Fisherman's son intrigued by a crab

Indian Sunset

Street Cricket in India

April 2011 has brought about some fantastic opportunities for me.  I’ve been holidaying in India for the last decade and always seen life there, but never experienced it hands-on.  This April I did a bit of background work and decided to get involved in ‘real life’, and see how people live, what motivates people, and how the emergence of football in India is changing cultural systems.

It was certainly a great experience, and opened my eyes to the ways in which people of other cultures are devoted to an outcome with conviction and purpose, almost like they’re ‘on rails’.  The main motivators, curiously, are not the same as ‘Western’ people.  The motivators in Indian culture appear more TOWARDS an outcome, rather than away from pain as we have a habit of doing.  For example, when asked why a fisherman gets up at 3am, rows down the river and risks his life diving down 4 metres to the river bed with a snorkel to pick oysters, his answer is invariably “to create a better life for my family”.  Contrast that to what you’re likely to hear in England or America… “because I don’t want to lose my apartment”, or “I don’t want to fall behind on the rent”.  This is nothing new to me.  It’s what I teach people on a daily basis, but to see a whole village living with this same forward-thinking and positive attitude is a standard for us to reach for.

the football culture over there is a strange one.  There’s a big 27,000 seater stadium with probably only 6,000 people there to see the top two teams fight it out.  Nobody cheers when there’s a goal, and nobody gets irate when there’s a bad challenge.  The ambulance drives onto the pitch when there’s an injury.  The 4th official sits behind a plastic picnic table and the managers rarely stand in the technical area.  It surprised me how the football industry is very much like the beginning stages of football in England.  All very polite, very reserved, and very civilised.  Maybe we should be somewhere in the middle… respectful but passionate, determined but safe.  I’d love to get my teeth into the I-League and help it blossom!