SUJAY GUPTA
sujay@herald-goa.com
PERTH: The juggernaut of travelling Asians, exploring countries around cricket, has been one of the most enduring images of this T20 World Cup in Australia. The waves of fans in blue however do not emanate only from India or the sub-continent. Caravans of fans have received the men in blue in literally every stop by folks who have zoomed into Australia from New Zealand, Fiji, and across the international dateline and the Pacific from the US.
And from the west, bankers, hedge fund honchos, and ubiquitous IT and the FMCG brigade have arrived from Singapore and Hong Kong, some with wives in tow — some of them also bankers — to keep the concert of cricket going. Still, others have crossed many ponds and arrived from London and Birmingham, taking a week or more off
Results in matches do matter. But there is seldom, if anything, in our subcontinent that binds people of the country and region together in the only unifying secular, democratic construct that we can confidently put our fingers on — cricket.
Dilipbhai, every inch a Brit with Gujarati genes arrived from Kenya to England, when he was nine months. But blood is thicker than the borders of countries. Love for cricket meant supporting one team, irrespective of the colour of his passport. He is a traveling cricket fan and this time has brought his friendly and flamboyant son (going by his painted hair), who works in London, on a cricket trip Down Under just for a few games.
On the eve of the India-South Africa game in Perth which was also the day of the Pakistan vs Netherlands game, the weekend buzz at James and William Street at Perth contained a lot of Hindi and Urdu, as the packed bars and restaurants had orders given out in sub-continental accents. As the evening turned to night, the banter and leg-pulling between rival fans reached a crescendo. You would very well be in Park Street in Kolkata, or Bandra in Mumbai, or in the by-lanes of Karachi.
On the morning of the game, a refined gentleman in a Pakistani team jersey was on his way for breakfast in downtown Perth. A conversation ensued and he said in a clipped accent “I’ve come down for a day from the US for this game. Going back after the game today”, in the same tone as if he was popping into the grocers to stock up a loaf of bread and some eggs for breakfast. Crossing the seas for cricket is as normal as that.
This is what the sub-continent does. Makes the world its own when it comes to cricket. For Indians living in Australia, cricket is the reason and the medium to reconnect with what they have left behind, or while building, or in many cases, rebuilding their lives. Rahul Klair, from an established business family, is just 27, having left his home in Jalandhar to pursue a degree in Perth. In the middle of his course, the business back home had a downturn forcing Rahul to shift focus from learning to earning. He did some short courses though to equip himself and now he’s a chef at a café which he pretty much runs, has bought himself a car, and sends enough money home for his family to rebuild and recover from the extreme shock of the business hit, on the foundations of Rahul’s backbreaking, no break work.
But when cricket came to town, he took his rare day off, his own me time. “I just went and enjoyed the day, (though the result wasn’t what any supporter wanted). Sitting at the stadium train station after the South Africa game with a smile, he just contended, holding on to the luxury of a day off- earned and deserved, and he spent it on cricket, one of his steadfast loves.
Meanwhile, at a busy buzzing bar on the edge of the Indian Ocean in Scarborough in Western Australia, Deb Kumar Haldar is in the kitchen to oversee the dishes getting rolled out. His specialty melt-in-the-mouth beef cheeks with mashed potatoes is an in-house hit. He chatted about his life’s journey as a chef on cruise liners, and then in hotels in Australia, before settling on the West Coast to run his own place.
Since Deb Kumar is a mouthful for Aussies, he is popularly known as Dave. But when it comes to cricket, it is Deb Kumar Haldar who bought Team India jerseys for himself and his dad, who is visiting from Kolkata, and told his staff not to bother him on match day (India vs South Africa) when “his team” was playing and would go to the stadium to watch.
And, here’s the last in this selection, though similar anecdotes touch you as soon as your step out in any Australian city. Bhave is one of the many students-turned-entrepreneurs or employees-cum-weekend Uber drivers. His car registration chosen by his girlfriend is ‘CUTEMUNDA’ (cute boy in Punjabi). Buzzing around coastal Western Australia, in his car with the CUTEMUNDA registration on his number plate, he doesn’t lose track of any matches. But on the next big India game, he had made firm plans to choose a date with the Men in Blue as a priority, and actually go and see the game at the ground.
So has T20 become the go-to format for cricket fans? Is this THE World Cup now, more than the 50-over format? There are no easy picks to answer these. But the willingness and ability to travel across the world, or even within the country, take time off from work and make cricket a passionate priority, has cemented this sport as the only bridge that unites our subcontinent.
And finally, on the Perth to Adelaide flight on the eve of the India-Bangladesh game, the ear caught a familiar language with a different (though recognizable dialect — Bangal, as opposed to Bengali spoken in West Bengal). A Bangladeshi contingent from Perth (or could be travellers from the subcontinent) was on board to back their team against India. As one waited to board in Perth, their irritation at their captain Shakib Al Hasan saying Bangladesh wasn’t here to win the World Cup, was a matter of hot discussion.
“What a humiliation (translated from Bengali). Will Bhirat Kohli (Virat Kohli) ever speak like that”, one of them explained.
Oh, the romance of a cricket fan and the joy of being a cricket raconteur.
