Stanley Carvalho |
When a dear family member was stricken with the dreaded cancer in 2017, Jairaj Galagali was visibly distraught; Juggling work, home and the hospital was difficult.
This Indian technician based in California needed to do something to relax. The cricket bug that had bitten him years ago came to his rescue and an inspiring idea was born.
“The mind needed a respite, to escape into another world, that of my 12-year-old self when life revolved around cricket and movies,” Galagali begins in his deep baritone.
“I decided to unearth some vintage footage of priceless moments from India’s rich cricket history,” he says, sitting in his Bangalore apartment during his vacation as a bus driver.
Today, his non-profit YouTube channel “Jai Galagali” features several old videos dating back to the 1940s from the Indian Film Division as well as self-created cricket videos.
His channel has over 30,000 subscribers and millions of viewers across all cricketing countries. Additionally, Galagali became known as an archivist and enthusiast of Indian cricket history, a fact recognized by well-known cricketers and media outlets.
However, his journey from 2017 has not been easy. Sitting in his office in California, he had to make many phone calls at night to the Films division in Mumbai, which often went unanswered. Galagali stubbornly pursued his goal, knocking on many doors before finally reclaiming his loot after paying for it. The delivery of 200 DVDs (each DVD was a current affairs also including cricket clips) landed on his doorstep.
“I had this box with me that literally had the history of Indian cricket in it and when I took it to my room, tears came to my eyes,” he says with a half-smile.
The newsreels showed every cricket match filmed in India since 1948, a year after India’s independence in 1947. Some of them had soundtracks, some didn’t, he adds.
Galagali quickly took action, posting the videos to his YouTube channel with a few edits. Little by little, he gave depth to the videos with brief narration adding context, context and interesting information. The libraries of Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley were useful repositories for his research.
The first video, Galagali recalls, was a three-minute video of the 1973 India-England match in Kolkata and the last video is an interview with former Indian wicketkeeper Syed Kirmani, who recently released his autobiography in Bangalore.
Some of the most popular videos include India’s first victory in a cricket test match in 1952 in Madras; Indian players wear black wristbands as a sign of respect to the late King George VI. In this memorable video, Galagali also interviews CD Gopinath, now in his nineties, who went on to win this match.
Another is the first India-Pakistan Test series in 1952, where the bowling action of the legendary Subhash Gupte was shown live for the first time.
There are other memorable clips from cricket matches played in the 1950s and 1960s between India and England, India and West Indies, Pakistan’s tour of India and the debut matches of some of the best cricketers Indians.
Cricket matches have always been about drama and one striking video is of an enthusiastic lady in a sari who beat security and went onto the field to hug Brijesh Patel after scoring 50 runs in the India-West Indies Test match in Mumbai, 1975.
Unexpectedly, Galagali’s labor of love hit a snag in 2020 when he received an email from YouTube claiming copyright infringement from the Indian government. Realizing he wasn’t wrong, especially after paying for the DVDs, he made several appeals to the Film Division which fell on deaf ears.
Galagali then contacted cricket-loving politician Shashi Tharoor who wrote a scathing letter to the ministry highlighting the importance of such a channel. Some cricketers have also expressed their opinion in favor of the channel. Soon the channel resumed.
During the Covid lockdown, Galagali posted videos regularly, giving viewers, especially cricket fans, an option when live matches were not being telecast.
The response to Galagali’s YouTube channel is encouraging. “The images bring so much warmth, nostalgia and joy to the many cricket stories for so many viewers,” he enthuses and goes on to quote some responses.
A teenager from Delhi called to thank Galagali because his grandfather, who had dementia, opened up, remembering the past after watching a few videos.
The daughter of legendary Indian captain Pataudi sent a message saying the videos brought back a flood of memories of her father.
An economist with cancer wrote that she watched the videos non-stop because she was a viewer of one of them.
It was ‘yesterday all over again’ for a Sri Lankan cricketer, currently living in Australia after watching a reel of the first Test series between India and Sri Lanka. The cricketer played in this series.
Galagali has so far only held about fifty percent of the precious treasure in his possession. Fortunately, with the family member now back to good health, viewers can look forward to many more Indian cricket videos.
