On one fine Saturday afternoon in Panagarh, a nondescript town in West Bengal , I was watching T V in the Officers’ Mess. The year was 1994 and in those days only few rich Officers’ Mess had cable TV and since I was the lone dinning member of our poor Mess , we didn’t have one.
Generally I don’t watch much of sports, but I just started watching this football match on Doordarshan , National TV channel ,which never had much to offer .Those were the days when technology had not penetrated our lives , in guise of saving our time, so much, and we still had lot of time to ourselves without being constantly disturbed by mobile calls, messages ,social media notification, etc. Anyways, this particular match drew me towards it, one, because I had nothing do , nowhere to go, and two, because I spotted a very young Chinki , a commonly used derogatory word for everyone with oriental features in India , looking guy who was really fast and very good with his feet. That was perhaps a match in Durand Cup.
Most of us in India don’t watch much of soccer, commonly referred as football and , before I could decide to go back to my room I saw the ball being passed in the air and this Chinki leapt up in the air from nowhere and performed a bicycle kick with precision, netting the ball . I was aghast ,my mouth opened I couldn’t not believe what I saw , an Indian footballer doing something like that, with that finesse .That reminded me of an old sports movie “Escape to Victory “, where Pele nets the last goal in that manner. I said to my self this guy is going to go places . That 16-17 year old Chinki was none other but Bhaichung Bhutia who played from East Bengal then. The name stuck and in this country of ours where cricket is a religion, Bhaichung is to Indian Football what Sachin is to Indian Cricket.
After that I kept following his game every now and then , kept reading about him and his exploits .Since we all love an underdog, here was a guy who was from a small district in Sikkim creating waves in Indian soccer . Well I will not go to Wikipedia to write more about him, I rather confess that most I know about him is through old school reading of newspapers and magazines. Be it his being called ‘Gift to Indian Soccer’, ‘Sikkimese Sniper’, leading the Indian team, first player to play for an European club and of course his marriage and later his stint in ‘Jhalak Dik La Ja” , a resonably pouplar couple dance reality show .It is sad though that most of us unfortunately know him from there.
Once I also read a beautiful article written by him on how he and his
girlfriend explored Britain on a bike ,surviving on tea and sandwiches
alone, which included betting with local kids on soccer and winning it, to fuel their
trip. My admiration for him was also from the fact that I too loved playing soccer,
but my lack of technique and agility could never take me beyond the half line and I
was pretty content as a defender. But I always admire footballers who are very
good with their feet, he was , and still is one .Its a different
thing that, what I lacked
in technique I tried to make up with strength that too apparently not with much success though.
Bhaichung ‘s game and his love for the game like our very own
Sachin drew admiration from everyone including his
team mates .When he announced his retirement few days back , I rued the
fact that I could not see him in life and blood playing and I also
thought of putting the news of his retirement as my Facebook
update, as an ode to the greatest player Indian soccer has seen ,
now you can go to Wikipedia and read more about him .Few soccer fans in India even say that we have another Bhaichung
in Sunil Chettri
It took a call from Akash ( a young kid with spiky hair, who in his younger
days told his
dad once that when he looked like Rocky, my son, and Bhatt uncle,thanks to our spiky hair, why couldn’t he stay with
them), and a few clicks on the net and yes I am going to see Bhaichung
play his last match on 10 Jan 12 in Jawahar Lal Stadium against Bayern
Munich.
This note, my friends, is my ode to the greatest soccer player
India has seen till date.
Written :Jan 12 , after watching Baichung's last match, along with with Akash , who later on joined the Army, and of course Bhaichung got replaced by equally talented Sunil Chettri
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