Maradona could not get a warmer welcome than what he received at Salt Lake stadium in Calcutta on Saturday. Obviously, the sorcerer of soccer was not here to spend an exotic Indian weekend; neither was he here to score a goal against a team. The basic question is: why had he come to Calcutta, a city, for him, known only for Mother Teresa and communists?
Choosing Calcutta over other Indian cities might have roots in its centuries-old tradition of football. Calcutta Cricket and Football Club is one of the oldest clubs established in the then British empire. The event managers for Maradona’s visit probably got this USP right, not the aftermath once the superstar lands here in dead of the night.
That intervening night of Friday-Saturday night when we were returning from office along the VIP Road, local clubs were seen ready to welcome the football great with giant Indian and Argentine flags and newly printed larger-than-life posters of his World Cup-lifting moment. We could not imagine that the next day would be traumatic for Maradona at Salt Lake stadium with brickbats raining on the greens even as commandos safely took Maradona to his hotel.
Mismanagement ruled his visit since the beginning with the windshield of a new fibre-glass bus — specially built for him — developing cracks even before the legend put his famous left foot on it. As a Bengali newspaper questions justification on the Rs 13-crore expenditure just to bring Maradona to Calcutta as an item adorned in a glassed cage, press passes were denied to it. When reporters wanted to cover his visit to Indira Bhavan, where Indian communist patriarch Jyoti Basu stays, they were bashed up by police and alleged supporters of the ruling party. Even TV crew and photojournalists were not spared.
Why this Sunday morning drama? Nobody has an answer. What did an under-developed state of a developing country gain from Maradona’s visit? Where industrialists fear to even open shops (and some are playing open-close-open game like at Sahagunj), where tribals cry for development in their areas, where millions of educated youths can’t even earn Rs 1,000 a month, was such a luxury necessary in such a state? Budding footballers could have learnt a lot if a frontline European club was requested to play a match in Calcutta, below-poverty-line billions could have been provided with proper home and food or even businessmen could have been urged to set up units to offer jobs for unemployed youths. But at the end, this was a story of sheer waste with show of strength by a few politicians and their close aides with no moral in it.
©Supratim Pal
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