2.65 Billion Eyes Of India Are Fixed On Cricketer Virat Kohli

To be India’s best cricketer is to live with the suffocating, infuriating, frightening trappings of fame. But for Virat Kohli, it’s seductive all the same.

- Wright Thompson

A riot awaits Virat Kohli once he opens the door of his Range Rover. It’s a warm Tuesday in Mumbai, and he seems at ease with the madness swirling around this shopping mall, where crowds wait for him to talk about luxury watches they can’t afford. As the captain of the Indian cricket team, he’s probably the most famous person in India, which makes him one of the most famous people in the world. He lives a strange life, but like the frog being boiled alive, he doesn’t seem to grasp its weirdness. Exhibit A: the unflustered look on his face as he steps out of the car and 50 security guards muscle him through a screaming, swaying, chanting crowd and deposit him in a narrow Tissot watch boutique for an event. People outside push toward the door. Looking at the unbroken wall of bodies, I ask nervously how we will manage to leave this store. For the moment, we are barricaded inside. Kohli doesn’t like tight spaces; he is so claustrophobic that he says he must have drowned in one of his past lives. Even in a car, sometimes he’ll roll down the window and risk aggressive fan encounters. “Honestly, you can ask the people who have been around me,” he says, “if I see two people coming at me with a phone, I panic.”