Saturday, April 3, 2010

LA DON BOSCO LIGA

Don Bosco School, Liluah, Virtus et Labor, Mrs Maiti's Disciple 1st, Discpline 2nd, Discilpline 3rd...they form some of my most cherished memories. No, i don't remember my first day in school, but one thing i do remember is that i did not cry, i was actualy very excited. Dad took me to a smiling, bearded old man,'This is chacha, and everyday u are to take his bus to school and return to him after the classes.'


My uncle, borda for me, used to take me to the bus stop on his cycle (this continued till my 10th class). From there chacha's bus to school. School was from 9 to 2:30PM. And school was fun.

Today I am only left with some scattered memories of primary school. Actually our primary school and a major part of high school revolved around football. We played football all the time. In the morning we got some free time before classes started, then there was the small tiffin(15 min break after the 1st 3 classes), big tiffin(about 50 min break after 5th period), and another half an hour before senior school got over. We filled these free time with lots of football. We played with small rubber balls, balls that were actually made for cricket. Sometimes even tennis balls. In senior section it was on very rare ocaasions that we actually played with the object that is actually globally known as a football.

We had two almost fixed teams. The main players of the opposite team were Tanmay and sinchan. Whereas our team had Rakesh, Arindam, Rahul and me as the main players. Other players used to come and go. These were tales of primary school. In high school, all of our students got jumbled up in sections. And these best friends of mine became a bit scattered. Rahul and me were great buddies in primary school. We shared a great understandin in the field also. Same with rakesh and arindam. High school saw new friends coming in. And old friends drifting apart.

Slowly the warring football teams evolved into a bengali and a non bengali team. Almost always, the bengali team was much stonger the nonbengali faction. And we had to lend them players to maintain a balance. As a rule we always won.

We had a strange custom in our football. Let me elaborate on the bell stucture of our school. Big tiffin ended with a bell. About 5-10 min after that bell was another bell by which we were all supposed to be in our respective lines in the assmbly hall. If you are still found to be loitering, dire consequences await you. So coming back to football. As soon as the first bell was rung, football transformed to rugby. The person who had possesion of the ball in his foot used to pick it up in his hand and made a mad rush towards the opponent goal. And it was then that anarchy used to break loose. Torn buttons, shirts, sleeves were commonplace occurances during the rugby period. Thankfully this rugby lasted for only 3-4 mins, because we all had to return to assembly hall by the 2nd bell.

We had great moments and great plyers in our league. Rajib, Santaneel, Ritwik, Subhayu, Abhishek, were other stars that our league was proud of. Rajib was famous for his 'Gola' shot. That was a directionless, meaningless yet immensely powerful shot. The diretion of the shot depended on the direction he was facing when he recieved the ball. If he was facing the side line, he would hit it towards the side line. If he is facing his own goal he hit it towards his own goal. And he used to hit it with so much power that it was actually like a canon ball. Hence 'Gola'.

Arko and Soumabho were famous for thier bull like tussle. Both of them were huge. And invariably, both were placed on opposite sides. When they came face to face, the ball was lost somewhere and they were left wrestling each other like two sumo wrestlers or like two african bisons.

Ritwik used to run like a bull. You give the ball to him and he used to dart through the field like an angry bull. He was always as straight as a dart.

Subhayu broke his leg sometime in between. In the later stages of his healing process he used to walk around our goal with that plaster in his leg and any stiker from the opponent knew that they may as well have thier leg broken if they get a kick from Subhayu. The safest defender our team ever had.

Subhayu once hit the ball very hard and it landed perfectly on the head of some faculty of the technical section. It had definitly hurt. He pocketed the ball and waited for the culprit to come forward. A ball those days used to cost 2 rs. But even that was a luxury for us. after a lot of pocket hunting we realised that the whole team did not have a cumulative amount of 2 rs. And we sent Subhayu to face the noise. And he did go to that sir. And came back with a solid print of a hand over his cheek. He was bhagat singh imporsonated for us.

Kuntal was the mudmaster. He was a average player in ordinary. But he rose to extraordinary echeleons of football as soon as it rained. He was a wizard with the ball in the mud. He slided and slizzled past hapless and apprehensive defenders to safely deposit the ball in oppenents net. He was the MVP during the monsoon.

In monsoon most of the times we used to play in the assembly hall. However this was not allowed. Balls often drifetd in to the technical section and was gone for ever. On quite a few occasions people were caught and punished. Me? Well, i was a 100m sprint specialist.

Football was what we went to school for, atleast till ninth grade. Actually after all this football, the fittest of us became extremely tired. This showed during tutions and homework. As board exam neared,parental pressure increased, chaos increased in life. And hardened footballers slowly started to lessen their zeal in the field.

I too took sanyas dring my +2. I plyaed on rare occasions. But the madness remained. Football had crept in our veins. Whenever i see a field i feel like jumping in. Whenever i see people playing football in that field i stare at them, till they move out of sight. Football still causes viens to become excited. It still causes the adrenaline to rush. Today, my legs shout with protest and plagues me with muscle pull, strain and stuff whenevr i become ambitious enough to step in to the field. But memories of that time of 'soccer all day' never fails to bring a smile in my face and cheer in my heart.

I wish we could take the field once again, one more time and see to the end of that non bengali team, or that team of sinchan and tanmoy, once and for all... What say rakesh, rajib, arindam, sourav, subhayu, santaneel, ritwik....What say guys???

(If all of you were in our team then who hell was in thiers????)

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