That is the thing I love about sports, that feeling of a universal connection between strangers you find randomly across the street, in the library or at your workplace. Sure, you care about different teams winning, but you care about the same game you know! For as long as I remember, cricket matches were always a source of happiness in childhood. It would be something which would decide if I were happy or not. If India won, I would be satisfied, and if it did not, not so much so! Imagine days being just better because someone played well somewhere! Slowly though with different league matches, I started appreciating the competition instead of just my team winning. It was more about the players, the game, and the techniques they had, and it translated boundaries. It was this environment where, you know, you watch the game, play the game, almost irrationally, no rational ( and mostly important ) deadlines were to define if you would be invested in the game. Have a party at home, sure, have a test tomorrow, or have a class going, just keep streaming the match in the background.

When I left home, that connection with the game, that care for knowing the scores, even in slowly moving five-day long test matches was lost somewhere. But whenever I went back home, it would just turn, all the same, this match and that match, such a tightly packed schedule, each inning, each run scored, each new player introduced, you needed to know!!

Now, years later, in this new city, new place, a bit of different culture, getting closer to home, I found this same feeling, this connection with another game. Neither the game is the same, nor the people, nothing except this core of rooting for the game. I am working right now, and usually, on a normal day, it would just be a bunch of smiles, and a bit of small talk shared. But just then, I heard a commentary about the match going on, someone was live streaming it on their iPad. And you can just go, sit there and watch the game, no context, no small talk, just shared interest for the game. Or just the other day, if you find someone too intently looking at a screen ( okay, the field is too big for you to see everything on the small portable iPad screen ), and go there and ask them what is the score, mostly you will get a screen slightly turned towards you, for you to see the match properly. Specifically, during all these events, say world cups, this mutual thing everyone cares about, is pretty fun to live through!

As we grow older, we have to move towards being a bit more individualistic, with too many concerns and problems which might not translate or are relevant to many others. But naturally, normally to have this shared context, sometimes shared concern which makes it in some cases easie, and in some cases more fun to live through it all. Maybe that’s why we seek common grounds or problems, some fundamentally shared cores or pains and shared interests in people we meet, people we befriend, and people we connect with.