The Bengalis by Sudeep Chakravarti

Author:Sudeep Chakravarti [Chakravarti, Sudeep]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rupa Publications
Published: 2017-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

10

Khelā-dhūlā

Games we play

Something took shape on 29 July 1911. A bit of our history, some of our pride, much of our obsession.

Mohun Bagan had begun to storm through the field at that year’s tournament for the IFA shield, mostly a white-colonial preserve made up of regimental teams managed by the Indian Football Association. The team of barefoot Bengalis—unlike other teams they played without football boots—had since the 10th of the month defeated the teams of St Xavier’s College, Rangers Club, and Rifle Brigade to reach the semi-finals. There they were matched evenly with Middlesex Regiment, 1–1. The replay, also at the Dalhousie ground was a no-contest, with Mohun Bagan winning 3–0. Next up was the final match against East Yorkshire Regiment.

It was an unprecedented event at the height of Empire, and in a Bengal that still seethed at being partitioned. Indian versus British would have been hype enough. This had the added hype of Bengali versus British.

Chronicles of the time—media, official club documentation, researchers who studied the game and its implications—record that large crowds had gathered for the semi-finals, but there was nothing like the crush of between eighty and a hundred thousand that flocked to the Calcutta Football Club ground to watch the finals. Much of that throng was from Kolkata and its environs, but spectators arrived in large numbers from Bihar, Assam and northern and eastern Bengal. East Indian Railway ran special trains from Bardhaman. Steamers to the nearest docks were packed, and so were trams in the city. Kolkata witnessed its first horrifying traffic jam.

Most couldn’t make their way in, about ten thousand did. Some bought a two-rupee ticket for fifteen rupees. This is probably the first recorded incident of scalping of tickets or ‘blacking’ in Bengal (which would in some decades emerge as a māstān cottage industry from sporting events to the cinema and confirmed reservation in trains), different from hoarding or blackmarketeering at which those who traded in Bengal had already shown their aptitude. Spectators paid outrageous prices for snacks—a small boiled potato for one paisa, a paan for the princely sum of four annas, with sixteen annas to a rupee. Some paid between three and five rupees for a box to stand on. Mohun Bagan Club chronicles mention ‘babus’ were on one side of the ground, the shāhéb on another, with seating provided by B. H. Smith & Co. With such arrangements, most people could only follow the progress of the match through the roars of the crowd and shouted Chinese whispers, as it were. Kites of a particular colour would be flown to signal a goal by one or the other team—black for the British, and maroon and green, the club colours of Mohun Bagan.

It was just another day for the East Yorkshires, proud to be in the finals though somewhat wary of a ‘native’ team on a screamer of run to the finals. But the Mohun Bagan team, it seems, went to get blessings from Kali before their match at 11 a.m.—even Sudhir Chatterjee, a practising Christian, who would in later years become the Reverend Chatterjee.

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