Cricket is just about the biggest thing in India, and I can see why. The test match variety  involves a lot of waiting. It is a slow paced game; chess on grass. On almost every strip of waste ground, young boys play cricket.

They wait — for the bowler to bowl; for the batsman to bat; and for the fielder to eventually field. This near eternity of waiting mirrors just about everything else that goes on around them.

Napoleon once said that Britain is a nation of shopkeepers. He should have visited India today. Small one-room shops abound, specialising in just about anything imaginable. Look into each one and you will see faces gazing out into the street. They look and wait...and wait. Owners, or the relatives of owners, sit behind desks in charge of the cash. Employees watch and wait for customers. Armies of boys and men stand and wait in cafes.

Flurries of activity occur at meal times or when women come out to shop with daughters or spouses in the evening. The rest of the time is the waiting game. Just like cricket. Boring? Many would say so, but by no means all would.

I am not a cricket fan. I find it boring to watch, and when played at school, boring to play. So it comes as little surprise to me that I get easily frustrated by India. The place is cricket with a billion people. Waiting in a queue for an hour to buy a train ticket; waiting for trains that are over three hours late; waiting for the power to return after yet another ‘load shedding’ episode; and waiting...and waiting. It does not seem to try the patience of too many Indians, whereas mine snaps all too often.

So when my friend Shweta said that she would meet me in a dhaba at 10:30 in the morning, being an impatient Westerner I actually believed that she would be there. She arrived 35 minutes later, blaming the traffic and the cycle-rickshaw man for getting lost. But in all honesty, I was used to waiting at that stage and thirty five minutes wasn’t too bad. It could have been much longer.

Shweta was beautiful. But trying to get her to talk was like waiting for a second rate batsman to hit a six — it rarely happens. So everytime I was with her, the conversation was one-sided. I probed, prompted, provoked and used just about every social skill to get her to talk, but with little or no success. There was a lot of waiting involved. After a few days I almost gave up. Long periods of silence were punctuated with a remark or question from me. One word or one phrase utterances were provided in response if I got lucky. Often, it was just a smile. I kind of got tired of waiting for her to talk.

I first met Shweta on a train going across Northern India and had just laid out my bedsheet on the lower berth with the aim of settling down for the night. She was sitting opposite with her mother and father. I was quite taken aback when she initiated a conversation with me. We ended up exchanging addresses and wrote to one another when I returned to England.

The next morning the train crawled into New Delhi station. Over the next nine days I did a lot of staring and waiting. I stared at the ceiling as I waited in bed lying flat on my back. I made frequent visits to the bathroom and stared down the toilet as I threw up into it. It was Christmas and New Year time and I was stuck in the Hotel Vishal nursing a severe bout of dysentery.

Over the nine day period that I was laid up in bed with the Bob Seger version of ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ constantly bellowing from a room across the hallway. The Kashmiri occupant and his German girlfriend were stuck in Delhi waiting to head north into the mountains. Everytime I think of the US singer Bob Seger or hear that song, I automatically think of dysentery. I am sure that Bob wanted to be remembered for so much more. After I recovered, I took a 40 hour train journey south to Chennai. I needed a warmer climate. A few days after arriving, I took a plane back to the UK.

A few months later, I returned to see Shweta. And in a few months after that I never saw or heard from her again. I suppose that I got sick of waiting — waiting for her to be someone she wasn’t — waiting for her to become someone she couldn’t be. It was all my fault. I should not have expected her to change.

I am writing this after having finished a ten hour coach journey. Every journey begins in the same manner. The guy who packs the bags into the storage compartment of the bus slams it shut and frantically cajoles everyone to get on board. The driver has started the engine. Everyone rushes to get on in a state of semi-panic thinking that departure is imminent. But alas, it never is. On arrival I checked into a hotel. After lying on my bed for twenty minutes I feel that I am getting bitten. I am. I look at the sheets and find about half a dozen bed bugs. I go to see the manager at the reception.
“I pay 300 rupees for bed bugs,” I complain. After waiting and thinking, he finally says in a polite manner, “Yes sir, but there are not that many.” I try to explain that it only requires one bed bug to get eaten alive. Again he waits and thinks. Eventually he tells me to wait in my room and one of the hotel boys will be along to sort it out.

After 45 minutes, one of his boys arrive with a bulky contraption strapped to him. He points the nozzle of the tube at the bed and sprays some foul smelling stuff on the sheets. I started to cough and had to leave the room.

The manager comes along and tells me that all will be okay in ten minutes after the fumes go. Eventually they did. After ten hours.

As I struggle through yet another hot and humid bout of ‘load shedding’, I can’t help but think that I never did get to like cricket. Maybe its time I packed up my bat and ball and went home. Cricket was never any fun.