I will never forget those days spent with Pradipda – technical director PK Banerjee – at Team India’s camp in Patiala in 2000.
Sitting with him on the sidelines, Pradipda said in Bangla, “Arrey baba, pachai mangsho na thakle volley newa jai na.” (You can’t take those powerful shots and half-volleys with weak pelvic muscles).
We laughed. It was pure humour yet so true.
Pradipda got up from the chair and gestured while referring to former India and East Bengal player Bijen Singh’s weak shots at the goal while the then India coach Sukhvinder Singh shouted instructions.
“The power to strike the ball comes from here (he pointed to his hip and pelvic muscles). This team don’t have Balaram, Chuni, PK or Jarnail. I mean, the current players lack the muscle and strength to strike the ball hard or a tough tackle. They’re wafer thin.”
However, much of the enthusiasm at the national camp — which had IM Vijayan, Khalid Jamil, Renedy Singh and others — stemmed from the constant chatter of the voluble and affable talisman of Indian football.
Pradipda had seen more of football in his days as a star player and coach than almost anyone else in the country. When he talked, the players listened, and the mood filtered through.
He was not only a great coach but a highly-spirited person who lifted the sagging morale of his players and people around him.
I don’t think we ever have had any boring sessions whenever he was around as Pradipda could go on and on. Besides the vast knowledge on the sport that he possessed, he could tell a tale on anything – science, religion, music, literature, movies and politics.
He was always like the proverbial jolly-good-fellow with a happy-go-lucky charm.
I had my first glimpse of him as a school boy at the railway colony on Kaiser Street near Sealdah station in Calcutta in 1982. During that time he was employed with the Eastern Railways whom he represented in all major competitions.
15 years later I interviewed him at Delhi’s Talkatora Park on a cold afternoon at EB training. When one of the players complained on the biting cold and darkness, pat came a humour-laced reply.
By 2003-04 season, Pradipda had virtually said goodbye to active coaching. But when Mohammedan Sporting approached him to guide them in the National Football League, he couldn’t say no.
“Sultan khub request korlo, felte parlam na re. Ami nijeke bojhalam, Mohun Bagan, East Bengal ke toh coaching koriyechi, Mohammedan ke jodi na kichu diy seta onnay hobe.” (Sultan had requested me a lot. I couldn’t say no to him. I told myself that I had coached Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, it will be wrong if I don’t take up this offer).
I met him for the last time six years later in March, 2009, at the felicitation ceremony of 1956 football Olympians Samar Banerjee, MA Salam, Zulfikar, Nikhil Nandi, SS Narayan and Ahmed Hussain.
It was a difficult sight for me to see him limp after he survived a cerebral attack and his right side was crippled by paralysis.
Even painful was when he told a rookie journalist, who asked for an autograph, “My son, I can’t move my hand.”
The candle has burned out on March 20, 2020, but his legacy will live on for years.
