Goethe could well have written an epistolary novel, The Sorrows of Young Karius, after Saturday night's Champions League final. But the tragedy encountered by Liverpool keeper Loris Karius on a floodlit Kiev night – the first sorrow coming in the form of Karim Benzema's leg coming in the way of a Karius roll-out, the second when a Gareth Bale long shot slithered out of the keeper's hands like a cricketing dropped catch into the net – holds in it an afterlife, not so much in countless action replays and the next day's headlines, but in the story of another goalkeeper.
In his 2003 novel, Keeper: Haunted by the Spirit of the Game, the late Mal Peet writes about El Gato, the Cat, who, after winning the World Cup, tells his life story to Paul Faustino, “the top football writer in South America”. His story is drenched in self-doubt, hardship, as he, almost unwillingly turns into a footballer, a great goalkeeper, from a gangly youngster in a logging town at the outskirts of the great, forbidding forest.
In a clearing with a goalpost - “the emerald-green regular shape of the clearing was like a mistake in the infinite forest” - El Gato, then still La Cigüeña, the Stork,learns the art of keeping goal from a shadowy ghost of a goalkeeper past. Peet's novel is also a bildungsroman, dealing with a man's formative years.
In one scene, the ghost Keeper and the boy watch a jaguar chase and kill a deer. The young El Gato marvels at the terrible beauty that unfurls before them and says that what the jaguar did would be impossible for any human. “You are still very young,” replies the ghost keeper in a Jedi-tone. “What do you know about what is possible or impossible? I tell you this: you will do things that now seem impossible. They seem impossible now only because you cannot imagine them. Because you do not believe in them. But you will do them, and afterwards you will be amazed that you ever doubted yourself. Now, let me ask you that question. Which are you? Are you the jaguar or the deer?”
To which El Gato tells Faustino: 'The jaguar, I said. What else could I say?'
The world of fiction – whether in writing or in film – is not conducive to the Beautiful Game. It cannot be. Even most evocative description -- “He struck the ball with incredible force. It went past me with a noise like a gasp. The net bulged and hissed, and the ball rolled slowly back out of the goal past my feet” -- pales to the real thing the way, say, even Philip Larkin's sumptuous description of Thelonious Monk's “hesitant chords” in 'April in Paris' and 'Round Midnight' as “suitcases just too full to shut properly” will always fall short of the music itself.
In his 2006 memoir of a young boy's obsession with football in 1950s England, Salaam Stanley Matthews, Subrata Dasgupta writes of the alchemical powers that text and image bore for him: “That early autumn, without ever having seen the man in action – not on the playing field certainly, but not even as a flickering image on the television screen, nor even as a succession of those infuriatingly jump-cut motions on the newsreel we see in cinemas – but by way of my imagination constructing and reconstructing his moves as I read about the Cup Final, by way of my gazing intently at his pictures, by way of such subterfuge, Stanley Matthews displaced Denis Compton as my main idol.”
Love through subterfuge is what it is then. By way of imagination, constructing and reconstructing the fog of football.
At the heart of Moti Nandi's 1978 novel, Striker, lies the story of not just a boy's desire to play for one of the 'Calcutta big clubs', but the saga of a generational wrong being righted. Young Prasun Bhattacharya's father's career as a footballer ended when, playing with a torn cartilage, he muffed an open goal in the IFA Shield Final against East Bengal, and left in disgrace with rumours about him being bribed never dispelled. The novel opens with Prasun dreaming of the manager of Santos, the Brazilian club -- “'Pele who?' father asked sternly. 'Where does he live?' -- coming to the Bhattacharya household to sign him up. What follows is the struggle – it's a Bengali novel after all –to dispel the Original Sin through footballing redemption.
Football novels like Striker – and its sequel, Stopper – do contain much 'match action'. It is inevitable, but it is relatively boring. It's the saga around the game, the trials and tribulations, the joy and the despair of player or fan that gives fictional accounts of football its kick – whether in Danny Cannon's 2005 cautionary tale-film, Goal!: The Dream Begins, or in Nick Hornby's 1992 Fever Pitch (“I fell in love with football as I was later to fall in love with women: suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain or the disruption it would bring with it”).
In Manu Sen's 1976 comedy, Mohun Baganer Mey (The Mohun Bagan Girl), a football-obssessed father and son are arch-enemies when it comes to their support football clubs. Enter Nita, who enters this Montague-Capulet household, pretending to be a Mohun Bagan fan only so that her Mohun Bagan-loving prospective father-in-law Mahadeb-babu approves of the marriage to his East Bengal-loving son, Sujit. And if there is one thing that Mahadeb-babu hates more than he loves Mohun Bagan, it is lies. And therein, lies this net-enmeshed comedy of enforced errors.
The world of football is not just about football. As Eduardo Galeano wrote in his 1995 El Futból a Sol y Sombra (Soccerin Sun and Shadow) about one goalkeeper of the University of Algiers football team: “[Albert Camus] also learned to win without feeling like God and to lose without feeling like rubbish, skills not easily acquired, and he learned to unravel several mysteries of the human soul, whose labyrinths he explored later on in a dangerous journey on the page.” Football in fiction is a page out of – and outside of -- that very footballing book.
FIFA World Cup: Diego Maradona - Football’s Lucifer
That Diego Maradona is the greatest footballer is not something one knows the way we get to know that the world is round. One knows that Diego Maradona is the greatest footballer because we see him being just that. Not just for those who followed the Olimpico’s, the Cuahtémoc’s, the Jalisco’s and the Azteca’s midday shadows on the field being overshadowed by Maradona’s pirouettes, dummies and bull runs over seven games in June 1986. But also for everyone who cares to see those games on YouTube, whether in flashes or full features, decades after The Mexico Incidents.
In the middle of all the theological quarrels about who is greater — Messi or Ronaldo? Maradona or Messi? Pele or Maradona? — Maradona’s place in the angelic hierarchy remains supreme. He is, on and off the field, diabolical in the same way as Lucifer, the Shining One. For millions of football lovers, he signifies not just extraordinary skills, but a footballing genius that is Byronically ‘mad, bad and dangerous’, a passion play on display that individual stretches of footballing moments can only capture like messages in bottles. The reason for his frozen divinity, his popularity and — there is no other word for it — love towards him is greater than the sum of his footballing genius.
My World Cup 86 Ladybird ‘record book’ marks the Argentina-Bulgaria match on June 10, 1986, in Mexico City’s Olimpico Stadium clinically in two blank boxes: 2 and 0. But it was the second goal — scored by Jorge Burruchaga from a Maradona cross, after the first one off a Jorge Valdano header — that marked the beginning of a beautiful friendship etched by a comet on a football field.
On our blue-filtered black-and-white TV in a sweltering Kolkata 2 o’clock night, I saw this man, looking quite like Rishi Kapoor but with Michelangelosculpted legs, move deep left field after dodging the Bulgarian No. 6 with an outside roll, and then hugging the touchline — “like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff” — and cross the ball with a left foot flick into the centre where Burruchaga heads it in.
Similar phenomena were recorded, like some pandemic, for millions over seven games of that Mexico World Cup. It was, however, not just the beauty of his play — a brutal beauty that doesn’t defy the law of physics but actually embraces them — that made Maradona stand apart, but also his swagger, the attitude, the non-choreographed motor that he made transparent for all to see.
And that quater-final against England at the Azteca on Sunday June 22, 1986 saw millions of noveau-international football watching Indians replace Brazil with Argentina, the almost mythological Pele with flesh and blood and ball Maradona. The first goal — delightfully then, and even more delightfully now — was a giant collective middle finger attached to the hand of Diego that the neutral footballing world took glorious pleasure in showing England (Margaret Thatcher’s England that had gone to war only four years before against Argentina over the island of Malvinas/Falklands).
The second one, well, burnt through four England players and a 60-yard distance in 10 seconds like a red coal carpet, a mad bull that’s lost its way. Every footballing wet dream was and is still dreamt via that Maradona slalom. That settled the miracle on which to build the temple on.
It was only over the years that most of us got to know more about Maradona — his glorious football at Napoli, his drugs, his tears, his friendship with Fidel Castro, his women. But unlike any other footballer, what millions find special about him is his wonderful wickedness, his fallibility, his heavenly scripted ra gs-to-riches-to-hell-and-back-torock’n’roll-Hall-of-Fame jour ney. Like the handball goal against England, these are exactly the same qualities that many would find off putting, silly, churlishly extravagant, despicable even. But whether he’s shooting his mouth off against the Guardians of the Galaxy in Fifa, or opening jewellery stores at Kannur and Kuala Lumpur, chomping on premium Havanas and living the lavish life in Dubai while sporting a Che tattoo, it is exactly this straying off from the script that makes him the object — a la Bob ‘I’ll Do Whatever I Want Including Appearing in Lingerie Ads’ Dylan — of very human adoration.
But without every admirer and worshipper necessarily being aware of it, what draws them into Maradona — the Diego Maradona of 1986 — is what the man himself describes as bronca, the Argentinian Spanish word signifying anger, revenge, hatred, discontent... It is bronca which drove him to footballing fury.
And with the penumbra of his other avatars — that of the 1990 World Cup when the world committed footballing jauhar with him, and that of the 1994 tournament when his total field play was of 173 minutes — neatly airbrushed away, it is this bronca that millions still recognise, taste, share, and celebrate with Diego Maradona, who exalted sits, by merit rais’d, to that bad eminence. Because of him, the Devil, unfallen angel in this case, will always wear albiceleste.
The SLAN app aims to create a well-knit unit of sports lovers, who unleash their skill-set across various formats and games through private leagues
Sports tend to be an important part of life while pursuing an education, becoming less of a priority as work and professional commitments come into the picture. SP Subramanyam was a natural in sports till his post-graduation, albeit at an amateur level. Work happened in Bengaluru, and his physical activity inched closer to stagnancy. His next stop in the US though, was a transformational one. Beyond football and cricket, he joined fitness clubs and private leagues, learnt to play tennis, racquet ball, squash and picked up ice skating. He rediscovered his love for sports. When work brought him back to India; this time, he was keen to fill the void experienced by sports enthusiasts. After a decade with his software company Infionic, comes his brainchild SLAN, an app-based initiative that forms a network of sports enthusiasts in a city across various games. Available on Google Play, it gives people access to a platform for venues, to host private leagues and tournaments.
He says, “The aim behind SLAN is to make playing sport a habit in adults, create an oft-ignored mindspace for it in people’s minds. Any adult who doesn’t play sports in his/her older age attributes it to three reasons: lack of time, company and a proper place to play. While time is more about attitude, this initiative will solve the other two problems.” The league-based format is an attempt to set a goalpost: the regulation to play a certain number of matches week after week aims to be a gradual motivation for users to play. The Android app, currently available in Hyderabad, offers users a chance to choose from chess, carrom, table tennis, badminton, box cricket, football and volleyball.
Subramanyam says, “The idea of not giving up sports was enough inspiration to bring people along. The software enterprise that we run helps us understand the behavioural patterns of web and mobile users. We figured out a lot in making SLAN a user-friendly app that packages a lot of information — events, corporates, venues, leagues, tournaments and age-groups at once.” A virtual gaming facility was never their aim, given the abundance of such options in the mobile space. Prompting a user to go beyond four walls, opening them to a larger space devoid of the device-driven world was the sole focus.
What were the challenges? “Getting people to play wasn’t a big task; getting them accustomed to a league, devise strategies, play one day in every week, was. We did a pre-launch series in February to help them embrace the idea, while our summer league started earlier last month. Scrabble, bowling, billiards are on the cards soon.” Users need to provide their mobile number and name to register for the league and will have to rate their skill level to ensure rightly-matched competitors.
“It’s important to do a quality job; we ensure refreshments, video recordings of the matches and use technology to ease our operations. The app is optimisable, flexible and guarantees usability.” The choice of an app over a website was to cater to the ever-growing market of smartphone users. The team is adding analytics-oriented features to the app and helping users monitor scores and progress in the game, besides throwing a discussion forum open. Plans are on to extend this idea to Chennai, Mumbai and Bengaluru soon, though their immediate interest is to create a niche in this space. A few months from now will also see them coming up with tournaments to tap the skills of the marginalised, whose major problem too is access and opportunity.
Is a full-back the most under-appreciated player in the team?
Running up and down the flank is not easy, especially with both defensive and attacking duties to look after.
Before starting off with our observation regarding the full-back position and the players that play in it, here is a list of the most prolific attack-minded wingers in modern football:
Marcelo (Real Madrid)
Joshua Kimmich (FC Bayern Munich)
Dani Alves (PSG)
Hector Bellerin (Arsenal)
Thomas Meunier (PSG)
Marcos Alonso (Chelsea)
Jordi Alba (FC Barcelona)
Right off the bat one would react and say that the above-mentioned players are defenders (full-backs in essence) and not attack-minded wingers. Let us look at their stats for the 2017-18 season for more clarity:
Marcelo – 5 Goals, 7 Assists
Joshua Kimmich – 6 Goals, 13 Assists
Dani Alves – 4 Goals, 7 Assists
Hector Bellerin – 3 Goals, 5 Assists
Thomas Meunier – 4 Goals, 4 Assists
Marcos Alonso - 7 Goals, 3 Assists
Jordi Alba - 3 Goals, 8 Assists
They say stats never lie and the above stats indicate that a modern full-back contributes more to the team than ever. The full-back position has unfortunately been a position where even a centre-back was stationed acting as a makeshift left-back or a right-back.
Players like John O’Shea and Wes Brown played extensively as full-backs for Manchester United back in the day. The teams back then lacked players that specialized in that position and moreover there were not enough signings made specifically to fill that position. Hence, one never read any news headline about a transfer record being broken for a full-back. Thankfully, those days have passed.
Ask a young, up and coming player today and more and more would tell you that they want to be like a famous full-back, like Marcelo or David Alaba. The popularity of full-backs has started to rival that of attacking wingers.
Fans have reacted to this new trend and the shirt sales of these players have increased more than ever. Moreover, an interesting observation tells us that an outright winger like Willian (Chelsea) has only 3.1m Twitter followers compared to an outright full-back in Marcelo (Real Madrid), who has a massive following of 10.3m, even after Willian having had a sensational season for Chelsea, scoring 14 and assisting eight goals for his team.
There was a time when a beginner or a professional player did not want to be put in the full-back position as the way the game was played, the role of the full-back was less and they also saw the least of the ball through the match.
However, since the transformation of the position, the very essence of how a player looks at the full-back position has changed. Be it at a professional club or just a friendly community match, or at a kick-about between friends, more and more individuals want to play in that position, since they now see more of the ball and get more room to go on darting runs into the opponent box, contributing more to their team’s attack in the process.
The sands of time have eroded the shadowy cloak that the full-back position reeled under. The position, as a matter of fact, has undergone a huge change as far as individual roles are concerned. The players have done remarkably well to adapt to the new, growing demands the full-back position comes with.
Since the widespread use of a three-man defense, the full-back role has subtly transitioned into that of a wing-back. In such a system, the full-back or the wing-back has a dual role to play in the team. Providing extra width and an extra attacking option while on the front foot and also providing support to the three centre-backs when without the ball. This change has led to a faster and smoother transition from defence to attack and vice-versa.
It demands to be understood that this dual role requires top of the line fitness from the players and it’s safe to conclude that full-backs are more often than not the fittest players in a team. Sprinting up and down the wings constantly is no easy feat and these players seldom get the deserved appreciation for their contribution.
The full-back position has now transitioned into a more attack-minded role. Most teams focus largely on playing through the middle of the field, by using their central midfielders to receive the extra width from their wing-backs, who charge down the wings, putting in crucial crosses into the opponent’s box and also track back marking the wingers of the opposition during defending. This dual role has compelled teams to spend large sums of money to bring the cream of the crop of full-backs into their ranks.
This brings into question the value of a top full-back in the transfer market. Recently, the going rate for a top full-back has increased ten fold and a few instances prove this. In June 2014, Luke Shaw was signed by Manchester United from Southampton for a fee of £30m, which was the world record transfer fee for a teenager back then. In 2017, their cross-town rivals Manchester City bought the services of Kyle Walker for an estimated £50m, which became the world record fee for a defender, before Virgil van Djik switched clubs to join Liverpool in the last winter window.
The amount of hefty fees paid for full-backs goes to show that teams have realized the importance of having at least two efficient ones in their ranks and are ready to break the bank for them. The modern times have brought upon a trend where full-backs are becoming a vital part of any team, that intends to achieve success and win trophies. The tables have turned and the once overlooked position of full-back is now becoming the centre of attention.
Today’s footballing heroes are rich, fit and fashion-mad. But who’s got the best style game?
Fasten your seat belts. A bunch of spendaholic peacocks are headed to Russia to strut their stuff. The fashion show is about to begin. The love affair between footie and fashion kicked off in the swinging sixties when George Best — aka The Fifth Beatle — went stark raving mod. Best, the Manchester United winger, became a pied piper for those of us who were attempting to claw our way out of postwar austerity. I was born in Reading, in 1952, with a great view of the Huntley and Palmers biscuit factory (back then Reading FC, my team, was nicknamed “the biscuits”) and a burning desire to get my swag on. Hedonistic, beautiful George, with his velvet jackets and his floppy collars, was my groovy enabler, jump-starting my interest in footie and forever linking it to the world of style. Thanks to him, I have been surveying the footie landscape through a fashion lorgnette for more than half a century.
Since Best, things have only got worse, or better, depending on your point of view. If, like me, you enjoy a bit of flamboyance and fashion exhibitionism — dragon tattoos, jangly wrist-scapes, manbuns and manbags — then you doubtless celebrate this growing parade of pampered popinjays. Possessed of a natural elegance, these wiry young studs are the perfect canvas for today’s retro biker jackets, souvenir blousons, wallet-busting sneakers and nut-mangling Balmain jeans. Not only do the lads have the requisite build, but they also dig it, big time. Whether from Nigeria, Bahia or Essex, today’s players are unapologetically fashion-addicted. What better way to show the world that you have successfully lifted yourself from backstreet obscurity than by carrying a designer man-purse? And, God bless ‘em, they pay full retail. Why? Because they don’t have a choice. When you earned $93m last year — bom dia Ronaldo! — bleating requests for designer discounts tend to fall on deaf ears. Footballers are, therefore, the ultimate patrons de la mode.
The footie/fashion landscape has never been more chaotic than it is today. But closer examination reveals that today’s fashionable footballers fall into five principal teams. Allow me to guide you through the magic and madness of these style squads.
Haryana government wants one-third of what its athletes earn, has a justification despite protests
Haryana government's new notification asks sportspersons to deposit one-third of the income earned by them from professional sports or commercial endorsements to the state.
Haryana has been a pioneer in offering government jobs to its meritorious sportspersons and awarding prize money for their achievements. But in a new notification dated April 30 from the Sports and Youth Affairs Department, the state has asked its sportspersons to “deposit one-third of the income earned by them from professional sports or commercial endorsements with the Haryana State Sports Council”.
The notification says that sportspersons will have to seek extraordinary leave (without pay) when they are participating in professional sports events. The step, according to the state government, has been taken for the development of sports in Haryana. The notification is applicable to any sportsperson employed with any department of the state government and is participating in professional sports or commercial endorsements.
The notification is likely to affect a number of sportspersons in Haryana, including hockey player Sardar Singh, former boxers Akhil Kumar, Jitender Kumar, amateur boxers Vikas Yadav and Manoj Kumar. Wrestlers like Geeta Phogat, Yogeshwar Dutt and Mausam Khatri will also be affected. Rio Olympics bronze medallist Sakshi Malik will also be affected by the order. Some of them have protested the order.
“God save us from such officials, who are taking senseless decisions like this. Their contribution to development of sports in Haryana has been zero but I am sure, they will play a big role in the decline of sports in the state,” Dutt tweeted. “Now, athletes will move to other states and these officials will be responsible for this.”
ऐसे अफसर से राम बचाए, जब से खेल विभाग में आए है तब से बिना सिर -पैर के तुग़लकी फ़रमान जारी किए जा रहे है।हरियाणा के खेल-विकास में आपका योगदान शून्य है किंतु ये दावा है मेरा इसके पतन में आप शत् प्रतिशत सफल हो रहे है।अब हरियाणा के नए खिलाड़ी बाहर पलायन करेंगे और SAHAB आप ज़िम्मेदार
Three years ago, boxer Vijender Singh’s decision to turn professional had caused a furore in Haryana as he was asked to give up his job with Haryana Police. Though he was later allowed to keep his job and compete professionally, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had issued a notice to the Haryana government saying that it was against the sports policy of the state.
What the state government said
Haryana’s Principal Secretary of Sports and Youths Affairs, Ashok Khemka, said that the condition does not apply to all sportspersons from Haryana, and only to those employed with the Haryana government.
“Any athlete who is employed with Haryana government and also wants to play professionally falls under the category and we are asking only one-third of the income from the professional contract. It’s a concession that we have given to players who want to turn professionals,” Khemka told IndianExpress.com.
The notification also has a second condition. It states “in case the sportsperson is treated on duty with the prior approval of the competent authority while taking part in professional sports or commercial endorsements, the full income earned by the sportsperson on this account will be deposited with the Haryana State Sports Council”.
“If you are employed with the state and you then want to sell your services to someone else, then you need to pay the state. This is normal and we are just asking for 33 per cent. See Vijender’s example. He went to England to box professionally and he is employed with Haryana Police. He is free to do whatever he wants but now he has to pay 33 percent of his professional earnings,” Khemka said.
Fifa World Cup 2018: Football fever begins to grip cricket-crazy India
Many of the balls have been themed in the national colors of teams hoping to excel in Russia, including Spain, England and Argentina
Raj Kumar sat at his roadside repair shop in Jalandhar on Friday, the sound of pneumatic drills and passing cars and motorbikes threatening to drown out the traditionally Punjabi Bhangra music playing over the radio as he stitched up one of several footballs that were strewn over his wooden table.
Kumar has been faced with a recent uptick in business as local children take up the sport ahead of the upcoming Fifa World Cup, bringing their footballs to Kumar's shop for a quick and affordable fix-up, reports Efe.
The surge in business has not come as a surprise to the repairman, who says he has been in the job for 45 years.
Kumar told epa that the children of Jalandhar tend to adopt whichever sport gets the most attention on television.
During much of the year in this cricket-obsessed nation, that means repairing cricket bats and pads.
With the World Cup due to start next week in Russia, however, Kumar has been landed with a pile of deflated and beaten up footballs, many of which look beyond salvage, and which litter his shop's store cupboard.
Kumar says he has been repairing around 50 footballs per month as the tournament approaches. He charges Rs 50 ($0.75) to stitch up a damaged football, while the fare to repair the inside bladder would cost his clients Rs 90.
Much of the sports equipment that comes from his repair shop is manufactured locally; Jalandhar is home to a dominant sports goods market.
The city even has a traffic intersection named as "Football Chowk" located next to a market at which mostly sports goods are sold. A concrete sculpture of a hand with a football on it is located near the traffic intersection of "Football Chowk."
Jalandhar's sports industry is one of the biggest manufacturing hub in India with around 100 sports goods manufacturing units in the city.
At one such unit, workers for Indian sports goods company Nivia had their hands full churning out and stacking up a range of different coloured footballs, goalkeeping gloves, jerseys and boots.
Many of the balls have been themed in the national colors of teams hoping to excel in Russia, including Spain, England and Argentina.
The company, which employs 2,000 workers, produces over 250,000 balls per year, which are sold through more than 2,000 dealers nationwide.
The manufacturers told epa that while they used to receive a higher demand for their wares from abroad, which has since decreased due to increasing competition from Chinese, Pakistani and Vietnamese producers, they have had a surge in local and domestic orders ahead of the World Cup.
After protests, Haryana suspends order demanding its athletes pay one-third earnings
Haryana government suspends order which asked sportspersons employed with it to deposit one-third of their income to the state.
The Haryana government has put on hold the order directing state-employed sportspersons to “deposit one-third of the income earned by them from professional sports or commercial endorsements with the Haryana State Sports Council”. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar tweeted about the suspension of the order.
“I have asked for the relevant file of Sports Department to be shown to me & the notification dated 30th April to be put on hold till further orders. We are proud of the immense contribution by our sportspersons & I assure them of a just consideration of all issues affecting them,” Khattar tweeted.
It’s one of the most shameful incidents in the country’s history as its eminent son, seized by an agonizing fear, had to renounce his Indian citizenship and accept rarely given Qatari citizenship. “I am a part of India’s 5,000-year-old culture and I am so fortunate to be born in India”, said India’s best known ‘art maestro’ Maqbool Fida Husain, popularly known as MF Husain.
Like so many others, India’s Pablo Picasso didn’t leave the country for personal success or professional accomplishment.The versatile artist who was also into filmmaking and photography was hounded and targeted by the new generation of Indian Hindus for apparently insulting their faith. Husain left the country in 2005, never to return.
As democracy’s definitive deciders, we were to denounce the Hindutva hate campaigns against the painter, reject those who indulged in it and call out to those who were behind this. Being a citizen implies rights and responsibilities, to question things, also to refuse to swallow whatever we are told – conscientious citizenship is a key to developing a country’s identity and civic awareness.
But what did we do? We just let it happen to one of the pioneers of modern art in India.We became anesthetized to distinctions between artistry and inflamed religious passions. The problem was not just the Hindu fundamentalist groups that fueled hatred but people like us for whom fact and fiction are but meaningless abstractions. For a society, that is the greater danger. Husain was a victim of such danger – victim of cultural policing – victim of a mean recontextualisation of India.
According to noted journalist and former editor N. Ram, “I know no one more genuinely and deeply committed to the composite, multi-religious, and secular values of Indian civilisation than M. F. Husain”. A resident of Dubai since 2006, the nation’s celebrated painter of global repute died after a heart attack this day in 2011 in London. He was 96.
In 2008 Delhi HC quashed the obscenity case against MF Husain who was forced to go into exile after his painting of Mother India as a nude woman was alleged to hurt religious sentiments. “”We have been called as the land of Kama Sutra then why is it that in this land we shy away from its very name? Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and so does obscenity,” Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul observed.
The epilogue of his judgment reads,”A liberal tolerance of a different point of view causes no damage. It means only a greater self-restraint. Diversity in expression of views whether in writings, paintings or visual media encourages debate. A debate should never be shut out. ‘I am right’ does not necessarily imply ‘You are wrong’. Our culture breeds tolerance- both in thought and in actions…A painter at 90 deserves to be in his home ‘painting his canvas!”
Later, the Supreme Court also refused to initiate criminal proceedings against him for supposedly hurting public sentiments through some of his paintings, labelled obscene.
Matter-of-factly, we all collectively failed him. We failed to honourthe renowned artist’s yearning to return to India.His wish – “Marne se pehleekbaarapnewatankimittichhoonezarooraaunga…(Before I die, I shall definitely come once to touch the soil of my beloved country)”- remained unfulfilled.
As the white pyjama-kurta clad barefoot artist with an unkempt beard was often seen at India International Centre (IIC), Delhi, one wondered how he could remain so cheerful and charismatic despite receiving death threats and multiple lawsuits from religious hardliners.
The death anniversary of the legendry painter reminds me of an unfortunate incident at IIC in 2007 when prints of the artist’s works were on display at its art gallery. Many IIC staff members still shudder at the thought of the threats received from Hindu extremist groups during the 10-day show.
Strangely, the callers, who rang up from different states, were well aware of the layout of the art gallery and the exact location of the exhibits, to the extent they knew which print was hanging from which wall. IICofficials’ earnest efforts to reason with the fanatics proved futile.
A Delhi Police team and large number of IIC staff and CCTV cameras specially installed for the purpose were in place to prevent any surreptitious attempt to vandalise the exhibition. But, despite all the precautionary measures, a few activists managed to sneak into the Art Gallery on the concluding day and damaged a print. They started throwing pamphlets while loudly chanting communally sensitive ditties. This not only left the viewers shocked but also besmirched the atmosphere of the Centre.
At one stage, things came to such a pass that the IIC administration had considered scrapping the show midway, fearing damage to property and harm to staff. But it reconsidered after recognising that backing out would not only tarnish the image of the Centre but also bolster the disruptive efforts of Hindu extremist groups. Not just IIC, art galleries across India planning or hosting Husain exhibition were similarly targeted by such groups.
The Husain exhibition, part of regular art shows is central to the ethos of IICas the institution is mandated to undertake, organise and facilitate promotion of different cultural patterns of the world. The idea of such a Centre was conceived in 1958 when Dr S Radhakrishnan, then Vice President of India and Mr. John DRockefeller III discussed setting up a centre for “quickening and deepening of true and thoughtful understanding between peoples of nations”.
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, helped in selecting the site of the Centre near Lodi Gardens. But even such a background could not protect the premier institution with a global identity from the wrath of fanatics.
Remembering the incident vividly, I find merit in what a French religious philosopher Blaise Pascalonce said -”Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
Hate-mongers have been successful as the nonagenarian artist was forced to go into a self-imposed exile, but remained hugely unsuccessful to destroy even remotely the Husain legacy. Art never dies.
The treatment meted out to one of the most treasured artists of this country will neither be forgotten nor forgiven by defenders of the freedom of expression. Ironically, while the hate-mongers considered themselves as ‘devout Hindu’, the iconic painter considered himself as ‘devout human being’ instead of ‘devout Muslim’.
That said, such so-called devout Hindus, devoid of cultural nuances, and holding scant regard for artistic expression should have been dealt with sternly as they ushered in the hardening of a national culture that already was on its way to extremes of crudity.
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Imagining the Beautiful Game
In his 2003 novel, Keeper: Haunted by the Spirit of the Game, the late Mal Peet writes about El Gato, the Cat, who, after winning the World Cup, tells his life story to Paul Faustino, “the top football writer in South America”. His story is drenched in self-doubt, hardship, as he, almost unwillingly turns into a footballer, a great goalkeeper, from a gangly youngster in a logging town at the outskirts of the great, forbidding forest.
In a clearing with a goalpost - “the emerald-green regular shape of the clearing was like a mistake in the infinite forest” - El Gato, then still La Cigüeña, the Stork,learns the art of keeping goal from a shadowy ghost of a goalkeeper past. Peet's novel is also a bildungsroman, dealing with a man's formative years.
In one scene, the ghost Keeper and the boy watch a jaguar chase and kill a deer. The young El Gato marvels at the terrible beauty that unfurls before them and says that what the jaguar did would be impossible for any human. “You are still very young,” replies the ghost keeper in a Jedi-tone. “What do you know about what is possible or impossible? I tell you this: you will do things that now seem impossible. They seem impossible now only because you cannot imagine them. Because you do not believe in them. But you will do them, and afterwards you will be amazed that you ever doubted yourself. Now, let me ask you that question. Which are you? Are you the jaguar or the deer?”
To which El Gato tells Faustino: 'The jaguar, I said. What else could I say?'
The world of fiction – whether in writing or in film – is not conducive to the Beautiful Game. It cannot be. Even most evocative description -- “He struck the ball with incredible force. It went past me with a noise like a gasp. The net bulged and hissed, and the ball rolled slowly back out of the goal past my feet” -- pales to the real thing the way, say, even Philip Larkin's sumptuous description of Thelonious Monk's “hesitant chords” in 'April in Paris' and 'Round Midnight' as “suitcases just too full to shut properly” will always fall short of the music itself.
In his 2006 memoir of a young boy's obsession with football in 1950s England, Salaam Stanley Matthews, Subrata Dasgupta writes of the alchemical powers that text and image bore for him: “That early autumn, without ever having seen the man in action – not on the playing field certainly, but not even as a flickering image on the television screen, nor even as a succession of those infuriatingly jump-cut motions on the newsreel we see in cinemas – but by way of my imagination constructing and reconstructing his moves as I read about the Cup Final, by way of my gazing intently at his pictures, by way of such subterfuge, Stanley Matthews displaced Denis Compton as my main idol.”
Love through subterfuge is what it is then. By way of imagination, constructing and reconstructing the fog of football.
At the heart of Moti Nandi's 1978 novel, Striker, lies the story of not just a boy's desire to play for one of the 'Calcutta big clubs', but the saga of a generational wrong being righted. Young Prasun Bhattacharya's father's career as a footballer ended when, playing with a torn cartilage, he muffed an open goal in the IFA Shield Final against East Bengal, and left in disgrace with rumours about him being bribed never dispelled. The novel opens with Prasun dreaming of the manager of Santos, the Brazilian club -- “'Pele who?' father asked sternly. 'Where does he live?' -- coming to the Bhattacharya household to sign him up. What follows is the struggle – it's a Bengali novel after all –to dispel the Original Sin through footballing redemption.
Football novels like Striker – and its sequel, Stopper – do contain much 'match action'. It is inevitable, but it is relatively boring. It's the saga around the game, the trials and tribulations, the joy and the despair of player or fan that gives fictional accounts of football its kick – whether in Danny Cannon's 2005 cautionary tale-film, Goal!: The Dream Begins, or in Nick Hornby's 1992 Fever Pitch (“I fell in love with football as I was later to fall in love with women: suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain or the disruption it would bring with it”).
In Manu Sen's 1976 comedy, Mohun Baganer Mey (The Mohun Bagan Girl), a football-obssessed father and son are arch-enemies when it comes to their support football clubs. Enter Nita, who enters this Montague-Capulet household, pretending to be a Mohun Bagan fan only so that her Mohun Bagan-loving prospective father-in-law Mahadeb-babu approves of the marriage to his East Bengal-loving son, Sujit. And if there is one thing that Mahadeb-babu hates more than he loves Mohun Bagan, it is lies. And therein, lies this net-enmeshed comedy of enforced errors.
The world of football is not just about football. As Eduardo Galeano wrote in his 1995 El Futból a Sol y Sombra (Soccer in Sun and Shadow) about one goalkeeper of the University of Algiers football team: “[Albert Camus] also learned to win without feeling like God and to lose without feeling like rubbish, skills not easily acquired, and he learned to unravel several mysteries of the human soul, whose labyrinths he explored later on in a dangerous journey on the page.” Football in fiction is a page out of – and outside of -- that very footballing book.
FIFA World Cup: Diego Maradona - Football’s Lucifer
That Diego Maradona is the greatest footballer is not something one knows the way we get to know that the world is round. One knows that Diego Maradona is the greatest footballer because we see him being just that. Not just for those who followed the Olimpico’s, the Cuahtémoc’s, the Jalisco’s and the Azteca’s midday shadows on the field being overshadowed by Maradona’s pirouettes, dummies and bull runs over seven games in June 1986. But also for everyone who cares to see those games on YouTube, whether in flashes or full features, decades after The Mexico Incidents.In the middle of all the theological quarrels about who is greater — Messi or Ronaldo? Maradona or Messi? Pele or Maradona? — Maradona’s place in the angelic hierarchy remains supreme. He is, on and off the field, diabolical in the same way as Lucifer, the Shining One. For millions of football lovers, he signifies not just extraordinary skills, but a footballing genius that is Byronically ‘mad, bad and dangerous’, a passion play on display that individual stretches of footballing moments can only capture like messages in bottles. The reason for his frozen divinity, his popularity and — there is no other word for it — love towards him is greater than the sum of his footballing genius.
My World Cup 86 Ladybird ‘record book’ marks the Argentina-Bulgaria match on June 10, 1986, in Mexico City’s Olimpico Stadium clinically in two blank boxes: 2 and 0. But it was the second goal — scored by Jorge Burruchaga from a Maradona cross, after the first one off a Jorge Valdano header — that marked the beginning of a beautiful friendship etched by a comet on a football field.
On our blue-filtered black-and-white TV in a sweltering Kolkata 2 o’clock night, I saw this man, looking quite like Rishi Kapoor but with Michelangelosculpted legs, move deep left field after dodging the Bulgarian No. 6 with an outside roll, and then hugging the touchline — “like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff” — and cross the ball with a left foot flick into the centre where Burruchaga heads it in.
Similar phenomena were recorded, like some pandemic, for millions over seven games of that Mexico World Cup. It was, however, not just the beauty of his play — a brutal beauty that doesn’t defy the law of physics but actually embraces them — that made Maradona stand apart, but also his swagger, the attitude, the non-choreographed motor that he made transparent for all to see.
And that quater-final against England at the Azteca on Sunday June 22, 1986 saw millions of noveau-international football watching Indians replace Brazil with Argentina, the almost mythological Pele with flesh and blood and ball Maradona. The first goal — delightfully then, and even more delightfully now — was a giant collective middle finger attached to the hand of Diego that the neutral footballing world took glorious pleasure in showing England (Margaret Thatcher’s England that had gone to war only four years before against Argentina over the island of Malvinas/Falklands).
The second one, well, burnt through four England players and a 60-yard distance in 10 seconds like a red coal carpet, a mad bull that’s lost its way. Every footballing wet dream was and is still dreamt via that Maradona slalom. That settled the miracle on which to build the temple on.
It was only over the years that most of us got to know more about Maradona — his glorious football at Napoli, his drugs, his tears, his friendship with Fidel Castro, his women. But unlike any other footballer, what millions find special about him is his wonderful wickedness, his fallibility, his heavenly scripted ra gs-to-riches-to-hell-and-back-torock’n’roll-Hall-of-Fame jour ney.
Like the handball goal against England, these are exactly the same qualities that many would find off putting, silly, churlishly extravagant, despicable even. But whether he’s shooting his mouth off against the Guardians of the Galaxy in Fifa, or opening jewellery stores at Kannur and Kuala Lumpur, chomping on premium Havanas and living the lavish life in Dubai while sporting a Che tattoo, it is exactly this straying off from the script that makes him the object — a la Bob ‘I’ll Do Whatever I Want Including Appearing in Lingerie Ads’ Dylan — of very human adoration.
But without every admirer and worshipper necessarily being aware of it, what draws them into Maradona — the Diego Maradona of 1986 — is what the man himself describes as bronca, the Argentinian Spanish word signifying anger, revenge, hatred, discontent... It is bronca which drove him to footballing fury.
how come i never seen this before
A league of its own
The SLAN app aims to create a well-knit unit of sports lovers, who unleash their skill-set across various formats and games through private leagues
Sports tend to be an important part of life while pursuing an education, becoming less of a priority as work and professional commitments come into the picture. SP Subramanyam was a natural in sports till his post-graduation, albeit at an amateur level. Work happened in Bengaluru, and his physical activity inched closer to stagnancy. His next stop in the US though, was a transformational one. Beyond football and cricket, he joined fitness clubs and private leagues, learnt to play tennis, racquet ball, squash and picked up ice skating. He rediscovered his love for sports. When work brought him back to India; this time, he was keen to fill the void experienced by sports enthusiasts. After a decade with his software company Infionic, comes his brainchild SLAN, an app-based initiative that forms a network of sports enthusiasts in a city across various games. Available on Google Play, it gives people access to a platform for venues, to host private leagues and tournaments.
He says, “The aim behind SLAN is to make playing sport a habit in adults, create an oft-ignored mindspace for it in people’s minds. Any adult who doesn’t play sports in his/her older age attributes it to three reasons: lack of time, company and a proper place to play. While time is more about attitude, this initiative will solve the other two problems.” The league-based format is an attempt to set a goalpost: the regulation to play a certain number of matches week after week aims to be a gradual motivation for users to play. The Android app, currently available in Hyderabad, offers users a chance to choose from chess, carrom, table tennis, badminton, box cricket, football and volleyball.
Subramanyam says, “The idea of not giving up sports was enough inspiration to bring people along. The software enterprise that we run helps us understand the behavioural patterns of web and mobile users. We figured out a lot in making SLAN a user-friendly app that packages a lot of information — events, corporates, venues, leagues, tournaments and age-groups at once.” A virtual gaming facility was never their aim, given the abundance of such options in the mobile space. Prompting a user to go beyond four walls, opening them to a larger space devoid of the device-driven world was the sole focus.
What were the challenges? “Getting people to play wasn’t a big task; getting them accustomed to a league, devise strategies, play one day in every week, was. We did a pre-launch series in February to help them embrace the idea, while our summer league started earlier last month. Scrabble, bowling, billiards are on the cards soon.” Users need to provide their mobile number and name to register for the league and will have to rate their skill level to ensure rightly-matched competitors.
“It’s important to do a quality job; we ensure refreshments, video recordings of the matches and use technology to ease our operations. The app is optimisable, flexible and guarantees usability.” The choice of an app over a website was to cater to the ever-growing market of smartphone users. The team is adding analytics-oriented features to the app and helping users monitor scores and progress in the game, besides throwing a discussion forum open. Plans are on to extend this idea to Chennai, Mumbai and Bengaluru soon, though their immediate interest is to create a niche in this space. A few months from now will also see them coming up with tournaments to tap the skills of the marginalised, whose major problem too is access and opportunity.
Is a full-back the most under-appreciated player in the team?
Running up and down the flank is not easy, especially with both defensive and attacking duties to look after.
Before starting off with our observation regarding the full-back position and the players that play in it, here is a list of the most prolific attack-minded wingers in modern football:
Right off the bat one would react and say that the above-mentioned players are defenders (full-backs in essence) and not attack-minded wingers. Let us look at their stats for the 2017-18 season for more clarity:
They say stats never lie and the above stats indicate that a modern full-back contributes more to the team than ever. The full-back position has unfortunately been a position where even a centre-back was stationed acting as a makeshift left-back or a right-back.
Players like John O’Shea and Wes Brown played extensively as full-backs for Manchester United back in the day. The teams back then lacked players that specialized in that position and moreover there were not enough signings made specifically to fill that position. Hence, one never read any news headline about a transfer record being broken for a full-back. Thankfully, those days have passed.
Ask a young, up and coming player today and more and more would tell you that they want to be like a famous full-back, like Marcelo or David Alaba. The popularity of full-backs has started to rival that of attacking wingers.
Fans have reacted to this new trend and the shirt sales of these players have increased more than ever. Moreover, an interesting observation tells us that an outright winger like Willian (Chelsea) has only 3.1m Twitter followers compared to an outright full-back in Marcelo (Real Madrid), who has a massive following of 10.3m, even after Willian having had a sensational season for Chelsea, scoring 14 and assisting eight goals for his team.
There was a time when a beginner or a professional player did not want to be put in the full-back position as the way the game was played, the role of the full-back was less and they also saw the least of the ball through the match.
However, since the transformation of the position, the very essence of how a player looks at the full-back position has changed. Be it at a professional club or just a friendly community match, or at a kick-about between friends, more and more individuals want to play in that position, since they now see more of the ball and get more room to go on darting runs into the opponent box, contributing more to their team’s attack in the process.
The sands of time have eroded the shadowy cloak that the full-back position reeled under. The position, as a matter of fact, has undergone a huge change as far as individual roles are concerned. The players have done remarkably well to adapt to the new, growing demands the full-back position comes with.
Since the widespread use of a three-man defense, the full-back role has subtly transitioned into that of a wing-back. In such a system, the full-back or the wing-back has a dual role to play in the team. Providing extra width and an extra attacking option while on the front foot and also providing support to the three centre-backs when without the ball. This change has led to a faster and smoother transition from defence to attack and vice-versa.
It demands to be understood that this dual role requires top of the line fitness from the players and it’s safe to conclude that full-backs are more often than not the fittest players in a team. Sprinting up and down the wings constantly is no easy feat and these players seldom get the deserved appreciation for their contribution.
The full-back position has now transitioned into a more attack-minded role. Most teams focus largely on playing through the middle of the field, by using their central midfielders to receive the extra width from their wing-backs, who charge down the wings, putting in crucial crosses into the opponent’s box and also track back marking the wingers of the opposition during defending. This dual role has compelled teams to spend large sums of money to bring the cream of the crop of full-backs into their ranks.
This brings into question the value of a top full-back in the transfer market. Recently, the going rate for a top full-back has increased ten fold and a few instances prove this. In June 2014, Luke Shaw was signed by Manchester United from Southampton for a fee of £30m, which was the world record transfer fee for a teenager back then. In 2017, their cross-town rivals Manchester City bought the services of Kyle Walker for an estimated £50m, which became the world record fee for a defender, before Virgil van Djik switched clubs to join Liverpool in the last winter window.
The amount of hefty fees paid for full-backs goes to show that teams have realized the importance of having at least two efficient ones in their ranks and are ready to break the bank for them. The modern times have brought upon a trend where full-backs are becoming a vital part of any team, that intends to achieve success and win trophies. The tables have turned and the once overlooked position of full-back is now becoming the centre of attention.
The five style tribes of football
Fasten your seat belts. A bunch of spendaholic peacocks are headed to Russia to strut their stuff. The fashion show is about to begin.
The love affair between footie and fashion kicked off in the swinging sixties when George Best — aka The Fifth Beatle — went stark raving mod. Best, the Manchester United winger, became a pied piper for those of us who were attempting to claw our way out of postwar austerity. I was born in Reading, in 1952, with a great view of the Huntley and Palmers biscuit factory (back then Reading FC, my team, was nicknamed “the biscuits”) and a burning desire to get my swag on. Hedonistic, beautiful George, with his velvet jackets and his floppy collars, was my groovy enabler, jump-starting my interest in footie and forever linking it to the world of style. Thanks to him, I have been surveying the footie landscape through a fashion lorgnette for more than half a century.
Since Best, things have only got worse, or better, depending on your point of view. If, like me, you enjoy a bit of flamboyance and fashion exhibitionism — dragon tattoos, jangly wrist-scapes, manbuns and manbags — then you doubtless celebrate this growing parade of pampered popinjays. Possessed of a natural elegance, these wiry young studs are the perfect canvas for today’s retro biker jackets, souvenir blousons, wallet-busting sneakers and nut-mangling Balmain jeans. Not only do the lads have the requisite build, but they also dig it, big time. Whether from Nigeria, Bahia or Essex, today’s players are unapologetically fashion-addicted. What better way to show the world that you have successfully lifted yourself from backstreet obscurity than by carrying a designer man-purse? And, God bless ‘em, they pay full retail. Why? Because they don’t have a choice. When you earned $93m last year — bom dia Ronaldo! — bleating requests for designer discounts tend to fall on deaf ears. Footballers are, therefore, the ultimate patrons de la mode.
The footie/fashion landscape has never been more chaotic than it is today. But closer examination reveals that today’s fashionable footballers fall into five principal teams. Allow me to guide you through the magic and madness of these style squads.
Haryana government wants one-third of what its athletes earn, has a justification despite protests
Haryana government's new notification asks sportspersons to deposit one-third of the income earned by them from professional sports or commercial endorsements to the state.
Haryana has been a pioneer in offering government jobs to its meritorious sportspersons and awarding prize money for their achievements. But in a new notification dated April 30 from the Sports and Youth Affairs Department, the state has asked its sportspersons to “deposit one-third of the income earned by them from professional sports or commercial endorsements with the Haryana State Sports Council”.
The notification says that sportspersons will have to seek extraordinary leave (without pay) when they are participating in professional sports events. The step, according to the state government, has been taken for the development of sports in Haryana. The notification is applicable to any sportsperson employed with any department of the state government and is participating in professional sports or commercial endorsements.
The notification is likely to affect a number of sportspersons in Haryana, including hockey player Sardar Singh, former boxers Akhil Kumar, Jitender Kumar, amateur boxers Vikas Yadav and Manoj Kumar. Wrestlers like Geeta Phogat, Yogeshwar Dutt and Mausam Khatri will also be affected. Rio Olympics bronze medallist Sakshi Malik will also be affected by the order. Some of them have protested the order.
“God save us from such officials, who are taking senseless decisions like this. Their contribution to development of sports in Haryana has been zero but I am sure, they will play a big role in the decline of sports in the state,” Dutt tweeted. “Now, athletes will move to other states and these officials will be responsible for this.”
Three years ago, boxer Vijender Singh’s decision to turn professional had caused a furore in Haryana as he was asked to give up his job with Haryana Police. Though he was later allowed to keep his job and compete professionally, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had issued a notice to the Haryana government saying that it was against the sports policy of the state.
What the state government said
Haryana’s Principal Secretary of Sports and Youths Affairs, Ashok Khemka, said that the condition does not apply to all sportspersons from Haryana, and only to those employed with the Haryana government.
“Any athlete who is employed with Haryana government and also wants to play professionally falls under the category and we are asking only one-third of the income from the professional contract. It’s a concession that we have given to players who want to turn professionals,” Khemka told IndianExpress.com.
The notification also has a second condition. It states “in case the sportsperson is treated on duty with the prior approval of the competent authority while taking part in professional sports or commercial endorsements, the full income earned by the sportsperson on this account will be deposited with the Haryana State Sports Council”.
“If you are employed with the state and you then want to sell your services to someone else, then you need to pay the state. This is normal and we are just asking for 33 per cent. See Vijender’s example. He went to England to box professionally and he is employed with Haryana Police. He is free to do whatever he wants but now he has to pay 33 percent of his professional earnings,” Khemka said.
Fifa World Cup 2018: Football fever begins to grip cricket-crazy India
Many of the balls have been themed in the national colors of teams hoping to excel in Russia, including Spain, England and Argentina
Raj Kumar sat at his roadside repair shop in Jalandhar on Friday, the sound of pneumatic drills and passing cars and motorbikes threatening to drown out the traditionally Punjabi Bhangra music playing over the radio as he stitched up one of several footballs that were strewn over his wooden table.
Kumar has been faced with a recent uptick in business as local children take up the sport ahead of the upcoming Fifa World Cup, bringing their footballs to Kumar's shop for a quick and affordable fix-up, reports Efe.
The surge in business has not come as a surprise to the repairman, who says he has been in the job for 45 years.
Kumar told epa that the children of Jalandhar tend to adopt whichever sport gets the most attention on television.
During much of the year in this cricket-obsessed nation, that means repairing cricket bats and pads.
With the World Cup due to start next week in Russia, however, Kumar has been landed with a pile of deflated and beaten up footballs, many of which look beyond salvage, and which litter his shop's store cupboard.
Kumar says he has been repairing around 50 footballs per month as the tournament approaches. He charges Rs 50 ($0.75) to stitch up a damaged football, while the fare to repair the inside bladder would cost his clients Rs 90.
Much of the sports equipment that comes from his repair shop is manufactured locally; Jalandhar is home to a dominant sports goods market.
The city even has a traffic intersection named as "Football Chowk" located next to a market at which mostly sports goods are sold. A concrete sculpture of a hand with a football on it is located near the traffic intersection of "Football Chowk."
Jalandhar's sports industry is one of the biggest manufacturing hub in India with around 100 sports goods manufacturing units in the city.
At one such unit, workers for Indian sports goods company Nivia had their hands full churning out and stacking up a range of different coloured footballs, goalkeeping gloves, jerseys and boots.
Many of the balls have been themed in the national colors of teams hoping to excel in Russia, including Spain, England and Argentina.
The company, which employs 2,000 workers, produces over 250,000 balls per year, which are sold through more than 2,000 dealers nationwide.
The manufacturers told epa that while they used to receive a higher demand for their wares from abroad, which has since decreased due to increasing competition from Chinese, Pakistani and Vietnamese producers, they have had a surge in local and domestic orders ahead of the World Cup.
After protests, Haryana suspends order demanding its athletes pay one-third earnings
Haryana government suspends order which asked sportspersons employed with it to deposit one-third of their income to the state.
The Haryana government has put on hold the order directing state-employed sportspersons to “deposit one-third of the income earned by them from professional sports or commercial endorsements with the Haryana State Sports Council”. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar tweeted about the suspension of the order.
“I have asked for the relevant file of Sports Department to be shown to me & the notification dated 30th April to be put on hold till further orders. We are proud of the immense contribution by our sportspersons & I assure them of a just consideration of all issues affecting them,” Khattar tweeted.
Indelible Legacy of an Iconic Painter
– Wassily Kandinsky
It’s one of the most shameful incidents in the country’s history as its eminent son, seized by an agonizing fear, had to renounce his Indian citizenship and accept rarely given Qatari citizenship. “I am a part of India’s 5,000-year-old culture and I am so fortunate to be born in India”, said India’s best known ‘art maestro’ Maqbool Fida Husain, popularly known as MF Husain.
Like so many others, India’s Pablo Picasso didn’t leave the country for personal success or professional accomplishment.The versatile artist who was also into filmmaking and photography was hounded and targeted by the new generation of Indian Hindus for apparently insulting their faith. Husain left the country in 2005, never to return.
As democracy’s definitive deciders, we were to denounce the Hindutva hate campaigns against the painter, reject those who indulged in it and call out to those who were behind this. Being a citizen implies rights and responsibilities, to question things, also to refuse to swallow whatever we are told – conscientious citizenship is a key to developing a country’s identity and civic awareness.
But what did we do? We just let it happen to one of the pioneers of modern art in India.We became anesthetized to distinctions between artistry and inflamed religious passions. The problem was not just the Hindu fundamentalist groups that fueled hatred but people like us for whom fact and fiction are but meaningless abstractions. For a society, that is the greater danger. Husain was a victim of such danger – victim of cultural policing – victim of a mean recontextualisation of India.
According to noted journalist and former editor N. Ram, “I know no one more genuinely and deeply committed to the composite, multi-religious, and secular values of Indian civilisation than M. F. Husain”. A resident of Dubai since 2006, the nation’s celebrated painter of global repute died after a heart attack this day in 2011 in London. He was 96.
In 2008 Delhi HC quashed the obscenity case against MF Husain who was forced to go into exile after his painting of Mother India as a nude woman was alleged to hurt religious sentiments. “”We have been called as the land of Kama Sutra then why is it that in this land we shy away from its very name? Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and so does obscenity,” Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul observed.
The epilogue of his judgment reads,”A liberal tolerance of a different point of view causes no damage. It means only a greater self-restraint. Diversity in expression of views whether in writings, paintings or visual media encourages debate. A debate should never be shut out. ‘I am right’ does not necessarily imply ‘You are wrong’. Our culture breeds tolerance- both in thought and in actions…A painter at 90 deserves to be in his home ‘painting his canvas!”
Later, the Supreme Court also refused to initiate criminal proceedings against him for supposedly hurting public sentiments through some of his paintings, labelled obscene.
Matter-of-factly, we all collectively failed him. We failed to honourthe renowned artist’s yearning to return to India.His wish – “Marne se pehleekbaarapnewatankimittichhoonezarooraaunga…(Before I die, I shall definitely come once to touch the soil of my beloved country)”- remained unfulfilled.
As the white pyjama-kurta clad barefoot artist with an unkempt beard was often seen at India International Centre (IIC), Delhi, one wondered how he could remain so cheerful and charismatic despite receiving death threats and multiple lawsuits from religious hardliners.
The death anniversary of the legendry painter reminds me of an unfortunate incident at IIC in 2007 when prints of the artist’s works were on display at its art gallery. Many IIC staff members still shudder at the thought of the threats received from Hindu extremist groups during the 10-day show.
Strangely, the callers, who rang up from different states, were well aware of the layout of the art gallery and the exact location of the exhibits, to the extent they knew which print was hanging from which wall. IICofficials’ earnest efforts to reason with the fanatics proved futile.
A Delhi Police team and large number of IIC staff and CCTV cameras specially installed for the purpose were in place to prevent any surreptitious attempt to vandalise the exhibition. But, despite all the precautionary measures, a few activists managed to sneak into the Art Gallery on the concluding day and damaged a print. They started throwing pamphlets while loudly chanting communally sensitive ditties. This not only left the viewers shocked but also besmirched the atmosphere of the Centre.
At one stage, things came to such a pass that the IIC administration had considered scrapping the show midway, fearing damage to property and harm to staff. But it reconsidered after recognising that backing out would not only tarnish the image of the Centre but also bolster the disruptive efforts of Hindu extremist groups. Not just IIC, art galleries across India planning or hosting Husain exhibition were similarly targeted by such groups.
The Husain exhibition, part of regular art shows is central to the ethos of IICas the institution is mandated to undertake, organise and facilitate promotion of different cultural patterns of the world. The idea of such a Centre was conceived in 1958 when Dr S Radhakrishnan, then Vice President of India and Mr. John DRockefeller III discussed setting up a centre for “quickening and deepening of true and thoughtful understanding between peoples of nations”.
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, helped in selecting the site of the Centre near Lodi Gardens. But even such a background could not protect the premier institution with a global identity from the wrath of fanatics.
Remembering the incident vividly, I find merit in what a French religious philosopher Blaise Pascalonce said -”Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
Hate-mongers have been successful as the nonagenarian artist was forced to go into a self-imposed exile, but remained hugely unsuccessful to destroy even remotely the Husain legacy. Art never dies.
The treatment meted out to one of the most treasured artists of this country will neither be forgotten nor forgiven by defenders of the freedom of expression. Ironically, while the hate-mongers considered themselves as ‘devout Hindu’, the iconic painter considered himself as ‘devout human being’ instead of ‘devout Muslim’.
That said, such so-called devout Hindus, devoid of cultural nuances, and holding scant regard for artistic expression should have been dealt with sternly as they ushered in the hardening of a national culture that already was on its way to extremes of crudity.