An year without Maradona

 Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984 and her nationally televised cremation ceremony was an event which was watched by our whole nation, it was more or less an introduction of the visual media and TV to our nation.  Many of us did not have TV then, we walked miles and went to those houses where they had. Everybody co-operated.

I was in my school final in 1986 when the world cup came. By then we had a black and white Keltron TV that came in a case with shutter. It was on that TV our generation watched and experienced the first global event – The FIFA world cup of 1986.

That was undoubtedly Maradona’s world cup. With his game, talent and spirit he won us over and made us a fan of him and his country, Argentina, a country we had not heard about. Maradona became our hero. Excessive fouling and harsh man marking did not let him be as successful in 1990 world cup as he was in 1986 and in the one that followed in 1994 he was disgraced and banned for use of unacceptable drugs.

For the way he made us feel and experience the peaks of joy and excitement in 1986 he stayed in our heart as our hero and we went through all the bad news about him with a sad heart and kept only the memories of the game he once played.

It's going to be an year since he is gone, but the memories will not go away from our hearts till we die.

Thank you Diego, for your life and making that fleeting part of our lives in 1986 when the way you played football ruled our hearts and made it the best times of our lives.