India’s football aficionados were in for a big surprise when five-time World Cup champion Brazil — the famed Seleção — confirmed an international friendly against the Blue Tigers at the Salt Lake Stadium (Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan) in Kolkata on October 3.

Soon after the announcement, a team from the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) visited Kolkata, but was unhappy with the condition of the pitch.

Preparations on a war footing followed; the All India Football Federation (AIFF) asked the CBF to provide an expert to get the turf in shape in time. Accordingly, Ivan Nascimento, a turf expert from Brasilia, arrived in the city and stayed here for a month, supervising the transformation.

“Our main goal was to regularise the processes and the soil. We found some unevenness in the soil, with waves on the surface, and the grass was also very tall,” Nascimento told The Hindu while showing pictures of the various stages of the curing process he has on record.

“So, we started with the agronomic work and then moved on to coordinating the operations so that we could transform this field into a standard international playing field.”

Restoration and repair of the football pitch involved weeks of work with the local and the Brazilian team operating in tandem.

The last time the turf received such attention was almost a decade ago, when the pitch was transformed from artificial AstroTurf to an all-natural Riviera Bermuda grass surface specifically to meet FIFA guidelines ahead of the FIFA Under-17 World Cup in 2017.

Since then, the pitch has hosted regular Indian Super League seasons and other tournaments, which have taken a toll on its condition.

“The main changes we had to make were to correct the soil level and make the necessary agronomic adjustments, particularly with the fertilisation,” Nascimento said.

“After the initial analysis, we were able to draw up a plan for what needed to be done over the following months. My role then involved coordinating the daily operations — observing and understanding how the field responded to each intervention.

“In this way, we could make accurate decisions to reach the final goal: a healthy field that allows the players to perform without getting injured and provides a good spectacle for television,” he added.

Ivan Nascimento has stayed in Kolkata for nearly a month to ensure that the pitch is ready when the Seleçãotakes the pitch against India on October 3.

Nascimento further elaborated how specific aspects of the pitch were individually looked into with utmost care.

“The main interventions were related to levelling. We needed to carry out drilling, which is aeration, to allow air to enter the soil. After that, we were able to use a roller and transform the uneven surface into a much flatter field,” he explained.

“Then we did very specific work on the areas where the playing lines would be painted. There was a very large deposit of paint, which was making the soil extremely hard. After correcting that, we started the mowing process.”

He added that the mowing was done in the opposite direction to what had been done previously; regular fertilisation was carried out across the pitch, while measures were taken to control fungus and insects.

Once the grass was taken care of, Nascimento’s team moved to the next target: design – creating the ‘light-and-dark-green stripes’. But the constraint was time. Brazil would need the pitch ready when it arrived.

That work required the involvement of a huge workforce, most of it drawn from the local team.

“We came from Brazil with two teams, an agronomic team that included me and a team from the stadium department. We adjusted the operation day by day, but we also had the support of the local team that already takes care of the lawn and the pitch, which has been fantastic,” he said.

Conditioning and repair of grass was followed by designing the pitch and painting it to look perfectly ready for both matches of India against Brazil and Uruguay.

Getting a football turf ready for matches in a short time is not unfamiliar territory for Nascimento.

“I own a company called Arenas, and we work at the Mane Garrincha Stadium in Brasilia. We don’t have a resident club at our stadium, so we don’t host many football matches — only about 20 a year,” he explained.

“In the gaps between the matches, we host a number of international concerts, which really damages the turf. As a result, we are constantly changing, replacing and restoring the grass several times a year. In fact, this November, I am replanting the entire field,” he added.

Nascimento’s work will reach completion soon, and to an extent that both teams – India and Brazil – will train on the main pitch a day before kick-off.

“According to the protocol, there will be no separate training pitch. Brazil will be training on the main pitch before the day of the match. Brazil will train from 4 pm to 5 pm, and then India will train from 6 pm to 7 pm,” Ivan said.

“So, we have a field that will accommodate both teams’ training sessions. We will prepare it for the match and also for the subsequent game against Uruguay on October 6,” he added.

Nascimento revealed that India will train on the main pitch between 6 pm and 7 pm on the eve of its match against Brazil.

Next month, the Salt Lake Stadium will host not one but two former World champions. And Nascimento feels the project will reach its completion right in time for the show to begin.

“Yes, the changes meet the requirements for what we need to do. But we had a short amount of time, so we worked day after day with the local team and with the support of the federation. We were also able to request some machines that were not available at the stadium,” Nascimento said.

“Today, we don’t have a 100 per cent field, but I would say we have reached something close to 90 per cent, with acceptable levelling, good colour and important grass density. We can have a great show.”

Published – September 29, 2026 07:04 pm IST

Officials said that about 17 premises in the two cities linked to the Amrit group of companies and its promoters were raided under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). File.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A security room of Kolkata’s iconic Academy of Fine Arts painted in saffron. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

By the time Argentina’s players emerged from the tunnel on Wednesday evening, familiar songs had already begun rolling around the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The crowd came from Buenos Aires and Cordoba, from Rosario and Mendoza.

But they also came with unmistakably different accents from Kolkata and Dhaka, from Kochi and Varanasi, from South Asian immigrant neighbourhoods across the United States.

Every World Cup creates adopted nations. Few have ever been adopted with the devotion that Argentina inspires in South Asia.

The relationship has always seemed improbable. Nearly 16,000 kilometres separate Buenos Aires from Dhaka or Thiruvananthapuram. There is little shared history, little common language and few cultural overlaps.

Yet every four years, countless homes across India and Bangladesh become temporary Argentine territory. Streets fill with blue-and-white flags, children paint their faces, neighbourhoods get together to pray for Diego Maradona and now Lionel Messi.

The connection has outlived generations.

For many, it began with Diego weaving through England in the summer of 1986, turning football into folklore. For another generation, it arrived through Messi, whose genius travelled effortlessly through the television screens into homes where sleep was willingly sacrificed for matches played in distant time zones.

Among those inside the stadium were a father and son from Varanasi. Vipul, who runs an export business, was a young man when Maradona conquered Mexico.

Like millions across the subcontinent, He found himself bewitched by the No. 10 in the sky-blue shirt and four decades back he had to go on a hunt in Delhi’s Sarojini Market to get a cheap replica of the famous jersey. The shirt has now faded, the hair greyed, but the affection remains.

“Television was still a novelty in India back then and the 1986 World Cup was perhaps the first time when all of us watched live international football. It almost felt like Maradona was fighting against the entire world and winning. You had to be bewitched by his genius,” Vipul said.

For son Anmol, his Argentina is Messi’s Argentina. The tears in 2014, the Copa America disappointments, the redemption in 2021 and, finally, Qatar in 2022 are his footballing memories.

Now working in the United States, he persuaded his father to make the journey to Atlanta to support the team they love. Together they watched Argentina overturn England to reach another World Cup final.

They are now heading north to New Jersey, hoping to witness Messi lifting another World Cup trophy.

Football offers opportunities for fathers and sons to discover the same love through different heroes. There are many from Dhaka, Chittagong, Kolkata, Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, who have made the same journey to follow the blue-and-white in the United States.

Rupak Saha, sporting the blue-and-gold of his beloved East Bengal, was in Atlanta shouting for Messi. “We want Messi to give us another World Cup. We are all here for him,” he said.

The scale of that affection even surprises those inside the dressing room. On the eve of the semifinal, a Bangladeshi journalist asked Lionel Scaloni about the extraordinary support Argentina receives in Bangladesh.

He admitted that his players remain astonished that people on the other side of the world celebrate victories with the same emotion as families in Argentina.

“They are surprised,” Scaloni said. “Thrilled that a country on the other end of the world supports us, loves us and feels proud wearing our blue-and-white stripes.”

Perhaps that is the greatest compliment any national team can receive.

Argentina has also attracted criticism throughout this tournament. Opponents have questioned refereeing decisions, social media has filled with accusations of favourable treatment, the unfurling of a Falklands banner, repeated confrontation with the referees and opponents have ignited arguments.

Yet those debates have barely dented Argentina’s global appeal.

Inside stadiums across this World Cup, the neutral support often seems to tilt unmistakably towards Argentina. Every Messi touch still draws a collective gasp. Every comeback is celebrated by supporters with no Argentine passport. And among those neutrals, South Asians remain remarkably visible.

Perhaps it is because Argentina has always offered more than victories. Its football has carried romance and suffering in equal measure.

It has produced flawed heroes, impossible dribbles, glorious failures and unforgettable redemption. Maradona gave millions permission to believe that genius could overcome power. Messi showed that perseverance could eventually overcome heartbreak.

For countless supporters in India and Bangladesh, those stories are deeply personal, untouched by the oceans that lie between them.

As Atlanta emptied into the humid Georgia night, Argentine songs once again echoed through the streets. Some voices belonged to people returning home to Buenos Aires. Others would soon begin journeys back to Dhaka, Kolkata, Kochi, Chennai, Delhi or Varanasi.

Search and rescue operation underway at the site where an under-construction godown shed collapsed in Taratala, in Kolkata on June 24, 2026.
| Photo Credit: ANI

According to lore, the first lines Rabindranath Tagore ever wrote were, “Jol pore, pata nore” – water falls, leaves tremble. It is a simple observation, almost childlike, yet it contains an entire philosophy of rain. Rain is never merely an event of the sky, it is a stirring of the earth, a movement of memory. And nowhere is this truer than in Kolkata. Here, the monsoon first touches the thick dark green pine forests, misty mountains and old hill towns of North Bengal before making its way to Kolkata. It seeps into the city’s cracks and memories, returning through songs half remembered, through windows flung open to the scent of wet earth, through old loves, old streets and old selves who come back for a fleeting visit. The rain falls. The city trembles. 

Santadeep Dey, a journalist with Sportstar magazine, recollects, “I wish I could say the rains smell of home (Barrackpore, Kolkata) . They don’t. At least in Chennai, they don’t. At home, that smell of wet earth and lying under a cool blanket listening to the radio was something else entirely. Now there’s no radio either, and home is very far away. Even now, on rainy days, if I hear the sound of a cooker somewhere, I feel like my mom has called saying she has made khichuri (rice and lentils), come eat,” says Santadeep.

He looks back to his childhood when, “The most fun thing was, in heavy rain, holding kaka’s (uncle’s) hand, with an umbrella over our heads, going out to get aloor chop (potato fritters). We would all sit together and eat them. All of these are just memories now. Kaka is also no more.”

Drifting from the memory of home to songs, Santadeep says, “When Brishti by Firoze Jong released earlier this year, I was enraptured. In parts, haunting, in parts, the lyrics are very relatable. Contemplative. The electric guitar adds to the intensity. And the rain and thunder backing track makes it all the more beautiful.”

Rain also rakes up the memory of a compelling film still, he says, “In Naruto there was one powerful scene where Itachi is seen crying while staring up at the sky. It is raining. It was rumoured that his brother Sasuke had died at that time. He almost manages to hide his tears in the rain, but his partner Kisame understands. Itachi is supposed to be an all-powerful cold character, but his emotions break through his steely features because he was supposedly mourning his loved one then.”

If Santadeep’s rain is filled with nostalgia, for mechanical engineer Riya Roy, it still carries the ache of heartbreak. “I remember I was in my first or second year in college and the boy I was madly in love with had broken up with me because he was moving abroad for work. It was July or August when he left the country, and what I remember most is crying every day on the commute from Gariahat junction to my college in Anandapur. I would look at the rear view mirror in my auto, splattered with rain, hoping he would appear in it,” says Riya. 

“The song I listened to on loop was the OG Bengali song Ekla Ghar by Fossils. The lines that still haunt me years after I have moved on are (lines translated)

“Though change is what is needed,

I walk again along the path to your house.

The rain gives me companionship.

Will you see this through the window glass?

Or will it be blurred by the thick monsoon rain?’”

“The thing with rain is that years pass, new memories are made, pain fades or we learn to live with it, but the rain and its smell remember. Songs remember. That entire Gariahat to Anandapur stretch still brings back those memories,” recollects Riya as she averts her gaze. 

For some, rain lives in songs. For others, it lives inside music itself.

At 78, Praniti Ghosh, a retired school teacher, feels that every Kolkata monsoon afternoon arrives accompanied by ragas and Tagore. “When I was young, my mother would tell me, ‘Megh Malhar raag shunle brishhti baje,’ (Listening to the Megh Malhar raaga is like listening to the rain) like the rain itself dancing in the notes. When Tansen sang Malhar, clouds actually gathered, and rain fell. That’s why now, when I sit alone on a rainy afternoon, I play Pandit Shivkumar Sharma’s Santoor Malhar. The swaras become raindrops on my window,” remembers Praniti with a glint in her eye. 

“And then Tagore’s Aji Jharo Jharo Mukharo Badolodine. When I hear those ragas, I’m listening to the rain’s memory. The rain that came when I was 20, when my husband was alive, when the children were small. Now I’m 78. The rain is still here. The Malhar is still here. Tagore is still here. Only I am getting old. But the music keeps the rain young for me,” reminisces Praniti. 

For Varnika Lall, management trainee, key accounts manager at CavinKare, rain is inseparable from cinema.

“I think my first memory of rain with music goes back to school when that song came out, Barso Re Megha Megha from the film Guru, and I genuinely believed that every time I heard that song, it rained because it happened a couple of times.

She adds, ”One which is really close to my heart is, of course, ‘Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein’, that iconic dialogue from the film when Madhavan says in a rain-drenched phone booth while watching Dia Mirza dance in the rain, ‘Main Dilli Bol Raha Hoon Maddy Se.’ I love that bit. Love at first sight is something that was defined by that moment in the rain.”

“There are so many songs that I actually listen to and sort of manifest in the sense that maybe if I hear this song it will rain. And it was never the rain that I loved; it was always the build-up to the rain,” explains Varnika.

“There are songs like O Meri Jaan from Life in a… Metro. Just the way that song feels —it’s like when you know it’s just about to rain, when it’s cloudy, getting dark and windy. Then there’s Udi Udi from Saathiya, and Yeh Barish Hai Boondon Ki from Fanaa, which symbolises passion and rain. When you listen to that song, you can visualise it,” she notes.

“More mainstream Bollywood songs like ‘Chham Chham Chham’ are also memorable. With many things in life that we love, it is mostly about the build-up. I love thunderstorms and songs that mimic the weather. Sometimes when I’m feeling angry or passionate, I like to hear ‘Kurban Hua’ from Kurbaan. That song mimics the thunderstorm in my head,” explains Varnika.

“Another emotion that rain evokes is longing for something that really does not exist. Like listening to Adnan Sami’s Teri Yaad Aati Hai or Goonja Sa Hai Koi Ektara. Even though they are not rain songs, because of the picturisation and everything, they feel very rainy. And if we look at the latest, Baarishein by Anuv Jain was also good,” outlines Varnika.

Pratima Das, a 50 year old homemaker, remembers the year 1994.

“The rains came early that year. It was my wedding day , August 18. Kolkata’ s Paris Hall ebbed with the sound of the shehnai and smelled of marigolds and wet earth, and the sound of ululation rose from everywhere as I entered the hall. I remember my Benarasi sari clinging to everything. I remember the caterer’s cook spilling mishti doi on the table cloth and covering it with flowers, thinking no one saw. I saw, but said nothing. It felt like good luck,” remembers Pratima dreamily.

“Every time I see the rain, I think of the shehnai. After the wedding, when my anxiousness had finally abated and I was able to eat after fasting all day, the song that kept drifting from a nearby radio or perhaps from a shop or a passing car was ‘Rimjhim Gire Saawan’ from the film Manzil, which was such a hit in those times. In place of Amitabh Bachchan and Moushumi Chatterjee, I imagined my husband and myself,” giggles Pratima.

“But when I look back on that day now, I think of another scene. There’s a moment in Satyajit Ray’s Apur Sansar where Apu stands in a doorway, the rain behind him, everything unspoken between two people who are only just beginning to know one another. I watched it again last winter and had to sit very still for a while afterwards. It was so precisely true to something I had once lived and could no longer touch. That particular quality of a monsoon afternoon when your whole life is still ahead of you and you do not know it yet. My daughter thinks I’m being sentimental when I talk about that day. She’s right. I am. Unapologetically!”, says Pratima emphatically. 

Perhaps that is why those first lines of Tagore endure. More than a century later, in Kolkata, it is not only the leaves. A song resurfaces, a face returns, a vanished hall fills once more with the sound of a shehnai. The rain falls, and memory answers. 

Hmingthanmawia Ralte celebrates after scoring Mumbai City’s opener against Punjab FC in their final leagure fixture of the Indian Super League in at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi on Thursday, May 21, 2026.
| Photo Credit: x@MumbaiCityFC