Kanpur lacking the excitement ... and food

The Kanpur ODI, coming two days after Diwali, and featuring India and Pakistan, should have the status of the Boxing Day matches played in the southern hemisphere. However, the scenes in Kanpur a day before the match suggested little of that. The deserted town bore no signs that a crucial ODI was less than a day away; only feverish last-minute activity at the stadium gave the game away.

After one has signed an undertaking absolving the hotel of any responsibility for any loss of property from their room comes the really good news: there is no room service - and indeed no food - because the workers had gone for their Diwali holiday for a week. One must simply grin and bear it as that is the case in almost all the hotels.

People from this part of Uttar Pradesh have a reputation of being streetsmart, a quality long and often romanticised in Bollywood and books. As one steps out in search of food, such things become conspicuous. There are at least four outlets on one road selling various versions of a popular clothing brand. One of them has Saif Ali Khan and Preity Zinta endorsing it, another has Uday Chopra and Tanisha doing the honours. For the uninitiated, they are all Bollywood stars, but they are not earning anything for their services here. Those are cutouts from movie stills that have been superimposed on standard advertisement.

As one approaches the stadium, one can see Mahendra Singh Dhoni "canvassing" for a candidate in a local election in much the same fashion, and more such. It would have been fun talking to the great brains behind all this, but the stores are all closed. It would have been much more fun to get some lunch, but the restaurants are all closed.

It's all down to the north Indian custom of going to friends' houses to wish them the day after Diwali. It's called different things in different areas - here it is Pareva. For this one day, everything is shut in Kanpur. Quite a hellish morning after.

Then a flash of inspiration: the team hotel will surely have a restaurant, albeit obscenely priced. The self-congratulation dissolves rapidly when the police refuse to play ball, barring all entry into the hotel.

"What if I need to rent a room?"

"You need a pass issued by the police."

That is the time when one forgives the Indian Railways for all the delayed trains, the dirty toilets and rude booking clerks. When nothing works, the railway station does. That the Kanpur Central railway station is located in a neighbourhood called Faithfulganj can't just be a quirky coincidence.