[For detailed reminiscences of the 1983 World Cup, please read this.]
[Update: I was invited to do a much shorter version of the above post for the BBC. It was for their Hindi edition. The article is here. The translation to Hindi was, needless to say, not done by me. Neither did I give the title of "Dekho Maine dekha tha ek sapna"....after all without a "Phoolon ke seher main hain ghar aapna" the words lose much of its meaning.]
Many many years hence when I sit on a porch, rocking on an armchair with a shawl wrapped around me and a cup of tea with thin arrowroot biscuits in hand, I shall , in the manner of grandparents, smile self-contentedly and tell a group of wide-eyed children, voice soaked in trembling emotion —” Yes I saw it. I was there. Sometimes in front of a radio and sometimes a television. It happened right in front of me”.
Throughout much of “Sarkar Raj”, villains who seem to have had too much of “mirchi ka achaar” in the morning make vile cartoonish faces at the camera in a way that even Lambu Atta (Isharat Ali) from “Gunda” would find more than a bit excessive.
