions are flung about like hailstones: one man lights multiple cigarettes, when he notices that his first lit cigarette inspires India to score six. Another abstains from his breath mints after India loses a wicket the first time he crunches down on them.

Once Pakistan is bowling and India is batting, my ears start ringing from the noise in the small pub. I go outside for some fresh air on Marine Drive, the city's main road that borders part of the Arabian Sea.  The road has suddenly become car-less and deadly quiet—something I thought could never happen as long there are Indians in India. The silence is occasionally punctuated with explosions of firecrackers over the water and muffled shouts from apartment windows or alleyways nearby; India has scored again.

I return home in time to catch the female version of the crazed chanting and screams of the cricket fans I had just left behind at the pub. It is impressive to see such sincere devotion to a sport that few women ever actually play.

On Sunday mornings the city is infested with street cricket at every intersection, park, open field, and even roadways—and all of the players are male. There is a women's cricket league in India, but its fan following parallels that of the WNBA. I settle myself into one of the wooden chairs around the dining table, intrigued by the fans this time more than the game.

The girls remark on how cute a player is or how unattractive his wife is or how depressing it is that Sehwag is engaged. The tables are pounded just as loudly if India loses a wicket and voices screech just as intensely, just an octave higher.

 

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