Gallagher’s historic Indian cricket videos on YouTube
Stanley Carvalho |
In 2017, when a dear family member suffered from the dreaded cancer, Jairaj Galagali was clearly worried; Juggling work, home and hospital runs was stressful.
The California-based Indian technician had to do something to relieve the tension. The cricket bug that bit him years ago came to his rescue and an inspiring idea was born.
“When my life revolves around cricket and movies, my mind needs a break to escape to another world, to escape to another world,” begins Galagali in his deep baritone.
“I decided to pull out vintage images from India’s rich cricket history that capture their priceless moments,” he says, sitting in his Bangalore apartment on a bus-man holiday.
Today, his non-profit YouTube channel ‘Jai Galagali’ features a number of old videos from the Indian film industry since the 1940s, as well as self-created cricket-related videos.
His channel has more than 30,000 subscribers and millions of viewers across cricket playing countries. Moreover, Galagalli is known as an archivist and historian of Indian cricket, a fact well known by prominent cricketers and media outlets.
However, the journey from 2017 was not a cakewalk. While studying in California, he had to make many nightly phone calls to the film division in Mumbai, which often went unanswered. Galagali falsely chased the goal, knocking on many doors and finally paying the booty. The 200 DVDs he loaded (each DVD was a newscast with cricket tidbits) landed at the door.
“I was carrying a box that literally contained the history of Indian cricket and when I took it into my room, tears welled up in my eyes,” he half-smiles.
The newsreels cover all cricket matches filmed in India since 1948, a year after India gained independence in 1947. Some had soundtracks, many did not, he said.
Galagali quickly jumped into action, uploading the videos to his YouTube channel with some edits. Gradually, he added some context, background, and interesting information to give a brief narrative to the videos. The libraries of Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley were important repositories for the research.
Galagali recalls that the first video was a three-minute one from the 1973 India-England match in Kolkata, and the latest video was an interview with former India wicketkeeper Syed Kirmani, whose autobiography was recently unveiled in Bangalore.
Some famous videos include India’s first cricket Test match victory in 1952 at Madras; Indian players are seen wearing black wristbands as a mark of respect for the late King George VI. In that memorable video, Galagali interviews CDGopinath, who took the winning run in the match.
Another was the first India-Pakistan Test series in 1952 where the legendary Subhash Gupte’s bowling action was shown live for the first time.
Other memorable cricket matches in the 50s and 60s are 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 seen some drama and a remarkable video shows an enthusiastic woman in a saree breaking through security to kiss Brijesh Patel as he scored 50 runs in an India-West Indies Test match in Mumbai, 1975.
Unexpectedly, Galagali’s labor of love hit a snag in 2020 when the Indian government received an email from YouTube citing copyright infringement. He made several pleas to the film division, which turned a deaf ear to him, especially when he realized he had never made a mistake paying for the DVD.
Galagali then met cricket-loving politician Shashi Tharoor, who wrote a scathing letter to the minister stressing the need for such a channel. Some cricketers have also expressed their support for the channel. Soon the channel resumed.
During the Covid lockdown, Galagali regularly posts videos, which gives viewers, especially cricket lovers, an alternative when live matches are not televised.
The response to Galagali’s YouTube channel has been encouraging. “The footage will bring the warmth, nostalgia and joy of many cricketing stories to a large audience,” he exclaimed and quoted some of the reactions.
A Delhi-based teenager called to thank Galagali because after watching some videos of his grandfather suffering from dementia, he opened up about his past.
The daughter of India’s legendary captain Pataudi tweeted that the videos brought back great memories of her father.
An economist suffering from cancer, she explained that she watched the videos continuously because she was a viewer in one.
It was ‘just yesterday’ for the Australia-based Sri Lankan cricketer after watching the first Test series between India and Sri Lanka at the moment. The cricketer played in that series.
Galagali has posted only about fifty percent of the treasure at hand. Thankfully, with the family member now back in good health, viewers can expect more Indian cricket videos.
