Inside the skies blue hills, a globe Diego, oh Dieeeegoooo, like a goal you'd kicked in. Draw for us Maradona, your rainbow kicks in the cloud-heavy skies?''
As Shahabas Aman, one of Keralas better known ghazal singers croons, furiously fingering his harmonium, his audience soaks up the latest World Cup ghazals in Malayalam, released Wednesday. A portly man in the crowd wipes a tear with the edge of his dhoti as eyes moisten, sighs, claps and whistles fill the Kottakkunnu hall at Malappuram.
Malappuram is where football completely transcends the realm of grimy maidans. It's an obsession that has no local parallel, a big leveller of social inequities, a great social safety valve, and a way of life for over three quarters of a century.
World Cups, naturally, are a surreal fantasy acted out in frenzied earnestness, no one seeming to think its actually happening elsewhere. The frenzy has set in, yet again. In Areekode village, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho rear above the thatched tea shops, and Beckham with distinctly Malappuram-like features looks down on Zinedine Zidane leering at passing buses.
The picture recurs in scores of Malappuram villages to Tirur and beyond. In its district headquarters, grocery shopkeeper Lovely Hamsa Haji who turns to hawking soccer stuff every World Cup and Olympics, tells you that he has already sold several thousand flags, costing between Rs 10 and Rs 300 — the last type are Brazil flags — depending on the size and complexities of different ones. The most sought after are Argentine, Brazilian, Italian, English, Italian and French ones that now flutter almost all over Malappuram — from village buses to house tops and teashops.
This World Cup, the hype had started fairly early here, with India's first ever Football Film Festival in January that had 17 international football movies — from Giants of Brazil to Bend it Like Beckham, and Miracle of Bern. All ran to packed houses, no matter if not many would have followed the language. But at another level, Malappuram men bet lakhs of rupees on World Cup wins and losses — and even such things as the number of corner kicks or yellow cards, which goal post concedes the first goal, and much else. ''I have bet my new bike that it will be Brazil this time," insurance salesman Abdul Azeez says.
It's a bit crazy. But that's the flavour of the place.
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As Shahabas Aman, one of Keralas better known ghazal singers croons, furiously fingering his harmonium, his audience soaks up the latest World Cup ghazals in Malayalam, released Wednesday. A portly man in the crowd wipes a tear with the edge of his dhoti as eyes moisten, sighs, claps and whistles fill the Kottakkunnu hall at Malappuram.
Malappuram is where football completely transcends the realm of grimy maidans. It's an obsession that has no local parallel, a big leveller of social inequities, a great social safety valve, and a way of life for over three quarters of a century.
World Cups, naturally, are a surreal fantasy acted out in frenzied earnestness, no one seeming to think its actually happening elsewhere. The frenzy has set in, yet again. In Areekode village, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho rear above the thatched tea shops, and Beckham with distinctly Malappuram-like features looks down on Zinedine Zidane leering at passing buses.
The picture recurs in scores of Malappuram villages to Tirur and beyond. In its district headquarters, grocery shopkeeper Lovely Hamsa Haji who turns to hawking soccer stuff every World Cup and Olympics, tells you that he has already sold several thousand flags, costing between Rs 10 and Rs 300 — the last type are Brazil flags — depending on the size and complexities of different ones. The most sought after are Argentine, Brazilian, Italian, English, Italian and French ones that now flutter almost all over Malappuram — from village buses to house tops and teashops.
This World Cup, the hype had started fairly early here, with India's first ever Football Film Festival in January that had 17 international football movies — from Giants of Brazil to Bend it Like Beckham, and Miracle of Bern. All ran to packed houses, no matter if not many would have followed the language. But at another level, Malappuram men bet lakhs of rupees on World Cup wins and losses — and even such things as the number of corner kicks or yellow cards, which goal post concedes the first goal, and much else. ''I have bet my new bike that it will be Brazil this time," insurance salesman Abdul Azeez says.
It's a bit crazy. But that's the flavour of the place.
MB, SalGAOKAR, BEnGALURU & RANG will win
dont have faith on odu