I am often asked, what did I do for my masters? Media and Cultural Studies isn’t an easy answer to explain, especially within the Indian education system. Our course was an attempt to understand culture and its nuances through the means of academic works, theories, and ethnographic frameworks. Media is just another tool to do so.
So, when we say culture, what
does it mean? How do we define such a complicated thing like culture? In an
easy way, it’s everything. From the way we live, to the way we in vibe things.
From the way we comprehend notions, to the way we approach things. Everything
basically forms the base of what we call ‘culture’. The stakeholders obviously
are the topography, language, and upbringings.
From the region I come from,
football forms a very basic and subconscious part of our culture. Some might
say Assam isn’t just a hotbed of football, but the North-East India is. But
it’s not just about the state, it’s also a lot about the surroundings. The
school I studied in had football as a very integral part of its ethos. Years
back I wrote how football matches and the annul football tournament in our
school shaped our childhood days.
So, when I enrolled myself in a
course that studies culture, I fulfilled my appetite and desire to understand
and study football as a culture and evaluate the framework behind making a
footballing nation, a lot of what is being talked about to day.
Subsequently, I joined the Local
Organising Committee of the FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 after graduation and
became fortunate enough to be a part of its legacy programme, Mission XI Million.
Now, many would say that this is
an advertorial post for the programme and the event I work for. But as someone
who just completed his dissertation on understanding the football culture in
India in the current times, trust me this writing is just an extension of the
thought process that I invested in my two years of understanding culture within
my academic curriculum. Here is one of the last lines from my dear study:
‘There is no survival of the game if people don’t love it enough. A team has no existence if it doesn’t have any fans.’
This precisely is the reason why
I love and is moved by the idea and philosophy of Mission XI Million (MXIM).
Many of us dream of seeing India as a major footballing giant of the world, but
at the same time, we also dream of it being a popular choice of game for
majority of the billion population that we have. And for that to happen, we must
make this game reach out to everyone, irrespective of the various
socio-cultural, religious, and economic barriers that we have.
Kids are the best way to begin with. The philosophy of MXIM is simple -
every child has the right to play football, irrespective of the background he
or she comes from. The beauty of football lies in the fact that anyone can play
it anywhere. To inculcate a healthy culture of football in India, we must start
from our schools. The dynamic characteristic of culture is curated by the fact
that generations often overtake proceedings. So, if we make the upcoming lot
fall in love with the game, a proportion of the task of awaking the sleeping
giant of world football is already done.
As some of us perceive, football isn’t just about the World Cup, the
Champions League, or any other European Leagues. It’s about inclusivity. The
fact that football played a major role in cohesion of nationalistic feeling
during India’s freedom struggle makes it obvious as to why reaching out to
everyone with the game is important.
As a part of MXIM, I have been fortunate to learn many stories as to how
important football can be for someone. Even otherwise, be it the girls from Mumbrah or the Yuva team from Jharkhand, the game has shown how empowering the
game can be.
Every day we receive stories from across India, from the interior
rural parts, and these stories aren’t just inspiring, but also sentimental to
an extent that we start questioning our commitment; are we doing enough?
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