Why Mohun Bagan is not my family

We do not get to choose our family. However, most of us do not see that as injustice. We take vicarious pride in what family members do and we do what we can to let them know we will look after them. We expect similar gestures in return.

Being Bengali, that means being fed copious amounts of food by various aunts, all of whom seek appointments every time I am back in Calcutta. Being Bengali also meant that I was never afforded a choice in a football club.

My mother had explained in no uncertain terms that “Mohun Bagan bhalo aar East Bengal kharap” (Mohun Bagan is good and East Bengal is bad) when I was all of two years old and my family would be seated around a Philips radio with tea and deviled eggs. I did not have a talent for disobedience and took what I was taught to heart.

Without my knowing it, Mohun Bagan and everything associated with it had become family. My happiness was tied to how the team did; success made me feel like I could puff my tiny chest out a little, and failure meant that I was sad for reasons I did not fully understand.

However, I only got to go to the stadium when I was 13. This pilgrimage made clear to me how Mohun Bagan was perhaps more family to me than most of my family members.

As the Yuva Bharati Krirangan roared and I tried my best to keep up with my prepubescent shrieks, I knew that the heroes in Green and Maroon were acutely aware of all of my joy and sorrow being left at their feet. And with every relieved gasp, every desperate swear and every triumphant explosion of pent-up anxiety, the Bengali Bashudeb Mondal and Deepak Mondal as well as the Manipuri James Singh knew our hearts beat for them.

We’d shed literal blood, sweat and tears for them, and expect that they do the same for us. Chima, Baretto and Sony are gods only because they took charge of our family and did for us, what we could not do for ourselves.

But Mohun Bagan is not a family. Families do not get sold to businessmen under Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs).

I left home after finishing school and moved to Bangalore for my undergraduate degree. This greatly limited how frequently I could go to the stadium, which made the 31st of May, 2015 all the sweeter.

I had only been able to acquire tickets in the Bangalore side, and sat with a sweatshirt covering my jersey. The sweatshirt came off at the 87th minute. I am not proud of not having displayed my colours but the week-long fever I had contracted from the ceaseless rain, coupled with the fact that I had had to walk three kilometers before an auto would take me, punished me sufficiently.

I started work the next year and stayed in Bangalore. It became almost impossible to even watch matches live on television, and highlights and long phone calls with my sister had to suffice. Apart from one derby against them in 2018, where I took my sister to the stadium for the first time (we have won two and drawn one boro match when she has attended), I have found it very difficult to stay in touch with my family.

The 2018-2019 season was painful to watch at times. I was uncertain as to whether the team was unclear of the weight of the green and maroon jersey, or if the weight was too great. Either way, they did not look like they were enjoying their football.

We certainly did not enjoy watching them. But you do not walk out on your family. We told ourselves that the 2019-2020 season would be better.

I was not a fan of Kibu Vicuna to start with. I appreciated the welcome that the fans gave him, and how fan groups across the nation did their best to welcome almost an entirely new team to the family. I suspected we were just getting a Spanish armada of our own because they had had success with their own version the previous season (for some institution, being runners-up is success).

The tippy-tappy champagne football took time to win me over. I suspected that the slushy Calcutta maidan would be unforgiving. And it was.

The loss in the Durand stung too. I saw all of these matches from the south of the Netherlands by video calling my mother, who would have the camera face the television screen.

I reached Kolkata on the 1st of September 2019, and went home to the stadium from the airport after a 14-hour journey. This was the first time I was watching the new team live, and while the match ended in a draw, it was great to be home.

Beitia passed the ball as well as anyone, Ashutosh Mehta made me wish I had not shaved, and I was willing to do all of Sk Sahil’s exams for him as long as he needed me to.

By the time the I-League rolled in, we were a well-oiled machine. The fans had enough time to make it clear that we would vouch for the team, and the team had made it its business to represent us as only the National Club of India should be represented - with a dismissive swagger about them.

Work restricted me from travelling to Kalyani but I was going to the derby. While my sister and were getting our jerseys washed and ironed, the existing club management was selling the senior football section to be merged with a team that had been established to spite us.

The ink had not dried on the contract when the derby started, and there was a sincere air of defiance. Newspapers across the country covered the tifos by both sides protesting the CAA-NRC, and fittingly so. The ‘No ATK only Mohun Bagan’ banner was conveniently not covered.

The police did not let the tifos in that Mohun Bagan fans had spent weeks to make, and were eager to stop any unseemly behavior. The fans responded appropriately by bursting chocolate bombs and lighting flares while looking at the police.

Beitia scored. Diawara started his magical scoring run and Naorem let everyone know he was a grown man. The gallery shared the confusion that came with the management’s decision, and the certainty of always having each other. I was happier that evening than I had been in years.

The AIFF was kind to provide the Yuva Bharati to ATK and all of its 30 fans while we had to travel to Kalyani. But we made the most of the limited crowd seating to organize chants and tifos.

The dearth of physicality in the team was criticized early in the season, so most goals were scored from set pieces - as if to prove a point. And with a team that should have had no motivation, we pulled through like only a family does: by looking after each other.

I am thankful that we are champions before the season got put on hold.

I consider myself fortunate to be part of a family where Komron Tursunov can blast out a couple lines of a club song in Bengali. I am fortunate to be part of a family where Fran Gonzalez and Fran Morante know what Holi is, and know only to play in green and maroon. I am fortunate to have come home this year of all years, and I am most fortunate for having been part of this family for as long as I have.

I will not go to the stadium from June 2020. Irrespective of what the colors and crest are, the new merged entity will be exactly that - a new entity.

I do not grudge the fans who will flock to find some remains of the family in this new entity, and I wish that they do. The ATK ownership has repeatedly stated that the Mohun Bagan legacy will be respected, and I believe that they will do their best to keep their word.

But respecting a legacy and being part of the legacy are two very different things.

I hope your family never gets broken up to join a glitzy league. I went to law school. I know how SPVs work.

I am happy that all concerned authorities have decided it best to put the I-League on hold. There are more important things than football. But we never got to celebrate our victory as a family.

The team bus had had a green and maroon convoy of at least 30,000 from the airport to the club premises in 2015. I am sure we would have pulled off something more special this time, specially given that most of the team will leave Calcutta next season.

Unfortunately, what is not to be, is not to be. But I do wish that we can come together and make sure that whenever any member of the team comes back home to visit us, they never have to pick up a tab again.

Disclaimer: This article represents the personal views of the author, and not of Sportskeeda's.