The World Cup semi-final played between Pakistan and India in India, in Mohali on Wednesday March 30 was a phenomenal national festival which the defeat by a paltry 29 runs could not dampen. People still set off fire crackers and smiled proudly through their tears at the end of the day.
A single game in any sport had never succeeded in uniting the diverse peoples of Pakistan as one nation as this match did. In many ways it will remain a symbol of what it means to be Pakistani. We are a people who cannot be written off, as the world is doing by calling us a failed state, disfunctional and corrupt. The team that participated in the Cricket World Cup was a failed team, inefficient in every department of the game and many players accused of slander and corruption. No one expected the team to survive through the qualifying round and yet it went on from one victory to the next until it astonished the whole country by reaching the quarter and then the semi-final. It was a huge triumph hence the team is the only defeated team that came home to a hero's welcome.
A nation came of age that day. Unlike in the past when we shared in a team's victories but distanced ourselves from the defeat, this time we acknowledged both the wins and the loss and did not play the blame-game. The humorous text messages that began to fly across the country and everywhere in the world where Pakistanis lived continued even during the match showing we never gave up the sporting spirit even when defeat was patently evident in the slow batting by Misbah. That is so Pakistani. The Indians could not do it. Their messages were paltry and hardly sporting or humorous. They were taunting, ridicules and in bad taste to belittle Pakistan team and boast about Indian players.
This Indian boasting and arrogant demeaning of Pakistan was evident even in the unsporting attitude of the Shiv Sena which threatened that if Pakistan were to play the final the Shiv Sena would sabotage the match in Mumbai. Even Lata Mengeshkar's fast during the semi-final was partisan. She was not interested in India, but in the great batsman Tendulkar who she said was a Maharashtrin like herself. It is so typical of people in that Indian state not to think beyond their ownselves. In Pakistan people prayed for the whole team.
And nobody fasted. In large and small stores snacks and cold drinks were cleaned off the shelves on Tuesday. Everywhere people gathered to watch the match together. Even cinema houses showed nothing but the match in Karachi. And we did not forget the Indian prisoners either. For them also a giant screen was put up and they watched their team win. A news picture of the Indian prisoners lodged in Landhi jail with their faces painted in the colours of the Indian flag rejoicing in India's victory reflected the magnanimity of Pakistanis. Did India remember Pakistanis in Indian prisons might want to see the match. I think not; they were too full of themselves to care.
What a grand festival it was. Not only the children wore the Pakistan colours but even adults, who organised a party to watch the world cup, did so wearing the Green T-shirt. So many pleasing images of that day flash through my mind. There is the little boy, with a sticker on his cheek dressed in the green T-shirt, who would shout from the window of his apartment every time an Indian wicket fell. He was informing the tailor's boy downstairs about the progress of the match. There are my sisters who preferred to play Scrabble instead of watching the match because they could not take the tension. There is the housewife who, like many other housewives who are not really cricket crazy, prepared the food a day in advance so that she could watch the match undisturbed. An image of a car racing by blowing its horn because a Indian wicket fell. Images of tear-stained faces jokingly asking the TV anchor what should be done with all the firecrackers. The banner in Binori Town mosque where people had a special congregational prayer for the success of Pakistan team.
The semi-final was an impromptu festival celebrated spontaneously in the same manner throughout the country. On that memorable day there was no other activity on the cards except to watch the match. Every other business was put on hold. It was a day with hardly any crime in this great metropolis where even a lost match can lead to bus and tyre burning, murder and mayhem. Not this time.
Such single-minded enthusiasm was never before witnessed for anything in the entire course of our history. The semi-final even overturned the old adage, "Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone..." Pakistanis as a nation laughed together and wept together. That reaction was a great and inspiring thing in itself. It is why every detail of that day, and preparations for watching the semi-final, should be recorded for prosperity. This was not just a cricket match; it was a national event the likes of which were never before seen.
While sports and political pundits have dabbled in all sorts of analysis of Pakistan's performance in the Cricket World Cup and the value of cricket diplomacy etc-etc there is also the need to analyse the social impact of the semi-final. Cricket holds the key to how we can generate national unity and shed provincial and ethnic biases. Cricket is played in every city, village and town; in lanes, fields and sport arenas.
What else is there that is universal? We thought religion was a uniting force. It has turned out to be otherwise. There is no fanaticism in cricket. People can be cricket mad but it is a fun madness. So the clue is that something must be enjoyable, and desirable in order to become universally popular. There is a lot of material for sociologists psychologists, policy makers and historians to study in the phenomenon that was the performance of Pakistani team and the public response in the world cup.