A LONE Pakistani flag waved passionately at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium during the warm-up match between Australia and Pakistan. But the voice of its bearer Mohammad Bashir, better known as Chicago Chacha in cricket circles, was the loudest and deepest. He bounced around the stands throughout the game, waving the flag with furious energy, chatting and joking with the spectators, stopping from time to time to take a drink of water or take a deep breath.
“I’m getting old, I’ve survived three heart attacks and I don’t have as much energy as before,” says the 66-year-old. But the passion for the game remains intact.
A familiar face at cricket World Cups (he has not missed one since 2007, suffered multiple heartbreaks when his team finished without a title and made numerous friends of different nationalities), he has poured his energy into almost every cricket city in the world and He has seen hundreds of games. “500, 400, frankly I don’t keep track. I only carry memories,” she says with a tone of trembling emotion.
But his most memorable game will take place on Thursday, he says. Because he might be the only Pakistan fan watching the World Cup, at least at the start of the tournament. Strict visa regulations have been a hurdle for fans across the border to make the trip in time for Pakistan’s first match, against the Netherlands on Friday. Bashir has an American passport and therefore had no problems getting a visa.
He hopes there will be more Pakistani supporters (the PCB has apparently asked the ICC to speed up the process), but regardless of the outcome, he will maintain his flag-waving gall. Instead of feeling alone or fearing hostility from fans, he looks at the prospect of being a one-man entertainer with enthusiasm and greater responsibility. “Life is about new experiences, and if I were the only supporter on my team, it would be an unforgettable memory. This gives me even more reasons to support Pakistan. Why do you need to be afraid? The people, whether in the streets or in the stands, have been extremely friendly,” he says.
With a touch of mischief in her bright eyes, she likes to serve the gallery. She “would start singing “Jeetega bhai jeetega” and she would pause, and the crowd would sing Hindustan jeetega. I will sing. There would be occasional banter, but at the end of the day, we left the ground with a hug, a selfie. Sometimes we also exchange numbers,” she says, listing the friends she has made in the country, some of them super fans.
Then he clears his throat and clarifies: “As much as I am a fan of Pakistan, I am also a fan of cricket and cricketers. So it doesn’t matter if I’m the only one in the country or if there are thousands of others. I like watching Kohli as much as I love Babar,” he says. His favorite cricketer was MS Dhoni and he promised to stop traveling to tournaments once he retired. “But I couldn’t resist the lure of the game. “I couldn’t resist missing a World Cup in India, even more so because it is held in India,” he says.
It is his third visit to India and he says that destiny is for Pakistan to start its campaign in Hyderabad. “My parents migrated (to Karachi) from Hyderabad. I have been told many stories about the city. Then I married a girl from Hyderabad. So I am the daamad (son-in-law) of the city. I can call it my home,” she says. It is because of his wife who usually wears a t-shirt with her photo and the phrase ‘jis desh mein ganga behti hai us desh ki meri biwi hai’ emblazoned on it.
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He and his wife own a restaurant chain in Chicago, Ghareeb Nawaz. His signature dish is invariably Hyderabad. biryani, which they used to sell at a cheaper price than other restaurants. “We started out serving value-for-money food and if our business hadn’t flourished, I wouldn’t have traveled all over the world to watch cricket,” he says. In a sense, it is a Hyderabadi biryani-funded return to Hyderabad.
His phone rings incessantly. Some relative or friend of his wife would want to meet him, or invite him to lunch or dinner, inevitably feeding him biryani. “There’s nothing better than the real thing,” he says.
He has to maintain his diet, but flying the flag, he says, burns all the calories. Many biryani-filled afternoons and evenings await him, as does the call of being his country’s only flag bearer so far in this tournament.
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