Now that the World Cup is over, a new worry assails us. What will the Bengali do since there are no more matches to be enjoyed in ear-splitting noise? There is dead silence which has engulfed the world, especially our world, after the Argentines beat the French in a tie-breaker and walked off with the cup.
Not many Bengalis were spotted rooting for France as the finals went on. The two early goals by the Argentines sent up a roar of cheer all across Bangladesh. It was a collective scream of joy you could hear in every corner of the country. But then came the French retribution, two goals to let Argentine fans know that no game is over until it is really over.
Even people whose interest in the game has traditionally been minimal, the finals in Qatar were once more proof of the sheer energy and grace which underpin football. Twenty-two players, and add the eagle-eyed referee here, gave the world a great game last week. There was a near epic quality to it. It brought home to many of us in Bangladesh the infinite beauty of football, a game whose good days seem to be a thing of the past here.
But we will not go into all that sighing and all that tear-welling-up situation about the comatose state of football we happen to be experiencing in Bangladesh. All we need to give the authorities is a simple statement: Go ahead with widening the sports arena in Bangladesh, with special emphasis on the development --- and we mean it --- of sports in every area.
In other words, modernise our cricket, make of our cricketers stars in need of worship, see to it that their performance gives them a secure hold on their future in terms of economic stability. But football? World Cup 2022 has shown conclusively how broad an appeal football yet has in Bangladesh. And there is the emotional bit too coming in here. The swollen eyes, the long faces of Brazilian fans once their beloved team was shown the exit were heart-breaking. Not even an invocation to the luminous Pele could recharge the batteries in the Brazilian team.
But it was something the Argentines were ready to emulate. It was the tie-breakers, or more precisely the inability of the French goalkeeper which put them over the top. And so there we were, people remembering a 36-year-past Diego Maradona. Not making a mess of things, Messi had Argentina came back, for a restoration as it were. The pity is that the brilliant Mbappe simply saw victory elude him. Ah, well! He is young and the future belongs to him. The world will just have to wait for him to emerge, divine-like, out of the rays of the sun four years from now.
But none of this answers our question: What will the Bengali do now that World Cup 2022 is finally over? Like people everywhere, the Bengali needs a prop to survive, indeed to keep his energy flowing. There is no local football tournament he can fall back on to keep his thoughts on the game going, though the conversation on which player did what, which referee made mistakes in whipping out yellow or red cards will go on for some time.
And then? Ah, yes! We forget politics, always a staple of conversation in Bengali homes. One can be sure that with the weeks and months moving on to election time next year or soon after, many will be the arguments that will dominate Bengali life. With the World Cup gone into cold storage for four years, a very large number of Bengalis will tune in to television talk shows before employing the infinity of their wisdom in passing judgement on the state of things. So politics, with football out of the way, will make a pretty loud return into the drawing room and at the workplace.
But do not be too sure. With all those food items giving you dreadful sleep at night, because of the spiralling prices and because no one in authoritative position is able to rein in dishonest traders and the syndicates they are part of, it will be the issue of bare survival that looks about to replace the plenitude of happiness generated by the World Cup. And that is where it hurts, for there has never been much of happiness in the life of the average Bengali. If football makes him happy for a few weeks, let it.
The Bengali parent will now go back to calculating family expenses --- the monthly fees, books, notebooks, clothes for the children. Every working Bengali man and woman will also go to sleep at night working out the time and route they will take to their workplaces through the harrowing traffic mess on the roads. And as a new day dawns, the streets and roads will begin to come under angry occupation by people determined to have their way.
Curses will fly about, as rickshaw pullers and car drivers will get into verbal brawls over responsibility for the snarl they will begin to create. The hapless traffic constable will scream, wield his stick on the rickshaw puller, not knowing that employing a stick as a weapon to get traffic back in order will not create the magic he hopes for. Tired, and exhausted, he will then look on, helpless in his agony.
Normal life, suspended in the course of the World Cup, will return in the abnormal way it always has. In the villages, where it is now the season of pithas and wazmahfils, the faithful ones, wrapped in warmth inasmuch as they can draw it from their clothes, will listen to religious scholars for as long as the sermons go on. There will be no football to distract our rural brotherhood, to take them away from thoughts of the hereafter.
With World Cup 2022 at an end, the family will disperse yet again. As long as the tournament went on, families and often neighbours come to join them, enjoyed the collective happiness of sharing the brilliance that is football. That camaraderie has drawn to an end, for the next four years. Happiness is fleeting. It comes with football and goes away with it.
The family now will disperse, each unto his or her room, each with his or her mobile phone. Silence will reign, for every eye in every member of the family will bore its way into that phone. In that phone is a whole world, a mix of dreams and nightmares and fantasies.
Life is beautiful pain without the World Cup. In that pain the Bengali comes home, even as Messi, Mbappe and Neymar make their way home.
