India, July 20 -- "Yippee!" screamed my neighbour.

I rushed to his house in the middle of the night, thinking the municipality had finally filled the pothole outside while the city slept.

"Yippee," he cried again, staring at the television. "Argentina won!"

Outside, the pothole continued widening. The street was flooding. A motorcyclist had disappeared briefly into a crater and emerged in another ward. But nobody cared. The Football World Cup was on.

For ninety minutes, India forgot everything.

We forgot our roads, our floods, our bridges and our drains. We watched countries obeying the same rules, playing on the same field and accepting the same referee.

Perhaps that is why India was not playing.

We are uncomfortable with games i...