Chandulal took aim to kick the ball between the goal posts. The motley crowd of students, farmers and children were waiting to yell “waha-wah” (well done!), hoping he would score a goal. Chandulal kicked. The ball rolled away to the left of the goalpost. He had missed. The crowd sighed with despair.
It was 1937 and we had just lost an interschool match because Chandulal, our star striker, would not pass the ball to a teammate who was better positioned to score. After the event there was pin-drop silence at the hand-pump area where we bathed. We ruminated that we would be the butt of many barbs in the schoolyard for the next few weeks.
Our sports master, Choudhary Singh, joined us and asked Chandulal: “Why did you not pass the ball to Hukamchand? He had a clear shot at the goal. You were trapped by three players from the opposition.”
Chandulal was always being admonished for wanting to shoot all the goals himself. However, he was incorrigible.
Mr Singh counselled him: “In football you will win more by sharing than by keeping the ball and credit to yourself.”
We learnt the game as children by dribbling the ball on the uneven fields after the harvest behind our house. We played football in the narrow streets of Tandalianwala (in Punjab in undivided India, now in Pakistan) and later on the rugged school playground in Lyallpur (now Faisalabad in Pakistan) during the sports period, or in the parks at Lahore on holidays.
We would take turns to inflate the rubber bladder of the football with a pump used for bicycle tyres. Then we tied a knot at the nozzle. The bladder was enclosed in a leather case, which was tied with a thick string like a shoe lace. We had no uniforms, just ordinary shorts and shirts and simple white canvas shoes, which turned brown in no time due to the dust.
Mr Singh had a burning passion for the game. “Understand your opponents. See how their feet move. Observe how their bodies turn. But more importantly, understand how their minds work,” he taught us.
He was always full of good advice. “Play with rhythm. Your game should be like a melodious song, but result in a goal. Pass the ball to your teammates.”
We listened to him but not adequately. In the heat of the moment, the passion to monopolise the custody of the ball and score a goal was an irresistible temptation, especially for Chandulal.
After the game, we rested on the fields, bathing ourselves with cold water drawn from a well. The cool breeze refreshed our tired bodies.
As the years sped away, our football days slipped by. The rigours of finding jobs after college and supporting our families took priority. Then came partition in 1947, and the world changed completely for us. We had to settle down in a new country and begin life from scratch.
Football has become a celebration of joy, happiness and dreams. The game generates hysterical levels of passion these days. Last month’s Fifa World Cup competition exhilarated billions of fans, as it does every four years. And this weekend, the English Premier League competition will kick off, with a huge global audience.
A few decades ago, I bumped into Chandulal in Jullundur. He now owned a factory manufacturing sports goods. I learnt that he did little operational work himself and he let his managers run the business.
“You see,” he told me with a sneaky smile. “I have finally learnt to pass the ball to others.”
I realised then that the lectures from Mr Singh did not merely apply on the football field; they were truly lessons for a lifetime.
Finally, 77 years after our rustic football games played in the silence of rough wheat fields, I am bitterly disappointed that India with a population of 1.2 billion people cannot produce just 11 youngsters who can take my country to the World Cup.
Hari Chand Aneja is a 92-year-old former corporate executive who now keeps busy with charity work
