An Untold Story of Football for Sustainability

 Sunday, 18th December, 2022 - Flash of lights sparkled, brightened again through the Stadium at Qatar where Argentina had lost their first match against Saudi Arabia. 

The flash lights on the TV radiated and stuck the neural synapses of the person who was sitting alone glued to the spirit of the finals of the World Cup. The electric impulses sent through the synapses of the person in the lonely, chaotic room with only papers, medicines, music instruments brought in flashbacks of 29th June, 1986. 

The person who was a real football buff and would not miss watching any football match during the time frame 1986 - 2006 including club matches of La Liga, EPL, Italian Seria A, UEFA Champions League, National Football League had lost the touch of watching the club matches. Almost the fandom and romance of the escape route of going through the corridors of the football leagues through these matches had almost died down for this person between 2011 - 2022. But yet, the practice of playing football at the slightest opportunity or watching a film or documentary related to football or doing research on impacts of football on society, economy and ecology had not died down. 

The burns, bruises of romantic fandom created from 1986 were and are too dominant inside even now. Yet, the realisation was not there, till the 125 minutes of an unstoppable show happened on Sunday, 18th December, 2022 in Qatar. The show stoppers were the two National Teams - Argentina and France. However, there were many whose lives revolved around the unstoppable show of 125 minutes. Hence, the magic moment of the churlish fandom was born yet again. No, the person who was watching the match didnot want that. It had taken a lot of time for him to come out of this fandom so that he/they donot feel the choking breath of 1990 Brazil loss to Argentina, the terrible chest pains arising out of every Brazil loss in a World Cup match. He did not want again to feel the claustrophobia of a phobic, fanatic moment when his head will be bruised out of joy by banging head on the wall when Chima Okerie would score a magical free kick against Mohun Bagan in one of the Kolkata Derby matches. 

He didnot want to feel or remember that the first time blood had overflown from his mouth during a local tournament match at the "Ghera Maath" (bengali term of a small football ground created through walls in a refugee locality of Jadavpur called - Kamarpara). However, as the 125 minutes went away in a flash, the synaptic connections between the heart and mind of the person sitting in a complete chaotic set up of a room just did not stop. The unstoppable memories of football made the nerves of the two legs tremble in a chill. A chill which was always there before getting onto every final match or Khep matches of "Para Football" of 1980s or early, late 1990s of an extended Kolkata from Jadavpur till the South 24 Pargana football grounds of Baruipur or Subhashgram Via Baghajatin, Bijoygarh, Garia, Narendrapur.

Therefore, an untold story of Football for Sustainability which was always there just wanted to come out. It was so prominent that the jerks of the nerves were not stopping during the entire night of December 18, 2022. The nerves could feel what was happening in the roads of Buenos Aires, 2022 Paris, 2022 and Kolkata, Kamarpara of 1986. The person following Schrodinger's Cat mystery was prevalent in multiple existences of truth, universes. The universes were of football which trained the person about sustainability through life and experiences and not by becoming a victim of a group of "trained curriculum degree holders who have to be successful at the cost of loosing the ecstasy of being vulnerable in life in front of sheer madness of success at every stage". An untold story was born and rekindled on 18th December, 2022.

This untold story of Sustainability through Football had begun sometime before 29th June, 1986, when the same person who got the ecstasy of fandom back on December 18, 2022 had received a book on football from his uncle. His uncle whose name is not mentioned in order to protect all anonymity saw the little child being constantly hooked to a small white coloured ping pong ball from the age of 5 instead of having friends around him. 

Friends were less preferred in comparison to the ping pong ball and hence the person was fortunate to receive a book on the history of football with visual photography of famous goal moments, dribble moments of the best of the best of the world of football. Hence, the person took an admission in the school, world and university of Football. The School of Football in which he was admitted often appeared to him like a place of a victim who would get a ward to recuperate all the inferior anxieties arising out of lack of money, food, cloth, luxury in life through only one object - "A Rounded Ball". The pentagons printed on the football where lively characters and the white, black pentagons were just not shapes. But they were actually different pathways and counsellors with whom he would talk everyday to be more resilient. 

Resilience, vulnerability are often another side of Sustainability. Football trained and taught this to the person and not the classroom or the exam rooms. So, while he chased anxiety and anxiety became a character in itself in his childhood, it seemed, when he reached the ground or touched the ping pong ball or headed a football, anxiety started to play football on the ground. The same anxiety within the person became his resilience builder everytime he played a football match - Be it for the local Para tournaments, School Tournaments and thereafter even in the Practice Grounds of George Telegraph Junior Team behind the Malancha Cinema. Every time, the childhood anxieties of a 24 hour day became unbearable, he would be resilient to be sustainable by thinking that in the afternoon there would be a football match. Hence, often in the closet of the rooms during summer holidays he would just look onto the skies and pray to Mother Earth, Nature to not allow the clouds to come till 3.30 pm. So, even if it comes after that time, by then he would be free from the closet of the room to a place called - "Jharnar Math" or "Barrack Barir Math" or "Sanskritir Math" or "Boy's Club Ground" where he would be unstoppable. And the moment the time clock sounded, alarmed 3.30 pm during the Summer Holidays, he would just rush silently towards all these places with his only sole friend of "Kamarpara" whose name again is not taken here for protecting anonymity. He would literally run with a torn shoe or kerds or a stiched football shoe with nails and not studs given by his cousin elder brother from his first earnings. 

Anxiety would run like an athlete to the Football Ground and What A Run It Was!

He would desperately seek the grounds, muds, water, ponds of the Jharnar Math with other boys and children of his age or senior to him. Many of them were kids of hawkers, slum dwellers of Jadavpur Station Slum, son of beggars, coal breakers, laundry shop informal workers and many more. You name a strata of the society, and our synaptic person was with them in the Jharnar Math or Boy's Club Ground or Sanskritir Math. The football would roll in for hour after hour. A goal would mean for the person an answer to the society for all the anxiety that were posed not only to him but to many of them who were son of beggars, coal breakers, laundry shop informal workers and many more. Many times no food was there in stomach but matches would be played for hour after hour and anxiety would go on for a afternoon stroll with the TB Patients who also used to come and watch them play football. Many of these matches used to happen in the compounds of a famous TB hospital complex of Jadavpur. However, virus, germs, nothing mattered to the person and to these kids and boys. Often when the sole football who was their medium of expression after a corner shot or a big punch would be out of the boundary and land up in a pond, the kids and the person would jump into the pond just to get back the football on the ground. 

The game had to continue for them at the mercy of anything. They were ready to give away anything for those precious two hour football matches. They were in romance with Football along with their passionate fandom with all capricious and churlish behaviour at the same time. The person and his fellow mates didnot even bother to think of the virulent content of germs, bacteria and virus in those ponds. Their eye and apple of the eye were fixed on the football which had to be back on the ground. The football which often costed INR 150 - 200 was a labour of love, romance, fandom and savings of all of them and they could not allow the football to just be an orphan. They were all parents of the Football. 

After every match, the football was cleaned, washed and everyone would fight amongst themselves to keep the football in their house till the next day's match. Keeping the football in the house, sleeping with the ball right beside your bed were a moment of glory, counselling of anxiety. The smell of the football, meant a smell of the dreams of the world of Harry Potter Houses or Sukumar Roy's Abol Tabol. The Pentagons on the Football were much more powerful in controlling and influencing the minds of the person and everyone around him in comparison to the Pentagon of the largest democracy. The person and all his team members believed that the football had a huge power of also bringing peace in their households by getting back emotional and financial boon in each of their lives. 

The person who got stuck with these memories on December 18, 2022 also had to go back to school in a Posh, Middle Class South Calcutta region everyday after being back from the Football Sessions. However, the heart would constantly tell him that why cant a degree or classroom be opened at - "Jharnar Math", "Boy's Club Ground" instead of the classrooms in which he could only see a birth of victimhood. 

In a way that victimhood complex also got ingrained in the mind of the little person, till after 1986, football came and started snatching it from him. The anxiety, diffidence from being lean, feeling like a victim from a physical, mental construct and not being physically strong, adequately nourished were completely forced to backseat when he would score a goal, defend for the team, would fearlessly face senior oppositions with rough, tough tackles with swollen legs, toes and bruises on the body after the match. 

The body was in pain but the anxiety was won atleast till the next match. Anxiety had suddenly started to feel beautiful before and after every football game  - "Be it a tournament match where the person was playing or a football match that he would watch with deep concentration". Every move, strategy and ball, player movement on the ground started to happen spontaneously, tirelessly with lot of resilience. The same lot who would bully the malnourished, physically not strong person would be dumbfounded to see the left foot movement, dribbles, long passing, short passing, wall passing, dummy passing, body interjection defence of the same person in a football match. Resilience was born in these moments. It was also born when the person lost a dear team person (who was almost an elder brother) in a self destructive act after a cricket and football match. The loss was shocking and traumatic as the dear team person would always call from the window side to wake the person up sharp at 5.30 am before every Sunday practice and match which would start from 6.00 am and go till 10 a.m often at the cost of missing the Mahabharata Episodes in Doordarshan. The emotional loss from an unnatural death of a team member had a choking and claustrophobic effect which stayed for quite sometime. However, it was football only which one day cleaned it off too when in a final match a goal was scored by the person by remembering a strategic move advice of the same team mate while playing in a 4-4-3 combination which was his favourite team composition. 

Resilience and Sustainability are also often associated with the concept of moving forward with passage of time and flowing with time. No one was best suited to train it to the person other than - "The Famous Diamond System" which was introduced by Late Amal Dutta in erstwhile Calcutta Derby for the Mohon Bagan. We all went back to the Stadium to see this new definition and poetry of flowing resilience and sustainability. It seemed, a football team was not playing but rather we were watching the free flow of nature through repeated waves of ocean with their shore fall out and retrieval from one goal post to the other. We all in our respective local football teams started to implement it. Initially we failed. However, gradually when we could sustain the Diamond System first for 30 minutes, then for 50 minutes and then finally for 90 minutes in short grounds we felt more than "Bollywood Stars". Even though we were not masculine like Salman Khan of Maine Pyar Kiya and being undernourished in the team, many of us did have a crush for Salman Khan's muscles but we felt like indomitable and uncontrollable at the Jharnar Math in the rains when we could play a Diamond System in a local "Khep" match. We had won the battle of rising up above our anxieties and vulnerabilities. The person cried after the match when for the first time he scored a Goal in the diamond system in the local Khep match as he could forget the bruises on his body and the pain within by freely flowing through - "Diamond System" which to us was introduced by Late Amal Datta.

Memories of such resilience and sustainability got a sudden clutched acceleration during December 18, 2022. However, one thing which the person got sure of  was that all this time, in the name of "Sustainability" he had been desperately, romantically, fanatically seeking to come out of his vulnerabilities through these short stories of "Football" which were all born in the Ground, Nature, Ponds, Muds, Trees, Smells, Odours, Wind, Breeze. Each one of them were felt on the Football Ground and not necessarily in the group of a trained - "Classroom of Victims".

Disclaimer: All Anonymity have been protected but the blog is autobiographical.