An Outsider Between The Posts
Outlook|October 30, 2017

Football’s lesson in dispossession wasn’t in vain. East Bengal’s thraldom reigned at a distance; then came a sudden reinforcement of the refugee status.

MANASH ‘FIRAQ’ BHATTACHARJEE
An Outsider Between The Posts

‘Anyone who is an East Bengal fan is always right!’

—Ravindran Sriramachandran, Asoka University

During my childhood, I remember a very quiet man from Calcutta who twice visited our Railway Colony apartment in Assam. He was a relation of father’s, and I called him uncle. But I do not remember his name or other det­ails. My only memory of him is his lying in bed, reading the newspaper. Despite being a talkative and inquisitive kid, I hesitated speaking to him. But his strange, fleeting presence persists in my mind, because on both his visits he gifted me a football.

The first one he got me was black and white in colour. I don’t remember much about it. Except that I triumphantly took it to my friends in the neighbourhood, and we played with it every eve­ning, as it slowly lost colour. Only after the leather got torn at too many places did we finally abandon it. I remember the second one better. Not only bec­ause I was more grown up by then, but for the ball’s colour. It was red and yellow. That was the jersey colours of my favourite team, East Bengal.

To be gifted a football at a young age teaches you things you may not realise then. A gift is meant to be something you alone possess and have the sole right over. It is what you savour with care. But here was a gift you were dying to share with others. Here was a gift that would be kicked around, get muddied. During the match I would mostly watch others play and wait for my chance. You realise later, a football is a rare gift that is barely yours. It is a gift you gift away, a gift that belongs to others. A football is a gift that teaches you dispossession.

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