AHMEDABAD As the plane descended towards the tarmac of the Sardar Vallabhai airport in Ahmedabad, the stars were not above but below. The biggest of them will wear blue outfits and play for Team India against Pakistan, guests who are not otherwise welcome, in ostensibly a cricket game.
Only if it just was. This World Cup encounter, is an event of gigantic proportions, a multiple mega event of thousands of crores, where dollar meets dazzle.
Chutzpah will precede cricket on Saturday morning. A spectacle will unfold with Bollywood singers, dancers other performers taking over the stadium before the cricketers get to do what they are here for.
A potboiler of sentiments, passion, friendship and foe-ship has been ground into a billion-dollar property Of this World Cup riding on the equity of not of our cricket players, but the simple madness of our cricket fans. It is they who keep the game running, not for themselves.
Their innocent passion fuels the multi-billion dollar industry that this World Cup is. Never mind the half-empty stands in the non-India games.
As the plane hovered over Ahmedabad waiting for clearance to land, as India and the world were flying in, the public grounds in the city were seen lit and decked up like brides for the nine-day Navratri festival, the very core of Gujarati life and culture. In fact, some say, it is their very essence. But cricket will have a way of getting on par if not upstaging Navratri, at least for a day. And if they win, it will be a 9-day festival of Cricket-ratri, as Gujarat will dance for the boys in blue.
But a reflection of what Navratri and cricket mean to Gujarat was evident when you had the legendry garba queen Falguni Phatak performing to packed audiences at Bopal in the heart of town, on Friday night, at the same time tens of thousands of fans were at the Motera stadium to catch a glimpse of the Indian team emerging from practice. Ahmedabad was not short of heroes in this match eve Friday night.
But beneath all this, some things don’t change. The Gujarati’s eye for bucks and business. Dhanda above all else, and innovative ideas are in every corner. There is a cluster of houses in a colony built near the cricket stadium. There will be tens of thousands of supporters who will be arriving in Ahmedabad on Saturday morning by trains and buses from towns in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan etc. Many will not and cannot book hotels because they are way too expensive and honestly there are no rooms.
But worry not. Dwellers in these homes are opening up their bathrooms and bedrooms by the hour for fans to shower, change and do their business for 500 bucks. Yes, Rs 500. And if you want to keep your bag since you can’t take it to the stadium, it’s a cool Rs 300 more.
So come Saturday morning, there will be a relay of fans, bathing and doing other stuff in the bathrooms of absolute strangers while they wait outside, counting the cash that will trickle in. Taxi driver Rasiklal who knows this first hand said, “Each home will make more than Rs 20,000 each, since there’s evening service too, after the game” This is for those who will take late-night trains back after the game
The party has started. Restaurants across the main thoroughfares will be open through the night on Friday and Saturday for fans to eat anytime without worrying about where to eat. Rumour has it that even the high profile guests with 24x 7 in-room dining facilities would still prefer gathia and thepla at the Iskon circle, a thali at Govardhan restaurant or dal bati churma at Shiv Shakti dhaba at Gota.
Rohit Sharma and his boys may get the urge too, but the call of duty of the nation awaits. Even as the event managers manage the much-valued business that this simple game brings.