dennis freischlad

For weeks, bevisioned, he kept on talking about the bus. How nice it was, all new, air-conditioned, big non-plastic seats, going from Pondy to Chennai without a stop. Volvo, a European bus – with a large European digital display running across the front window. A real bus, as he puts it.
Now that we are rolling smoothly out of Pondy´s busstand, he stands up and proclaims that the AC is not working, even though it does. Velu is Indian after all, and as an Indian he would run the AC exclusively on full blast, creating his own dream of a Switzerland-kind-of-climate which is being promoted by hundreds of Bollywood movies to be the best air on our very good mother earth.
So yes, there are certain cosmic laws:
- Zimbabwe won´t ever win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics.
- Whatever is your task in life, it will come back to you until you do it.
- Everybody tells you that Homer was a great poet, but not a single person has ever read his works.
- Souls don’t reincarnate, dough does.
- A caterpillar has to move all of his legs in one direction; otherwise, imagine!
- When Chuck Norris does push-ups, he is not pushing himself up. He is pushing the earth down.
- The skies colour is Mu.
Additionally, there are certain human conditions: Westerners want to be taint, Indians want to be fair-skinned. Westerners want warmth and the sun, Indians long for goddamn Warsaw winters. Thus, in an Indian summer, as you walk in and out of shops, Volvo buses and restaurants, you constantly walk back and forth from a cloudy-skied Zurich November day and a devastating local reality of 38° extra humid fuck-up.

Along with me and Velu are Sumit and Jigme. The four of us are heading to Chennai´s Chepauk Stadium, where the Chennai Super Kings are hosting the Mumbai Indians in their second IPL showdown this year. A friend of mine, a cricketer for the state Team of Tamil Nadu, swiftly organized 4 tickets in the fully sold out stadium. We were in! Since weeks we are waiting for this day to come, meeting up for dinner to talk about it over and over again. 45.000 frantic Indian cricket fans plus us in a madman-packed, electrified stadium– it was going to be the party of the year.
The Volvo hits the ECR. Velu adjusts the stream of cool air flowing down from the ceiling to cascade right at the centre of his face. Cold and satisfied, he relaxes into a sound sleep.
5 minutes later, in the back of the bus, a fight erupts. I couldn’t care less. Little quarrels with the common shouts, slaps and punches are going on all the time and are as much a part of the Indian social behaviour as are spitting, yelling, and the public easing of testicular irritations. Indians start over a silly argument, get physical for 5 minutes while they insult and bounce around each other. Then, as immediate as they started, they stop. Just like that. Just like nothing had happened at all.
I keep on reading my magazine ( the Indian army developed tear-gas like hand-grenades which carry the powder of the hottest chillies available; some state minister being courtcased once again for murder and rioting, etc.) while the guys in the back are slapping each others airconditioned faces; the bus stops. A police officer is called for help (note the paradox!), and I can see the fat man approaching the bus. His cell phone tucked to his left ear, he balances a bottle of Pepsi and a plate of Samosa in his right hand. His pace is rather slow, uninspired, his moustache neatly trimmed, the uniform spotless except for some darker spots which could be paan, blood, or both. He mouthfully sights when he enters the vehicles; the crowd falls silent.
Chewing on his Samosa, he stands next to the heavy red-eyed bus driver, who is probably still drunk from last night, and faces the back of the bus.
“Nothing is there, “ shouts the man who was just a second ago all over the other guys face, “nothing is there. Fine fine, Sir. All is no problem.”
Without a word, the officer leaves the bus and we continue. For the next 2 hours, there is not a single noise from the back. Once I turn around to check them out. Like angels – little, happy Indian Bodhisattvas – they sit side on side in what appears to be a serene meditation.

We take a rickshaw to Vikram´s place in Kottur. He greets us with Whiskey and Rum, our choice. The others decline politely. But I am in the mood.
I thought we would just pick up our tickets at Vikrams place, but of course that would have been way too easy – another hardcore, unchangeable Indian rule: even the smallest tasks – obtaining a train ticket, get a birth certificate, an appointment at any given office or have someone telling you the truth – proofs a nightmare to be undertaken. Vikram informs us that we have to go to the Park Sheraldon Hotel, just 10 minutes away, get the tickets there and then, just a ten minutes ride, hop on a local train to the cricket stadium. Yeah right, I think, and prepare myself to overcome a dozen obstacles before seeing Dhoni and Sachin fighting it out on the field. So I drink to gain strength and comfort. We hang around for a while talking about cricket, the neighbourhood, Sri Aurobindo and chicks. The liquor settles in. I start blabbering. It is hot, we sweat in the rather comfortable apartment, I check the time. 5 pm, the game tarts at 8. All right, I say. Let’s move.

It is only when I have to walk again that I realized the full effect of the dark Whiskey on a bright, heat-soaked afternoon. I get dizzy, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that after I will finish the little bottle of whiskey that I brought from Vikram´s place, there will be no further supply of alcohol (to sell beer at an Indian cricket match would have the same effect as delivering atomic weapons to Dschingis Khan). And as the grandfather of my best friend bluntly told us when we were 14 years old: to be half drunk is nothing but a waste of money.
The rickshaw ride to the Park Sheraldon proofs to be funny, for whatever reasons, and just about 10 minutes long. After all, there might be some hope that the tickets are really waiting for us.
We face tight security. Players and staff of both Mumbai and Chennai Teams are residing in the 5 Star Hotel, hundreds of fans and reporters are squading in and outside the Hotel. Our bags are screened, our bodies searched. We enter the lobby, cool as a misty Geneva morning, breath, pray, and proceed to the reception.
Instantly, given the luxurious and posh environment, I become self-conscious about my looks. I feel outcasted. Given the drunk, raged-down Auroville dirt road guy that I represent, all unfashionable in his only dirty shorts, his dust- and wounds infected feet and old Basketball Shirt, I feel entirely misplaced.
Since the tickets are being reserved to Vikram, who is not with us, we will have to send Velu to the front war line, being the only Tamil among us. Jigme and Sumit are from the north of India and rather fair-skinned, and nobody would believe that my name is Vikram Mani born in Chinnamuladiachavadi. But I accompany Velu for support and reliability – after all, there is nothing as powerful to many Indian clerks as some good piece of white flesh, even if it looks like shit.
I pull a prayer.
We are greeted.
Velu asks for the tickets.
I grin.
The reception manager is friendly, soft-spoken, and soon back with an envelope. Our envelope. Our tickets. We are in! I keep grinning.
“Sir, can I please see your ID for identification?” he asks Velu.
Alright, I think, what the fuck!
Velu, an honest man, shakes his head in disagreement.
“Sir,” the manager declares, “I cant give you the tickets unless I have proof that you are Mr. Vikram.”
I step in. As soon as I open my mouth, I become conscious of the intense fragrance of Royal Stag Whiskey that leaves my mouth just to hit the poor manager’s friendly face. According to his position, he maintains an open smile which, ridiculously, seems to be completely honest. He´s beaming at me.
I don’t bother and give him the truth. That Mr. Vikram is at home with a broken leg and he can´t come in person. I offer my German ID Card and it works. He agrees, copies my passport and hands out the envelope.
I am happy. Velu is happy. We open the envelope and I pull out three tickets. I search the goddamn envelope, nothing, the bitch is empty. Inshallah, i think, here we go again.
I turn to the manager and inquire about another envelope since one ticket is obviously gone missing. He searches and finds nothing, I call Vikram who promises to call me back soon. Meanwhile, we lounge. The players start to leave the hotel, and interestingly they pass the lobby according to their income, status and fame. The substitute players comes first, than Bravo, Dhawan, Pollard, Harbhajan and one of my heroes from the last T20 World Cup, the Sri Lankan Malinga, one of the most terrific bowlers; they flow through the lobby and enter the waiting bus.
Vikram calls. Someone will come and bring one more ticket. Just five minutes, he says, and his friend Suresh shall arrive, just five minutes.
I thank him, pray, and hang up. “Just 5 minutes” is India´s most common expression and has nothing to do with neither time nor space. The phrase is like Nirvana – an empty space that lacks all that is human. It is something like god – a variable for something completely unknown. If you tell someone to please wait five minutes, what you are actually saying is that you have no fucking idea of what will happen, but something will happen, eventually, somehow, or maybe not, in some place, anywhere – let it be 5 minutes, five hours, or never.

Screams disturb my train of thought. Women cover their face in excitement, the crowd barks. India knows only 2 kind of heroes, Bollywood actors and cricket players, and the best batsman of all time, the messiah of the religion that is cricket, the master-blaster and lifetime hero of billions of people, the one man that every Indian recognizes and adores, the number one symbol of the nation is just now standing 2 meters away from me, Sachin Tendulkar, more myth than man.
I use the momentum and yell at him.
“Sachin Babaji, you are the fuckin´man, man!” The shy looking, little man walks off with no signs of appreciation and gets swallowed by the waiting bus. The Hotel Bar, I reckon, must be bloody expansive, but I am still gonna go for a whiskey. Sachin Babaji totally ignored me. Now i am not in the mood for drinking any more, but in the need.
But having seen my heroes from television live and in person, dressed in their shiny fancy jerseys, I realize a very simple truth. The only different between them, the stars, and me, the common man, lies in the rather pathetic field of hygiene: they have just showered, I didn’t. They are all fresh and clean, I am wasted and stinky. They smell like soap, I smell like a bus stand. They put styling gel in their expensive hair, I have none. Simple is that.
One hour later, we still wait. I spent my last money on drinks to fight the freezing 5 star AC. The Chennai team passes by, Hayden, Hussey, Raina, Vijay and Dhoni the Man; we still wait. The Hometown team leaves to the stadium, we stay in the fucking Hotel.
Then, like a miracle, Suresh walks in, greets us, apologises for the delay, and hands us one extra ticket. I check. Three tickets are for Block 5, one is for Block 7. The hell with it! We all gonna get into one block, all of us, and if it costs me my life!

We take another rickshaw to the nearest train station and embark on a heavily overcrowded local train. 100% male. Jigme and Velu can´t fight their way in and surf the train, holding on to arms and limbs of other people who are themselves rather outside the wagon. It´s beautiful that Indian trains don’t come with doors. Sumit and I wrestle for a place under other peoples sweaty armpits inside the claustrophobic compartment and keep an eye on our friends, whether or not they fall of the train.
We all survive 4 stations and leave the train with almost all the other travellers – a loaded Mob approaches the stadium to cheer and worship their gladiators. Each step you take draws you closer into the magnified realm of the stadium, an aura of explicit wilderness.
Horns, shouts, heatstrokes, songs, drums, stampedes, too many people for too little space. We buy flags and storm the gate of our Block, rampaging along hundreds of other guys who all want to enter the one-man-gap in the wall at the same time.
One poor bastard has to fight off a frantic crowd and check their tickets. Luckily, he proofs no hindrance. We all enter the same block without a problem, climb up the stairs to the second floor and enter, hearts raging with blood, the coliseum.

The pulse of a nation. Bright floodlights enlighten a scene of incomparable intensity. There are no words to describe the thick, power-packed flow of sensations that are descending upon us – right there, in front of us, lays a green archaic battlefield surrounded by almost 50.000 dancing and screaming people, mad to the bone.
I love it. I stand in awe, shivering. I can´t breath nor speak. I meet the happy faces of my friends, who, according to the demand of the occasion, are already way beyond their minds too. The world is all right and there is nothing to add to it. Death, I ponder, must be like this.
Everyone greets me, the only white-ass around, with wet hugs, well wishes and dances. It is half an hour before the game starts, Sachin Babaji enters the stadium and warms up, the crowd goes entirely berserk. Not a single spectator sits down.
Sivamani, one of India´s most famous drummers, starts his marching just 10 meters away from our spot, an endless line of loudspeakers accelerate the beats around the roaring stadium, blasting them in trillions of cells, molecules, protons – everyone is connected by noise.
After 2 minutes, I am soaked to my underwear with sweat and excitement, the heat of the people create a sauna-like experience in which I happily drawn.
“See,” Sumit informs me, “no one comes really because of cricket. They all just want to party, dance crazily, harass the western cheerleaders and be on television.”
I look around me, seeing thousands of thrilled faces. I watch the Chennai team enter the stadium while I dance frenetically on my chair. Some birds circle over the green and are the only signs of a still existing world outside the stadium. I blend in, completely, this moment is real. I indulge, indulge…

The western soul differs from the soul of an Indian. Each of us, inevitably, shares the collective and subconscious knowledge of our ancestors and the place on earth they inhabited. A Tradition. A unique set of thought, soul-revelation and consciousness.
I have been living in India for many years and always remained, to a certain extend, a visitor. I made it my home, but it still is, somewhere within, a foreign country that can not be conquered by the soul of an outsider. I have travelled all the major parts of the country, on foot and on cycle, on my motorbike, buses, planes and trains. I have been living in deserts, the Himalayas, jungles and beaches. I was poor and I was rich, I lived with the homeless and the urban jungle Bohemians, with Chai-Wallahs and acclaimed artists. I made love to Indian women and drank from their softened skin, their earth-coloured tales and myths. I learned how to eat with my hand and to shit in public. I have been learning a new language, I learned to sleep on the floor and wait 9 hours for a bus that is finally not arriving. I ve learned the true meaning of love and the divine purpose of hate, I was sick to death and healthy as hell, I have been depressed and enlightened. I can recall each company Shah Rukh Khan ever advertised for, I can eat the dirtiest food without falling sick, but my stomach gets fucked up whenever I return to the west. I learned to accept life in any circumstances, to worship god as well as the devil as part of the cosmic reality where nothing happens accidentally. I learned how to fight and to ease. I meet the fool and the wise, the ugly and the beauty, the violent and peaceful. I have been at my best and I have been at my worst. I have seen people killed and I have seen babies being born, I shared my happiness with this holy land and trenched its soil with my tears.
I have been living as an Indian without being one. But here and now, on a baking Chennai evening, after all these years of encounters and travels, here in a concrete cricket stadium full of ten thousands lovely lunatics, here it happens: I feel part of them for the very first time; undoubtly, we, the people, are one. Today, face to face with Sachin Babaji, I have become Indian.