Stanley Carvalho |
When his beloved family member suffered from the dreaded cancer in 2017, Jairaj Galagali was clearly distraught. Juggling job, home, and hospital runs was painful.
The California-based Indian engineer needed to do something to relieve his stress. The cricket bug that bit him a few years ago came to his rescue and an inspiring idea was born.
“My mind revolved around cricket and movies to escape to another world, to my 12-year-old self, and to relax when life came back,” began Galagali in his deep baritone.
“I decided to unearth vintage footage of priceless moments from India’s rich cricket history.
Today, his non-profit YouTube channel ‘Jai Galagali’ features several old videos dating back to the 1940s, sourced from the Indian film department, as well as home-made videos related to cricket.
His channel has over 30,000 subscribers and millions of viewers across cricket-playing countries. Moreover, Galagali is known as an archivist and history buff of Indian cricket, a fact acknowledged by renowned cricketers and media outlets.
However, his journey since 2017 has not been a cakewalk. Sitting in my studies in California, I made numerous calls to the film department in Mumbai at night, often unanswered. Galagali achieved his goal, knocking on many doors. A shipment of 200 DVDs (each DVD a newsreel featuring cricket tits) landed on his doorstep.
“I literally carried a box holding the history of Indian cricket and had tears in my eyes when I took it to my room,” says Banse.
A newsreel of every cricket match filmed in India since 1948, a year after India’s independence in 1947, added that while some of them had soundtracks, many did not.
Galagali acted quickly, posting the video to his YouTube channel along with the edit. Gradually, he added context, background, and interesting information, lending depth to the video with simple narration. The libraries of Stanford University and the University of California were useful repositories for his research.
The first video, Galagali, was one of the three minutes from the 1973 India-India match in Kolkata and the latest video is an interview with former India wicketkeeper Syed Kirmani, who recently released his autobiography in Bangalore.
Some of the popular videos include India’s first cricket Test match victory at Madras in 1952. Indian players are seen wearing black wristbands as a mark of respect for the departed King George VI. In that memorable video, Galagali also interviews Cdgopinath, now a Vienaria, who won that match.
The other was the first India-Pakistan Test series in 1952, where the bowling action of the legendary Subhash Gupte was brought to life for the first time.
In the 50s and 60s, cricket was played between India and England, tours of India to India, West Indies and Pakistan, and debut matches for some of India’s best cricketers.
Cricket matches have always seen some drama, and one video that stands out is of an enthusiastic young lady in a saree going to kiss Brijesh Patel after he scored 50 runs during the India-West Indies Test match in Mumbai in 1975.
Unexpectedly, Galagali’s labor of love hit SNAG in 2020 when she received an email from YouTube from the Indian government citing copyright violations. Realizing he wasn’t wrong, especially since he was paying for the DVD, he made a few pleas to the film department that fell on deaf ears.
Galagali then reached out to cricket-loving politician Shashi Tharoor. Some cricketers also expressed their opinions in favor of the channel. The channel was soon reopened.
During the Covid Lockdown, Galagali has been posting videos regularly to provide viewers, especially cricket lovers, with an option when live matches are not broadcast.
The response to Galagali’s YouTube channel has been encouraging. “The video brings a lot of the warmth, nostalgia and joy of many cricket stories to many viewers,” he continues, quoting many of the responses.
The teenager from Delhi expressed his gratitude to Gala Ghali. Because my grandfather suffering from dementia opened up and watched some videos and reminisced about his past.
The daughter of India’s legendary captain Captain Paudhi sent a message saying the video brought a flood of memories of her dad.
The famous economist said that while undergoing chemotherapy, his late sister would watch endlessly as she found herself among the spectators in one of the videos.
It was ‘yesterday again’ for the Sri Lankan cricketer who now lives in Australia after watching the reels of the first Test series between India and Sri Lanka. The cricketer played in that series.
Galagali has so far recorded only about 50% of its precious treasures. Thankfully, with the family members now in good health, viewers can look forward to more Indian cricket videos.
https://jaigalagali.wordpress.com/
