It’s Monday in Mumbai and the weekend fever has given way to the rigours of the routine. To make matters worse, the city is witnessing another heavy downpour making it the second-wettest July in 60 years. Severe traffic jams and sluggish public transport have slowed down Mumbai.
Amidst the chaos, two kabaddi matches are on the cards at the National Sports Club of India in Worli as the Pro Kabaddi seasons moves into full swing. The home team U Mumba are enjoying their deserved day off and the partisan crowd at the arena is forced to be neutral. Yet, the stadium is more than half full as the first game of the day gets underway. It fills up even more as the evening progresses. There is no argument here: Pro Kabaddi has given the sport a new lease of life.
However, Mumbai crowds thronging to kabaddi matches is not a first. The city’s love for the game goes back decades. A few kilometres away from the NSCI is the suburb of Lower Parel. Now, a flourishing commercial zone in the city characterised by its skyline, it was once known as the Mecca of kabaddi.
Several small clubs operated in the locality, producing many a champion player. The passion for the sport was such that it was to change its future.
In 1972, Lower Parel got the biggest recognition for its kabaddi when local hero Sadanand Shetye was bestowed with the prestigious Arjuna Award, the first-ever for a kabaddi player.
The occasion was a massive one for the kabaddi community. Their passionate efforts on the kabaddi court over the years had borne fruit. Their hero had been celebrated.
“I remember as my train from Delhi entered Dadar station, I was taken aback by the amount of people on the platform. I was wondering what had happened. But as I stepped down from the train, I realised the 500-odd people on the platform were all from our kabaddi community who had come to receive. It was a great feeling,” Shetye, now 80, who still lives in same locality of Lower Parel told Scroll.in.
Born to sport-loving parents, Shetye was exposed to kabaddi at a very young age. By 10, he had already started stepping onto the kabaddi court.
“From a very young age, I had dedicated all my time to kabaddi. I used to play at the Vijay Bajrang Vyayam Shala here in Lower Parel every single day. We didn’t have any coaches, but we practiced regularly and hard. When you have that kind of dedication, a sportsman always finds ways to grow,” he stated.
Playing for the Vijay Bajrang team, Shetye’s talent had caught everyone’s eye. By the age of 15, he was already a popular name among the kabaddi circles.
The All-India competitions in Indore which his team won for three straight years was life-changing for Shetye. He developed tremendous self-belief from those competitions between the age of 15 and 17 which reflects in his demeanour even today.
The big break
During another such tournament in Thane in 1957, Shetye was to get his first big break in kabaddi. Facing a strong Central Railways team, the youngster brought his remarkable raiding skills to the fore, taking the Central Railways defence to cleaners and winning the match for his side. It was yet another feather in the cap of 17-year-old prodigy, and one that was to reward him handsomely.
The next day, a Railways officer dropped in at his training site and took Shetye to their office. To his amazement, he was offered a job in the Railways for his heroics against one of their own teams.
“I was in the awe of the office. It was so big and neat. The senior officer there wanted me to join Railways from that very day. I was offered a job in Railways at the age of 17. It was big at that time. I also had the opportunity to play for Maharashtra team, but the way the Railways officers treated me, I decided to take up their offer,” a nostalgic Shetye revealed.
The same year he played his first senior national kabaddi championship at the age of 17 to kickstart a glorious journey. He went on to play 16 straight national championships for the Railways side without a break, winning 12 titles in that run. A feat unmatched till date.
All-rounder in the true sense
Shetye was a complete player. He had all the tricks in his book for raiding as well as defence. Extremely agile and supremely fit, his presence on the court used to send shivers down the opponent players. With him on the court, the team was never beaten.
“I was lightning quick in my raids. I knew exactly which player to target and 90% of the time, I used to get them out. I was a fine cover defender too. My prime skills were diving thigh hold and block. I can say I had skills of two different players. I was the complete all-rounder,” the veteran asserted.
His trademark move as a raider was the jump. It’s called the frog jump in today’s terminology and it’s a move where a raider jumps over the defender to skip his tackle. One needs to rise as high as 5-6 feet in the air to successfully execute it and Shetye did it with ease. As his career progressed, there was a separate fan base just for the move.
“My jump was very famous. People used to come just to watch that move. Many asked me to teach them that move but I was unable to as it happened instinctively to me. I couldn’t perform that jump anywhere else but for the kabaddi court,” he added.
A fighter till the very end
Even at 80, age hasn’t caught up with the kabaddi legend. He remembers every moment of his playing days like it happened yesterday
Shetye recalls an incident while playing for Maharashtra in the 20th National Games in Jabalpur in 1962. Maharashtra were down to just three players and were trailing by a few points in the game. Only two minutes were left on the clock. For most, the game was over. But Shetye told his teammates to just survive the opponent raids and leave the rest to him.
In he went and came away with five raid points. The game was turned on its head in a flash and Maharashtra prevailed in an encounter when all seemed lost couple of minutes before. In today’s times, a five-point raid is very rare and only a handful of raiders have that honour. However, Shetye felt the task was even tougher in his times.
“On the mud you needed a lot of skill to get players out. We used to play with the midline 20 feet away. Now it’s just 10 feet away. There were no bonus points in our times, only touch points. So, for me to score five points in that raid for very special,” he stated.
The veteran feels kabaddi is as much about skills as it is about tolerating pain. Injuries are part and parcel of the game. Shetye carried his bruised knees and elbows with pride for twenty years. For him, it was a proof of his excellence.
His biggest tryst with physical pain came in the Mauli Mandal tournament in Thane. He got a kick from a defender and suffered a deep cut just above his right eyebrow during the semi-final. He had to take eight stitches to mend the wound. The next day he travelled with the team to support them in the final, but once he reached the venue, the pain gave way to adrenaline.
“I couldn’t hold myself back. My will power was so strong that the pain of missing the match was greater than the one that the injury gave me. I decided to play and single-handedly won our team the match. All my stitches came out and I had to be taped. But that was one of my most memorable occasions as a player,” Shetye suggested.
After winning nine national championships as a player, Shetye’s achievements could no longer be kept under wraps. Kabaddi, which was not considered for an Arjuna award till that time, had its first winner in 1972. Shetye was invited by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for a coffee party in New Delhi after receiving the award. His kabaddi prowess had inspired people far beyond the state boundaries.
Coaching and other key roles
After retiring at the age of 36, Shetye became the coach of the Railways side, a duty he performed for twenty more years. He won seven national championship titles as a coach and inspired many young players in Maharashtra.
In 1983, as India announced itself on the international cricket stage, Shetye was playing a key role in laying the foundation for spreading kabaddi internationally.
He was an expert player in a 60-man delegation that toured countries like Japan, Malaysia and Thailand where kabaddi was demonstrated. The response was encouraging and it was the first step towards taking the game to the Asian Games.
When kabaddi made its first appearance at the 1990 Asiad, Shetye was the government nominee in the selection panel that picked India’s first Asian Games.
Unmatched legacy
There have been 33 Arjuna awardees in kabaddi since Shetye. Today, kabaddi players are earning in lakhs and crores. Shetye didn’t have that privilege, but that doesn’t bug him.
“I never got a great deal of money from kabaddi, but my popularity had no bounds. I’m satisfied with that. I’m glad to see that our players earn so well these days. It makes me feel proud that my small contribution in popularising the sport has led to this,” Shetye expressed.
He is a fan of the high-paced kabaddi of the Pro Kabaddi age and feels it is an important step in spreading the game across the globe. He doesn’t quite see himself in any of the new players with the game having changed a lot, but he does have his favourites.
“In today’s age, the player that impresses me the most is Pardeep Narwal. That player has prepared himself really well and I can sense he is the kind of player that can turn around a game at any point of time. He’s very good, but I was better,” Shetye says with a chuckle.
For the sport’s first-ever Arjuna awardee who made way for many more, we’ll take his point.