By Tungshang Ningreichon
The Indian super league (ISL) is expected to change the face of sports in India. It is not how a football game deserves to be honoured but the best we can ask for. Football has to be nurtured in a country that has allowed cricket to define the meaning and essence of a passion for sports.
Football must be allowed to grow and thrive, for this is the game that can mend hearts and borders. It is perhaps the only sport that allows the people of `northeast`™ — a region that is not only geographically, historically and politically disconnected but also off the map of India`™s collective imagination — to unpretentiously participate in `nation building`™.
Our conflict-ridden and militarized region also produces some of the finest sportsmen in the country. My sports encyclopaedia, Mr.TonchuipamJajo, tells me that about 30 % of the players in the country`™s best league are from the Northeast. Every state has league of fine football clubs. Sikkim, the home of Indian football superstar, Bhaichung Bhutia has 8 Clubs. Assam league has 10, Mizoram league-8and Manipur league has 12 clubs.
Shillong, the hub of grand musicians is also home to three renowned clubs; Lajong FC, Rangdaijaid FC and Royal Wahingdoh FC. Shillong Lajong FC also partially owns Northeast United Football Club (NEUFC).Not all clubs possess the same resource and financial status but the equalizer to these grades is the love for the beautiful game in the region that cuts across states, ethnicity, gender and age.
My mother is part of this bandwagon. A woman, who barely went to school, has so much knowledge about sports that it shames me. No match is fun to watch without her running commentaries. Spoiled by the standards of Fifa World Cup she complains of `lack of energy and strategy` whenever she watch Northeast United play. She opines that NEUFC would be stronger if the best of the region played as a team and grumbles that `some of the players in our villages are better`.
Boxing and wrestling definitely has brought some glory to India yet they remain as individual games. The team spirit and fellowship that football fosters is unmatched! Not to forget the spirit of the crowd and the supporters. In Northeast, this lot would comprise people of different ethnic backgrounds many of who have suffered the politics of division and conflict. Yet, they merge as one when it comes to the game that Northeast truly identifies with, as witnessed in the matches held at Indira Gandhi stadium, Guwahati. There, as Northeast United played against others amidst cheers and roars and banners, one significant banner read: `football unites us`.
While my mother rues the existence of too many foreign players in the team;of matches not being too lively, there is her daughter; a cynic who is willing to give ISL a benefit of the doubt.
Give football the boost it deserves in India; invest in the northeast; groom the youth who can be trained and nurtured into a great Maradona, or George Best, or even a lesser Messi; and lead India to the World Cup. Let`™s football!
(Tungshang Ningreichon is a happy mother from Ukhrul and writes occasionally for the love of stories, histories and memories.)