Long before Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo there were Chuni Goswami and PK Banerjee, icons of 1960s Kolkata football. The rest of the world may have embraced Brazilian samba and the legendary Pele, but for the Bengali dada, Pele was only the neighbourhood bhalo chhele. Maradona may have been touched by the hand of God, but since when has the Bengali been short of cosmic energy when Ma Kali is at hand in the Kalighat temple?
Back in those halcyon days in Bengal, not only were the Mohammedans always Sporting, but who needed a separate Gorkhaland when you had the great Shyam Thapa by your side? Why would you even need to annex Sikkim, when Bhaichung Bhutia was your main striker or moan about the Partition of Bengal when East Bengal and Mohun Bagan were playing out your sub-regional yearnings? Today’s Gen Next may prefer watching Real Madrid vs Atletico Madrid, but the original city derby for those desis who liked to kick up a storm was always East Bengal vs Mohun Bagan on Kolkata’s maidans. Or should we say ilish maach (hilsa) vs chingri (prawns) maach even if sometimes they were no maach for each other?
Which team you supported depended on which side of the Hooghly river you hailed from because for the Bengali, fish is first, football is a close second. Football was the bhadralok’s stab at machismo; a riposte to those saying the Bangla babu was only steeped in books and music and couldn’t kick some balls. Haven’t we Bengalis always asked, ki ballcho?
Besides our very own dada Sourav tore the shirt off his back in true soccer hero style after a famous victory at Lord’s, even if the Bengali has still not made it to the 56 inch chest category. And if Dada can play ball, so can Didi. In recent panchayat elections, Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and her party showed they like the politics of contact sport although in her case she’s both player and referee and inclined to flash the red card every time there’s a stray Marxist in the way. BJP is hoping to score goals in Bengal in 2019, but learning football has to be one way to win Bengali hearts. In contrast to the Bengalis, the Gujaratis have never had a footballing tradition, so BJP president Amit Shah has to find a way to score quickly before he’s declared off side.