Mizos feast to hail local team’s victory

This I-League is big for small Mizoram, especially with home team Aizawl FC in title contention. So is every football tournament that pits one locality or a village against another.

Almost everyone in the Mizoram capital was preoccupied with football — rather Aizawl FC’s chances of beating Mohun Bagan on Saturday for the I-League title.

Some 4,000 people of Chinga Veng had football in mind too. But their focus on Friday was on celebrating the victory of their locality club in the inter-village (includes urban localities) football championship.

SMALL IS BIG

The championship, held in each of Mizoram’s eight districts for 35-40 days, can at times involve 200 teams per district.

“Tomorrow might belong to Aizawl FC, but today belongs to Chinga Veng FC,” Sawmi, vicechairman of Chinga Veng local council told HT.

Chinga Veng FC won their first inter-village football championship in decades for Aizawl district that ended a few days ago. This feat for the locality thus called for a community feasting. The entire locality turned up at the Chinga Veng Community Hall to felicitate the team and feast on rice and meat-heavy local dishes such as vawktui zikhlum, a pork stock soup with sliced boiled cabbage.

“Every family contributed for the local team as well as the feast, the bill working out to more than ~3 lakh,” Sawmi said.

Robert R Royte, the businessman-owner of Aizawl FC, was among the major contributors — not because his firm, North East Consultancy Services, has been backing the inter-village tournament for two years now. He is a resident of Chinga Veng.

COMMUNITY FIRST

“The locality football club is as important as my team (Aizawl FC). And it is more important, for a well-knit society like ours, to participate in the celebration with the locality,” Royte said.