It was during our senior school years that I was allowed to take a bus and go watch football matches at the maidan in Kolkata. Someone had lent me the Membership Card of the East Bengal Club, and so, by default, I had become an East Bengal supporter. Having done my middle school years in Lucknow, I had no idea of the football frenzy Kolkata, but slowly, I got sucked into the city’s ethos, and soon I was putting together a scrap book of football stars. 

Mid sixties was when Indian football was something to write about. The team was winning the Mardeka, Asian Games, while the players of the 1960 Rome Olympics team were fully functional. Thangaraj, Chuni, PK, Balaram, Ram Bahadur, Arun Ghosh, Ashim Moulik were the stars, and the annual tamasha at the IFA Bhawan for players to change clubs or stay back was like attending a festival.

One name that kept cropping up, complete with a sign, was Rahim Sahab. India’s iconic coach was credited to have “built” the Indian football team but before he could take it to the next level, he passed away. The common lament was “if only he lived” and so, even in death the legend lived. Like all legends do.

The advent of a Bollywood film, Maidan, was instantly a connect to an era bygone and it was with much expectation that I at least looked forward to the biopic on Rahim Sahab. 

The casting of Rahim Sahab was the first put off. An Ajay Devgn, the man with a permanent scowl, the actor with an attitude, with a local mawali flavour simply ruined it all. The casting director owes us an apology. The character he portrayed was hardly the loving Rahim Sahab, the respected Rahim Sahab, but a small time guy with a sense of one-upmanship.

Add to that, the director’s—or may be the story writer’s—penchant to paint all Bengali establishments as a den of petty politics, filled with corruption was just bizzare. 

In the recent past we have had the late Sushant Singh Rajput playing MSD and the production team of Maidan should have taken a few leaves out of the Dhoni biopic and created a believable environment. There were factual errors. Rahim Sahab did pick his son, Hakim, to be a part of the team for the Rome Olympics.

There was little of footbal. Almost nothing about Rahim Sahab was inspiring. It was all about a good man with good intention, a man-next-door fighting the system. In fact there was nothing about the Maulvi Sahab as the man was called in real life; instead,  they presented a successful salesman rebelling against the management.

Biopics are difficult to make and all of them don't make the mark. Maidan was a total disappointment and anyone venturing into this genre must learn from this disaster.

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