The best direction for anyone trying to locate the ISL fanfare in Guwahati runs thus: on NH27, turn left at the one-horned rhino.
Tikhor, the mascot for the 2016 South Asian Games, marks the entrance to the multi-sports complex which promises to become gridlock central on Saturday afternoon when the ISL puts down its short-lease tent and sticks on as many sequins as it can.
An opening ceremony, featuring a gaggle of Bollywood's-A-list-aspirants and a cast of 500 or so, may have has attracted several thousand, but make no mistake - this is football country from all sides of the Brahmaputra, which makes the idea of kicking off ISL season 3 with the North East United playing Kerala Blasters at home, particularly inspired.
The previous two editions opened in major metros -- Kolkata and Chennai -- and the 2016 opener is a test of temperatures and a toe dipped into a still but very deep water.
The idea of a NorthEast United is tied in to the ISL's fundamental marketing ethos and is one that is rarely used in professional club football largely driven by the local. "Eight states one United" is a rather unwieldy catchment area but team director Ardeshir Jeejeebhoy says the club reflects the region being the "engine" that drives Indian football.
Whatever it stands for, NEUFC resonates with the common man. Like Shillong teenage student Melajid heading to physics tuition in the morning who reels off his favorites. Real Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo Eugenson Lyngdoh and "Come on who else, North East United of course."
Guwahati is the gateway to a part of the country that fields roughly 40 percent of India's professional footballers. Their fans - ferocious in fervor and volume - form as entertaining an opening day show as the Bollywood lot, with caravans and convoys coming in from the hill country that watches over Lower Assam.
The arrival of "north east" fans into ISL matches is now part of local stories. They arrive in a flotilla of four-wheel drives, having left homes early from the Khasi country and Shillong and the western Garo Hills.
They stop en route for a barbecue and a bit of a drink, before invading the plains with flags waving, horns blaring and parking regulations tossed aside into the winds. Except, Saturday will mark the ISL's opening night, with more VIPs per square feet than Assam has dealt with in a long time, so highlander hijinks may not be entertained.
As it is, random journalists and daily wage labourers were being shooed off the Indira Gandhi Athletics Stadium porch, because Nita Ambani and her eight-vehicle convoy were about to grandly sweep in.
The desire by the high and mighty to find themselves watching Saturday on a sticky Guwahati evening is by now, well-advertised. A letter from the ministry of irrigation, handloom & textiles and sericulture requesting the ISL organisers to, "arrange the issue of 100 passes / tickets... for family members as well as office staff" popped up on social media, in a familiar political note.
At the other end of such entitled assertion, was the sight of fans queuing up in Guwahati earlier in the week, hours before the ticket window opened. In Shillong, as they stood in line at the Polo Grounds, they had heard the Guwahati queues were "3km" long.
The ISL offered Shillong's citizens only one ticket counter in town and one ticket per head, of whichever denomination was spat out by the server. A policeman, who wanted to be known only as Manish, queued up from 10am on Wednesday with two friends, and watched 80-odd tickets being sold before the counter shut.
The next day, he was luckier, as was student Laisumwi Brahma, who spent five hours in the women's queue before being sold an "opening ceremony" ticket, one of the 40-odd that went on sale on Thursday.
Like 50 other people, Brahma decided to get back in line, in front of the foreboding ticket booth, hoping that a few tickets for the second ISL match in Guwahati would be tossed out before the counter closed for the day.
There were rumours of Rs 400 tickets going for Rs 3000, and online tickets were no use because the BookMyShow server had already crashed and frozen. Not the kind of ticket sales dramas that new-age events like the ISL would want to be associated with.
NorthEast United FC officials were however delighted that the first round of tickets sold out in under an hour; no matter the hardships of fans, Saturday is expected to feature throngs. Around 10kms north of the ISL hubbub, another football event was being held, which appeared to belong to the age of ticket-counter riots: except there was a shortage of an audience here.
In the heart of Guwahati, the final of the 64th Bordoloi Trophy was being played at the Nehru Stadium between East Bengal and Nepal's 3 Star FC, to vociferous but dismal numbers.
Prag TV's live coverage had a Bengali commentator tell his viewers that the stands at the Nehru Stadium were "khacha-khach." The closest sniff of "khacha-khach" could be sensed only in a single slice of the southern stands behind goal.
The biggest east stand was empty, and the crowd numbered around a few thousand, including the folks on with the most expensive tickets and those with access to the grounds on the sidelines.
There was half-time entertainment in one corner of the ground - a female voice over the PA who squealed out every announcement. For a short while, the scorer on TV awarded East Bengal's goal to 3Star FC of Nepal, before correcting himself.
This multi-purpose venue also staged its last ODI six years ago, and at its khacha-khach apex, seated between 25000 and 30000. All of that, and more, will turn up at the ISL opener on Saturday. In that noise, colour and the compelling television picture, will lie a sober, gloomy reminder that a reboot is in order of the fundamental hardware that makes up Indian football.