I cannot remember when I witnessed traffic jams at India Gate at midnight last. The mood in the capital on Wednesday night, replicated everywhere else in the country, of explosive jubilation made one wonder if a cricket-crazed nation had been hoarding firecrackers in anticipation of India winning the World Cup semi-finals. Would they have been stashed away till Diwali if India had lost? Would the hysteria have been in lower key if it wasn’t an India-Pakistan match? Would there have been a few million viewers less if the might of India’s sports, political, business and Bollywood establishment wasn’t visible in its glorious array at Mohali? The game brought out the best of passion play with a twist of jingoist one-upmanship.
For me the evening was rich with ironies. As it happened, I watched the match on a screen set up in the garden of Charles Correa-designed British Council building in Delhi — an appropriate venue for a game inherited from the British. The occasion was the launch of the graphic novelist Sarnath Banerjee’s latest book and the precincts of the large charbagh were packed to capacity. The crowd, several hundred-strong, was both cosmopolitan and international, but it was doubtful how many were there for the audio-visual reading, the jazz from Blue Frog in Mumbai or even the free booze. Inspired though the choice of venue and presentation were, all the audience wanted was Sarnath’s vivid and witty drawings to be taken off screen and the match to resume.
It also happens that the novelist is married to a Pakistani, the talented Karachi-born video artist Mahbano Abidi, popularly known as Bani. As the cliff-hanger of a game wore on, Pakistan’s loss became patently clear, and the mixed crowd rooted and cheered and hugged one another for India’s victory, Bani was placed in a tricky spot. She was happy for India but how could she be jumping with joy at her country’s defeat? A game is just a game, but the emotions it arouses between enemy nations are more complex.
These were once astutely analysed by the writer E M Forster in a famous essay in Two Cheers for Democracy in which he poses the question: What does one do if it comes to the hard choice between betraying one’s country and one’s closest friend?
Forster was writing in the context of the Second World War and its violently divisive aftermath that tore apart old frontiers and friendships. I won’t spoil the story by giving away the conclusion he comes to in his brilliantly reasoned and philosophical disquisition. But a fiercely contested game between hostile nations can also become a bridge, as the spirit of détente demonstrated by Dr Manmohan Singh by inviting his Pakistani counterpart and opening the border crossing for cricket fans. It can also bring together the unlikeliest bedfellows.
I met a London-based NRI this week, part of a high-end tour group of 20 cricket lovers from countries as far apart as Australia, Fiji, Hong Kong, South Africa, UK and the US who met on the Net. They paid $20,000 a head for a chartered plane, best stadium seats, luxury hotels and lavish meals to attend the last three World Cup matches in Sri Lanka and India. I asked if his new-found companions were mainly of Indian origin. No, he said, they were a varied mix of ethnicity and nationality, the Fijian being of Bangladeshi by birth! They were winging their way to Mumbai from Mohali for the final game but friendships so firm had been forged amongst several in the group that they swore there was no better way of seeing the world than travelling together to cricket matches.
Cricket’s passion play is by no means unique to India. Other countries grow as obsessive about sports (Europeans about soccer or Americans about baseball) but cricket challenges as well as cements India’s layered realities. Saturday’s game will define precisely how.