Why Can't They Just Play Baseball?
Last night over dinner I tried to watch a game of cricket. It had all the familiar trappings of baseball – bats, uniforms, a small white ball and a big green field. But as I watched I grew more and more frustrated. Why was the batter wearing a catcher’s mask? Why wasn’t anyone circling the bases? Why does he keep bunting, and then look all proud of himself? And why in God’s name does the scorecard say ‘Day 2, 91 runs to zero’?
I started to feel a little queasy. That feeling I get when I fall asleep on the subway and wake suddenly, squinting in disbelief as the name of my station disappears as the train pulls away. Did it really say Nostrand Avenue? Do I really have to get off this crowded train, cross through insane weather on the street, and try this whole thing again?
As I watched the game I began to realize that this same frustration has been plaguing me as I’ve tried to fit the familiar grid of New York City over the cities I’ve visited in India. All the same elements – people, traffic, 24 hour shops – are there, but somehow, if you’ll forgive the pun, it’s a whole different ballgame.
What I’ve found is that traveling and reporting here only become impossible when I insist that things should work in a certain way. When I slip, and expect that the internet connection should work, or there should be at least one restaurant serving beer in any given city, or that the name of the train I’m trying to catch should be written in English characters, I’m disappointed every time. When I remember that I have no idea what to expect at any given moment, and instead focus on listening carefully and being ready to change my plans at any given moment, I do just fine.
What we are trying to accomplish with this project is new to us in the first place. Yes, Sarah has experience reporting, Alex with photography, and me with getting computers to do what I want them to, but I’ve never dealt with creating radio pieces, and the only articles I’d ever written before a couple of weeks ago came from much tamer settings than minefields and slums. So why not throw in an incredibly complex country, culture, and 400 or so languages? What’s one more complication to us, really? It certainly makes the small successes that much more satisfying.
One such small success has just happened over the past few days. I had been struggling with the format of our published articles. Again, all the elements were there, with photos, sidebars, hyperlinks and headlines, but something wasn’t quite right. I was using Word to format the articles, and pushed the program to the extreme limits of its html editing capabilities. One day, looking for something on the computer, I discovered that we had Publisher. I felt like an idiot, because only a few minutes into working with the program I saw how vastly superior it was for my purposes.
But the feelings of idiocy subsided as I re-posted our articles in the new, snazzy format. I felt like a million bucks for a week.
As we move on to the next story I will try to keep these lessons close in mind. But I still refuse to believe that anyone actually understands the rules of cricket.
© 2006 The Common Language Project