About a month before our trip, I got home and found Vic screaming.
I rushed into the family room, expecting my hubby half dead. “What’s going on? Are you ok? I asked.
Vic gave me a look of pure excitement. “For this trip, there is one thing that we MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST do.” What?! I thought to myself. What must we do? Volunteer? Help the homeless? Save the world?
“On this trip, the only wish that I have…….is………to watch the World Cup of Cricket.”
A very long pause on my end. Followed by a very confused look. “You watch cricket?” I asked.
And so began Vic’s cricket obsession.
I can’t say that Vic’s excitement over cricket was a really big surprise. (To all the cricket loving non-Canadians, I should mention that cricket is not a game that is commonly played in Canada) My hubby is a sports fanatic. He can spend the entire weekend flipping through TSN (Toronto Sports Network) without a hint of boredom. Our wedding was scheduled around his Scarborough Men’s League baseball season (Go Dragons!). And if you ask him how his softball game went (when you should have said baseball), expect a look of death.
And so when we ended up rejigging our whole trip itinerary so we could watch the Canada vs. Australia World Cup cricket match in Bangalore or when Vic started buying me head to toe Canada paraphernalia to wear to the cricket game or when he bought a pack of Canadian souvenir pencils to bribe Indian kids to play cricket with him - I could only laugh, learn the game and jump onto the ole cricket bandwagon.
There was only one problem. Neither Vic nor I knew how the game was played.
Thankfully, Vic had a cricket playing Aussie friend back in TDot who was so kind as to provide the rules to the game. And so that, coupled with a month of watching world cup cricket on Indian television and asking every local who would talk to him about the rules of the game at every possible opportunity, got us ready for the finale of the India portion of our trip in Bangalore.
Bangalore is without a doubt, the city which represents the new face of India. Far more advanced than the rest of the country, it is the home of India’s thriving young professional IT community. Here you find young locals wearing Western clothing, sipping cappuccinos in hip coffee houses during the day and partying it up in clubs and bars at nights and on weekends. For a country that has 30% of the most impoverished people in the world, Bangalore is a place that seems to have left the rest of India far behind.
The cricket match was really fun to watch although Canada didn’t really have a good chance to win with the Aussies being the back to back to back world cup champions. We sat in an area with other Canadians and nonetheless happily cheered our team on at every opportunity. Cricket matches are long! The game started at 2 pm and ended close to 11. There was a dinner break in which dinner and refreshments were included (came with the price of our ticket) and we befriended a couple of locals who sat and cheered with us for the second half of the game.
When we got back to the hotel, Vic looked at me with the biggest smile on his face and said that it was the best day ever. I couldn’t have been more pleased. What a great way to end off the India portion of our trip.
