Kolkata is an afterthought in modern India

Most international celebrities skip Kolkata and when Lionel Messi did visit, the city managed to score a self-goal. Selfies with the footballer became social capital in a culture built around celebrity-gawking

- SANDIP ROY

When I heard Kolkata was building a 70-foot statue of Lionel Messi and he would inaugurate it virtually during his visit to Kolkata, I winced.

I don’t play football. I don’t follow the game. I couldn’t explain the offside rule if my life depended on it.

But in 2011 I was asked to cover Messi’s visit to Kolkata. I didn’t have a ticket to the actual exhibition match between Argentina and Venezuela at the Yuva Bharati Krirangan. So I stood in front of his hotel and tried to cobble together copy by interviewing the Messi-hopefuls hanging out outside.

I could not reveal my football ignorance to them. So I just nodded knowingly as one young man rhapsodised about Robbie Fowler's 3-minute hat trick against Arsenal. I never did see Messi. But it was just as well. The local newspaper reporter managed to get inside the hotel and see him. The only thing I learned from reading that 600-word front-page story was that Messi smiled as the elevator doors closed.

The real story, I realised, was always outside. Like the fan who was on his way to work at the nearby medical clinic but had come in Argentina’s blue and white colours just in case he spotted his hero. Or Sabuj Sarkar who had a homemade poster of Messi propped up on his bicycle. His handwritten sign read “Argentina and Venezuela are great. We are sorry. Play, India, play.” He told me there were more football fans in West Bengal than the entire population of Argentina.