While sport speaks to the best of the human spirit, officials too often degrade it, exploiting fans’ love and loyalty for their own gain
I must have been 10 when I went to a football match with my parents and realised that the game resonated far beyond the field of play. The game was at the Cooperage Stadium in Mumbai and we had gone to see East Bengal, a legendary Indian team, play in a cup competition. The team had been formed during the days of the Raj to represent the Hindus of East Bengal. This was where my father had grown up, amid much luxury, our family being part of the rich Hindu minority that dominated East Bengal, where most of the population was Muslim.
All of this was lost in 1947 as a result of the partition of India, when East Bengal became East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, and millions of Hindus left. My father, who had made Mumbai his home, knew he could never go back. Watching the East Bengal team that Sunday afternoon was his way of connecting with the land he always regarded as home and whose loss he mourned. As East Bengal won, my father’s spirits lifted.
