THE frost hung from the bare trees and a thick sheet of ice covered the sidewalk. It was 3 am and minus 5 degrees Celsius in the land of the Superbowl and basketball. But ateeming crowd in high spirits—hailing from all over the Indian subcontinent—was determined to catch some Indian sun via satellite. Inside the Gramercy Park Theatre, there would be eight hours of cricket fever—live from Bangalore and on a big screen—and the diehards were eager to catch it.
The queue started building up hours before the match. America would have considered them an esoteric bunch (the New York press thought domestic Japanese Sumo wrestling matches more newsworthy). A total of five games—none live—were screened on pay TV by a premier cable channel. But it was obvious the all-American company didn't have its finger on the subcontinental pulse: the Bangalore game was not shown, though it would have brought the greatest profits.
And so, in the heart of the frozen Big Apple—Manhattan's Murray Hill, or Curry Hill, for its subcontinental...
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