Page 35 - Seniors Today Magazine April 2024
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on India’s cricket craze, though it took a India Hockey Federation fear that he will
few more years to turn the Indian cricket replace Bengal players with those from his
team into a fearsome squad. Still, that win native Secunderabad. But Rahim travels
against West Indies no less, showed that across the country and picks football
Indian players were capable of playing champs, from clubs, as well as one player
under pressure against a team considered from the street. Under his leadership, the
superior. team won several matches against better
teams, and came to be known as the Brazil
of Asia, but that gold medal eluded them
till the 1962 Asian Games in Jakarta, where
they beat South Korea.
Rahim built a team that comprised
names that are known as football legends
today—PK Banerjee, Chuni Goswami,
Peter Thangaraj, Jarnail Singh, Tulsidas
Balaram, Nikhil Nandy, Amal Dutta.
Image courtesy: Sportsmatik
83 turned up the intensity on India’s cricket craze The team was almost dropped from the
It also lit the fire under the cauldron Olympics squad, and Rahim had to seek
of nostalgia for past glory that resulted the intervention of then Finance Minister
in Reema Kagti’s Akshay Kumar Morarji Desai, who claimed shortage of
starrer Gold, which unearthed the true foreign exchange, to let them travel. It
story of team manager Tapan Das, who meant drastic curtailment of expenses – the
steered the Indian hockey team to winning team would get no pocket allowance, and
the gold medal in the 1948 Olympics -- would have to do their own laundry.
India’s first as an Independent nation. It In the film, the drama is amped up by
marked the commencement of a golden Rahim’s last stage lung cancer, and anti-
period of Indian hockey, and four more India protests in Jakarta because of a
Olympics golds. thoughtless comment by an Indian sports
It has to be the same nostalgia that official. Still the team wins against all
led to the making of the recently- odds - ignoring injury, hostility and that
released Maidaan, directed by Amit crushing lack of faith in the possibility of
Ravindernath Sharma and starring Ajay victory.
Devgn as the Syed Abdul Rahim, who stood
up to an indifferent sports establishment
and cynical media that had no faith in
India’s ability to win a football match.
A barefoot Indian team had taken a 10-0
drubbing against Hungary at the 1952
Helsinki Olympics. In the film, when
Rahim is blamed for this defeat he demands
that first of all the players be given shoes,
and secondly that he gets to pick the team. Football did not managed to reach the level of popularity
A few members of the Kolkata-based All cricket did, and money always follows fame
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #58 | APRIL 2024 35