Two tales of sports heroes.
A quick quiz – 1) when did India first win the ODI cricket world cup? 2) When did Tendulkar score his desert storm knock? 3) When did Kohli play that innings against Pakistan in T20s?
The next set of questions – 1) When did Prakash Padukone win the All-England Championship? 2) When did Anand first become a world champion? 3) When did India blank the USA 24-1 in Olympic Hockey?
My friends would probably get the first set 90% right, but only a few would get the second set right. Indian non–cricket knowledge is very poor – media, us – all are to blame.
This is what I felt after watching Maidaan and Chandu Champion.
It is not often that you come out of a movie thinking – I wish I knew more about this person. It happened twice this weekend as the amazing stories of SA Rahim and Murlidhar Petkar were brought to life on celluloid.
Maidaan and Chandu Champion are movies of courage, conviction, and a never-say-die spirit set in a freshly independent India.
Interestingly, both movies begin in 1952 with the Olympics as the background. One in the celebration of India’s first individual Olympic medal winner (KP Jadhav) and another bemoaning India’s 1-10 loss to Yugoslavia in football.
The win and the loss trigger a series of activities – the win spurs a village boy Murlidhar Petkar to dream of an Olympic medal. The loss propels the Indian Football team coach SA Rahim to transform Indian Football.
It mirrors the country’s painful transition post-independence. The struggle for resources, foreign exchange, the ability to invest in sports, and of course the fear of dreaming big.
Ajay Devgan plays the role of a chain-smoking football coach who must fight the perils of lack of stamina, proper food, barefoot players, and a football federation that is obsessed with wanting the Indian coach to lose.
Kartik Aryan plays the role of Murlidhar Petkar, a village boy from Sangli who fights incredible odds to achieve his dream. A story of pain, unimaginable roadblocks, fate that conspires against him, but eventual success.
Kabir Khan has produced some fine movies – Tubelight, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Ek Tha Tiger Sultan, and 83. While he loves movies, his other love seems to be sports – what else would explain the painstaking effort put in 83 and Chandu Champion in bringing sports events to life.
Amit Sharma, the director of Maidaan does not have a similar body of work – but effort, attention to detail, and love for bringing out a great movie come through very clearly.
In the West-influenced sports media space the functions, many Indian fans know the travails of Pele, Sadio Mane, Nadia Comaneci, Cassius Clay aka Mohammed Ali, etc but few know about Murlidhar Petkar, and SA Rahim.
Kudos to Kabir Khan and Amit Sharma for the courage to bring these forgotten heroes on screen.
Watch the movies to learn about completely unknown stories of Indian sports. There is every chance you will be saddened, curious, and inspired.
I wish these stories make it our collective memory as well as our textbooks.
#Maidaan #ChanduChampion
