How vegan journeyman Kean Lewis is re-inventing himself at Sudeva Delhi FC

Sudeva Delhi FC’s Kean Lewis is asked to cast his mind back to the time in his life when he was still building a relationship with football.

"I started playing when I was very young, maybe when I was 8 or 9. But a majority of the times it was just for fun, for getting rid of my hyperness."

A "tough-to-entertain single kid", Kean's parents came up with a pretty straight-forward method to keep him occupied.

"My parents enrolled me in basically any physical activity that would get me exhausted by the end of the day, so I would come home and crash."

Our interview is just getting started at this point. It's the end of the day, and Lewis is exhausted after a hard evening training session. At the family home in Thane, Pearl and Foster Lewis are glad that old habits die hard.

Behind the flap of his laptop, Lewis informs me that the club physio is working on a member of the squad getting his routine treatment, while he sips on his cup of Mate tea.

"They took us on a tour of Kolkata before we got back to the hotel," he quips.

Long distances between the team hotel, training grounds and the stadiums where the I-League matches are currently happening are the least of the players' worries. Covid tests every five days, movement only allowed in certain sections of the hotel, and seeing the same view from their rooms every single day takes a mental toll.

But the way Lewis sees it, the trade off is worth it if it means he gets to play football.

"We are doing the best we can in a tough situation, but at least we’re still playing the league. Everyone finds something to appreciate and we’re getting on with it.”

2021 marks Kean Lewis' sixth year playing professional football in India, which began with Mohun Bagan in 2015. But to get there, he cut his teeth at the famed Tata Football Academy, trained with Leicester City's U14 and U16 side as a teen, played for Mahindra United's youth side, and moved to the USA where he played college football and was part of MLS side Houston Dynamos' U23 team.

Lewis during his time with Houston Dynamo U23

In footballing terms, he was still a kid who didn't have any 'contacts' in India in 2015. But after scoring goals by the bucket for the Mariners in the Calcutta Football League, the then head coach Sanjoy Sen was confident that Lewis was good enough for the storied club. He had his first senior professional contract with a top-tier club in India.

However, the goals didn't come by as easily as he would have liked. Lewis had to seek that feeling elsewhere, and in 2016, he was loaned to erstwhile Delhi Dynamos for season three of the Indian Super League. Thus began his career's most prolific scoring run, playing in an attack that had Florent Malouda, Richard Gadze and Marcelinho.

Lewis scored four goals and registered two assists that season, helped the Dynamos to play-off qualification, and finished the season as the second highest Indian goalscorer. His manager, legendary Italian defender Gianluca Zambrotta, had helped unlock this talented Indian forward's potential.

The Delhi Dynamos days

Fast forward a year. Something wasn't quite right with Lewis during the 2017-18 ISL season, which he spent in the colors of FC Pune City. Seven appearances, no goals. He found himself in the playoffs once again though, where Bengaluru FC knocked his team out over two legs. It wouldn't be 'his team' for much longer.

"I went home from the season in Pune and had been having some health issues," Lewis recounts. "We had tried a lot of things (to solve the issue), I spoke to people, and also came across the principle of how food can be the medicine, and started doing my research on it. So, yeah, it's been about three years since I turned vegan."

Go over to Lewis' Instagram account, and his veganism doesn't go amiss. It's in his description, he posts about it, studying and observing what he puts into his body with academic rigour.

"I did a lot of research into finding out what foods helped, what foods could agree with the body and what foods could cause a health issue. I just consciously put in an effort to improve the quality of food that I was consuming, and that was what reversed my health issue, changing the situation I was in."

Some of India's most remarkable athletes are vegan. Virat Kohli and Sunil Chhetri both swear by the positive impact making a dietary U-turn has had on their body and game.

A special mention for Chhetri - At the age of 36, when most athletes are slowing down, the Indian captain is regularly clocking up top sprint speeds in the 2020-21 ISL season. However, a case can be made that had Kean Lewis not joined Bengaluru FC ahead of the 2018-19 ISL season, it may have taken Chhetri slightly longer to get aboard the dairy-free train.

"When I joined BFC, I was the only vegan. They used to call me ‘quinoa’, because I was always eating quinoa, I didn’t eat rice," Lewis says with the smile of someone looking back fondly. "If you ask Gurpreet (Singh Sandhu), he'll tell you this, and now they’re picking it up here (at Sudeva) as well!"

"Gurpreet says I’m the first apple that fell from the tree. As a few months went on, obviously Sunil knew about me being vegan. Initially, they all used to make fun, saying I don’t have any muscles, I don’t eat meat. But as the months went on, Virat (Kohli) turned vegan around that time. And Virat and Sunil are very close, Sunil had spoken to him and he was suggested veganism," Kean added.

Kean and Chhetri at BFC

"So Sunil called me, and asked me (about my dietary switch), and what the reasons behind it were, does it help me with my performance, etc. So I told him that I started it because of health issues, and how I was doing fine after continuing with it because I was training normally at BFC, which I wouldn’t have been doing if I wasn’t fine!"

"I told him I don’t have any issues with recovery, and it obviously helps me because I feel much lighter. That was my opinion and it depends on what you want. So then I think that was his turning point when he decided to go vegan as well.But obviously because he’s Sunil, there are more people who’ll know he’s vegan."

Lewis spent two seasons at BFC and was part of an Indian Super League title winning squad. He speaks in glowing terms about his time at the club and the culture that it operates within - a culture of mutual respect and professionalism, where he never felt alienated or undervalued, despite not playing very regularly.

Lewis during his time at Bengaluru FC

But coming into the years of a footballer's career that are supposedly peak years, regular playing time had become a pre-requisite for him by the end of his second season at the club.

"Once the lockdown hit, it was kind of a tight situation for all of us in football. Clubs were not really signing at that moment because no one knew if and when the leagues will begin. And we were all waiting on clarity about whether the ISL or I-League will happen or not."

"So I was just sitting at home, doing my exercises, going down to the garden, playing with my friends when we could (undercover), but that was it. My agent was speaking to a couple of clubs, there were opportunities in the ISL as well and other I-League teams. But the most important factor was playing time, and Sudeva was going in with an all-Indian squad."

For Lewis, the opportunity seemed like a perfect fit. Sudeva was looking for a senior figure who could add some quality and also help in guiding the younger players in their squad, while Lewis wanted to go somewhere he would be playing regularly.

A one year contract was locked in.

On the 14th of January against Indian Arrows, Lewis captained the team and scored his first goal for the club, which also happened to be the club's first ever goal in the I-League. Whatever happens from this point, he is already a part of the club's history.

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It was the first time Lewis had captained a team in Indian professional football, but he refuses to get caught up in the hype surrounding the armband.

"With or without the armband, there is responsibility for me either way," he says.

Still only 28, he is nowhere close to being done. Playing for India is a dream the man from Thane still harbors, but in order to get there, he is unwavering in his focus about what he needs to do bit by bit.

"First I need to be injury free and play all the games, and help my team with goals and assists. That is the best way I can show what I have and why I can still compete at a high level. I don’t believe in talking the talk, it has to be walking the walk. Teams select based on what you can do."

"Yes, I can’t be a one-man army and I do need the support of the players. I'm not saying I don’t have weaknesses, but that is something I keep improving and try to work on."

And what are those weaknesses?

"If I tell you what I’m not good at, then everyone will be trying to get that out of me on game day," he says, sipping on his Mate, exhausted, and ready to crash.