East of Croydon

by Sue Perkins

‘Gosh,’ I said.

  At 6 p.m. precisely, a blacked-out, state-of-the-art Range Rover pulled up outside our hotel. I stared at it in disgust. This is everything that is wrong with the world, I thought, then got in. Disgusting. I sank into the leather seats, soft and cool. Awful. I felt my body uncoiling, the stress evaporating. Oh, God, oh, my God, this is a disgrace … This … This is so lovely. We set off, the diplomatic badge glinting in the dust, as we scythed through the traffic, carving through the rickshaws and tuk-tuks.

  So this is how the other half live. Or, to be more accurate, this is how the other one per cent live.

  Something felt different. It took me a while to realize what it was. Silence. This was my first precious moment of silence in almost a fortnight. Go home and thank God for your silence, for a respite from the onslaught. Yes, there may be the occasional hum of next door’s telly. There may be a few kids shouting now and then in the street – but when they get called in for tea, there will be something else. There will be peace. You won’t notice it, because doubtless you take it for granted. But it is there. In India, I never experienced quiet, not for a second, until I was in that big, big car.

  The match was being held at Eden Gardens – which, if nothing else, was an insult to trade descriptions, being as far from the worlds of Genesis and Ezekiel as you could imagine. For starters, no apples could grow in that smog, I doubt a snake would have the guts to venture out – and I couldn’t see Eve hanging around much after dark.

  As the car pulled up, I could see thousands upon thousands of locals making their way to the ground, drawn like moths to the floodlights that bled through the rush-hour gloom. Vendors dragged their carts towards the scene, decked with sweets and deep-fried snacks. Kids waving thin yellow banners jumped for joy as they walked through the hallowed gates. It’s coming home, it’s coming – cricket’s coming home.

  Hands up, I don’t know much about cricket. I know that it has, at least, an air of civility. It speaks of a time gone by, a lost era of gentility, when men made history and women made tea and biscuits. Or so they’d have you believe. This game of Empire has now been co-opted, monetized and made into a national sport by those it sought to control. The Indians took our cultural imperialism and used it as a bat to beat us with. How wonderful.

  It turns out that Kolkata was the home of India’s very first cricket club, founded in 1792 or thereabouts. Matches started between a European team and a Parsee team, made up of local Zoroastrian talent. (That’s not a sentence I’ve ever written before.) Before long, the Hindus fielded a team – taking part in a match known as the Bombay Triangular. In 1912, the Muslims joined in, making it, you guessed it, a Bombay Quadrangle and, in 1937, it became the Bombay Pentangle, with the arrival of a team called ‘the Rest’, made up of Jews, Buddhists and Indian Christians. Before it could expand still further, into the realms of the Bombay Heptagon, Nonagon or Enneadecagon, the matches were disbanded, much to the relief of the geometrically challenged.

  It was only after the protests of Gandhi, among others, that the religious elements were abandoned, and competitions were played along geographical, rather than religious, lines.

  Crowds of supporters, laden with supplies, took their places around us until there wasn’t a spare seat in the house. I sat and waited for the inevitable bunch of ruddy-faced gentlemen in white flannels to come on, and readied myself to applaud – more out of duty than enthusiasm. This was a cultural exchange and, as with most cultural exchanges, it needed to be politely endured rather than appreciated.

  Sure enough, after a matter of moments, there was movement on the pitch. The crowd erupted: arms started waving, banners were unfurled. Out of nowhere, a group of scantily clad girls started to gyrate to a burst of heavy techno that had exploded from the tannoy. From the clutches of the grey smog came a bunch of burly men in figure-hugging nylon, their outfits topped off with shiny gold helmets and shiny gold shinpads. For a moment I thought, Oh, that’s nice, they’re doing some kind of Gay Pride cricketing tribute before the match – then realized that (a) homosexuality was illegal in India at the time, and (b) this was the actual team.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Steve, with a mixture of fear and excitement.

  From that moment, I was hooked. From that moment, I became a lifelong supporter of the Kolkata Knight Riders.

  Out they came – ‘Gambhir! Uthappa! Yadav!’ The announcer was shouting so loudly he had virtually lost his voice by the time he finished reading out the team names.

  Then came their opponents – the Mumbai Indians; who’d gone equally big on bling, but with a peacock-blue strip.

  ‘BOOOOO!’ I jumped to my feet, screaming. ‘BOOOOOO!’

  ‘Bloody hell, Sue,’ said Steve, trying to look like he wasn’t with me.

  ‘BOOOOOO!’

  I’d been watching for a little over thirty seconds and was already over-invested. I’m easily affected by tribal passions and affiliations. You can tell what sort of person I’d be in Lord of the Flies. I’d be dancing naked round a flame and hunting little Piggy’s specs in a heartbeat.

  ‘C’MON, YOU BEAUTIES!’

  There followed one of the most exciting gigs of my life. I say gig, because nothing about the event felt like sport the way I knew it. This felt more like a rock concert, the stadium full of noise, colour and screaming fans. There were none of the gentle, artistic blockings of an afternoon in Somerset – none of the parrying strokes, frantic murmuring and tactical pauses. This was a head-down, pedal-to-the-metal free-for-all. Who has the time to hit or throw a ball for five days on end? Not the Indians, that’s for sure. They’re too busy creating tech and steel empires to wait that long. The Indian Premier League has managed to compress the languorous British game into an evening’s worth of smashing and bashing, with a drinks interval, techno music and dancing girls. I was IN.

  Surely every sport needs the IPL touch? Curling, for instance. Why waste minutes brushing the ice when you can pop on a Chemical Brothers track, get out a flamethrower and turn the whole pitch into a water park in seconds?

  Every time a shot hit the boundary, the dancers would spring to life, like shop mannequins in an eighties teen movie. (You know the ones – where a nerdy boy exposes a doll to a special kind of electricity that makes her sexually attracted to him.) Pyrotechnics fired dangerously close to their heads. I tried to dance along, but was consumed with worry that their tan tights would go up in a crisp and take me with them.

  Mumbai started briskly, and finished their twenty overs at 168 for 3. By now I’d drunk four pints of beer and several hundred salt lassi, which made me simultaneously dehydrated and desperate for a piss. But I wasn’t going anywhere, no, sirree.

  An ecstatic cry went up around the stadium and I noticed, on the enormous video screens, that they were cheering the team’s owner and all round Bollywood legend, Shah Rukh Khan, or SRK – a man so famous he’d achieved the status of a monogram. That’s true star quality, right there. A Google search of my initials, SEP, reveals that I, on the other hand, will always play fourth fiddle to a village in Poland, a type of pension account used in the United States and a police unit in Slovenia.

  It was time for the Knight Riders to bat. The dancers whirled and the sirens sounded. By the end of the sixteenth over, I was beside myself. We needed 38 runs from 24 balls. Could it be done?

  I became so stressed by the proceedings I couldn’t look. I remember Dad used to be the same with the football. He was a Charlton Athletic fan, which is something, Mr Obama, that truly defines the audacity of hope. In the days when the team hit the dizzy heights of the Premiership and the matches were televised, he would tape the results rather than watch the game live.

  ME: Why is that, Dad?

  DAD: Because it stresses me. You know it stresses me to watch it live. There’s too much at stake. I like to watch it later, when I feel calmer.

  But here’s the thing. A normal person – and I use that term advisedly with my family – who gets nervous at watching matches wo
uld perhaps calmly look at the score once the game is over. Then, knowing the result, they could sit back without the attendant anxiety and enjoy the highlights.

  No. Not my dad. My dad didn’t look at the score. He simply watched the match two hours later, in its entirety. Not knowing the outcome. In fact, still SUPER STRESSED at the outcome.

  God only knows I am no psychologist, but when was merely delaying your fears a protocol for stress management?

  ME: Doctor, I’m terrified of flying.

  DOC: When are you due to take off?

  ME: Three o’clock this afternoon.

  DOC: OK. Well, why don’t you rebook, and get on the five o’clock instead?

  ME: Great. Wow. I feel so much better. Goodbye.

  (Leaves.)

  You will notice, in the interests of veracity, that I made that vignette the exact length of an actual GP appointment.

  Back at Eden Gardens, two overs later, thanks to some spectacular thwacking from Yadav, we looked confident of taking the match. It was then I noticed a large group of people staring over at us.

  Mmm, I thought. What are they looking at?

  For a brief, narcissistic moment,fn1 I wondered whether news of my skills as Britain’s erstwhile premier cake-watcher had made it as far as Mother India.

  Much to my chagrin, it appeared nobody in Kolkata had seen any of my oven-based oeuvre. No one was interested in me in the slightest. Instead, their eyes were trained solely on Steve, who was sitting to the left of me.

  Now, Steve is not a man who is drawn to the limelight. On the contrary, he loathes it. Steve likes few things in this world and, as detailed previously, those things are family, Wales, surfing, and making intense documentaries about the agrarian poor. In an ideal world, Steve would like these documentaries to remain unseen, so he doesn’t have to affiliate himself overtly with the world of television. Television, he thinks, quite rightly, is a mug’s game.

  People started to talk among themselves and a crowd was gathering.

  By now Steve had noticed he was being watched. He started shuffling anxiously. A young kid broke ranks and came up to us.

  KID: (to Steve) Hello.

  STEVE: Hello.

  He sounded suspicious. Steve is suspicious of everything and everyone, unless they are from Cymru and/or a wave.

  KID: Selfie?

  It was more of a demand than a question.

  STEVE: (uncomfortably) Sure.

  The moment the flash went, the queue for photos doubled. Then tripled. Within moments, Steve was surrounded.

  STEVE: Bloody hell …

  And then the stadium erupted. We must have won, I thought, turning my attention again to the pitch. It was then I saw the video screen. Emblazoned on it was none other than Steve, captured by one of the roving stadium cameras.

  ME: What the hell is going on?

  STEVE: I don’t know.

  He was now blinded by flashlights and encircled by fans.

  ME: You’re on the big screen.

  STEVE: Oh, God, it’s happening again …

  ME: What’s happening again? Steve? Is this the Rapture? What’s going on?

  It turned out that Steve bears a strong resemblance to New Zealand captain, and all-round sex-god,fn2 Brendon McCullum. Hence the sudden crowd of super-fans around us.

  ‘We need to get out,’ said our minder.

  ‘Oh, bloody hell,’ said Steve – approaching full Eeyore.

  We pushed through the swell, the floodlights trained on us, video cameras following our every move. We finally made it to the car, and as I turned back, I saw Steve’s image fade from the stadium screen and the dancers strike up another techno jamboree.

  Fame. She’s a fickle mistress.

  29. Just Dance

  On the way back from the match, as we idled in traffic, a gaggle of women in flawless make-up and killer heels emerged from the diesel haze and began barracking the drivers for money. From a distance, it looked like a gang of Joan Collins lookalikes on the rob.

  I was transfixed. I wanted to open the doors and let them in. I wanted to go home with them and learn everything about them. And, most importantly, I wanted to know how on earth they managed to keep their eyeliner so crisp in 90 per cent humidity.

  They were fierce, frightening to some, perhaps – but not to me. I recognized their adamantine masks, the armour of noise and colour and jazz-hands that stops the sorrow leaking out. ‘Let it out!’ I wanted to shout. ‘Let it all out! Come on!’

  Later, on my return to the city, I got my wish. I finally got to hang with the Hijra, India’s transgender community. I wandered down a dusty side-road and there they were, giving much-needed glamour to a drab street corner. I won’t lie, they were somewhat easy to spot, in their brightly coloured saris, heavy bling and sixties cat’s eye sunglasses.

  ME: Hi! Namaste!

  They stared at me. I ventured the classic English ice-breaker.

  ME: Do you want some chai?

  I gestured towards the chai wallah.

  WOMAN: No. I don’t like tea.

  She flashed me a look, her pupils like obsidian. Her disdain had the immediate effect of making me fall in love with her. The woman turned out to be the imperious Aparna, their leader and spokesperson.

  The gang appeared to be conducting some kind of covert operation on a corner house, blushed with red pigment, its windows decked with AC units.

  ME: (whispering) What are you all doing? Are you undercover? This looks like some kind of stake-out …

  APARNA: Yes, it is. We keep an eye out for births, deaths and marriages. We had word a child had been born in this block of flats, so we are listening out for the cries.

  I listened with them. I heard nothing. I wondered if the parents were inside, covering the infant’s mouth, somewhat intimidated by the glamorous gang assembled outside their house.

  APARNA: No matter – we have another blessing to do. A girl. She is five days old. COME!

  I obeyed without question.

  We headed down a narrow alleyway, took a sharp left, whereupon a door opened and we stepped into a living room. The host family, led by the father, Mr Roy, welcomed us in with a mixture of fear and joy.

  On seeing the baby, the Hijra transformed from a grumpy, back-foot band of spies into a crack team of entertainers. This was a baby shower with a difference. There was no dry Victoria Sponge, no elderly relatives, no awkward standing around the margins of the room making polite conversation. Instead, there was a riotous outburst of dancing, singing and a very loud, slightly offbeat clattering of tambourine as the Bengali fairy godmothers crowded round the new-born. The little one remained resolutely asleep throughout – how, I have no idea, as the din was deafening.

  The blessing itself was a rather curious mixture of well-wishing and extortion. It started well enough.

  APARNA: May she be happy and healthy!

  Amen to that.

  APARNA: May she grow up to be a doctor or an engineer!

  Could that statement be any more of an Indian cliché? I wondered. And then she ended with the kicker:

  APARNA: And may you have another daughter in five years so we can again charge you fifty-one thousand rupees!

  Some of you might recoil at the rather blunt fiscal tone of Aparna’s benediction. Personally I couldn’t help but applaud the fact she had a clear, fixed pricing system so the family could plan ahead and budget.

  Then came a bewildering array of instructions, which went as follows:

  APARNA: Put these mustard seeds and three basil leaves and a rupee under her pillow for a week, then tap on the baby seven times and on your body seven times. Go to the Ganges and pray to the goddess Shashthu three times, then throw it in the river with your back to the Ganges.

  I was now very confused. Throw what in the river? The mustard seeds or the baby? As an exhausted new mother, I would have needed some clarification on that point.

  APARNA: And then …

  We leant in, transfixed.

  APAR
NA: … never look back!

  She paired this final command with a theatrical flourish and hand gesture. This blessing certainly wasn’t short on drama.

  I took advantage of a lull in the dancing to ask an out-of-breath Aparna about the business side of the blessings. She was very direct about the need to charge her customers.

  APARNA: It’s how we earn money.

  ME: And do you believe it works?

  APARNA: Of course it works! Why would we be asked to give blessings if they did not work?

  Because you are mildly terrifying, I thought.

  Aparna had been born into a wealthy Kolkatan family, who had rejected her once she began her transition. Now they have no contact. This turned out to be an all-too-familiar story throughout the Hijra community. None of them have families to bless – they will never meet their nieces, their nephews – so they devote their lives to the consecration of other families’ little ones.

  Of course they believe the blessings work. They have to.

  ME: So, if the child thrives, it acts as a calling card to encourage other families to seek out a Hijra blessing?

  APARNA: Oh, no. We keep on coming …

  ME: Really?

  APARNA: (matter-of-factly) Yes. We have a follow-up system.

  And I laugh, because it sounds like something a dental receptionist might say.

  ME: And every time you come, they pay?

  Aparna nods.

  Of course, the prosaic and the profane, the sacred and the secular jog along together very nicely in India – there is no disconnect seen in embracing both the developing capitalist boom and hard-line Hinduism. It’s only the Western sensibility that finds this jarring.

  The drum starts up again, and with it the singing and arrhythmic tambourine.

  As we leave, I can sense the deflation. The Hijra women seem to fold back into themselves.