Shades of Red

J.K. Rowlings wrote, “The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Potter.” Similarly, the clubs choose their followers if you happen to be a Bengali. It all depends upon which side of undivided Bengal your parents were born. If you are from the Western side, then your team would be the one in Maroon and Green. If your roots were in the Eastern part, then your team had to be the one in Gold and Red. So, when my father would take me to see the football matches from school, they had to be the ones where East Bengal was playing. By the time I grew up into my teens, I had a best friend, Buddha, to accompany me to the matches. The only problem was that he supported the arch rival, Mohun Bagan. We became regulars to the Delhi’s Ambedkar Stadium where the DCM and Durand Cups were held each year. We would reach the stadium well in advance, buy the cheapest ticket available for the stands and before entering eat chholey-bhature from a vendor-on- bicycle with a big metallic bowl on its carrier and a stove placed on it. In India that is what we call as jugaad. In the initial part of the competition when the Calcutta clubs played the teams like the JCT Phagwara, BSF and Punjab Police, all Bongs would sit together as one entity to ward off the aggressive Punjabis and local fans. But when they faced each other, the divide between the two sides was complete and often led to ugly brawls both inside and outside the stadiums. Even though Buddha and I backed different teams, we celebrated good football and never let the game get the better of our friendship. During those times, the heroes in Red and Gold were men like Sudhir Karmakar and Manoranjan Bhattacharya or Mona da who were the toughest defenders of their time, wizards in front like Jamshed Nasiri and Surajit Sengupta and the reliable goalie, Bhaskar Ganguly. I would dream of these players and hoped to be like them for that was our exposure to the beautiful game.

We got a glimpse of world football when Doordarshan brought the World Cup matches to our homes every four years. This is when we got to see the magicians of Brazil, Argentina, Germany and Italy who would mesmerise us with their brilliant footwork, strategy and scoring abilities. Giants like Zico, Maradona, Rummenigge and Zidane took your breath away but then this was a temporary phase. Our lives truly changed with the coming of the ESPN Star Sports channel introducing the English Premier League in the early 2000. For almost nine months out of twelve, we were now able to watch the English clubs fight for victory on the television with excellent coverage and commentary. This turned the tide against the domestic football as we entered the famed stadiums of Anfield, Old Trafford, Highbury and St. James’ Park, week after week to witness a grand display of strength, speed and wizardry. The players, whom we idolised during school and college days, now seemed amateurs and the colours of Red and Gold faded away as I got carried away by the brilliance of an English team in Red and White.

The admiration and fan following for Arsenal was complete by the EPL season of 2003-04 when they completed their run of thirty-eight matches with twenty-six wins and twelve draws… never before had any team accomplished this unbeaten run in a league known for its competitiveness where anyone could beat the top clubs on a given day. This team under the manager Arsene Wenger was given the title of The Invincibles.  You could feel high voltage electricity pass through you when players like Thierry Henry, Denis Bergamp, Robert Pires, Patrick Viera, Ashley Cole and Sol Campbell touched the ball. It would feel as if they would find a way past the sea of opposing players and the ball would kiss the net at the back of the goal any time. I would make my weekend plans with the family keeping the timing of the matches of the Red Arsenal in mind. People at home understood the passion and happily let me have it my way. My wife and daughter knew two people of the screen, the tall and handsome, Wenger, wearing his immaculate suit and red tie and ‘Onnri’ as the commentators would pronounce the name of the other Frenchman and legend, Thierry Henry. Henry’s touch was silky, footwork so nimble that defenders just felt a rush of cold air as he passed them and his shooting prowess from the corner, free kick or open play with his right foot, left foot and his head would result in brilliant goals. He could do just anything with the ball.

In 2001, I joined an insurance company in Mumbai and in 2006, the joint venture US based partner of the company, AIG, became the principal sponsor for Manchester United. This moved my needle of loyalty partially to the other club in Red. In 2006-07 season, the team under Sir Alex Ferguson won the EPL Championship and the team was Red Hot!  With Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and Garry Neville at the back, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Michael Carrik in the middle and upfront were the super stars in the making, Wayne Rooney and Christiano Ronaldo. The team went on to win the UEFA Champions League as well in the same season. The local office in India brought out a calendar with the Man U pictures and I was presented an original team shirt with the AIG logo. Now the move to the Red Army was complete. This was the period of utter madness and fan following with daughter buying Man U key rings and T-shirt for me and office folks celebrating my ten-year stint with a huge cake with the team logo on top. The AIG Global CEO, Martin Sullivan visited India in 2008 and two employees from each of the ten odd India subsidiaries were flown to Hyderabad for a meeting with him and I happened to be one of them. After the big man spoke about the world’s largest insurance company and their commitment to India, we were given time to ask some questions. The question I asked was, “Sir, AIG sponsors Manchester United which is so aggressive on the field, yet the same company’s India insurance arm is very conservative in its approach. Why don’t you bring in the same drive and aggression that will help us score more goals in business.” Mr. Sullivan smiled and said, he surely would have a word with the local leadership team. The very next year, AIG which was too big to fall, crumbled but the team with its logo prominently displayed went on to win the EPL thereafter in 2007-08 and 2008-09, then again under a new sponsor logo in 2010-11 and 2012-13. This team had now become the New Invincibles.

The EPL turned Blue from Red 2013 onwards. With Manchester City, Chelsea and Leicester City winning in this period in different shades of Blue except for two seasons in 2019-20 and 2024-25 with Liverpool winning under the mercurial manager, Jurgen Klopp. Manchester United, my club in Red, however, was faring dismally in this post- Ferguson period and was often found in the bottom half of the league table. But I stood firm on my loyalty with Manchester United with just one aberration. In the spring of 2023, I had a chance to visit London as a trainer in an international insurance programme. With an extra day at hand, I was planning to visit Manchester and Old Trafford but my daughter insisted I should go to Liverpool instead and see the birthplace of Beatles, my favourite band of all time. The curse of my team was on me and I almost missed my train to Liverpool due to a mix-up by the travel aggregator. Anyhow, I managed to get onto the train and went to Liverpool and saw the museums and other places dedicated to the immortal band. My train back to London was in the evening and I landed up visiting Anfield, the home of the Red arch-rivals of my Red Club. This would be an absolute blasphemy for the die-hard Man U fans. Every step of the way at Anfield I could feel ‘You will never walk alone’ ringing in my ears but my love for the game got the better of me.  I soon began enjoying the place soaked in history and even bought a few memorabilia from the club store for my family and friends. Incidentally, this Red team has recently equalled the number of times EPL was won by my Red club.

Come 2025-26 season and the tide changed. Manchester United came back strongly, after years in exile, to finish third in the league. Arsenal under Mikel Arteta, finally, restored the pride on winning the EPL title after twenty-two long years. His team of champions including Declan Rice, Gabriel, Saka, Odegaard, Saliba, Trossard and Timber showed class all the way through the season, especially on dead ball situations and with their fluidity in movement. They now face Paris Saint-Germain on 30^th May 2026 at Budapest in the final of the UEFA Champions League. A victory here would once again seal their status as equivalents of the 2003-04 Invincibles, if not better. Another magic happened here closer home. My original team of Red and Gold, East Bengal, won the domestic championship after the same number of years of hiatus as Arsenal in England… twenty-two years!

While I am too old now to switch my affinity, I am happy and proud of the different shades and teams of Red I have followed in this life. Anytime there is a football match on air, I am ‘Eveready’ shouting ‘Give Me Red!’

At Qatar WC in ManU Cap

SS

**NB. First three images are from the internet

Epic Fury

Mangalam loved Ganeshan. He hardly remembers his parents for it was Ganeshan who found him as a boy lying alone in the forest with no one to take care. From then onwards, Ganeshan made sure Mangalam got his timely feed of milk when young and then later the best of fresh greens as he grew up. And Mangalam sure grew up very fast. In no time he became the tallest creature in the vicinity. Ganeshan, initially, kept him inside his small hut when Mangalam was a baby but soon he moved him outside or else the man would have had to sleep in a house without a roof. Even though the other temple elephants always had chains round their feet, Mangalam was allowed to roam free. He had the liberty to go anywhere, anytime. He would sleep outside Ganeshan’s hut and wait for his loving master to come out at sunrise when the two of them would go for a long walk to the river-front. Mangalam always found this phase of the day to be the happiest for he could bathe for long in the cool waters and also play with Ganeshan. He would often shower the man with his trunk after he had changed into fresh, dry clothes. This was the daily fun the master and his loving pet had.

Ganeshan was one of the many mahouts who managed the elephants in the big temple. There were five other elephants attached to the temple, each with a separate mahout. The routine for the elephants was pretty boring. On a few auspicious days, the elephants would be decorated all over and made to stand in a formation as the band would play devotional music while the crowd cheered seeing the resplendent animals. Idols of gods and goddesses were placed atop them and they were then made to march through the streets for hours together with the devotees thronging on all sides. These were pretty strenuous days for both the elephants and the mahouts as even a small chaos anywhere could have caused many a death. On rest of the days, the work included a morning visit to the temple, breaking a few coconuts, waving and blessing people who would visit the temple. It was the same routine in the evenings when earthen lamps illuminated the temple complex. Lately, there had been a lot of requests from the people wanting to be pictured with the elephants and quite often they were willing to pay the mahouts some extra money for making the elephants do some simple stunts. Ganeshan was very strict and a no-nonsense man. He never permitted anyone any such liberty with Mangalam. He treated the elephant like his own child and never liked it to be photographed by others. He feared the excessive visibility would lead to some negative impact on his little one. At midday, the mahouts and the elephants had some time to themselves to get some rest or else to move around and feed on the vegetation nearby.

Having lived a large part of their lives together, Mangalam and Ganeshan could  communicate well with each other. Ganeshan spoke only Malayalam, and over the years, the big animal could comprehend much beyond simple commands of sit, stand and eat. Mangalam and his mahout understood each other beyond words. They could understand the feelings and thoughts of the other. A look into the eyes of the other or a change in facial expression was enough for the other to make out if the other person was happy or sad, in pain or in good health. Ganeshan was excessively possessive of his child and even if a thorn were to prick Mangalam, he would not rest till he had taken it out and applied oil on the affected part. Having lost his wife early during childbirth, Ganeshan lived all alone for some time till he found his mission in life, bringing up Mangalam as the child he never had.

The temple’s chief purohit, Srikrishna, was a good man. He not only kept the temple administration and the employees in good order; he was also friendly to the others including the mahouts. He even took time to reach out to the elephants and knew each one of them well by their names. They, too, reciprocated to his calls. However, in this place of peace and tranquillity there lay a problem. It was none other than Srikrishna’s son Kumaraswamy. He was quite the opposite of his father and from his school-days he would indulge in cheating in the classrooms, stealing animals, bullying and terrorising one and all. Over a period of time, Kumar had built up a formidable army of goons who had been close to him since school and now ran an illegal trade in cutting timber from the forest and transporting them outside. While many people knew about the dark trade going on in the vicinity, no one ever had the courage to complain to either the police or to his father and he became bolder by the day.

Kumar’s greed grew with time and one day, Ravi, one of the mahouts, came to Ganeshan and said that he had seen big tusks hidden behind rows of chopped tree trunks in a storehouse deep inside the jungle. He was unable to get close to the place as it was guarded from all sides by men who looked like Kumar’s goons. Felling of trees was something Ganeshan had accepted but chopping of tusks meant that someone was killing elephants for their selfish gains. For some months, there were stories of deaths of elephants doing the rounds but people said they were caused by a fatal disease. Ganeshan now was able to connect the deaths to Ravi’s findings. He asked Ravi to take him at night to the spot where he had seen the store. Reluctantly the man agreed for he, too, loved the elephants. That night, Ganeshan whispered something into the ears of Mangalam and carrying a lamp and a big stick, walked into the jungle with Ravi under a moonlit sky.

It took the duo almost an hour to reach the spot and from a distance, Ganeshan could see a place with barbed wires on all sides. He could also see the chopped timber that was lying one on top of another with the largest numbers at the base and gradually tapering on top to prevent the heap from rolling off. Ganeshan gave the lamp to Ravi and asked him to wait there while he went to take a closer look. Since it was late in the night, there were no guards outside; Ganeshan slipped under the barbed wire fence and tip- toed to the timber stack. Carefully he started crawling towards the store which had electric lamps shinning inside. He slowly reached the window from where he popped his head up to see what was going on inside. He saw big pieces of tusks lying on the floor while the guards were busy playing cards and enjoying their local drink. Ganeshan was shocked to see the sight and wanted to do something to prevent loss of any more elephant lives. In his excitement, he tripped over and alerted the guards who quickly came out. They caught him while trying to slip out of the barbed fence. Ganeshan was dragged inside and the five guards, armed with lathis, started beating him mercilessly. Ganeshan shouted for help and mercy but none came. The guards suddenly stopped showering the blows on hearing the sound of bells ringing violently and approaching the place they stood. Ganeshan knew it was Mangalam coming. All the temple elephants had bells hung on their necks and each made a distinct sound which their mahouts could only make out. The men then heard a loud trumpet and in no time, they saw a huge creature rushing madly at them. Mangalam crashed into the barbed wire and dragged it along the way and stopped only when he reached the spot where Ganeshan was lying down. The guards knew that their lathis were of no use when it came to fighting a charging elephant and they fled the scene. Ganeshan got up and slowly unwrapped the barbed wires around Mangalam’s bleeding feet before walking back home where he applied some medicinal weeds on the animal’s injuries before going to sleep.

At day break, seeing Ganeshan asleep, Mangalam went to the river front for his bath alone. Around the same time, Kumar arrived with his men armed with hunting guns, barged into Ganeshan’s hut and dragged him out.  Once again Ganeshan was thrashed badly and before his elephant arrived, they had gone away after threatening to kill Mangalam unless he was chained. On seeing Mangalam, Ganeshan had tears in his eyes and he tied thick chains on both the hind legs and secured them against a giant of a tree. Mangalam did not protest but understood what might have happened during his brief absence, especially after the incident of the night before. He went with Ganeshan to the temple for his usual duties. Ganeshan went straight to the head priest and complained about Kumar and what harm he was causing to the animals and the forest. The head priest immediately called for his son and rebuked him in public. He ordered him to stop all his illegal activities or else he would himself report the matter to the police. Kumar was not one to listen to his father but threatened Ganeshan with dire consequences. Ganeshan finished his activities at the temple and returned home. In the evening, he went out alone to get something from the market but did not return for long. Mangalam was beginning to feel uneasy at the long absence and kept trumpeting and shaking his head to ring the bells after small intervals. Ganeshan did not return home at all that night and the sun was about to rise. The elephant knew something bad had happened to his master.

Mangalam stood up and, with all the power he had, pulled hard at the chains. He did it a number of times. The chain did not come off but the tree got uprooted. He started to push forward and the chain came loose. He was free to move with all the speed he could muster. He had gone just a little distance down the path leading to the market when he saw Ganeshan’s body lying still on the ground with a number of people crying while sitting beside him. Mangalam went close to Ganeshan’s body and touched it with his trunk. He understood that his master, his friend was no more. He turned around in anger and ran towards the place where the priests and their families had their houses. Mangalam knew the chief priest’s house and went in that direction. The ringing of his bells had alerted Kumar who quickly took out his shot gun and took aim from the terrace. The moment he saw the rushing elephant, Kumar started firing one shot after another. The bullets pierced Mangalam’s thick skin but he kept running and crashed into Kumar’s house, a portion of which fell like a house of cards with the killer himself falling over the railing of the terrace. Mangalam lifted his right front foot as high as he could and brought it down with all his strength on Kumar, crushing every bone in his body. The badly injured Mangalam then fell down and breathed his last.

A few months later, the devotees and the people of the temple pooled together their resources and installed a small statue of Mangalam and Ganeshan just before the Gopuram and the story of the man and his devoted animal became quite a folklore in the region and beyond.

SS