Lionel Messi has never walked down College Street. Cristiano Ronaldo has never stood beneath the floodlights of the Maidan. Neymar has never argued over tea at a North Kolkata adda. Yet all three have lived in Kolkata for years.They have travelled on the backs of buses, appeared on school notebooks, stared down from posters above study tables and accompanied generations of Bengalis through board exams, first jobs, heartbreaks, surgeries, marriages and midnight arguments.
Murals of Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and Messi in Kolkata
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
For nearly three decades, Kolkata has adopted them with the intensity it usually reserves for poets, political ideologies and football clubs.Now, as the possibility of one final World Cup looms over Messi, Ronaldo and Neymar, the city finds itself confronting a thought it has carefully avoided.What happens when these three men suddenly become memories? For this is not merely the retirement of footballers. It is the fading of an era that came of age alongside them, a generation watching its own memories walk slowly toward the touchline.The last gods of a generationFormer striker for the Indian football team, Bhaichung Bhutia remembers that he was lucky enough to witness Maradona. “These three players have been the best footballers we have seen in our generation. Messi and Ronaldo have dominated world football for the last two decades and inspired an entire generation of young players. My son plays football and his inspiration has been Messi,” says the ‘Sikkimese sniper’ as he is fondly called.
