In grip of rallies, blockades, city finds no joy in Test cricket

Rohit Mahajan

Tribune News Service

kolkata, September 28

As the Indian team prepared to practise at the Eden Gardens, a massive rally choked the streets near the stadium. And it was not even really massive by Kolkata standards. It was just around 10,000 people, and they filed by slowly in an unending stream. They blocked the traffic for at least 20 minutes, and did not allow even pedestrians to pass through. Some of them carried lathis and sickles and axes that looked dangerous, and they brandished them threateningly at people who tried to pass through their stream, pushing some of the pedestrians to the ground. There were heated arguments and at one time, as axes and lathis were raised, we thought we were about to witness a murder. Sorry to disappoint you, but there was no murder.

Not cricket

No, they weren’t led by Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri protesting against the Lodha Committee’s reforms. Kolkata’s people are dangerously passionate about many things, but this rally was not about sport, and they were not demanding sporting tracks for the Test match. It was a political rally of people demanding their “rights”.

God knows the rights of all sorts of people are denied to them in our country. Only yesterday, 50,000 people duped by fund-raising companies had choked these very streets. They wanted to be compensated by the government. The access to the Eden Gardens has frequently been restricted by these marches.

As the Indians practised, there were hardly any fans hanging outside the stadium. There were very few buyers at the ticket office, no queues, no crowds and no policemen on horseback lathi-charging them — that happens in Kolkata before T20 and One-day International matches.

Tests for oldies?

Two young men bought tickets for all five days, and we asked them if they were lovers of Test cricket. “Well, these are for my dad,” said Pratul Chandra Jha. “He’s old, he’s 65... So he has the time to watch a Test match. People who are working can’t take leave for Test matches.”

That’s unfortunate — it seems that office-workers of Kolkata have actually started working. They have been known to not work when sport intervenes — remember the old classic comedy movie Golmaal? In it, the character played by Amol Palekar bunks office to watch a game of hockey. Putting sport over work — that used to be very common in the good old days. Now there are few takers for India’s 250th Test match at home. Those good old days are gone forever, it seems.