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"Everybody Speaks Passion"
December 3, 2005, 5:00 pm GMT
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Hello, I’m Avinash. Not Avinosh. Not Avinish. Not Havinash, Avinash. Got that? Good. Most people I’ve met since I’ve come to these parts don’t. But then, I don’t blame them. I’m from India. And, for some strange reason I’ll get into some other time, I’ve chosen to make Canada my home. And for an Indian, you really can’t get more alien than that. Why do I say that? Even more so considering this is one of the few countries in the western world that actually welcomes Indians with open arms. Well, here’s why?
Two or so months back I was walking around on the hot south-Indian streets of Bangalore in a pair of shorts and a flimsy Indian chemise. Two or so months later, the last thing I want to do is step out of the house in anything less than 47 layers of clothing. Ok, make that 46 on a good day. And they tell me this has been a mild winter. Yeah, right. Come to India, I’ll show you what a mild winter is. Two or so months back I was lounging in my balcony back home with a beer and the sun beating down on my face. Two or so months later, I’m breaking my back clearing the snow from my apartment balcony.
Two or so months back I was reading reams of passionate copy about my favorite sport, cricket. Yes, it also happens to be a sport and not just an insect that makes strange noises in the dark. And two or so months later, all I seem to be getting everywhere I look is hockey. And it’s not even the hockey we play back home in India. You see, according to Canadians (and that includes immigrant Indian Canadians), that’s for chicks. According to me…well, never mind. I was asked to watch my tongue in a strange new land. Instead, I’ll do one better. I’ll bite it. Anyway, like I was saying, two or so months later, only two things seem to stare me in the face everywhere I look, Snow and hockey. Two things I had never seen in my life before.
Not surprisingly, the two things I miss most from back home are the sun and cricket. And the two things that hit me most when I landed here were the cold and the passion. Eh? Ok, Canadians might call it hockey, but the way I see it, it can’t be just hockey. Something so pervasive, can’t be just hockey. Something so obsessive can’t be just hockey. It’s got to be something else. You turn on the TV, you see hockey. You turn to the newspaper, you see hockey. You talk to people, they’re talking hockey. You ask the guys what they’re doing over the weekend? They say…right, you guessed it, hockey. So I say to myself, what is this hockey? What is this hockey? You know what I mean? Maybe you don’t. So let me tell you.
I mean…I knew nothing about the game. I had no idea why people called it a game. As far I could see, from what I could see, all I could see was people trying to beat the shit out of each other. And while they weren’t doing that, they were trying push one and other into glass walls. Or punching and elbowing one and other’s teeth out. And…you get the picture. (The picture I’m trying to pain here.) What could be so stirring about this? So I said to myself, maybe it’s that time of the year. And then I said to myself, maybe not. Maybe it’s, like I said, something else.
And it’s a something else I’m still trying to come to grips with. Maybe one day I will. You know what, maybe I already have. For one, I know what the night Canada won the Olympic gold was all about. It was like the night Sri Lanka beat India in that black/fixed World Cup semi-final at Eden Gardens. (Looked at from Sri Lanka’s point of view that is.) It wasn’t about hockey. It wasn’t pride. It wasn’t about the country. It was about all those things and more. It was about passion with a capital PASSION. And it was cricket-like. It was also a night I learned that if the way to connect with India, and Indians, is cricket, the way to connect with Canada, and Canadians is hockey. Off I go now to connect with my Canadian puckfaces…over cricket…I mean, hockey.
These Indians are crazy, said Obelix with his trademark “Toc Toc Toc” on the head, in one of those landmark Asterix series of books. You know what, he was spot on. How else will you explain our election jamborees, where politicians spend more money wooing voters with booze than they will ever spend on roads and water? How else will you explain the utterly bizarre traffic on Indian roads, where a swanky Merc constantly jostles with an auto rickshaw for road space that is sufficient only a cycle to go with some degree of comfort? How else will you explain the typical Hindi cinema storyline, which is as far detached from your life and mine as the US is from cricket?
Duh!! What was that again? US and cricket? You don’t get it man! These US dudes think cricket is…hey hold on, these US dudes don’t think about cricket at all! Some people might be tempted to say that these US dudes don’t think at all, but that is another long story. So what’s with this US/Cricket thingy? Simple – I am one of those millions of Indians (read crazy) who think that God is Tendulkar, and Tendulkar is God. Well, you know the type. You wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t! Yessir, I hold the honorary title of being cricket’s craziest fan, and guess what, I am stuck in bright and sunny New York (with temperatures of a sweltering 0 degrees Centigrade!!), watching people kill each other in the name of football. |
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