 Welcome to a brand new episode of 420 grams. It's the 129th birthday anniversary of Bhimrao Ambedkar, one of the leading thinkers, founders of the founding thinkers of this country, on whose leadership or on whose leadership the constitution of India was based. Many of the ideas and the ideals to which we hold ourselves as a country, sovereign socialist, democratic republic, a union, where all Indians are equal and have the same set of rights and all residents in this country are granted by law, equal access to the law, equal opportunity, the right to life and many other things. We're talking about Ambedkar in the context of today's time, where we're going through, as we all know, a pandemic that has crossed boundaries, borders and every other man made barrier. It's a global pandemic, but it's not the first time in history, it's happened over the course of human history over and over again. In fact, Ambedkar wrote in 1918, during the last such massive pandemic, and he talked then about access to health care, access to medical care, and how the most marginalized in society, particularly those belonging to the schedule cast and schedule tribes, were refused medical care, were refused basics that led to them suffering and dying in much larger numbers than everyone else. And we're seeing a very similar situation over the hundred years on. It's 2020. Not much seems to have changed in India. We're still talking about migrant workers and how they are the cause of the spread of this epidemic and how they're taking it from urban cities to the hinterland, et cetera, et cetera. We're seeing cases of people being denied treatment at hospitals, at government hospitals. We're seeing the media, the mass media, the public popular mass media talking in divisive terms of where a certain religion or proponents of a certain religion are being selectively targeted as those that are not just sort of the hosts of this virus, but also responsible for spreading this virus through their responsibility. Without really considering the economic realities and the social realities that force these sections of society to live the way they do and those of us who are more privileged to continue the cycle of forcing them to live the way they do. In the context of some of these wider conversations about the marginalized, about migrants, we always come back to football because, and people often ask, have been commenting on our videos and our other posts these past few days, talking about how in the context of this pandemic where over 100,000 people have now died, millions are infected and likely it's likely to get much worse. Millions more are suffering from the economic fallout. How can we talk about football? We can talk about football because A, it's not, it doesn't, football doesn't exist in a silo. And B for us, for people like Jerry Basu, Jun Pandit and myself who are on this show today, where we are brought together, we come from different places, different backgrounds, we speak different languages, but we are brought together by this game simply because it's a game that seems to transcend many of these boundaries. It reflects the ills in our society, it reflects the flaws in our society and yet it brings us together in a way that almost nothing else can. So, we'll begin today's conversation with an old story, a story that starts in Burma during the Second World War and Jerry, I'll come to you to tell us, actually you've written a very nice piece for Newslick for our website today about Fred Puzzley and his story. And the long march that he undertook to come from Burma then to India. So, take it away, Jerry. Please tell us that story first and then we'll take the conversation forward. Sir, before sir says something, I think in tandem, Jerry sir, you and I should go like this. So, the people who are watching this show, I'll make it a little more massive. What's happening is that this was one take. One take means neither the person is hitch-capped, nor the person has said sorry can I do it again, the person has gone crazy. And non-stop, what happens to me in the middle is that often when someone is doing monologues here, in the middle of it, my brain goes on and on. So, my brain goes on and on. So, my brain goes on, how do I joke now? How do I talk now? But I was hooked and I wasn't moving, brother. This was next level, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Actually, just to complete, because we were talking about Ambedkar, on this occasion, of course, happy birthday to Ambedkar. And we remember his thoughts and we read him regularly. And we also, like, especially those of us who don't belong to these Anush Soochit Janjati, scheduled caste, scheduled type, who we have not had the lived experiences that Dalits and Adivasis in this country face. So, on behalf of all of us, to apologize also to Ambedkar, that there are 100 and so many years after his birth and many years after his death, that we have not even now been able to achieve a fraction of the ideals on which we base the foundations of this country. So, yeah, that apology also has to go out, which I forgot to make. So, thank you for reminding me. But yeah, let's go on. Yeah. So, Siddhant, to take it from where you finished, like what you said about Babasai Ambedkar, we have managed to quickly make him into a demigod and without following his principles, which we do with lots of leaders and we have managed with this gentleman also. We have did it with the Mahatma Gandhi. We may have done it with some other people as well with Nitha Jishwa, Sandoval or whosoever it is. We have converted them into demigods but failed to follow what they have said, actually completely failed to follow what they have said to the other way. So now, having said this, I would like to come back to you as you said about Paragasli. It's a fascinating story. It becomes very, to some extent, relevant at this moment because I think a few crores of migrants who are now stranded on the road, walking hundreds of miles to their destination and failing to do it, being latte charged, being what not, even what happened in Bandra also we have seen it, how they have been latte charged. They just wanted to go back to their homes. It's definitely not a crime to go back to their home or to a safer place rather. If they go back to their home, it will be safer for them. Whatever you say, you stay home and stay safe. But they wanted to go to home and stay safe only. That's all. So what happened in Burma in 1942 when Japanese army was invading, the Allied forces were on the back foot. We know what happened in the Second World War, all of us are aware of it. So Burma was invaded by Japanese and British lost the war. So they had to retreat from and Burma was now Myanmar, of course, was taken over by Japanese army. And thousands of Indians, some of them are Burmese and Europeans and everybody, they wanted to leave Burma. Fred Parsley was a well-known good team, he played for the national team also I believe. Fred Parsley was an Anglo-Burmese, only Europeans were allowed to go by what you say, ship or by air. Air was of course very few at that time, but by ship, nobody was allowed out. So thousands, millions of Indians had to walk back. It was a great journey. It's an adora's journey, you can see. So they, I think, walked 300 and 400 miles through the mountains of Assam, through the mountains of Manipur and most of them reached India, some of them did not. Like one historian has written a book on the long forgotten journey. So Fred Parsley was one of them. He swam through the jungles with his wife and a small child in pants. And when he reached Calcutta, he was now Kolkata of course, he was penniless. Nobody knew him. But he knew East Bengal Club because East Bengal went to Burma and played some matches in Rangoon now which is the Angan of course. So he was penniless, he had nothing. So he's somehow managed and came to East Bengal Club and said, I want to play football. East Bengal was a bit taken aback. They were embarrassed actually because they knew him. He was a very fine footballer, they knew him, but they couldn't take him because he was an Anglo-Burmese. East Bengal before that never played a football. And secondly, the man was visibly sick because he has, he and his wife and his child has walked hundreds of miles without food. Without water, without medicine, they were on the, that they didn't die on the road, it's a miracle. But they still took him, they played him three matches. After the third match he started vomiting and blood came and started coming out of his mouth. The doctor said, don't play him. East Bengal also said, brother, it's too late, you can rest, we can give you food. That time, this was Indian steel company, Barnpour, which is I think now is nationalized, I'm not very sure about that. That time it was owned by Martin Barn Company and Sir Birindranath Mukherjee, who was a very close Monmagan official and was the president of Monmagan Club in the later years also. His father Rajan Mukherjee was also president of Monmagan Club. So he offered him a job in Barnpour, in Steel Factory. Steel Factory was a great form at that time because the war was on, steel you know was. So he played on and off, on and off for East Bengal and he couldn't, in the season of 1943 and 1944, he couldn't play for East Bengal much because in the office he was not getting leave because he has to come from Barnpour, come back here, play and go back, his office was not allowed here. So finally in 1945, he was playing but only occasionally. Finally in 1945, he managed to get his leave from the office during the Calcutta League and he played almost every match. He immersed the top scorer with 21 balls and that was the first year in 1945 when East Bengal won the double in Calcutta League. Double means winning the Calcutta Football League and the IFC shield both. Both. And actually which Arjun Aayyan and Siddhant, all of us discuss regularly about Derby match, Monmagan versus East Bengal, the Derby excitement, it actually started in 1945. Before that East Bengal-Monmagan match used to attract a lot of crowd but the craze actually started in 1945. There was huge demand for tickets when Monmagan was East Bengal in the final. So if I can interrupt just to ask a quick question. Is this because before that obviously East Bengal, Monmagan sorry, still had a much longer history and they have already established as among the prime clubs in Calcutta and Indian football. Yeah Calcutta, India at that time. They used to consider the biggest club of India. So is it that and East Bengal were founded if I'm not wrong in 1920? So is it just the question that it was a new club and it took 20-25 years for them to build up that reputation, that stature and also that quality of team that they could compete with East Bengal? There were several reasons of it. First of all, Monmagan was the undisputed club, national club of India. Nobody could match them. Secondly, there were a lot of European teams, Tala Hussi, Calcutta, Cow football club, all where they were equally good clubs. So see before Monmagan East Bengal, the Derby match in Calcutta was Monmagan versus Calcutta football club. That used to be the Derby match, Monmagan versus Calcutta. East Bengal came much later. Then between 1934 and 1940, Calcutta's number one team was Mohamed Sporting. In nine years, they won the Calcutta league eight times. Five times in a row, they won the Calcutta league. They won the IFA shield, they won Rogues Cup, they won what not, they won Durant Cup. So Mohamed Sporting was the number one team. East Bengal of course was a great team. That one versus two rivalry was yet to come. It slowly came in the 40s when the European teams started dying down. Because the European interest in India was dying and Europeans were mainly busy in the war. In Calcutta, military teams were mostly busy in war. And Mohamed Sporting also, after 1941, 42, they were a great team. But their success was not that much. They are receding their success. So Monmagan East Bengal became the number one, number two. And coming back to 1945, the tickets were sold of 45,000. Which was a huge, huge amount at that day. Two days before the final, East Bengal defender Pramod Dasgupta, he was a very dependable defender. The man was attacked by a group of miscreants in a dingy lane. They were masked, there was no light. He was badly beaten up. And next day it was found that he will not be able to play the final. So you can understand what happened. Who blamed whom for allegations, counter allegations, everything went up. So the match was, there was great tension. And Pagasli, we are coming back to Pagasli. Pagasli had his leave for the league, but he did not receive leave from his office for the IFA shield. So after second round he never played. In the final, he thought to let me go and watch the final at least. So he took a train from Banpur to Calcutta. He went straight to the East Bengal tent, create East Bengal forward Sumana. Sumana was Calcutta league hot-top scorer twice, I think. He was a East Bengal legend. He was from Bangalore, but he was considered East Bengal's own man, Sumana. Though he was from Bangalore, and Sumana was from a very high family. He was married to Karnataka, that time Mysore High Court Chief Justice. Justice Karnataka was married to him. So Sumana was from a very upscale family. Sumana was to play at the centre forward. Sumana was about to put the jersey. He put in the jersey when Pagasli walked into the East Bengal tent. Sumana looked at him. It is according to the historians, Bengali East Bengal historians. He looked at him. He took off his jersey and says, Mr. Pagasli, you must play. You were the top scorer in the league. You were our best footballer. So you should play and win the league's shield for East Bengal. So Pagasli was a bit reluctant then he agreed. He said, okay, I will play. And as it happened, he swung a 1-0 and he scored the goal. So he became the man who walked 400 miles or 300 miles from Myanmar to Calcutta, any less with his wife and child with him. He had no food, no shelter, no medicine, no clothes, nowhere to go. Like a migrant worker today, I thought. So that's why it inspired me to write that story. See, he finished on the top of the world. And it completely damaged his health actually. So he went back to Bama in 1946 and in 1958 he passed away. So that's in short his history. Wonderful story, sir. I didn't mean to interrupt in between. I was just listening. By the way, sir, for all our people who are watching this right now, because I just realized that we keep reading stories from here and there. Well, I'm reading a book right now called Zonal Maki, by the supposed tactician, statistician in Europe called Michael Cox. And he's written about Europe's evolution tactically. So he started with Netherlands. Now he's going to Italy and so on and so forth. So if you want to read about the evolution of Calcutta, like what you just explained, I had no idea. That prior to 1945, it was Calcutta football club and Mohan Bagan, that was the rivalry. So if I want to read about something that's happened in my own country and it's such a lovely rivalry and there's so much history involved and there's romance involved in it. There's a book that I can read. Arjun, unfortunately, most of the books are in Bengali. Sir, no one translated them? Translate? Maybe one day I will do it. I will write a book on it. If you find me a public publisher, I will write a book for them. Okay, let's do this. I'm in lockdown. Okay. So why not let's start this as a lockdown project since we, Pandit and I, don't speak or read Bengali. Why don't you identify as some books that deserve translation and then we can work on the project and I'm sure publishers would be very keen. These days. To be on the serious side, I would like to write a book on Mohan Bagan's struggle rivalry. Not only with a historical background, but with a sociological background. Yeah, I think that's the more important one. Because statistically, Mr. Gautam Roy is also in Calcutta. No, we have written a fine book on football, that is also there. No, Wikipedia's book. I have a book on football, but that's completely an Indian team. I concentrated on the progress of the national team. I did not concentrate on Mohan Bagan's struggle, but there could be a book on Mohan Bagan's struggle. Sir, isn't there anything in Hindi to read? I'm not very aware of it, if there is any. Isn't it strange that we are more than 50 years ahead of that now or 60 years ahead of that. Or even 70 years. My maths is really bad. 60-70 years ahead of that. And no one has come out and translated it beyond Bengal basically. That's my point. Either there are no takers for this. Sir, it's because before the ISL started, there was no market for Indian football. Yeah, it's because before the ISL started, there was no market for Indian football. Yeah, it's because before the ISL started, there was no market for Indian football. I now divide India into two Indian football into two sectors, pre-2014 and post-2014. You see, I failed to believe you. Why football? Why football comes back into the picture? Because if you look at many larger schemes of things that are happening in this country, they also can be divided into a pre-2014 and a post-2014 bracket. So everything is... Yeah. And Arjun, just to be on the serious side, not only on Mohan Makan's swing ball, no book has been written on Hyderabad football. No book has been written on Bangalore football. How the players from Kerala came and played in Calcutta. All these things nobody has written. Fascinating stories Hyderabad and Bangalore can give you. Forget about Calcutta. If you go to Bangalore and Hyderabad, Hyderabad has produced 14 Olympians. 14 Olympians. And you know, in 2003, I'm just giving you an example of how the ignorant people is. In 2003, when the National Games was held in Hyderabad, the then Chief Minister of Hyderabad, Chandrababu Naidu, he invited all the Hyderabad Olympians or Hyderabad players who have played for India in different... for a party it is out. Which is very, very good. Where Gopichand was there, Azharuddin was there, Mukesh Kumar hockey player was there. The only person who was not invited was Peter Thangaraj, who had played two Olympics in the creation games. Who has a gold medal in his pocket. Who had a gold medal in his pocket. He was never invited. So they themselves are so ignorant. Bangalore, have you seen anybody writing a book on Bangalore football? If you look at the 1952 Indian football teams, the list of Indian football players in the 1952 team, eight were from Bangalore, eight players from Bangalore. But nobody has written a book or chronicles any document on that. It's a comment on all of us, I suppose in general, who have worked in this industry for so long and followed Indian football for so long. There are a few of you who have written books on different subjects related to Indian football, Novi of course, yourself and a handful of others, but very few and far between. And also the fact that we have so many languages in this country. Okay, they are writing in vernacular. There is someone in Mizoram who is writing the story of Mizoram's football. I am sure there must be hundreds of books in Bangalore because in Bangalore it's also a part of popular culture. So I am sure there is a lot of work of all kinds, academic work, people must have written their PhD thesis. All kinds of works must have been done on this. But the rest of the country has very little access to it. So again, we are talking about Ambedkar. I mean, one of the things that Ambedkar was among other things was a prolific writer, whether it was in terms of writing books or essays or articles or in a multitude of languages. So we should, like Jairi was saying, that we don't follow the people that we idolize or we make into gods. It's time that we use some of this extra lack of traffic, etc. etc. that we have in this lockdown and get cracking on these projects. I am saying this mostly to myself. I know it's to you. We understood that I was going to go back to you. But I was going to say that since you guys have all come in close proximity of editors, publishers and people whose job is to publish books or whatever, get new books out. What does the general take for football? Writing a football book. Let's not even say football book. Sports book, Beyond Cricket. Are there takers for sports books beyond cricket? Or is it always the same Ghisabita Kani? Tell us, Capils, Heroes, 1983 and... Are you taking a picture? You are taking a picture. One of our cricket panellists is Nikhil Naz. His book is Miracle Men. 1983 World Cup winning sport. He was making it. What are the takers for football? Have you never come across information that someone has been approached to write a book on the history of Bengal football? I don't blame the readers because we have not given them anything. How can we see when we don't give them anything? They can always come back and turn around and say, what is it? I saw this publishing industry today. If I just quickly answer that question, I think a lot of the focus, because we take all our cues from America. We are mostly just following what happens there. A few layers and in our own way, but we are following. So these days where the money is, it's inevitably in video. So the big studios, agents, all of these people they look for these kind of stories in the US. From the point of view of buying the rights to that story so that they can then make a Netflix series out of it, make a film out of it. If you look at so many of the films that are doing well or popular these days, you'll find that many of them are based on a book that somebody has written. Maybe many years ago, maybe recently, maybe it's a long form article in one of these magazines like the New Yorker or the Atlantic or something like that. So publishers are definitely keen on this kind of content and they're also aware that just selling books is not going to make them any money, neither them nor the writer himself or herself. So it is happening, but it's happening in the context of what we can make a picture out of your book. So if we look at it, and there are a lot of problems in it, like our colleague from India, Mr. Duggal, who has written the original story of the Dungal film, I know him. The authorised biography has been written. Now if you read that book and read the original story of the book, how it played out and if you look at the Dungal film, the hero of the film, how the story goes, and how the film goes, their story goes. So they're not necessarily the same story. It's a Bollywood version of the film. But the fact is that several of these are getting, and because of the fact that there's potential to make a multi-million dollar film out of it, the writer also loses a lot of money. And the story itself also gets a lot of publicity. So I think the market is really big. If this is your question. Yes, it is. And secondly, it is also a duty to document things, isn't it? Whether somebody is buying it or not, we should keep it chronically at least. Next man can do what some do. Yeah, absolutely. Documenting and then making that documentation accessible to as many people as possible. I'll tell you for the longest, when I used to work for Z-Sports. So my initial first few days and first few years were all doing I-League, second I-League and doing shows around them and even doing, and at that time it was Hero I-League, newly rebranded. Last season of NFL we had done. So we used to go to Calcutta and there, you know, there was a stall outside the ground in Salt Lake stadium where everyone's jerseys were. And that was something really big for me. I'm seeing Indian football team jerseys. Sir, we used to play in European football. Arsenal, they were looking at jerseys. So going there, I would always, always never touch a Mohan Bagan jersey. I would always only buy an East Bengal jersey. In fact, I remember, I went there and bought 10 jerseys and all our European so-called stars who used to play in farmhouses and I used to play there. I gave all of them a jersey of East Bengal. And a lot of them said, I said, this is a very famous jersey. Respect it. This is something that's come from your own country, man. And so that that lure of the East Bengal jersey, for me, in fact, the best East Bengal jersey was the one which I saw Baichung wearing in that one like 30,000 game, which was in gold. With the collars. What I would do to get that jersey again. What I would do to get that jersey. If anyone knows who's watching this, where we get original East Bengal jerseys, then write it in the comments. Send a message to Baichung. No, Mr. Sikkim. Mr. Sikkim. Mr. Sikkim. He's in Sikkim now. He's in Sikkim now. He's in lockdown now, finally. He's doing a wall judder. Sir, one of them, a few days ago, he had a one take, but he kept a few for me and then he hit the wall. He was doing a video on Instagram. He hit the wall. He hit the wall. Baichung was special. He's very natural. And Mr. Bhudey also said that he wants to become AFF president someday. He said it. When did he say it? He said it on a Facebook interview. That's a big thing. Why didn't we cover it? He said it on Facebook. Would you like to be president of AFF? Oh, one of those chats. He says yes, that is something I would like to consider. Maybe not in the near future because I think the next president of the AFF will probably be someone from FSDL. He is not eligible also. He's not eligible. What is the eligibility factor? He has to be a member of a state or the AFF executive committee for two years or four years. I don't think he's eligible because I don't think he's a member of the Sikkim Football Association Executive Committee. Unless they change the eligibility, but that's the constitution. Having said that, a legit legend on one side but being an administrator is a completely different thing. More often than not, the two generally do not come together. Baichung of course runs the risk of doing harm to all the PR and goodwill that he's a courtesy of being a footballer on the field. If things don't work out and nowadays, we keep pointing fingers with someone. How did you not do this? How did you not do that? It will be interesting to see. I have to see. Sorry to interrupt. I think you will find that when Baichung retired, I remember I had written a little bit of a tribute piece and the headline of the piece was that everyone has a Baichung Bhutya story. Anyone that has watched football in the last 20 years, 30 years, has a Baichung Bhutya story. Whatever that story might be, whether it's a personal story or something you've seen on television or at the ground or whatever. One thing about Baichung is that irrespective of the fact that he has achieved a level of popularity that has far exceeded most other football players in this country. I think it's challenging. But if you consider the fact that Baichung did all of this when there was no social media, no Facebook, no Instagram, no Twitter, none of that. It was just on the basis of folklore, the story of Baichung's goals. In the newspaper, there was a lot of photos or when a big match happened and someone saw it on TV, it was great. So despite all of this, he has always been, I think, quite humble and willing to listen to various points of view. You know, and what you're saying is that we are journalists or we were in a certain age or we... Yes, we are. I want to ask a question. PR means Public Relations, basically. That's my point. If Saurabh Gangali can become BCCI President, if Sebastian Koch can become International Athletic Prediction President, if Michel Platini can become UFA President, then I don't see anything wrong in Baichung becoming the UFA President. He will run it as good or as bad. Not that those who are running the show are running at a great pace. Nobody can increase them of doing that, at least. That's what I was going to say. Instead of comparing of future Baichung Bhutia as President of the Football Federation to what some of these guys have or have not done and we can argue on that endlessly because like, whether it's Sebastian Koch or any of these exactly what they have done. We won't start that can of worms against what other presidents of the Federation have done. I would like to see Baichung being President in 2026 when India will play the World Cup. That is it. Mr. Prasad, you should also see that we will be commenting on India in 2026. That's what I was saying. The question of documentation that Jaydeep raised, that we have to document it. It's true that, of course, there is no comparison to writing a book and authoritative properly annotated with all your reading lists and everything written down. But at NewsClick and you guys know this, our attempt is to do the same thing, to document the times that we are living in and to give access to it without a subscription model, without an advertiser model so that as many people as possible can access these conversations and a lot of it is based on actual journalism that happens maybe not on my part, but we do have journalists on the show who come and talk about things that are actually happening on the ground across the country. So the process is on, we should all do better and that should be... Sir, in the documentation, you said that you will do it and our bearded brother is saying that for a long time, he won't do it, I don't know. But point being at least, let's start a series for all the people that are watching this that are talking, I will ask you a question because I am intrigued by this entire subject. So let's start a series, let's start a weekly series. Mr. Modi just said it till the third, Sir, I don't think the third will open, but honestly, I was talking to my family today, I said, in the larger scheme of things, there is nothing. I'm coming from a different perspective, maybe I'm not talking from the perspective of the person you started by talking about the start of the show. So from each according to his own ability and to each according to his need, that is the principle that should guide us when we are sort of coming up with a framework in which to do this. If you and I have the luxury and the privilege of being able to have sit at home and our house has roof, we are getting food, water, our sanitation, sanitation is going on, then we should sit at home. Yes, 100% of the people who are earning money for their food leave the house, of course they should leave and they should get complete convenience for example, when I got out of the house I had to get some equipment from the office plus there are 12-13 people in my house so the ration water was reduced so I brought some stuff. So next to the office I got a lady constable on the road standing and obviously looking for a way to go home. So no, I am going alone in the car I have a car so I can go. So I was going and coming back to the house. So she pointed at me you know to say please can I have a ride but I could tell that she is standing in the middle of the road by herself and there is no public transport so I pulled over and I asked her what's up where do you need to go she said I have just finished my duty I am posted at the Saqeeth police station and I live in Palam now now for those who don't know I will tell you at least 15 km away okay this lady is a constable in the Delhi police she is on duty providing an essential service I am guessing that if she has been deployed today in this lockdown situation that she is not standing on the road she is not standing on the road so far so I was asking her what is the arrangement public transport is closed so how do you come everyday to get such a lift so you are thinking this is the state of the government the police who are providing an essential duty at this time so of course I understand that your perspective is limited to people like us who have the luxury and those watching should also understand that it is in that context Faruna bhai today because you have started the system I will not stop you but the point being this the lockdown once a week let's start the episode where we are talking about Calcutta football at least let's start with Calcutta because there is so much to talk about and let's keep building on it once a week we have to do one episode so that we can do a bit of all the supposed football fans who have come post 2014 once a time of what your ISL is trying to do right now probably 20 years down the line there was once a time in Indian football when that sort of passion and romance existed in the game and it still exists in much larger numbers in fact the ISL is one more thing that has contributed to it only thing we don't give them publicity only thing we don't give them publicity go to a district league you will see how much people come and watch the matches they may not be playing they may not understand it but there are hundreds a few hundred are watching them so it's not that every time you have to give free passes to people to come to the ground and give them a free dinner in the end yeah you said when you used to play in Bajri generally there used to be a tournament in Nainital and there used to be a Bajri ground next to the lake there used to be a big tournament there used to be 2-3 teams in Delhi there used to be FCI Food Cooperation in India so I went to play for a year I think I went to play for Ames and I went to play for FCI when I went to play for Ames that was my first year and there suddenly because I was in the middle of the market and it was normal tourists it was not like football fans were watching normal tourists in the hill stations and suddenly with locals everyone came to watch the matches it was different from the inside as a player when you are in the middle of those 22 players and you see yourself surrounded by so many people automatically everything went up speed goes up automatically speed of thought goes up automatically my aggression goes up and then when we were playing a quarter final versus Garhwal rifle Garhwal rifle was a big team a military team they used to hit a lot they used to hit a lot then they used to play no matter where you go no matter where you go no matter where you go because billiards and all is huge in the hill station for past time so you were saying these small small pockets even local matches it's huge you see Arjun I am talking about Nainital Nainital Deradun a few days ago there was a boy like Anirudh that don't say such things Amar Bahadur, Shyam Thapa Bupinda Singh Rawat, Harkashan Singh, Ranjit Thapa all came from Deradun Bupinda Singh Rawat that's what he said Amar Bahadur, Shyam Thapa Ranjit Thapa all came from Deradun Deradun has produced an area of top footballers at one point Sir what was the tournament in Mandi what was the ground in Mandi what was? only thing we don't give them publicity that is the thing Amar Bahadur when India won the Asian Games bronze medal in 1970 Amar Bahadur scored the winning goals against Japan he is from Deradun so don't start your history from Anirudh Thapa please Anirudh Thapa that's what he said that's what he said that's what he said not that after 2014 Anirudh Thapa became a player in fact Floyd was on our show the other day he was praising lavishly sending praise on Anirudh Thapa he was in the AFF academies and credit to the AFF for starting these academies and he was saying that Anirudh was one of those players who grasps things very quickly so very quickly he became one of my main players because he came from the previous academy he was not entirely made by Floyd because he already had a training in the system it was an exposure it was an exposure fair enough then I guess we will round up this conversation bring it back to the starting point I guess which was we were talking about migrants and in the complex sort of context of global immigration and labour laws migration is a massive concept and there are migrants who are highly skilled who are welcomed in countries like the US and Canada and other developed economies with fancy visa classes and high paying salaries and all of that and then there are migrants like the journeymen who come to India from various parts of Africa in a hope that here because of the skills they have in the game of football they can A.A. establish relationships people can start to relate to them and their culture they can understand the other culture through the sport learn the language etc. assimilate in a sense and like you are saying we talked today about the Calcutta Dabi as sacrosanct as in East Bengal, Mohan Bagan is the Calcutta Dabi but like Jedhi was pointing out that was not always the case and perhaps this Burmese gentleman Anglo Burmese even had a key part to play in establishing the primacy of that as the number one rivalry in Calcutta which just goes to show what a person with no links to the place no ties, nothing as such just comes with his football boots and his passion and plays for a club and then starts something that is much bigger and we might never have heard of him but we've heard of East Bengal Mohan Bagan so it's an amazing story I think and it's something that we should focus on going forward as well so thank you very much Jedhi for that great bit of history and I think I would like to add in the end that the word migrant has become very important in world politics these days because it has now become the base of all ultra-rightist politics to an extent so in today's world in 2020 today standing here whether it's coronavirus or not the word migrant is extremely important Last words from you Mr. Pandit and then we call it a day for tonight Sir, last words this is that start this series as soon as possible and you make your beard as soon as possible and start this series as soon as possible because we know that your beard will become the next centalis so don't do that much but every week since we have Jedhi sir and both of us we follow the game and we love the game so we're inquisitive about the game and I'm pretty sure there's so many people who are watching our show who know that this show is not faffing this show is actually by people who love the game so that's why they come regularly to watch the show and for them it's the least we can do document it up sir our brother is our publisher's friend he'll try that but at least one episode weekly on the Kolkata rivalry or the Kolkata love story with the beautiful game and probably take it into 6-7 parts series you never know that Netflix might approach us to end with it Siddhant I just wanted to tell you I spoke to Mr. Subrata Dutta today he's ready to be interviewed by you but once this iLeague cancellation is announced it will be announced tomorrow or day after tomorrow there you go then that's the teaser for our next show we'll be talking about what will happen with the iLeague as soon as that announcement comes out let's try a gentleman to have some conversations and break that story if we can on 420 grams so he will it's going to be closed tomorrow so he said I'll talk to him after this once the decision comes out then we can try so we'll have another perfect you can take that on Google or you were saying there's a Skype and some Google I don't know so you can take it that's great so on that note we'll wind this up just giving thanks to the fact that we all have homes to be in and to stay safe in just once again to everyone else who can stay home if you have to go out be safe take all the precautions and also a word to my colleague Gautam Navlaka of Newsclick a long standing history of talking in favour of and advocating for the rights of those who don't have a voice and on this Ambedkar Jayanti in what is one of the greatest ironies I think in the Indian state Gautam Navlaka and Anand Peltumdev was married to who is a Dalit rights activist and a civil liberties activist and a teacher the NIA is taking them into custody in the Bheema Koringaum case both of them are old they are about 60 years of age and as we know in these times I mean jail authorities themselves are talking about how jails are petty dishes for the coronavirus and overcrowding in jails is going to lead to massive amounts of inhumanity and for people to be incarcerated at this time these are convicted criminals let's make it very clear that these are not convicted criminals they are under trial just in jail awaiting prison awaiting their trial so thought to them and hopefully powers that they are listening and will consider their set of priorities and allow the voices of those who are otherwise shut down to be heard and we live up to some of those ideas of Indian democracy the way we envisioned them back when we were not in India yet so thank you guys for joining me once again sorry for the whole monologue and talking so much but it's just one of those days and we'll be back tomorrow with more please write in to us about stories that you would like to hear about Calcutta football, Goa football Kerala football tell us a story like this give us a lead from your village who plays who hasn't got a chance or whose story we have forgotten or whose story we haven't heard tell us about that or what you would like to hear about Calcutta football, Goa football Kerala football all over India football in North India football in Uttar Pradesh this was given by Jaideep and footballers to come from Dehradun the integral part of that time of Uttar Pradesh so tell us stories like this like, comment and tell us what you would like to hear and we'll try to bring some of those conversations to you with nice new hiccups hopefully next week we'll have the same scene okay if nothing happens we'll do a live chat on Instagram okay alright thanks for watching see you again soon