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Journalism of Courage
Bashir has fast gone from being just another fan to the country’s constant face in the stands. Leaving for Australia, the US-based hotelier tells Nihal Koshie of a most unusual journey.
Whenever the Pakistan cricket team is playing around the world, the Bashir household in Chicago is edgy. The Patriarch, Mohammed Bashir, has suffered three heart attacks, the last one as recently as 2012. His wife Rafia, son and three daughters fear for the day the wildly oscillating fortunes of the national team takes a permanent toll on the heart of the 60-year-old.
What makes the family anxious this February is the journey Bashir is to set out on – another pilgrimage as a cricket fan. He will fly 15,000 kilometres from Chicago to Sydney and then to the various venues Pakistan is scheduled to play at during the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand beginning February 14.
The family doctor, for the umpteenth time, has advised his patient — increasingly one of the most recognisable faces at a cricket match — against travelling to watch Pakistan play because Bashir does not take lightly to defeat and allows emotions to get the better of him.
Though he is paying no heed to the doctor’s advice, Bashir is not taking any chances at the World Cup, knowing fully well that he may well be in for another rollercoaster. In his bag, which also contains the green kurta with the crescent-and-moon embossed on it, is a medicine box. The dosages of the different-coloured pills have been clearly marked day-wise.
“I take my medicines on time and have a prescription chart to follow. I am also a diabetic,” Bashir says. He also has been diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnea – a disorder where the upper windpipe narrows causing him to stop breathing.
“I don’t know whether I will live to see another World Cup. I am flying to Sydney on February 4. Maybe I should have travelled to watch cricket when I was younger but then I had to work to make a living.”
This edition of the World Cup will be Bashir’s third since he turned into a travelling fan in 2007. He underwent a baptism by fire as he watched the upset of the tournament when Pakistan lost to Ireland at Sabina Park, Jamaica. “I was heartbroken when Pakistan lost that day. I cried a lot and could not believe that I had travelled all the way only to see Pakistan knocked out early. Pakistan have lost after that too while I have been at a stadium, but the day they were defeated by Ireland was by far the worst. I was lucky I didn’t suffer another heart attack at the stadium itself,” Bashir says.
Early days
The match at Sabina Park was his first international game as a spectator in over four decades. Back in the 1970s he watched a Bishen Singh Bedi-led India play Pakistan in his original home-town of Karachi.
But a personal cricketing setback and the compulsion to earn a living saw Bashir’s dreams of watching and playing the game go up in smoke. Bashir moved from Karachi to Saudi Arabia, where he worked as a supervisor in the transport department of the Riyadh airport.
“I was a budding wicketkeeper and used to open the innings for my club. I appeared for the selection trials for PIA, a first-class side. I was hoping to get picked as I would have had a job, which would also allow me to play cricket. But it wasn’t to be.”
Bashir has made a small fortune from his restaurant business. He runs the Ghareeb Nawaz, which has two branches in Chicago. The speciality at the restaurant is Hyderabadi biryani – chicken sells for $4 while mutton for $5.
“My family moved from Hyderabad in India to Karachi during partition. In 1979, I shifted to New York. I initially worked at a hotel in New York before starting my own restaurant. We started off by making Hyderabadi biryani because my wife hails from Hyderabad (now Telangana). In the early 1980s a plate of biryani would cost $12 in New York. My wife sold her first plate of biryani for $2. We began by serving value-for-money food. Thanks to God our restaurant business is now established, else I don’t think I would have been able to become a full-time fan of Pakistan cricket.”
Bashir has spent $7000 so far on flights and accommodation while he estimates he will need at least another $2500 for the duration of his stay. “Most of the money I have saved up on the sly. Bakhi main ne chori kiya. Biwi ko pata nahi,” the cricket tragic says jokingly.
While he is a Pakistan fan at heart, Bashir also plays the bhaichara card, which will be on show when he dons the kurta, which has the Pakistan green on one side and the Indian tri-colour on the other, for the game between the two arch-rivals at the Adelaide Oval on February 15. “My wife is from Hyderabad in India so I have also printed on the kurta the lines: ‘jis desh mein ganga behti hai us desh ki meri biwi hai’. It would be great if India and Pakistan meet in the final. I have received a lot of love from the people of India.”
Across the border
Apart from his wife’s roots, Bashir has a soft-corner for India because of two incidents. The first one occurred in Mohali ahead of the India versus Pakistan semifinal in 2011. “I didn’t have a ticket and held a poster which said, ‘Please I need one ticket for India-Pakistan match’. A kind fan gave me one.”
MS Dhoni too has a hand in Bashir taking a liking for the Indian team. Last year, when Bashir didn’t have a ticket for the World T20 final between India and Sri Lanka, Dhoni, recognised Bashir, who was watching a practice session from the stands, and ensured that the man from Chicago got a match pass.
“Of the two teams, I think India is stronger because they have so many talented youngsters. Maybe because there is no international cricket played in Pakistan the youth are not inspired to take up the sport.”
So what does he crave for more — Pakistan winning another World Cup or them resuming cricket at home? Bashir has a simple answer. “If in my lifetime, if Pakistan win the World Cup and I have the opportunity to watch Pakistan play at home, at the National Stadium in Karachi, I will die a happy man.”
