When a beloved family member was stricken with the dreaded cancer in 2017, Jairaj Galagali was obviously distraught. Juggling a job, home and the hospital was annoying.
The California-based Indian technician had to do something to relieve the stress. The cricket bug that had bitten him years ago came to his rescue and an inspired idea was born.
“The mind needed a break, to escape to another world, to my 12-year-old self when life revolved around cricket and movies,” Galagali begins in his deep baritone.
“I decided to unearth vintage footage of priceless moments from India’s rich cricket history,” he says, sitting in his Bangalore apartment while on a traveller’s holiday.
Today, his non-profit YouTube channel ‘Jai Galagali’ has many old videos dating back to the 1940s from India’s film department, as well as self-made cricket-related videos.
His channel has over 30,000 subscribers and millions of viewers across all cricket playing countries. In addition, Galagali became known as an archivist and aficionado of Indian cricket history, a fact acknowledged by well-known cricketers and media.
However, his journey since 2017 has not been a cakewalk. Sitting in his study in California, he had to make many phone calls at night to the Film Department in Bombay that often went unanswered. Galagalli doggedly pursued his goal, knocking on several doors before finally taking his loot after paying for it. The shipment of 200 DVDs (each DVD was a newsreel that also included bits of cricket) landed on his doorstep.
“I brought this box that literally held the history of Indian cricket and when I took it to my room, tears welled up in my eyes,” he says half-laughing.
The newsreels included every cricket match filmed in India since 1948, a year after India’s independence in 1947. Some of them had soundtracks, many did not, he adds.
Galagalli quickly jumped into action, posting the videos on his YouTube channel with little editing. Gradually, he added some depth to the videos with a short narrative by adding some context, background 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 clip from the 1973 India-England match in Kolkata and the last video is an interview with former India wicketkeeper Syed Kirmani, who launched his autobiography recently in Bangalore.
Some of the popular videos include India’s first Test cricket win in 1952 in Madras. Indian players are seen wearing black wristbands as a mark of respect to the late King George VI. In this memorable video, Galagalli also interviews the now defunct CDGopinath, who took the winning catch of that match.
Another is of the first India-Pakistan Test series in 1952, where the bowling action of the legendary Subhash Gupte is broadcast live for the first time.
There are other memorable clips of cricket matches played in the 1950s and 1960s between India and England, India and West Indies, Pakistan’s tour of India and the first matches of some of India’s best cricketers.
Cricket matches have always had drama and one striking video is of an enthusiastic lady in a sari who beat security and reached the field to kiss Brijesh Patel after scoring 50 runs in the India-West Indies test match in Mumbai in 1975.
Unexpectedly, Galagalli’s love hit a roadblock in 2020 when he received an email from YouTube citing copyright infringement by the Government of India. Realizing that he was not wrong, especially having paid for the DVDs, he made several appeals to the Film Department that 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 also expressed their opinion in favor of the channel. Soon, the channel continued.
During the Covid lockdown, Galagali posted videos regularly, providing viewers, especially cricket fans, with an option when live matches were not televised.
The response to Galagali’s YouTube channel has been encouraging. “The footage brings so much of the warmth, nostalgia and joy of cricket’s many stories to so many viewers,” he gushes and goes on to list some responses.
A teenager from Delhi called to thank Galagalli because his grandfather, who suffered from dementia, opened up, reminiscing after watching some videos.
Legendary India captain Pataudi’s daughter sent a message saying the videos brought back a flood of memories of her dad.
An economist, who was suffering from cancer, wrote to say that she watched the videos endlessly because she was a viewer in one of them.
It was “yesterday again” for a Sri Lankan cricketer, who currently lives in Australia, after watching a reel of the first Test series between India and Sri Lanka. The cricketer played in that series.
Galagalli has so far published only about fifty percent of the precious treasure in his possession. Fortunately, with the family member now in good health, viewers can look forward to many more Indian cricket videos.
https://jaigalagali.wordpress.com/
