India versus South Africa at the Wankhede Stadium. Seated at the very top row (and at that time the Wankhede had concrete stairs for seats) of the stadium, a seven-year-old me sat with his grandfather, watching the 22 men in the middle, and the 44,998 other people that had come to see them play.
My grandfather had been coming to watch games at this stadium, and the nearby Brabourne Stadium, for over fifty years at this point, and unknown to him, or me, this was the last time he would see a game live.
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For me, on the other hand, it was my debut. Soaking in every sight, sound, taste and smell (patrons of the Wankhede would know this is possibly the most distinct) of the spectacle, I was sold.
My heart bled orange, white and green, while flags waved and a massive crowd sang the national anthem together. Mexican waves, chanting, music and the smell of my sweaty countrymen had me captivated.
Doesn’t matter that I could barely distinguish who the players were from my vantage point almost 100 feet in the sky, being a part of something bigger than myself that made me feel alive. It was not cricket that first attracted me to the game, or the fact that India won, but it was the fans, the people that would stick by their team no matter what. Or so I thought.
Ten years and countless lazily forged sick-notes later, I sit with a group of friends in a swankier seat at a swankier Wankhede. It is 2015, a time of reinvigorated saffronisation and nationalistic pride, and India are playing South Africa again in the fifth game of an ODI series that hangs precariously at 2-2.
This time, however, India get decimated. Embarrassingly. But what was stranger than the 438 that South Africa put on was the attitude of the 30 thousand Indian ‘supporters’ at the ground. Cheers, when the first Indian wicket fell, Indian fans applauding the opposition for taking a wicket, so they could see Virat Kohli bat.
And when he got out, after the customary ten seconds of pin-drop silence, Wankhede turned on their boys in blue almost immediately. It was like someone flipped a switch and all of Wankhede was suddenly supporting the Proteas. Murmurs of “Dhoni is there na” became whispers of “Our team is shit”, as wickets tumbled.
By the time India had five wickets, and not much confidence left, Wankhede was bare. It was then that I gave up hope, not in India but in the Indian fans that had got me into the game and like so many others, I left.
In the World Twenty20 semi-final last year, with eight to defend in the last over, Mumbai didn’t show its support. With war cries of “Let’s go before it gets too crowded”, a city charged out of its concrete fortress, leaving their team to die at the sword of Lendl Simmons.
And finally, when India was beaten by Pakistan in the Champions Trophy final, a bright blue stadium turned a murky green, with more Indians in the car park than in their seats. I realised that there is something deeply wrong with the engine that runs and funds cricket, Indian fans.
The exodus of Indian fans from stadia is just the tip of the iceberg. The aftermath of a heavy defeat is often much worse. The public that just hours earlier could not stop ranting and raving about Shikhar Dhawan’s pull shot, is suddenly at war with its own team.
Whatsapp groups, Snapchat stories and dinner parties are the first to be infected. Nobody is safe from baseless insults. Analysis and humour are perfectly fine, but it is when a billion people start to target 11 men that things get nasty.
Cricket is a religion in India, and its fanatics are dangerous. “Security beefed up at MS Dhoni’s residence,” The Indian Express reported on 19th June after India’s loss to Pakistan.
Death threats to players, their families and their friends is the new normal. In an India where everyone, from watchman to the sahab, has a smartphone, the virtual world is far more toxic than the real one. Entire forums, comment sections and websites are dedicated to poorly worded insults when India lose.
Mass-scale obscenities are packaged carefully into 500 words and reproduced by news sites for views, because hate sells, and solidarity does not. It is a society gone mad on its power in numbers, a people used to winning cause chaos when they don’t get what they want.
At this point, the government should surely step in, and in their own way, they do. When India lost the Champions Trophy final, a Union Minister said that Virat Kohli and Yuvraj Singh had fixed the game to make Pakistan win.
The hatred cycle lasts until the next win. When India pummelled the West Indies in the second and third ODIs, the public was in love with their heroes again. This mind boggling temperamentality is a product of India’s growing success in the last two decades.
India started out in the cricket world as friendly engineers in a world of angry fast bowlers. Our pace bowling was thinner than most of our batsmen’s biceps; we were a team that declared our innings instead of facing scary bowlers, meek little Indians in a big bad world. For years, the British regularly stomped all over us like they still owned us.
It was only when Sachin Tendulkar came to the fore that Indian cricket started to grow an ego, and when Dhoni took charge that it grew arrogant. When the BCCI realised that India’s population drove the cricket economy, it took control of the ICC, and like that, India were no longer the friendly underdogs.
Mad on power, Indian fans who grew up watching defeat after defeat, now ruled the world. India were going to win, they knew it for a fact, and they would accept nothing less.
This greed, this insatiable need to win every single game is perverse. What is the point of sport if you know who is going to win? The same mentality with which we bargain with bhajjiwaalas, and make purchases only after a thorough cost-benefit analysis cannot be applied to our cricket.
Paying to only see India win is a tacky and disrespectful attitude that most Indian fans have towards that game. Cricketers that lose games have not cheated the fans, but just had a bad day at work.
People say that this is just passion for a team gone awry, but this is not a product of love, but a selfishness born out of a nation rising in wealth, stature and expectations. Fans used to be the cheerleaders for their teams; now each fan is a king, his team the entertainment he has bought for the evening.
Being an Indian cricket fan does not mean you watch every India game, from start to finish. It does not mean you colour your face with the flag’s colours. It does not even mean that you shout down someone who says that Dhoni’s best days are behind him.
It’s a perennial love for an institution that has given India more to be proud of than any of its seedy politicians ever have. It’s beyond broadcasters’ catchy slogans and sleazy politicians’ post-match giveaways.
Indian cricket is chanting “Sachin… Sachin”, no matter who is batting, sledging the poor foreigner at fine leg, but most importantly, sticking by your team no matter what.
One of the history’s most moving stories is that of the Titanic’s band playing on as the ship descends into the icy Atlantic. I dream of the day that India’s fans too, chant on, even while team India sinks to defeat.
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