Making magic at 30,000 feet

In India, the cricket fan is never alone.

Telford Vice / Lucknow

THE man in row six, seat E on a trip from Delhi to Lucknow on Sunday wasn’t so much on a flight as on a mission. We had buckled up, the doors had been shut, the crew had taken their seats, and the aircraft had taxied to a standstill on the runway.

It was not a time for passengers to be connected to the internet, but our man was umbilically bound to the online world through his phone, which he stared at unwaveringly. He had been since we sat down next to each other, to the exclusion of all else. So much so that when the captain or flight attendants dared said something on the address system — more than once that flight mode should be activated — he urgently and with clear irritation bumped up the volume of his device using an impatiently jabbing thumb.

He was not alone. By the time the plane was ready to rise into the hot afternoon sky, something like surround-sound from India’s men’s World Cup match against Australia in Chennai reverberated throughout the cabin. A planeload of people — most of them, at any rate — had tuned into the cricket and out of what was happening around them. They had teleported themselves to Chepauk.

And that, mind, before a ball had been bowled. The toss and teams had been dissected — Mr 6E was intrigued although not unhappy that India had picked three spinners — but the start of the match was a while away. Even so, and although no-one aboard looked like they might be the kind of Korean teenager who thinks the world is ending if they aren’t plugged into the net, connected we were.

We took off and soon soared out of range of cellphone signal, and silence struck with a chill. Desperately instructions were sought from the crew on how to connect to the on-board wifi system, only to discover that it didn’t support live broadcasts. Mr 6E didn’t miss a beat at the crushing news. He swiped right on his phone to load Cricbuzz, my employers. Turns out he’s a fully paid up Cricbuzz+ subscriber. Alas, the wifi couldn’t deal with that, either. What to do? Chat. The offline kind.

We found out what each other does for a living and why we were going to Lucknow. He’s a retired government transport official from Chandigarh who was in Delhi in the morning to visit one of his sisters and was now journeying on to Lucknow to pay a call on another. We spoke a little cricket. Not too much or too obsessively. More than that and, it was felt mutually, the spark of a fresh acquaintance would have been snuffed out.

His focus returned squarely to the match as the plane reached the last stages of its descent. The wheels were out and locked but still metres from the ground when he sat primed and twitchy like a sprinter awaiting the crack of the starter’s pistol, a phone in each hand. Within a heartbeat of touchdown he had the scorecard up: Australia had faced 9.1 overs. All that fuss over staying in touch with the cricket had been about little more than 45 minutes of play.

We shook hands. Goodbye, sir, and thank you for your company. Separate ways were went, but not for long. The sultry late afternoon sunshine flowing into the airport building from the exit had made its presence felt when his voice rose from behind: “Have you booked your taxi?”

Told an e-hailing service would be sought for the drive to a hotel, he replied, “No, no, no. My car will be here in five, 10 minutes. Please, allow me to drop you off.” En route he spoke of his son, a promising opening batter, and how Punjabi farmers were turning their fields into cricket grounds: “They make more money hiring them out for 5,000 rupees a match.” He also trotted out a collection of photographs he had taken earlier on Sunday in Delhi airport, starring some of South Africa’s players, who were making their way to Lucknow to play Australia on Thursday.

Some were candid clicks of David Miller, Kagiso Rabada, Rassie van der Dussen and Reeza Hendricks, others rushed selfies with the players. In those pictures Mr 6E was gleeful as he would have been decades ago to catch a glimpse of Glenn Turner, Dennis Lillee or Roy Fredericks. Let no-one tell you retired government officials do not, somewhere within themselves, harbour a child.

It was an inkling into the Indian cricket fan, who too often is painted — particularly in the west — as a shrill, uncritical cheerleader; an empty vessel making a loud noise that is neither understood nor understandable, a personality cultist, a victim of misplaced religiosity.

Mr 6E was the antithesis. He was good-natured, helpful and considerate, and not averse to sharing the benefits of those qualities with strangers on a plane. But he could also let loose his inner kid when he wanted to watch a game, and when he saw people he admired, who could play cricket like he never did but maybe his son would. And, seeing as there were many more probably like Mr 6E staring into their phones on that plane, he cannot be alone.

The hotel was reached. With a wave through the car’s window, he was gone. Behind him in the haze hung magic.

Bulletproof Truth