Around the World with the Most Travelled Indian
By Nitin Gairola
Let me take a slight detour from the South America tour and yet not take a detour. After seeing my football hero live at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, I somehow had to write about the experience – the good, bad and the downright ugly part of it. And why is it not a detour from the current South America series? Well, I don’t really need to tell you that the great Lionel Messi is from Argentina, which of course is in South America. In fact, we had gone to Buenos Aires quite recently (post the Argentine 2022 world cup win) and were on a pilgrimage tour of this football God and also of the Argentine football team – which is an absolute favourite of most Indians, including me.
I remember staying up late at night as a tiny tot, watching the 1990 football world cup hosted by Italy in which Diego Maradona and Sergio Goycochea (goalie) took a weak Argentina all the way to the finals. It was to be a final which they would eventually lose to Germany but the world cup has been a lasting childhood memory. And for some reason I started supporting Argentina back then, and I support them till this day. I may not have understood the sport as a little boy, but I do remember being up late with my mama (i.e. uncle or mother’s brother) watching all the matches. And while Maradona and the attractive Argentine blue & white striped jersey may have been the reasons to support the footballing nation in the early days, it has continued into adulthood. I now root for the team largely because of Messi, as do millions around the world. In fact in the 2022 Qatar world cup, I believe the entire world wanted Argentina to win the finals, barring the French. I am so glad Messi didn’t disappoint 8 billion people, barring a few million French (sorry Macron)
So when I heard that Messi was to visit India on a whirlwind tour of Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi, I just had to be a part of the action as a spectator and fan. That’s why Richa and I promptly booked our tickets for the Mumbai event, choosing the city primarily because it also held the promise of some Bollywood stars descending on the Wankhede. But beyond all the hype, here is what really happened…
We heard of the Kolkata fiasco the day prior on 13th December where everyday people, who had paid upwards of INR 5,000/-, didn’t even see a glimpse of Messi. He took one round of the field and was surrounded by VIPs and as you know, only mobiles were allowed. So fans didn’t see him, forget seeing him up close and getting a photograph taken. We had also booked tickets worth INR 11,000/- each for the Mumbai event but luckily now our expectations were at rock bottom. But you can’t blame us for believing what was written in the official itinerary on ‘Book my Show’ – which is that there would be a ‘celebrity’ football match, a penalty shootout, a Bollywood charity fashion show and lots of ‘fun’ for 3 hours from 5 to 8 pm on 14th December. It sounded like value for money.
But as it turned out, the show started at 530 pm and it was all over by 645 pm. And did it include any of the above? Well footballers Messi along with Luis Suarez and Rodrigo De Paul took one full circle of the field and since we had good seats close to the pitch, we got good snaps of these great sportsmen. Other than that, there was some make-shift football match (with a kiddie goal-post) but with no real celebrities besides Indian footballer, Sunil Chhetri. Also there was no proper penalty shootout, no fashion show and honestly not much ‘fun’. Sachin Tendulkar was the saving grace and was cheered by his Mumbai home crowd as he presented Messi his 2011 cricket world cup jersey. And coming to the Bollywood stars, few came and they were not very well received by the sports fans at the Wankhede as they wanted the focus to be on Messi, Suarez, De Paul and football only. The actors who stepped on the field were Tiger Shroff and Ajay Devgn whereas backstage photographs with Messi were taken by Kareena Kapoor Khan and her sons, Shilpa Shetty, Shahid Kapoor and a few more. The Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis, was there too.
The pity was that the high & mighty had their ‘free’ photos with the man, whereas the well-to-do ‘commoners’ had paid INR 10 lakh (you read that right) to get but one image with Messi. This truly baffles my mind as to why anyone with a sane mind would spend that amount on a photograph. As a cruel joke on those few who did pay, the next day social media was full of A.I. generated selfies with Messi. In that sense, the two of us got robbed off only INR 22,000 and not 10 lakh. I had never witnessed such mindless avarice on the part of event organizers as I saw during this event. I am not surprised at the way the fans reacted in Kolkata, since it was all hard earned money and they got royally duped – it is as simple as that. To add insult to injury, a 70-foot Messi statue was unveiled in the ‘city of joy’, built in record time of less than 1 month (as per some sources), when basic societal projects take decades. Apparently the statue cost INR 10 Cr or USD 1.2 million which I am sure is a significant sum when compared to the annual budget of the Indian football team.
Messi is still my football hero as he is of a billion Indians, but if you need any proof of what the high and mighty think of the common man, then you need not look any further than what happened in these four cities during the Messi ‘G.O.A.T’ Tour – especially in Mumbai and Kolkata. Being a fan is all good, but being a fanatic is unwise.
Nitin Gairola is from Dehradun and has travelled the natural world extensively and is often referred to as the ‘Most Travelled Indian’. He is on a quest to become the first person to travel to every major desert, forest, grassland, tundra & ice biome on Earth, besides every country. Nitin has set world travel records certified by India Book of Records, has written for Lonely Planet and holds National Geographic conservation certifications. He is also a senior corporate executive in an MNC and in his early days, used to be a published poet as well. www.facebook.com/MostTravelledIndian/ www.instagram.com/MostTravelledIndian/
