It certainly is the best seat in the house, but sitting close to the boundary of a cricket field does not necessarily ensure you would have a good time watching the match. Cricket is like a religion in India. An unusual game, that goes on all day even through lunch and tea. Naturally then, covering this game in India is like covering it nowhere else in the world.

At least four hours before a match, photographers start out for the stadium, winding through noisy, mile-long lines. The lines of spectators are so long that one wonders if the last man actually gets to see the full match.

Security is often difficult. Parking passes are virtually impossible to get. So there’s little else a photographer can do, but walk along crowded dusty paths carrying heavy equipment. Certainly not a good thing for the faint-hearted!

It was no different at the India-Australia one-day match in Vadodara. The intense bag-checking by the police at several places made getting into the stadium an adventure sport by itself. Undeterred, spectators thronged the stadium well before the game. A glimpse of the players during pre-match practice was all it took to drive them into a tizzy. The cheering in the stadium is so loud that all laws on noise levels seem to be breached. Only the law of the willow prevails.

Photographers too go into a tizz when players appear, albeit for a different reason. When players practice in front of photographers, a straight or cover drive or a throw from a fielder sends us scurrying for cover too. Lenses get hit, laptops take a rap. Recently a photographer got hit on his head by a jet-paced-ball from an Australian cricketer. He  was lucky to come away with only minor injuries.

Such escapades happened at Nagpur too, but here, the photographers protested. Most Indian cricketers comply with photographer requests not to practice in front of them. But some young ones prefer to practice in front of the lenses. After several hits to man and machine, a confrontation ensued between players and shooters, and organizers intervened to prevent fisticuffs.

But it’s not always brotherhood and camaraderie among photographers. On smaller grounds, fights break out over a scarce resource - the right spot. Tempers usually subside when the first ball is bowled and lenses are trained on players. The game rolls on under the beating sun, giving us a taste of the warm nay hot country. Water becomes scarce at some venues, so does food. These are available in the press room,  often a winding walk or climb away, but photographers (especially us with news-agencies) usually don’t have the luxury of time to go there.

Not scarce though, are emotions running high. When the men-in-blue (Indian players) hit a shot, or a visiting player is dismissed, the stadium erupts as possibly the noisiest place in India. Turning a deaf ear to the noise, keeping one eye on the game, and the other on the laptop, is challenging. It’s like a circus, a modern-day gladiatorial game, involving sports-persons and photographers battling heat and thirst, dust and deadlines.

For hours players slug it out with bats and balls and we with our lenses and laptops. Finally the match ends, with a non-stop deafening roar from the crowd after an Indian victory or a deafening silence after the home-team’s defeat.

The departure of fans is no less chaotic than their arrival. Crowds are not enthusiastic to leave till the last player has left the stadium in the team bus, waving to them, that is if any were visible from behind the curtains. Now that’s extracting value for ticket-money!

After the crowds disperse, photographers leave too, clean-bowled by the time we reach our hotels or homes. All that’s left now is to dip into some curry, put our feet up and call it a day. Howzatt! for some curry and cricket?

A tourist poses next to Victoria’s Secret models following their appearance in New York’s Times Square to celebrate the return of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show to New York, November 18, 2009.  REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

President Barack Obama tours the Great Wall of China in Badaling, November 18, 2009.      REUTERS/Jason Reed

Uruguay’s Luis Suarez (L-R), Diego Perez and Alvaro Fernandez celebrate on top of the goal at the end of their World Cup 2010 qualifying soccer match against Costa Rica in Montevideo, November 18, 2009. Uruguay reached the World Cup finals after a 1-1 draw at home to Costa Rica.  REUTERS/Martin Cerchiari

A ceremonial officer prepares for the annual State Opening of Parliament ceremony in London November 18, 2009. REUTERS/Toby Melville

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Virginia Labrador, 26, as a contestant in the Miss Sevilla pageant pose during a presentation in the Andalusian capital of Seville November 17, 2009. The winner of the pageant held on December 5 in Seville, will go on to compete in the Miss Spain beauty contest in 2010. REUTERS/Marcelo del Pozo

Taxis line up to get their tanks filled on a viaduct in Chongqing municipality November 17, 2009. Central and eastern Chinese provinces faced the worst natural gas shortage in years as supplies were diverted to snowstorm-hit northern China, while producers lacked incentives to expand output because of poor margins, a state broadcaster said on Tuesday. REUTERS/Stringer

A Palestinian laborer prays at a construction site in Gilo, a Jewish settlement on land Israel captured in 1967 and annexed to its Jerusalem municipality, November 17, 2009. Israel declined comment on Tuesday on a report of new U.S. demands it curb settlement round Jerusalem, but it reaffirmed its determination to go on building on occupied West Bank land that it has annexed to the city. The controversial Israeli barrier and the West Bank town of Bethlehem are seen in the background. Reuters/Baz Ratner

Arju, 4, looks out from a his makeshift house built over a canal in the Rayerbazar area in Dhaka November 17, 2009. Arju lives in the house with his parents and five siblings. His father Anisul Huq earns 120 tk. ($1.70) a day pulling a  rickshaw in the city and pays 700 tk. ($10) a month to rent one room in the house. REUTERS/Andrew Biraj

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A fisherman stands on the shore of the swollen Capilano River in North Vancouver, British Columbia November 16, 2009. Several days of steady rain have some areas on flood watch.        REUTERS/Andy Clark

A Jewish settler carries roof tiles after a house was demolished at an outpost near the West Bank Jewish settlement of Negohot November 16, 2009. According to witnesses,several structures were demolished by Israeli authorities on Monday at an outpost that Israel considers illegal.  REUTERS/Baz Ratner

Afghan boys play soccer along a road in Kabul November16, 2009.   REUTERS/Jerry Lampen

Algeria’s fans carry the Algerian flag during the Egypt team’s training session in Khartoum November 16, 2009. Egypt will play Algeria in their 2010 World Cup qualifying playoff soccer match on November 18, 2009 in Sudan. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

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A 15-year-old girl with a gunshot wound on her leg rests in the emergency room of a hospital near the Petare slum in Caracas November 14, 2009. Gun laws are lax in Venezuela, where the government estimates there are 6 million firearms circulating among the population of about 28 million. Venezuela’s murder rate is about 8 times that of the United States. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

An Iraqi policeman stands guard in front of a damaged helicopter which police believed have belonged to former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s family near Samarra, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad, November 13, 2009. Three helicopters were found hidden in farms on Friday, a police source said. REUTERS/Sabah al-Bazee

A worker installs lanterns to decorate the site of an opening ceremony for a newly-built highway in Luoyang, Henan province November 15, 2009.  REUTERS/Carlf Zhang

Laundry man Shahzada lines up napkins and sheets to dry after a wash along the street near a slum area in Karachi on November 15, 2009. Shahzada washes napkins, towels and table-sheets for a nearby food street restaurant in Karachi.   REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

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It was in those last days of the country’s period of autocratic rule, riots and mayhem had become almost daily routine. Sometimes, the photographers, including me, were victims of attack from both sides

By 1997, news photography had become my full-time job. By then too, South Korea had a democratic government in power and major protests were less common. When they did happen, the tear gas may have gone but the tactics were tough and people got hurt. But now there was public opinion to worry about. There was an unwritten rule that members of the media should not be attacked.

This year, things changed again.

In May, I was covering a rally against the government of President Lee Myung-bak, an ex-businessman who had taken office in February 2008, promising pro-business reforms to set the economy on a new path of growth.

Thousands of people rallied in the capital’s center against his policies and to mark the mass protests a year earlier against his government’s decision to allow imports of U.S. beef.

One evening, I saw several policemen using force on a local newspaper photographer. She was shooting protesters being detained by police. Suddenly, an officer ordered his men to detain me. I asked what I had done wrong. The response was to drag me away from the scene, kicking me and using some pepper spray. I was let go after about half an hour, still without explanation for what I might have done wrong.

Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Choi Youn-seck

After protests, a police officer came to my company’s office to apologize.

A little later, one of my friends told me that I was partly to blame and should not have argued with the police. I was quite shocked. Would the same treatment be meted out to a text reporter standing there with a notebook and pen?

A photographer’s job is to get the photo. He or she must get into the fray and, in the process, risk getting hurt. But it is reasonable to expect not to be a target of any violence, especially by the enforcers of the law, when photographers are just doing their job. Isn’t it?

Men mourn the death of a Pakistani man working at the Iranian consulate in Peshawar after his body was brought to a Shi’ite congregation hall there on November 12, 2009. A gunman shot dead a Pakistani working at Iran’s consulate in the city of Peshawar on Thursday, police said, in an attack likely to compound strains in relations between the Muslim neighbors. REUTERS/Fayaz Aziz

An Afghan girl touches her mother’s artificial leg the ICRC Ali Abad Orthopedic center in Kabul November 12, 2009. The center, which is run mostly by disabled people, aims to educate and rehabilitate landmine victims and people with any kind of deformities, to help them integrate effectively into society. They also provide the patients with a 18-months interest free $600 micro credit loan. REUTERS/Jerry Lampen

People pose next to a wax figure of President Barack Obama at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in Shanghai November 12, 2009. REUTERS/Aly Song

A paramilitary policeman stands guard on Tiananmen Gate amid a snowfall in Beijing November 12, 2009. REUTERS/Kevin Zhao

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People in swimsuits dance during an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the largest swimwear parade at one time, in Sydney November 12, 2009. REUTERS/Daniel Munoz

Ice forms on a public bus, following a snowfall in Taiyuan, Shanxi province November 11, 2009. Thousands of vehicles have been trapped on roads after two days of snow in China’s biggest coal-mining province, disrupting the movement of people and coal, state media reported on Wednesday. REUTERS/Stringer

A wooden cross floats amongst poppies that have been thrown into a fountain in Trafalgar Square during the Armistice Day of remembrance in central London November 11, 2009.    REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

A man begs for money in the subway in Tbilisi, November 11, 2009. The inscription on the wall reads “I’m hungry”.  REUTERS/David Mdzinarishvili

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A young Buddhist monk holds a pair of sunglasses during a teaching session by spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in Tawang, in the northeastern Indian state of Arunchal Pradesh November 10, 2009. The Dalai Lama arrived by helicopter in this remote Buddhist enclave nestled in the icy folds of the eastern Himalayas on Sunday. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

Remains of a swimming pool are seen where a hotel stood before Hurricane Katrina struck at the Gulf Coast in Gulfport, Mississippi November 9, 2009. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

The coffins of six British soldiers killed in Afghanistan are driven though the streets of Wootton Bassett in southwest England November 10, 2009. Six British servicemen were flown home on Tuesday — five of whom were shot by a rogue Afghan policeman. REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett

A child walks inside a mosque at Teluk Meranti village in Pelalawan, Indonesia’s Riau province,  November 10, 2009. REUTERS/Beawiharta

Police officers escort Tatsuya Ichihashi upon his arrival at Tokyo station November 10, 2009. The Japanese suspect in the death of a young British woman found naked in a sand-filled bathtub has been caught after more than two years on the run during which he had plastic surgery, Japanese media reported on Tuesday. Ichihashi, 30, had been sought in connection with the death of Lindsay Ann Hawker, a 22-year-old English teacher from Brandon, near Coventry, after her body was found on the balcony of his apartment in Ichikawa, east of Tokyo, in March 2007. REUTERS/Kyodo

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