Journey to Pakistan - Cricket Mania

For those of you who know me, this will be old news. But for those who don’t, be prepared to cover your ears………..

I don’t care about cricket.

Yes, you read that right. And yes, in this country, where heart rates depend heavily on the Indian cricket team’s run rate, that’s almost as good as blasphemy.

And being who I am, I decided to take the blasphemy a step further. At the age of 8, I decided to cheer for Pakistan during an India Pakistan match. Was it because I was insanely in love with our neighbor? No, I didn’t know anything about the country at that time. But I’ve always had the uncontrollable urge to support the underdog, and in a room filled with Indians spewing words of hatred for the other team, I felt it was only fair that someone should cheer for them. And so I did, for several years and several matches.

But as much as I enjoyed cheering for Pakistan and soaking in the scandalized looks around me, I never cared about the result. It didn’t matter to me whether India won or Pakistan – as long as I had a good time watching the game. Even at the 2011 World Cup Semi-Finals, where for the first time I was genuinely cheering for India, I didn’t care about the result. I was too busy having the time of my life trading insults with my Pakistani friends. Which is why, towards the end of the game when the winner was almost decided, I wasn’t expecting to see the looks of anger from my Pakistani friends, as their eyes silently warned me to stop the insults now.

The naïve 21 year-old in me was definitely surprised. Here I was, thinking of it just as a game, when in reality, to every other person in the room, it had been so much more.

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Someone asked me the other day if I would rather me normal or weird, and without the blink of an eye, I said weird. Where’s the fun in normal? But for all my rebelliousness, I’ve often wondered what it might be to feel – for even just a moment – what everyone around me seems to feel – what it might be to be normal.

I got that shot at normalcy a month ago, when my trip to Pakistan coincided with a one day cricket match between India and Pakistan.

Here was my chance, I told myself. This was the match that I had been waiting for; a match that would go down in history as the one where I genuinely and whole-heartedly supported India against Pakistan. I could picture myself vividly, sitting in a room filled with Pakistanis, shouting and cheering for India, pushed by that rush of patriotic adrenaline that had always escaped me. It was all perfectly planned out in my head. I even packed a blue t-shirt in my suitcase specifically for this match [because apparently, Pakistan has called dibs over the colour green. Weird. I always thought the Indian flag had more green than blue, but maybe that’s just me].

And so the day of the big game arrived – with me sleeping through the first innings, of course [which turned out to be a good thing because we got thrashed and were only saved by Dhoni]. In any case, I donned my make-shift blue jersey, and headed over to a friend’s house to watch the match.

As with everything else on this trip, it didn’t go the way I had expected.

First of all, I walked into a house filled with very few familiar faces, and instantly my stranger phobia kicked in. I hesitantly hovered between two rooms, torn between wanting to see the game and sitting with the familiar friends who were having a dance rehearsal for the wedding. Finally, I decided to take the plunge, and plopped myself onto a seat in front of the television in a room full of strangers, feeling more awkward than cheerful.

That was minor setback number 1.

Next, I realized I was in the presence of a few adults, and I instantly zipped up my jacket to cover my t-shirt. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t because I was scared to sit in the room wearing blue, but more because my shirt had a picture of a pig saying “Are you Suar?” And I really didn’t think it was the best moment to offend anyone with pig jokes [Pakistan IS an Islamic country, after all]. And so my dreams of cheering for India while ‘bleeding blue’ came crashing down.

That was minor setback number 2.

Now, in my head, I had decided that India was going to win this game – after all, their least favourite supporter was supporting them in this game. How often did that happen? As the people around me slowly began to realize there was an Indian sitting in their midst, and as I started feeling more relaxed, it became easier to shout cheers and frustrations. For every 10 voices screaming “no!!!!”, there was one voice echoing “yesss!!!” and vice versa. For a change, instead of getting scandalized looks, I basked in the looks of curiosity, amusement and incredulity. Once again, I started exchanging insults with my friend – an old tradition between us. And sitting in that room filled with Pakistanis and supporting the Indian team as the underdog, I slowly started to enjoy myself, and the game – which we eventually lost.

That was minor setback num……..Ufff!!! Why do I even bother?

Yes, we lost that match. No, I still didn’t care. I enjoyed myself thoroughly, and wasn’t even slightly upset that all my cheering had been for nothing. The image I had built in my mind didn’t come true, but I got to experience the thing that I have always wanted – supporting the underdog team from both sides of the border. I would hardly call that a setback.

Maybe I’m just not cut out for that fanatic passionate cricket cheering. But honestly, I just enjoy the process of cheering and jeering without caring about the result so much that it doesn’t bother me. To me, cricket is, and probably always will be, just a game. And if my state of happiness does not depend upon the run rate of the batting line-up, I could live with that.

Yes, I am suar.