Come on, Team India!!

When the Indian cricket team takes the field as the home team, it's like the Hahnenkamm race in Kitzbühel for us Austrians. The stadium is boiling and you can feel in every second that cricket is the number one national sport in India. Especially when the captain of the team, M.S. Dhoni, steps on the grass, the atmosphere seems to explode, the national pride and passion for this completely foreign sport can be felt at every corner.

I had the opportunity to experience this special atmosphere up close a few days ago when I visited the second test match between New Zealand and India with Bodhi at Eden Gardens Stadium in Kolkata. It became clear to me from the moment I entered the huge stadium area that it is not everyday for a blonde foreigner to be sitting in the midst of the boiling crowd. Many spectators wanted to take photos with me and I could only resist forcibly having an Indian flag painted on my cheeks. And voilá there it is (see photo), I cheered on the Indian team with hundreds of Indian fans, without having the slightest idea of the rules. Due to my ignorance in this regard, my biggest concern was to accidentally applaud when India makes a mistake or New Zealand scores a point. Therefore, I focused on meticulously copying Bodhi's reactions to the course of the game :-). To my chagrin, the Indian national television also discovered during the live broadcast that there was someone with an Indian flag on their cheek in the audience who did not fit into the picture at all, which is why I was filmed frontally for about 10 minutes and the cameraman instructed me to look in a certain direction, how to laugh, etc.

The morning at the stadium and the subsequent movie about the career of national hero Dhoni (which we watched at Quest Mall - incidentally one of the most modern shopping centers I have ever seen, comparable to malls in Singapore, which is not at all expected in this world here) has brought the Indian mentality a little closer and more familiar to me, and I have realized that despite all cultural differences, there is actually not much difference between an Austrian celebrating a local ski racer overcoming the mousetrap and an Indian applauding a run by a local cricket player...