When a beloved family member was diagnosed with the dreaded cancer in 2017, Jayaraj Galagali was clearly distraught; Juggling between work, home and hospital was difficult.
California-based, Indian techies need to do something to ease the pressure. The cricket bug that bit him years ago came to his rescue and an inspiring idea was born.
“The mind needed a break, an escape to another world, to my 12-year-old self when life revolved around cricket and movies,” begins Galagali in his deep baritone.
“I decided to dig out vintage footage of priceless moments from India’s rich cricket history,” he says, sitting in his Bengaluru apartment on the batsman’s leave.
Today, his non-profit YouTube channel ‘Joy Galagali’ features many old videos from the 1940s sourced from India’s film department as well as self-made videos related to cricket.
His channel has over 30,000 subscribers and millions of viewers across cricket playing countries. Moreover, Galagali has become known as an archivist and history buff of Indian cricket, a fact acknowledged by well-known cricketers and media outlets.
However, his journey since 2017 has been no cakewalk. Sitting in his study in California, he had to make numerous phone calls at night to the film division in Mumbai that often went unanswered. The abuser doggedly pursues his target, knocking on many doors before finally getting his booty after paying for it. A shipment of 200 DVDs (each DVD was a newsreel containing cricket tidbits) arrived at his doorstep.
“I carried the box that literally held the history of Indian cricket and when I took it to my room, I had tears in my eyes,” he says with a half-smile.
A year after India’s independence in 1947, newsreels of every cricket match shot in India since 1948 were included. Some of them had soundtracks, many didn’t, he added.
Galagali quickly got to work by posting videos on his YouTube channel with some editing. Gradually, he gives some depth to the videos by adding some context, background and interesting facts with a short description. The libraries of Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley were useful repositories for his research.
The first video, recalling abuse, is a three-minute clip from the 1973 India-England match in Kolkata and the last video is an interview with former Indian wicket-keeper Syed Kirmani, who recently published his autobiography in Bangalore.
Some popular videos include India’s first cricket Test match win at Madras 1952; Indian players are seen wearing black wristbands as a mark of respect to the late King George VI. In that memorable video, Galagali also interviews Sidigopinath, now a senior, who took that match-winning catch.
Another is the first India-Pakistan Test series in 1952 where the bowling action of the legendary Subhash Gupta was brought live for the first time.
Other memorable snippets include cricket matches between India and England, India and West Indies in the 50s and 60s, Pakistan’s tour of India and the debut matches of India’s best cricketers.
There is always some drama in cricket matches and one interesting video is of a spirited woman in a sari who beat the security and climbed onto the pitch to kiss Brijesh Patel for his 50 in the 1975 India-West Indies Test match in Mumbai.
Unexpectedly, Galagali’s labor of love hit a snag in 2020 when he received an email from YouTube citing copyright infringement from the Government of India. Realizing that he was not wrong, especially by paying for DVDs, he made several pleas to the Film Division that fell on deaf ears.
The abuse then reached cricket-loving politician Shashi Tharoor who wrote a scathing letter to the ministry highlighting the significance of such a channel. Some cricketers also gave their opinion on behalf of the channel. Soon, the channel was relaunched.
During the Covid lockdown, Galagali regularly posts videos, giving viewers, especially cricket lovers, an alternative when live matches are not broadcast.
The response to the abuse YouTube channel has been encouraging. “The footage brings the warmth, nostalgia and joy of many cricketing stories to many viewers,” he went on to quote some of the reactions.
A teenager from Delhi called to thank Galagali as his grandfather, who suffers from dementia, remembers the past after watching some videos.
Legendary India captain Pataudi’s daughter sent a message saying the videos brought back a flood of memories of her father.
A prominent economist wrote that his late sister would watch endlessly as she went through chemotherapy because she found herself in the audience in one of his videos.
It was ‘one more time’ for the Sri Lankan cricketer, currently living in Australia, after watching a reel of the first Test series between India and Sri Lanka. This cricketer played in that series.
Galagali has so far posted only fifty percent of the valuable assets in his possession. Thankfully, with the family member now back on the mend, viewers can look forward to more Indian cricket videos.
https://jaigalagali.wordpress.com/
