I used to think being a cricket writer would be the best job in the world. Watch the game all day, speak to the players whenever you want, and get paid for your thoughts. I’m told the job isn’t always quite that romantic. Anyway, after meeting up with my travel agent on the second day at Delhi I’m starting to change my mind.

Dean Tuckwell, a prolific former first-grade batsman in Brisbane, works for The Adventure Traveller and his venture is appropriately named. For the past two months he has been guiding a tour group around South America, starting in Brazil and taking in Argentina, the Galapagos Islands, Machu Picchu, the Caribbean, Colombia and other places that I forgot in my haze of envy.

To relax from his months of hard work, Dean is on a week of heavy sightseeing. He spent a day in Madrid and some time in Oman before landing in Delhi at 5am Thursday. A few hours later he was at the Feroz Shah Kotla watching Australia’s bowlers struggle and is back again on Friday before heading to Hong Kong for the Bledisloe Cup rugby union match between Australia and New Zealand. He’ll be home early next week, just in time for the Melbourne Cup horse race. I’m jealous.

It’s Diwali! Boom, crash. Like Christmas, I’m told, only the crackers come with fire and there’s much more noise. Pop, plink. It’s taken two days to get used to the sudden blasts throughout the streets, but now it’s the main event and new and old Delhi is pounding. Slap, smack.

Looking outside to see the streams of colour burst over the city creates childlike fun. Everyone I meet is cheerful and Happy Diwali messages have come throughout the day. Bang, bang. The shops are full of specials and the mood is light and free. Thud, thud.

It’s nice to watch the sparkle in people’s eyes as they talk about what they’re going to be doing for the festival of lights. Bubble, crash. An all-night party here, time at home there. Thump, splat. I’d like to say for certain the fireworks went on all night, as promised, but I don’t know. Rat-a-tat-tat. The background noise helped send me to sleep.

Some of the buildings in Delhi are magical. The route usually starts at the Qutub Minar in south Delhi, winds around to the Lotus Temple then up towards Old Delhi, ending at the magnificent, sprawling Red Fort.

The minar (tower) stands at 72 metres and was built around the 12th century as a means of protection. How anyone could construct something so tall and, at the top, so narrow is a mystery to me. It is so beautifully crafted, with different coloured materials and seemingly perfectly round columns heading to the sky. I still can’t use a protractor, and they did it without one.

The thing I find the biggest shame is that, as with many of these grand structures, the people who started the work died before it was finished. And it’s not like they were painters who could deliver many masterpieces. They got one go, and didn’t make it to the end. They would be happy to know their sweat was not wasted and the structure, which is closed to climbing, is on the world heritage list.

Over at the Lotus Temple, a domed building that is similar on the outside walls to parts of the Sydney Opera House, is a home to the Bahai faith, a small religion when compared to Hindu and Islam which came from believers who were pushed from Iran. Sitting inside the temple it is hard not to feel something spiritual. People are told to enter and exit in single file without their shoes, and when inside I considered my tiny place in the world.

Getting around Delhi is tough and half of every day feels like it’s spent in a taxi or rickshaw. The traffic seems to be at its worst around the Red Fort in Old Delhi, where even the experienced drivers want to crane for a look at the spectacular sandstone. Not much happens inside the fort once the markets stalls are passed, but it’s a place you could spend hours looking at the shadows created by the various ruins, enjoying the old buildings and imagining the harems, royal meetings, riches and battles. Half an hour is not enough, so it’s another thing on the to-do list for next time.

Mahatma Gandhi remains a hero for India’s masses for his tolerant approach and violence-free revolution. So it was upside-down that my treasured local friend, who had taken me to Gandhi’s memorial, Raj Ghat, had his shoes stolen while paying homage. One of Gandhi’s seven social sins is wealth without work, but someone at the memorial ignored the signs of the outlook, which are available in most languages around the tranquil garden. My friend took the theft well and we tried not to laugh as he shuffled out of the tomb in bare feet, in the same way Gandhi walked before his death in 1948.

The other friend in my group then said his motorcycle had been lifted while he was visiting the site another day. He’d left it in a no-parking zone, but there were 20 other bikes there and he was surprised not to find it when he went back. After speaking to a police officer and learning it had been impounded he said: “There were 21 bikes there, why did you take mine and none of the others?” The officer replied: “Because 20 of them were police bikes.” It cost him 200 rupees to get his machine back, which I soon learned was much less than the price of a new pair of shoes.

	How does Dhoni do it? © AFP

It was time to pay the hotel bill, they didn’t take Visa and I needed to go to a bank. Despite seeing a couple of ATMs coming home at night, they were apparently too far to walk to. Enter the hotel’s motorcyclist with the cuddly tummy. He said he’d take me and I agreed when I still thought we were walking. As he picked up his helmet I said “no, no, no” and shook my head like someone who has just been framed for murder.

And this is where things started to go really wrong. He put down the helmet, thinking I was too tough for the protection, instead of seeing the fear and loathing of being the second man on a bike. Too late. Even at the street, when he’s wheeling the bike in the right direction, I’m still hugging the kerb. Then his safe eyes invite me up and soon I’m gripping him like he’s saved my life.

Continue reading "Hugging and biking in Delhi"

Since reading a diary of an Englishman’s travels around India I’ve always wanted to have a haircut and a shave here. The head massage always sounded great and it’s the kind of pampering that I’m not so comfortable with back home. Only one lady and two children are allowed to touch my face in Australia, but after my first haircut-shave experience I’m happy to extend the field to Indian hairdressers.

I’m not quite ready for a trim by the side of the street, so one of my local mates takes me to a special place called Madonna’s, where they play music by … you guessed it. Strangely, there were no pictures of Guy Ritchie.

We don’t have an appointment and for a while it feels like my stylist was hoping to be at the gym instead. He pulls my head back at forth, taking it to unusual limits. He knows the English of "shorter" and "longer", which is a good start, and he begins cutting. I now have sideburns that would get me a place in the New Zealand squad, but the rest is fine. At least I don’t have the same style as one of the hairdressers in my local town. It’s easy to spot the men who go to him; they all own the look of an evangelical American.

It reminds me of one of my favourite dad’s jokes. A man walks into a hairdresser and asks for a Brett Lee (or Prince Charles or John Lennon or anybody you can think of) haircut, but when it’s finished he looks like a schoolboy. “But I asked for Brett Lee’s style,” the man complains. The hairdresser replies: “If Brett Lee came here that’s what I’d give him.”

Anyway, the shave is fabulous. I feel like Rick McCosker in 1977 when my face is wrapped in a hot towel and pushed around. Then about three lotions are rubbed into my face. I don’t need the fingers up my nose – I think he had dosas for lunch – but the rest of the treatment is fabulous, and I nearly fall asleep despite the strange angle of my head.

There’s more massaging and finally the razor comes out, being used like knifing jam on to toast. I start to sweat slightly, but it’s done before I can shout “Murder, bloody murder” or “what’s the Hindi for tetanus shot?” The only awkwardness comes when I use my tongue to try to help him around the curves of my bottom lip. “No,” the hairdresser says firmly. That’s all I need to reduce the chances of blood on the floor.

It’s McCosker time again, only now with an icy towel that makes me squeal on the inside, followed by grandfather-strength aftershave that makes me squeal on the outside. After so much pleasure, it was time for some pain. An A$11 bargain.

	Ricky Ponting doesn't seem to have problems with rickshaws, unlike my experience with taxis © AFP

To prepare for two weeks in Delhi I read William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns, a book about his year in one of the world’s great historical cities. Early on he introduces International Backside Taxis, his charming, unpredictable, but usually tardy, couriers for the duration of his stay. My welcome to Delhi felt like it came through International Sh**head Taxis. For the second time in a week there was no driver waiting to take me to the hotel, as promised. Which is not such a big deal, except it leaves you vulnerable to the demands of whichever hawker/helper/tout offers assistance first. I’ve been caught like this a few times so know some of the tricks, but at 10pm the options are limited.

So I was relieved when this short, young guy with a heavy growth said he was from “tourist information” and took me to an office of the same name. Except it wasn’t the type of helpful, often free, service offered in other countries. This one seemed to specialise in overpriced taxis, foul-mouthed employees and phones that didn’t work.

After waiting for about 15 minutes while they tried to convince me that my hotel didn’t exist, the original guy took me to a taxi where a homeless man was sleeping in the back. Like a WWE wrestler, the driver wrenched the guy out of the car and threw him to the footpath. “My brother,” the driver said, stepping over the person on the ground.

It’s easier to squeeze through a thumb hole in a dike than to get out of an Indian car-park, and after another 15 minutes we were on to the exit road when the driver stopped at another tourist shop. He yells at the young boys at the front to bring their manager out, while beeping his horn with every tap of his fingers. At this point I realise that despite showing the address of the hotel about five times, the driver doesn’t know where he’s going. “Karol Bagh, yes, sir,” he says. “Karol Bagh, yes, sir.”

If anybody is reading this (Hi Mum, Dad and Sister), you’re probably wondering why I didn’t get out. I’d thought the same thing at each step too. But now I’m at stage 15 of about 18 and the other option is to head back to the start and repeat the experience. So I sit, without a seatbelt, and pray.

After hearing the stream of yelling from the street, the busy manager on the inside explodes, shouting words only sailors and taxi drivers understand. It was clear he didn’t want to help and even the persistent driver knew it was time to do some driving instead of more stalling. I don’t like young drivers. They go too fast, don’t use the brakes, and most probably won’t make it to old age. Ten minutes later I'm at the hotel, paying the guy far too much in the hope I never see him again.

I watched the Champions League Twenty20 draw last night. A perfect example of how to take an hour or more to do something that could be over in three minutes. When it’s a football draw, Sepp Blatter somehow makes ping pong balls look exciting, but this was dreary and tacky. At least watching the Da Vinci Code later lifted the pace of my evening.

Poor Steve Waugh had flown in from Australia and his job was to pull a bat from a barrel. Duty performed, he stepped off stage awkwardly without a word. There were plenty of others who spoke, but not one of the modern game’s greats. There were some funny moments, like Lalit Modi referring to the eight states and provinces involved as “clubs”. In Australia the club is where you start out, working for years in the hope you’re good enough for your state. Sledging someone as “just a club cricketer” is usually pretty effective.

Continue reading "What a drag"

After seeing The Darjeeling Limited I was desperate to experience a train trip in India - without the on-the-loose snake. Like a few of my expectations on this trip, there was more movie than reality. The train from Chandigarh to New Delhi is called the Rajdhani-Shatabdi Express but the exotic name does not translate into an authentic experience. Parts of India are just too damn modern. The template for this fast, efficient, comfortable train is pretty much shared by those on the London-to-Bristol and Brisbane-to-Ipswich lines.

For 262km we sped to Delhi and the only noticeable difference was the industrious service of the overworked waiters, who serve about four courses. I haven’t had a cooked meal on a train since the 28hr journey on the Sunlander from Brisbane to Cairns as a teenager. On the Bullet Train between Tokyo and Kyoto lunch was a plastic box full of I’ll-never-know-what while the Eurostar to Paris was cold meat and red wine.

On the track to Delhi it’s dal, paneer, rice and roti. It smelt okay but I’d eaten late and after seeing old food on my spoon I was a bit wary of the rest. I’m trying not to be a delicate Westerner, but after a few days of upset stomach I feel a bit like a delicate Westerner.

Continue reading "An Indian train journey"

It’s strange being an Australian in another country when the team loses, and in India it gains you more attention. People who didn’t recognise me before suddenly are – and they want to talk. “Sorry Australia,” one young boy said, smiling as I walked to the ground on day five. The rest want to know whether Brett Lee or Matthew Hayden should be dropped.

Those that don’t talk have seemed to stare more over the past day. It feels like there’s a red dot on my body, like the ones created by the hi-tech guns the contract killers hold. Or maybe I’m just imagining it.

After two decades of Australian success, perhaps it’s me who is feeling differently. I had nothing to do with how the team played at Mohali, but it’s hard for the result not to have some sort of effect. It was shocking to see such a one-sided game – with Australia behind.

Maybe this is how England fans feel every Ashes series (exception – 2005). As I left the ground at Mohali I was thankful it was so empty. If results like these become regular it will take a while to get used to.

I got stuck in the hotel lift this morning. It was only for two minutes, but was about to feel like ten. Until they break, lifts don’t feel that small for me. The night before a friend had told me he hated them because he’d been caught in one as a child. At the time I thought I’d never been stuck. Not anymore.

Fortunately there was a nice man wearing a green turban who seemed to double as one of the hotel managers. He wasn’t worried and called someone to fix the problem. Then the fan stopped and the walls started to creep in. Finally, probably less than a minute later, I spotted some fingers and two of the hotel staff joined with their boss in pulling the doors open wide enough to let me out. Free at last.

Downstairs – I’m using them now – at breakfast I spotted a rat. Among some of the Australians fans this has become known as the hotel of rodents, but I’ve felt comfortable here, and still do. The rat was hanging from the beak of a bird in a tree outside the breakfast room. I didn’t feel like meat any more, so ordered vegetarian.

I can’t believe how few people have been watching the Test in Mohali. Each day I hope it will get better, but it hasn’t. When reading about India it’s "cricket mad this", "fanatical that". Not in Tests in the Punjab. At times during this match it has made a sparse crowd in Hobart, Australia’s smallest venue, seem gigantic.

The first day was the saddest, when so few saw Sachin Tendulkar’s record, but by Sunday, a holiday and with India well on top, there were only a sprinkling of supporters in the morning. Throughout the day there was a gradual build up, but the ground was still barely half full. One reason for so many free seats is that Chandigarh is a small city by India’s standards (Mohali, a suburb, has a population of about one million!) and the well-equipped stadium is a 20-minute drive from the centre.

Another is Twenty20. This stadium apparently bounces at capacity when the Kings XI Punjab play in the Indian Premier League. It’s shocking to experience such a different atmosphere for a Test in a series that now rivals the Ashes in prestige. Here it’s like the locals have been introduced to Formula One and no longer have time to watch cycling.

In Bangalore the crowds were noisy and the Saturday was a fabulous day, but to me something is still missing in India. I saw Greg Chappell walking along the beach in Goa a few years ago and expected him to be swamped by fans. More people were trying to sell me beads than talk to him. The love of Indians for cricket is not a myth, but so far I’m finding it’s greatly exaggerated.

There are some branching reminders of home in Chandigarh. Every so often there is a eucalyptus tree poking up and out along the streets. In Australia they are everywhere: in my backyard, the bush, children’s parks and cricket grounds. Their shade protects, the smell of the crushed leaves is uplifting and they are great for climbing, although that won’t be happening here.

In Murray Bail’s book Eucalyptus the owner of a big block of rural land plants as many varieties of the tree he can find and sets a challenge. Whoever can name them all can marry his beautiful daughter. I guess then at least he’d have something to talk to the stranger about at those awkward early family dinners.

My little girl shouldn’t worry. I promise that in 20 or so years I won’t make her special friend name the 1989 and 1993 Ashes squads to be allowed to go on a date with her. To young boys out there who face this problem, the tricky ones are Greg Campbell and Wayne Holdsworth.

Bail’s book was about to be turned into a movie until Russell Crowe, who was due to star in it, called things off shortly before filming started. I’m not sure which varieties they have in Chandigarh, but it’s nice to spot something familiar.

I’d looked at the pedal rickshaws since arriving in Chandigarh and wondered how they coped in the traffic ecosystem. Now it was time to find out for myself. It was frightening but fun, the scariest moment being when we were hooted by a bus trying to overtake us on a roundabout. And hooted. And got closer. And hooted louder. And got even closer. Every muscle around my midriff tightened in a way that hasn’t happened since I last went to the gym.

Things were more relaxed on the special bike paths, although my driver was trying to compensate for his lack of power on the road by attempting some rare overtaking. He did it without success due to the wide loud of another rickshaw that wasn’t in the mood to race.

Continue reading "Hoot, hoot, scoot scoot"

As the moon rises the buzz on the Chandigarh streets lifts from relatively quiet - from what I’ve seen in India - to buoyant, busy and honkingly loud. Charcoal fires sear chicken tikka on spears and the smell of both showers across the street. By day the chai makers, who squat next to small gas cookers and filter their drinks, are there, but by night there are more foods to try – but I don’t. The samosas on a metal stand look yummy with, I’m guessing, tamarind chutney. People stop like they’re buying a paper, then briskly step off to the next errand. It’s a convenient walk-through takeaway.

Below the yellow moon on the street there is much more colour. Turbans bob as their wearers walk – my favourite so far is bright pink – and the patkas, which Harbhajan Singh uses, seem more popular among the younger men. This is Harbhajan’s home state and Singh is a name on many shop signs.

I’m just looking for a chemist so I can buy some handwash and vitamins. “Go right, then left” is one set of directions, but after ten minutes I turn back. “Straight down there,” a second person urges. No luck, but lots of window shopping.

There are so many mobile phone outlets, so I was surprised when I was taken to get a SIM card and we ended up in a store selling watches. Cheap watches, and SIM cards. They go together like the shoe-and-shampoo combination in a nearby shop. I’ve just read The God of Small Things and the owner’s banana jam is banned because it’s too runny for jam and too thick for syrup (don’t worry, it’s not the whole plot). I wonder whether shoes or shampoo sell best.

The watch-SIM card shop wants a copy of my passport, a letter from the hotel, a passport photo (it requires a sidetrip) and 350 rupees. I managed to negotiate to get it without needing to promise one of my children. Eventually I can make a call. It’s easier to get a bank loan in Australia.
On the walk back the son of a chai seller is packing up. A bucket of water heads for the street, pushed by a straw brush, like an arm of the scarecrow in Wizard of Oz. Tea time has quickly been replaced by pre-dinner snacks.

	Satshriakal to you too © AFP

The city has been cut up into sectors, making the addresses in the various hotels seem like parts of a prison. It’s not that bad, but it is well-organised and rustic. People say it’s an Indian version of Canberra, with the planning but without the roundabouts and landmark buildings. From what I’ve seen over the past two days there aren’t many similarities. It’s like nowhere I’ve been before.

Westerners don’t seem to be a regular part of the trade and I’ve heard that the first time one of the Australian journalists opened his hotel-room door he saw a rat above his eyes, which then scurried to the window sill. It took another two accommodation houses before he found something close to his original standard (the journalist, not the rat). On Australia's tour here in 1986 the players were horrified to see rats, but Geoff Marsh, the opening batsman, said he'd seen bigger ones on his farm.

Continue reading "Roads and rodents of Chandigarh"

	"Dada we'll miss you" minus the paternal emotions © AFP

In Australia I live in a do-it-yourself house. Asking a partner for a drink is okay, but only if the tone is right. Handing over a bundle of dirty shirts for an overnight turnaround, or sitting at the table waiting for food without at least pretending to offer help, is as fraught as waving an Australian flag in the cheap seats at Chinnaswamy.

Continue reading "Trying to be served"

I'm scared to cross the roads here. I'm getting used to the smaller side
streets, but the main ones swarm with speeding vehicles and buzz with
danger. The first time I was in Bangalore I never felt safer than when a
local friend held my hand and guided me across the main MG Road.

Without him I feel like I'm guiding a chariot across the Red Sea, fearing
that what looks like an empty landscape will change before I can do
anything about it. If there are other people waiting by the edge - they
always look so calm - I hang in their shadow like a shy child grabbing a
parent's leg.

Continue reading "Hold my hand"

Vanity has a new name in India: Lalit Modi. The IPL commissioner is starring in a television advertisement for something I can’t remember. It’s normal for the players to cash in (I’m not missing seeing Andrew Symonds emerge from a car wash every time there’s a break in the news back home), but it makes administrators look like they believe the hype about them. I can’t imagine David Morgan pushing rouge make-up or James Sutherland promoting pocket protectors.

In the advertisement Modi seems to be auditioning as a Democrat from Maine, standing in his den admiring his possessions. Ron Burgundy, the self-promoting newsreader in the movie Anchorman, instantly came to mind.

“I don't know how to put this, but I'm kind of a big deal,” is one of Burgundy’s best lines. “I’m very important. I have a lot of leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.”

Modi is a good looking, successful businessman who has done some incredibly valuable things for the game and confirmed India’s superpower status. But talking to people in the stands in Bangalore it was hard to find supporters who thought the television move made him look better.

After the relaxed security on the practice days, inspections and searches have become more thorough, although they still carry an endearing local touch. Nothing in this sphere is more fun than watching the teams arrive escorted by police in their Ambassador cars. If Volkswagen made a sedan in the 1950s, it would looked like these charming, almost vintage, white vehicles.

With a whirring red siren on the roof, they cruise through the traffic as the lead and rear parts of the envoy, reminding me of slow-motion car-chases in black-and-white movies. The players sit in the centre of the procession in their modern buses and watch the policemen shaking their arms and beeping their piercing horns to create a clear path. I’m not sure if it makes the teams feel safer (they probably wish they were in their own swanky four-wheel drives), but the parade creates some Australian smiles.

I think I’m going deaf. One day in a stadium that was a third full and my head is echoing. The best I can do to describe the noise is to compare it to when a streaker runs out on an Australian ground. There it might happen once late in a one-dayer, but here it’s every few minutes. For a single, for Sourav Ganguly fielding cleanly, for Sachin Tendulkar running to the boundary, for a Ricky Ponting four. And every time they roar I look for someone running on the field wearing nothing but an Australian flag – or less. Like much in India, it’s a fabulous experience that will take a while to get used to.

Jetlag is least fun when the changes don’t turn the days upside down. Heading for England or Canada from Down Under isn’t usually too bad because the time switch is so severe there is no option but to adjust quickly. Being in India is trickier for east-coast Australians, who have to deal with a difference of between four-and-a-half and five-and-a-half hours. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s enough to upset the balance. After three visits here in three years I haven’t found a solution.

Continue reading "Sleepless in Bangalore"

	By the time Steve Waugh packed his bag for the final time he felt like family © Getty Images

Twenty-four hour news channels all over the world are prone to constant exaggeration, seemingly capable of turning a shop fire into a global terrorism threat. So when something big happens they sometimes struggle to do it justice because there is no room left for extra flexing. One place where it doesn’t seem to be a problem is India, where the coverage of Sourav Ganguly’s retirement plan quickly reached hysterical limits.

It was like a president or prime minister or rock star had died. One station had four talking heads in various parts of the country swapping back and forth as they told of the disbelieving reactions in their city to an event that wasn't exactly a shock. Even so, the news was so big it didn’t need a mumbling past player acting as on-screen expert – the presenters were able to do it themselves.

Continue reading "Ganguly retirement stir creates echoes of Waugh"

	The view in Bangalore © Getty Images

Getting into the Gabba in the lead-up to the first Test often feels like a job for Jason Bourne or Mission: Impossible’s Ethan Hunt. Over-sized security guards stand watch, telling people they can’t come in with a backpack or a watermelon on their head, and the stadium has more dead-ends than a new housing estate. Achieving a look at the pitch gains more satisfaction than watching a Queenslander’s century.

Security has been a buzzword in the lead-up to the series due to the postponement of the Champions Trophy due to safety, and then there were recent bombings in Delhi. So it was a treat to walk straight into Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy Stadium without encountering any roadblocks or army lines.

Continue reading "Mission Impossible made easy"