“Yippee!” screamed my neighbour.

I rushed to his house in the middle of the night, thinking the municipality had finally filled the pothole outside while the city slept

“Yippee,” he cried again, staring at the television. “Argentina won!”

Outside, the pothole continued widening. The street was flooding. A motorcyclist had disappeared briefly into a crater and emerged in another ward. But nobody cared. The Football World Cup was on.

For ninety minutes, India forgot everything.

We forgot our roads, our floods, our bridges and our drains. We watched countries obeying the same rules, playing on the same field and accepting the same referee.

Perhaps that is why India was not playing.

We are uncomfortable with games in which everybody follows identical rules.

It’s only in cricket we do rather well. But that’s because, even the British, who invented it, occasionally look bored playing it.

Football is different. Nearly the whole world plays it. Everybody knows when the ball crosses the line. Nobody can announce that it was a goal merely because millions of supporters believe it was.

And that is where we have difficulty.

We want our own field, our own referee, our own scoreboard and preferably an opposition that has already been disqualified.

We do the same with democracy.

The world says democracy means a strong opposition, independent institutions, equality before the law and a press free to question those in power.

We reply, “We hold elections.”

“But what about the rest?”

“We won the elections.”

That ends the discussion.

When international reports question our press freedom, equality or democratic health, we do not examine ourselves. We examine the report.

“Who prepared it?”

“Why do they hate India?”

“Were they funded by Pakistan?”

Soon the report itself is on trial, while the problem it described slips quietly out of the courtroom.

It is like a footballer picking up the ball, running into the goal and then accusing the referee of being anti national for blowing the whistle.

The world says, “That is handball.”

We reply, “Not according to our ancient culture.”

The world shows us statistics.

We show the world a speech.

The world points to inequality.

We point to a new temple.

The world asks about silenced journalists.

We turn up the volume of hate on television.

So we sit and watch the World Cup, cheering nations that accept common rules while refusing to play by those rules ourselves.

We are magnificent spectators. We clap for fair play abroad and practise foul play at home.

Then we organise our own match, lock out the referee, remove the opposition, announce the final score and declare ourselves world champions.

The potholes remain. The floods return. Democracy limps.

But the scoreboard looks excellent because we are the only ones allowed to operate it.

Mere spectators of the world. And permanent winners in games where we make the rules…!

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