Kaka and Kabab

It was a cold, cold night in Delhi. The mercury touched an all time low in December. We, a handful of journalist friends, thought it would be wise to head towards Jama Masjid. The idea was to grab some quick hot kebabs knowing that Old Delhi is the only place on the earth which would stay awake even after midnight. That’s the best part of purani Dilli. If you are hungry and looking for some food in the night then the Walled City is a heaven for you.

Roasted chicken, fried chicken. Rumali, khameeri roti. Shami kabab, boti kabab. Your mouth starts watering understanding that working late hours at office and then frowning over the routine canteen stuff can take you to only one destination for a change of your taste buds. And then a ride through the deserted Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg in a spotless maroon Ambadassador car ignoring the Hondas, Ascents, Corollas.

It was all so otherworldly, like being in a hill resort. The city noise had faded to a distant hum. The air had grown thinner. And Jama Masjid was just an arm-length’s away.

As we parked the car adjacent to Gate No. 1 of the historic monument, Kaleem, a young guy in his early 20s, rushed towards us. “Sahab kya chahiye?” A bearded old man in his 70s (probably the owner) was wearing a spotless kurta, pyjama and shouting instructions in his chaste Dilli Chey (six) accent. He seemed to be a devout Muslim. He was wearing a skull cap wrapped with a muffler and sat near a angithi (charcoal fire). It was severe cold and the chilly wind was piercing through the thick woollen cover. “Kabab aur rumali roti le ao,” One of our friends got a little excited at the prospect grabbing hot kababs and roti. Kaleem was happy. So was his owner. After all, you don’t often get such wonderful customers late in this cold December night. Good business, yeh.

As my mind traversed through the space (old Delhi), Kaka, the ace Brazilian footballer popped up! That too in front of the stony Jama Masjid looking lonely amid the concrete of Delhi’s unplanned modern architecture.

Well, well, well. Wait. Let me tell you how the Brazilian accompanied us to the roadside kabab stall. My friend, who is a great football follower and owner of that swanky ambassador and, suddenly paused. He didn’t pick up that last piece of chicken from the plate. He glanced upon on this piece of newspaper (which served as a tissue paper for the kababwala) and which Kaleem had given us to clean our hands. “Hey see, Kaka is here. And see who has written this write-up,” his face flashed like a thousand-watt neon lamps. He probably didn’t expect to see his byline on the bylane of Jama Masjid. He broke into a huge laughter. I too joined him. The world is too small a place. I wondered.

We were happy. For both kabab and Kaka. Though Kaleem didn’t understand the significance of our conversation. For him we were just kabab lovers who ate and did ‘wah wah’. But for both of us (we had covered the Vijayans, Pappachans, Krishanus & Bhutias with passion over years), the subject was interesting. Kaka and kabab.

Pseudo Pride: How Bengal Lost Its Football Soul

Is it unfair to use the word pseudo for Bengalis? Friends in Calcutta and elsewhere might urge me to choose a softer expression, calling it too harsh. 

Yet, the more I reflect on what I see around me, the harder it becomes to avoid the term. 

When I watch Bengal’s Leftist leaders, the word seems unavoidable. When I watched Bengali cinema—before I stopped altogether, as producers turned into copycats churning out action-heavy remakes of Bollywood and Hollywood films—I became convinced that originality had given way to imitation.

The babumoshai (gentleman) appears to have turned into a pretender. The same sense of loss is evident in football. 

Once it was Bengal’s sera khela—its favourite sport. 

But today, it no longer seems so. Just as the simple joy of buying fresh fish or shrimp from the macher bazar (fish market) has faded, football too has lost its emotional grip on the Bong psyche. 

Old-timers will tell you cricket was once dismissed as an imperialist’s game. 

Yet Bengalis clearly love it. Eden Gardens fills up for ODIs and the high-octane drama of T20 cricket. 

Still, we were told that cricket’s passion could never match that of the “daddy of all games”—football, played on the Maidan. 

Football in Calcutta has not vanished; it has merely been repackaged—glossier, louder, and more corporate. 

The Maidan still exists, but its centrality has diminished. 

Gone are the days when offices would empty early for a Mohun Bagan–East Bengal match. 

Boseda, Ghoseda, masi, pisi, and kaku would gather around crackling transistors, faces tense, pledging allegiance to either Mohun Bagan or East Bengal. 

Life would come to a standstill. Today, such fervour doesn't surface anymore. 

Other teams exist, but mostly as a formality. For the current generation of hip-hop Bengalis—where aloo dum and jhaal muri have given way to burgers, pizza, and cola, and bharer (small tea cups made of clay) chai has been replaced by café culture—cricket has decisively overtaken football. 

Perhaps it’s the glitzy marketing of cricket, or perhaps the influence of a certain Ganguly from Behala in mid-1990s. 

Even those who still love football now follow Barcelona or Real Madrid more closely than Mohun Bagan, obsessing over Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi rather than Sunil Chhetri - India's highest goal-scorer ever. 

The result is clear: Maidan football is slowly dying. With it, a certain Bengali pride and tradition seem to be fading too. 

What remains, then, is a curious contradiction. Calcutta still calls itself the football capital of India, and perhaps emotionally it is. 

But the city no longer lives football the way it once did. 

The game has been professionalized without being deeply rooted, televised without being truly felt. As with so many aspects of Bengali cultural life, football survives more as a memory and a label than as a lived, everyday passion. 

In that sense, the word “pseudo” begins to feel less like an insult and more like a diagnosis—not of decline alone. 

Bob ‘Rocket Singh’ Houghton

I haven’t seen this Shimit Amin directed movie yet. But listening to the RJs and after reading the reviews I got this impression that Amin has conceptualised the story around sales and salesman. It is a film about the importance of basic goodness.

Ditto football. Whether selling computers or football. You need to have your basic elements correct.

Well, well, well.

Bob Houghton and Rocket Singh. You might be wondering if it is a wonky idea to compare a Sardarji with an Englishman. Hey, Sardarjis can be equally good salesman like any other Englishman (no racial discrimination, please). Isn’t it? The comparision in this context has been done to show just how good Houghton has been at selling Indian football. A job which could have been done by AIFF’s marketing & sales division. But then Houghton never wanted to rely on them for too long.

Convinced that football in India can be run clean, Houghton (using his British lineage) asked for what he had 'wanted'. After taking charge as head coach in 2006, the Englishman had often expressed his displeasure and disappointment with the fact that India was lacking in a good youth development programme which meant there was no credible second string to support the national side. He stressed that junior teams should be sent out for exposure so tat they young players were ready to graduate to the senior team.

On Sunday at Dhaka, India's u-23 team won the SAFF Cup which till last year was represented by the senior team. India's victory is the outcome of a process initiated by Houghton and executed by under-23 coach Sukhwinder Singh. So far, Indian football lacked a definite planning. Vague ideas, too-many-cooks-spoil-the-broth type fundas didn't help either. Houghton started realizing that there is something wrong. He became a little bold enough to devise a plan thereby allowing the junior teams to play in regional events. Houghton must have visualised this long time back. But like an astute sales executive, he sold the idea to the AIFF bosses.

Thus, the victory by the U-23 team would have made him happy as it not only vindicated him but will also allow him to experiment further before the Asian Games, SAF Games and AFC Challenge Cup. It is too early to say if the junior development programme based on the Houghton model will end up yielding rich dividends. But the SAFF triumph has given Indian football a ray of hope.

Maine Pyar Kiya

In the thick and crowded Ambedkar Stadium, Salman Khan’s smiley face popped up on the giant screen almost throughout the evening where India was playing their second successive Nehru Cup final against Syria. Sallu bhai seemed happy to be a football ground and witness an Indian team. Even the TV producer was more content at shouting instructions to his crew to focus the camera on the superstar.

But amid the cacophony, my mobile phone rang. “Is Sallu still at the stadium?” One of my friends (who however is a Page 3 journo) was deeply interested in Sallu but not about an Indian win. I got a bit angry. But I remained calm. In between, Renedy (Singh) had just scored a gem of a goal from a free-kick to give India the lead. The 30,000 odd fans broke into delirious joy. The noise was defeaning.

And once the phone rang: “Is Sallu still at the stadium?” This time I got pissed off with this caller. Later the the calls became too frequent. I was loosing my patience more because Syria had equalised. The match was stretching towards the tie-breaker. It was 9.30pm. I was becoming a little uneasy because of edition deadline. But this journo still didn't keep quite. There was another call. Then I had decided to play a prank. I sms'd. And it read: "Sallu had left the stadium and went to Jama Masjid to break his Ramzan fast. There he would meet a local pehelwan who would take him to a hakim who would prescribe him some desi medicine."

The next morning everybody read about India's Nehru Cup win. There was a small mention on Salman (surprisingly, Sallu never made it to the purani Dilli and Jama Masjid).

Sorry friend. An Indian victory was important for all of us. Next time, please try and be there to witness the Indian football team.

Football and Purani Dilli

It became a daily routine for me. I used to hire a rickshaw and roam around in old Delhi. I think it is the best way to feel the pulse of its historical existence. Rickshaw is the best transport available to pierce through its crowded serpentine alleys. Surrounded by crumbling walls and three surviving gates, purani Dilli is still very vibrant. It seemed so as the driver pedalled his rickshaw through the thick crowd.

It is a city within a city. It may not be fascinating for the others but I had enjoyed every bit of my stay in the crowded Idgah Road and Sadar Bazar. So after settling down, I had experienced every bit of those rickshaw rides through its small galis. They are lined with 17th-century havelis whose once ornate facades are now defaced with rusted signs and sprouting satellite dishes. There is this uncanny habit in me. Whenever I am in a new city, I usually drag myself to look for football links.

I was told that the Walled City had encourgaged and patronized the game to a great extent. I wondered if I would be able to reconnect football to Delhi since there was no Mohun Bagan-like tents. Or even a literature about its footballing history. Then someone had informed me that “if you want to search for the football passion, visit the Walled City”.
Where is Mohun Bagan-like tents? Where is Maidan? I used to wonder if there were any football clubs. I had frowned then. But slowly I realized that despite the absence of club tents, football lived in every nook and corner of old Delhi.

So for a football journalist, the visit was worth taking.

In the halcyon days, driven by passion for the game, old Delhi traders and businessmen did not mind diverting their business profits into football, helping the emergence of well-known clubs like City Club, Shastri FC, Youngmen, Mughals, and Indian Nationals. While the clubs flourished, the game attracted the middle-class. Such was the clubs’ appeal that even common folks came forward with contributions as clubs like Indian Nationals or City Club became a part of their lives.

Nationals, for instance, came into existence during an informal chat between some of the die-hard Delhi footballers of the pre-Independence era. There was an urge and interest to create a medium to express their intense love for football. So when YS Yadav, Sheikh Mohammad Shafiq, Mohammad Yasin and Hameed Khan sat under a tree at the historic Sunehri Masjid in old Delhi pre-1947, it had turned out to be a sunehra moment for Delhi football. Views were exchanged and Indian Nationals Football Club came into existence. The decision to form the team was later unanimously passed during a meeting held at the bylanes of historic Turkman Gate at House No. 2383, Kucha Mir Hashim, Chitli Qabar.

Sadly, today these clubs are up against harsh reality. How to carry on their legacy without funds? I found a stark similarity between the old Delhi’s decay and the dwindling fortune of Walled City’s football culture which was once so dominant. Passion alone cannot take them forward. The clubs have ceased to enjoy patronage from the locals as well. And businessmen no longer support them as they used to. In fact, from 1996 till date, there has been a sharp decline in the interest among the locals.

Football introduced me to nahari

The first time I had heard of nahari was in 1996 when I had come to Delhi for my new job. Before I left my home in Calcutta, I was told to stay close to my family friends at Idgah Road which is at the confluence of new and old Delhi. It was peak and strong winter. Yet I was enjoying every bit of it because Calcutta hardly has its winter seasons.

Let me be very honest. I am happy to be a football journalist. You know why? Because it brought me close to the historical purani Dilli and its people. There are no pretensions. There are no egos. They are simple and down to earth who simply loved football and nahari.

A visit to the Ambedkar Stadium for Durand Cups and DCM Trophy's (in those days both these events used to be held in thick foggy winters) introduced me to some great football lovers who were from the Walled City. One of them, I was told if I had to beat the Capital's cold, I should have a plate of hot, mirchi nahari with crispy tandoori roti.

So after every match got over, we used to head straight for Kallu’s shop. Shop No. 80, Chattan Lal Mian, Jama Masjid. This is exactly the address where you would find a thick presence of nahari lovers. It was 5 pm. And the modest, small shop of Kallu was teeming with people. Men in skullcaps and pajamas are supping on nahari. I alongwith some club officials placed our order. I was told nahari gets over quickly in the space of 30 minutes. So, it's better to rush.

Kallu in his thin physique sits on the main kursi (chair) from where he instructs his men to take orders. There is a huge deg and his staff were busy scooping the thickest portion (the best part) of nahari . It was glistening in a pool of oil. Kallu, in his typical purani Delhi dialect, shouts out instructions to his men. “Oye, kya kar reeya hai. Sahab logon ka jagah de de.” (Give space to these gentlemen). Minutes later we hop into the small space which also houses the tandoor (oven). Sitting near it meant that our foreheads glistened with sweat. Already felt the warmth even before the nahari arrived. The roti is fresh off the tandoor and the extra plate of lime wedges, chopped chillies, and slivered ginger completed the meal.

The boneless mutton nahari is supple and succulent. The garlicky gravy, liberally spiced with javitri and dhaniya, is hearty. I was told the delicacy originated in the dastarkhwans of Old Delhi before it percolated down to other classes after the decline of the Mughal Empire. In my portion, the chunks of meat have already parted from the bones. As I reach the end, I used the last piece of roti to polish the plates!

I am happy to be in Delhi!