Diego Maradona and his visits to the City of Joy!

When the news of Diego Maradona's sad demise broke in India around 10 PM IST most people in Kolkata were indoors with the onset of winter in the City of Joy. The tea stalls were on the verge of shutting down for the day as customers had already thinned. 

For a Bengali, a session of adda (informal chat sessions) is incomplete without a cup of tea and this terrible news was serious business that needed to be chatted upon without delay. 

"I was about to have dinner when the news poured in. I felt so upset that I started calling my friends and asked them to come out and assemble at the local te shop to share the grief. The loss feels so personal. Just could not sleep well the entire night," said Subhankar Roy, an ardent Argentina fan who feels that there should be no debate regarding Maradona being the greatest of all time. 

The passion for football in the city is well documented. Apart from Kolkata Derby, the city also gets divided into two halves once in every four years, i.e. during the football World Cup. Streets get drenched either in Albiceleste (white and sky-blue) or Verde-Amarela (Green and yellow). Lifesize cutouts of Maradona and Pele continue to adorn the lanes and by-lanes apart from the contemporary heroes like Lionel Messi, Neymar Jr. and Cristiano Ronaldo. 

The 60-year-old was a blue-eyed-boy of the city. Therefore, it was no surprise that in 2008 when Maradona came to India for the first time, he set foot in Kolkata. Braving the December chill, thousands of fans thronged to the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Airport to greet their idol. The world witnessed how a city more than thousand miles away from Buenos Aires welcomed Maradona as if in 1986, he was wearing a different shade of blue while lifting the World Cup. 

It is no secret that Maradona was left-leaning and shared a special bond with Fidel Castro. After Castro died, he even said," I will go to Cuba to say goodbye to my friend. He opened the doors to Cuba to me when Argentina was closing them on me." 

Naturally, the ruling left government kept no stone unturned to make their comrade's event a success. Two helicopters were arranged for his trip as he was supposed to launch a football academy in Mahestala and then head towards the Salt Lake Stadium where a friendly match was to be played between the Chief Minister’s XI and the Foreign Minister’s XI in his august presence. 

The two sides were captained by Bhaichung Bhutia and Dulal Biswas. Bhaichung’s side were coached by Mohun Bagan’s Karim Bencherifa and East Bengal’s Stanley Rosario while Dulal’s team were guided by Mohammedan Sporting’s Shabbir Ali and Chirag United’s Subrata Bhattacharya.

Maradona did not take part in the friendly, yet the stadium was chalk-a-block. The crowd gushed with excitement as he dashed onto the pitch before the match and started juggling with the ball. Even the coaches and the players were jostling to get the glimpse of a lifetime. 

He also visited the Mohun Bagan ground where he hosted a clinic for U-12 boys and the Mariners turned out in numbers to get a glimpse of their demigod.

Young men from Argentina fan clubs crisscrossed the roads with flags and jerseys. It seemed that the city had travelled back in time to 1986 when it had ornamented itself with sky-blue colours to celebrate Argentina's World Cup win. 

In 2017, he once again returned to the city and this time to take on the former India cricket skipper Sourav Ganguly in a friendly match at the Barasat Stadium. This time, it was a bulkier version of him that took the field but nothing mattered to his millions of admirers in the city. 

Roy was there to witness a historic moment, the Prince of Football greeting pleasantries with the Prince of Kolkata. "It was surreal. Two legends of different sports in front of my eyes. A tale that I would narrate a million times to my grandchildren," stated the Maradona worshipper. 

Although he did not last many minutes on the pitch, the crowd had enjoyed every penny they spent. Later, he shot footballs into the gallery with his magical left foot and the spectators once again went into a frenzy. 

On Wednesday night, the tea stalls made some more profits. The fans shed a few more tears. Some even went hungry to bed. The City of Joy is in mourning!