Roadhouse Blues: The nomadic life of an Indian Super Fan

Inspired by Sudhir Kumar Gautam, a whole new bunch of superfans want to live a nomadic life in support of Indian cricket team

Mumbai: The Indian team is giving final touches to a hard day’s grind at practice in a bilateral series that will serve as the final dress rehearsal for the T20 World Cup, where any result other than defending the title will be termed an underachievement by their legion of fans. Head coach Gautam Gambhir spots a fan in a deserted stand corner. The fan has a sharp beard and an upright moustache dyed saffron, white, and green, representing India’s colors. Gambhir hands the fan a match ticket for the following day’s T20I tie against New Zealand in Visakhapatnam.

Indian fans during the first T20I cricket match between India and New Zealand in Nagpur. (PTI)

HT graphics.

The proud ticket-holder Rajan Thakur, 32, comes from Delhi and is one among the growing tribe of Indian cricket team’s superfans, whose ubiquitous presence livens the atmosphere in packed stadiums.

Inspired by the first Indian super fan Sudhir Kumar Gautam - the thin man with a shaved head, tri-colour body paint, Tendulkar on his heart, Indian flag in one hand and conch in the other, who started the superfan mania; Thakur wants to embrace the nomadic existence for Team India but he is yet to win rallying support from within the Indian team like Sudhir, who is unfailingly gifted match tickets on pre-match day.

HT photo.

Thakur is hopeful that after catching the head coach’s attention, things will get smoother for him to access stadiums during the World Cup. There have been days when he purchased black-market tickets worth ₹ 8000 to secure presence inside terraces. Gambhir probably doesn’t know but this is Thakur’s second coming as a superfan.

“In 2011, I would paint myself with Virat Kohli’s name on my body. Then, I met with an accident and had to take a break,” said Thakur. “I have resumed from the recent Ro-Ko series. But now, I don’t cheer for one player. I wear a Team India embossed T-shirt. That means all the players wave back to me, when I call them.” The Kohli-styled beard earns him rave reviews.

Inspired by Sudhir

These Sudhir-inspired clumps of superfans are a force by themselves, typifying the manic craze for India’s men in blue. They don’t fit in the high-flying organized fan communities. In the absence of a privileged life comprising private rooms with walls filled with posters of their favourite players, they have turned wayfarers to cherish their passion. They use their bodies as an expression of love for their heroes.

“Ab shauk hai, to kya karey (Now, if that’s your passion, what do you do?),” Thakur says rhetorically. “Ek hi to life hai. (There’s just one life you live).”

Thakur tries to keep up with his sense of duty in personal life. An auto parts dealer, he devotes time to his work during Test matches. That covers costs for his cricket travels when India is on the road for ODIs and T20Is. In his latest avatar as a travelling fan, he has stopped painting on his bare body. Putting on and taking off the paint would take him six hours, he said.

Ram Babu, the Mohali-born MS Dhoni fan, did it for 12 years. “But doctors told me there could be a threat of skin cancer. For the past six years, I just paint my face and wear a tricolour T-shirt with MS Dhoni written on it,” he says.

Going by longevity, Ram Babu is Indian cricket’s No 2 superfan. Waving a full size tricolour, atop an open bus in Colombo, he featured prominently in the India-Pakistan pre-match programming.

It took Ram Babu 7 years just to meet Dhoni in person. When he finally did, it earned him the right to secure a free-match ticket for all India matches like Sudhir.

His back story is a study in contrast to Thakur’s. The burly superfan tried part-time jobs to supplement his cricket craze, but kept losing them as employers lost patience with his poor availability. His parents got him married in the hope that family duties would transform him. But the father of two is unable to strike the right balance between responsibility and fandom. A centre of attraction for television cameras and among the most recognizable faces in the stands, he gets no approval at home for his dereliction of duty.

Now that everyone knows him, sponsors come calling during big tournaments. When they don’t, he’s so well travelled that friends and acquaintances offer help.

Testing waters

Vishal, 22, is a Shubman Gill fan and just starting out. Every time he goes out to cheer the Indian team, he vows to body paint himself in Gill’s name. The 10th fail youngster from Ahmedabad does odd jobs in cricket, and although he is yet to meet his idol in person, with youthful exuberance he says, “Until Shubman Gill plays, I will raise a toast for him at cricket stadiums.”

“People at my home also watch cricket. They are happy watching me on TV,” he adds.

He couldn’t get match tickets for the early rounds, but in India’s upcoming tie against Netherlands in Ahmedabad, watch out for the young man with a ‘Miss you Gill’ message on his chest.

Ram Babu is skeptical, if the growing folk of travelling fans are aware what they are getting into. “I met one fan who left midway saying there is too much of a cost involved. Of course, there is. You need to have a passion for it,” he said.

There’s no way to judge which fan’s heart bleeds blue more, but in the multitude of people who come out to support the Indian cricket team, some are pushing the boundaries of fandom every day. Their uncompromising love for the players is organic. Those who are in it for instant fame, exit the scene like an Instagram story.

It took Dipak Patel several years to meet his idol Rohit Sharma. Once the Nagpur-born fan caught Rohit’s fancy, he has become a regular feature in India matches. Dipak was in Colombo wearing a ‘Miss You Rohit’ T-shirt.

“He took my autograph in his hands. And got it tattooed. He has all my 200s written on his hands. I wouldn’t call him crazy, but dedicated,” Rohit recently told presenter Jatin Sapru.

Among these half a dozen superfans, only one is out to cheer for an Indian T20 squad member. Manmohan Singh, a Rajasthan-resident working in Mumbai is an out-and-out Suryakumar Yadav fan. If the Indian team goes the distance, he would hope to get the same affection from the Indian captain as Sudhir, whom Sachin Tendulkar invited to the dressing room after winning the 2011 ODI World Cup.

You could argue none of the Indian superfans have the trademark wit of the late Uncle Percy who became a mascot of sorts for Sri Lankan cricket with his rhyming couplets for players of his own country and others. Cricket today doesn’t have a ‘Gravy’, the cross-dressing Antiguan hipster, of long nails and merry dancing, who was endorsed by none other than Sir Vivian Richards.

But there’s no doubting their obsession for cricket; the likes of Sudhir and his folk, who stand out in a sea of blue jerseys with their bare bodies and torso, painted in national colours, shouting their lungs off to keep the Indian cricket windmill running.