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
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