Kolkata’s ‘street kids’ find solace on the field
Brendan Gallagher recalls his eye-opening trip to Kolkata in 2000 to meet the Future Hope team
It was 20 years ago this Christmas week that I found myself acting as sponge man and chief bottle washer to a bunch of remarkable Indian youngsters in Colombo where, against all the odds, they were representing India in the Asian U19 Rugby championships.
All bar two of them – guest players from Mumbai – were “street kids” from Kolkata which has become almost a cliched phrase in these days of charity fatigue. I had discovered the harsh reality, however, six weeks earlier when on an impulse, after reading a small article in the RFU newsletter about the Future Hope Charity, I informed the desk I was off to Kolkata – or Calcutta as we still called it back then – for a week. I had some holiday due so I was going anyway, if they wanted me to file a story I would happily comply.
Once there I met Future Hope founder Tim Grandage and, during the course of some pretty harrowing nights driving around the city’s back streets in his ancient Murati Jeep, he introduced me to what being a street kid actually entails. Normally abandoned by their parents or orphaned at an early age, dressed in rags, they roam the streets by day living off their wits, competing with rats and crows to eat from dustbins.
One former “street kid” – Kabir Mallick, who will feature elsewhere in this story – took me to the very spot where he used to dive off the western end of the famous Howrah bridge into the murky Hooghly river looking to recover the rupee coins nervous travellers would offer up in the timehonoured fashion. The current was ebbing mightily, and the river was full of the usual big city detritus including one or two corpses. Diving for a few rupees was to my Western eyes unthinkable but for a while that was what kept Kabir alive.
Ruthless cut-throat rivals for food and rupees during the daytime, the street kids nonetheless congregated for safety at night on the platforms and main concourse at Howrah rail station. Security in numbers but also just avoiding the soul-destroying loneliness of being on your own every hour of the day. Many in the past had been raped, abused, beaten up with some of those beatings administered by sadistic out-of-control policemen.
The physical toll was huge, the mental damage even bigger. Malnutrition is a huge issue, malaria and other diseases rife including STIs, the mortality rate unimaginably high.
To complete Tim’s X-rated introductory tour – Kolkata is also perversely a wonderful, vibrant, beguiling city but you have to experience its dark side before you realise the enormity of the problem – we pulled up one night at a darkened hospital which resembled an ugly multi story car park with each level ranged with army regulation beds.
A single, brave nun patrolled each floor and, armed only with a torch and her humanity, attempted to tend to the needs of the groaning, mutilated and dying. This was where many “street kids” ended up unless they could be rescued or somehow set on a better path.
By day the picture looked much brighter. Thank God. After an hour’s sleep – two if you were really lucky – Tim would be banging on your door again. It was time for rugby training, something always best attempted in the delicious cool of Calcutta’s dawn.
There I met the Future Hope Rugby team. A couple of years earlier some of them had been fighting for life itself on the streets before Tim and his wife Erica took them in. They were given accommodation and education but most of all they were given a passion for rugby. Six days a week, twice a day – dawn and dusk – they would learn the game, train and eventually play. To this day it is still the most perfect example of how transformative sport can be that I have ever witnessed.
Physically the rugby was an incredible release for their pent-up anger while mentally they learned about teamwork, trust, discipline and all that stuff which rugby prides itself for but which has become old fashioned and a little passe to talk about. The Kolkata Cricket and Football Club and the Police team – their former tormentors on the streets – were regular opponents but they would have to travel days to play Indian teams of their own age, in Mumbai and Chennai.
Rugby gave them an identity, both individual and collective. They walked a little taller, for the first time ever they counted as human beings, and gradually the magic of sport took over. Looking back they were an eclectic bunch, just like any other rugby team. You will recognise some of the ‘character types’ in your own team.
Yunus Hussain, the skipper, was very poised and together, an obvious leader and rallying point both on the unforgiving streets of Kolkata and on a rugby field. Later in life he headed up a team of 11 concierges and reception staff at one of the world’s top hotels in Dubai and frankly I’m not the slightest bit surprised. His life between the ages of five and nine, on the streets, was a living hell beyond description but defeat was not in his dictionary.
Kabir Mallick was fiery and mercurial, a brilliant natural sportsman but with a wild side. He could have been a seriously good rugby player had injury not intervened. Sukra Ekka was shy and lacking confidence but actually just as talented as Kabir while Sheikh Jahid was so small but so brave, the best tackler in the team bar none.
Tapas Chakraborty was not necessarily a natural rugby player – in fact he was a gifted cricketer – but a player
“They competed on almost zero possession, living off scraps was in their DNA”
who just got better every week through sheer hard work. He was, it subsequently emerged, an extraordinary natural linguist who has taught himself better English than you or me and is enviably fluent in French.
As a player Deeraj Kumar Bishwakarma was a stalwart, dedicated team man who played prop because nobody else wanted to but that could not disguise his exceptional mind and left-field character who could see that rugby was part of the bigger picture when it came to securing a better life for himself.
Bikash Mondal was the strong silent type who just got with it while Sanjay Patra was Head Boy material – gifted, hardworking and pleasant at all times, displaying no visible hang ups or angst from his days on the street.
It was while I was visiting them in November 2000 that the invite from Asia to represent India at the Asia U19 championships in Sri Lanka arrived. Rugby was about to literally broaden their horizons. Many of the Future Hope lads were only 15 or 16 – that’s if they knew their age at all, in the absence of parents most didn’t know their date of birth. Some had been playing for a year or less but that didn’t deter them either. Frankly they had faced bigger challenges in their lives.
So that’s how I ended up in Sri Lanka for the week leading into Christmas 20 years ago. Tim and the team needed a gofer and I still had some holiday due. And somebody needed to bear witness to their story. Luckily a talented freelance snapper Karen Davies was also on hand to help out as well
It was of course one of the best little tours ever. They took a battering in all their games but somehow survived and competed on almost zero possession – living off scraps was rather in their DNA. Come the final whistle they always emerged with credit and improved with every match, scoring four tries in their final game against Kazakhstan who seemed to have mistakenly sent their men’s side.
Batterings they could cope with – again they were used to it – but on the rugby field they were invariably followed by a handshake and meal with the opposition after which Kabir – who in a moment of madness had been trusted with the team kitty – would always insist on buying their opponents cokes and coconut iced creams. The next morning the lads would recover in the hotel swimming pool. No more risking life and limb for Kabir in the treacherous Hooghly.
An invite to the Rosslyn Park Sevens soon followed, not to mention a coaching session with Clive Woodward and the England squad and afternoon tea at Pennyhill Park. The lads had come a very long way in a very short time.