<img style="float: left;" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2021/oct/Rahul-op_e.jpg" alt="Rahul Da Cunha" width="200" height="69" />Hey Dikuna men!&rdquo; Lobo Lobo yelled across my building compound.
&ldquo;Lobo Lobo&hellip; hi, you wanna keep it down?&rdquo; I said.
&ldquo;Sorry men Bossie, just returned back from Goa wid my old football teammates&hellip;we all met up foe de 40-year reunion of our football victory! Among dem nobody tolks at de normal volume, everyone shouts at each udder&hellip; wedder it&rsquo;s on de footer field or wedder it&rsquo;s normal chit chat.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Tell me about this team, Theo?&rdquo;
&ldquo;Us men, our football team at Glaxos, we won de Durand Cup in 1981. Solid team we were&hellip; remember I tolded you about the LGBT forward line formation I was part of&hellip; ah solid harmony we had&hellip; mainly de foe of us... LGBT&hellip; Lobo Govindraj Bandopadyaya Thampi, we had our own Tiki Taka formation... we called it as &lsquo;Dis way Dat way&rsquo;,&rdquo; he said nostalgically.
&ldquo;You seem a little crestfallen, Lobo Lobo, beneath the bonhomie&hellip; didn&rsquo;t you have fun, this was a reunion of all your old teammates... a boys get-together?&rdquo;
&ldquo;Men Dikuna&hellip; you are right, we had socko &lsquo;damaal&rsquo;&hellip; all celebrating de good ol&rsquo; times&mdash;But I&rsquo;ll tell you sumting&hellip; I have not shared wid anyone. See we were a team from Bombay&hellip; all all communities were dere, full &lsquo;cosmo&rsquo; we are, we never cared about who is from wot state or religion&hellip; we were a team of guys who worked togedder, who happened to love footer&mdash;I, Teo Lobo was Catlick, from Bandra. I was referred to as, &lsquo;Maka Pao&rsquo;, our inside- right from Kerala was Govindraj who was called &lsquo;Mallu&rsquo;, den Shunasir Bandophadyaya, so we called him, &ldquo;Bong&rsquo; was de centre forward, Thampi was de right winger from Tamil Nadu so he was &lsquo;Tambi&rsquo;&hellip; we foe of us formed LGBT. Den all de udders&mdash;Nallaseth, called &lsquo;Bawa&rsquo; from Dadar Parsi Colony&hellip; tin bugger but like one eel, he could slider past de opposition and his counterpart, was Homiyar Irani aka Iru&hellip; ooff dose two buggers&hellip; deadly combo dey were! And de full back Rakesh Solanki was &lsquo;Gujjubhai&rsquo; and our captain was Satyapal Singh Bindra, &lsquo;Sardarji&rsquo; he was to us, imagine he was a truckdriver for Glaxo goods, but still captained us!
And de goalkeeper Taqdeer Aslam, from Dongri.&nbsp;
Big blighter he was, &lsquo;Miya&rsquo; we called him, he toh covered de full goalpost&hellip; what a religious man&hellip; didn&rsquo;t matter what he was doing, he toh prayed five times a day&hellip; arrey even we were playing&hellip; at de appointed hour, he would stop, take out his mat and do namaaz .&rdquo;
&ldquo;So why you &lsquo;down&rsquo; Lobo Lobo?&rdquo;
&ldquo;Everyting has changed men Dikuna! We were in de dining hall eating de buffet, and I shouted to Natarajan, &ldquo;Oi Tambi, mereko ek jalebi leke aana!&rdquo; Arey full restaurant stopped eating, pin drop silence&hellip; and solid &lsquo;gusss guss&rsquo; started.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Yeah this is the new India, Lobo Lobo.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Dikuna men, it wasn&rsquo;t just in public&hellip; we were playing a friendly footer game on de beach, and I&rsquo;m yelling to Shunasir, &lsquo;Hey Bong, men&hellip; pass de ball to Mallu, pass pass!&rsquo; After de game, we were all having one two beers, Shunasir &nbsp;told me, in frent of everyone&hellip; &lsquo;Uhm Lobo&hellip; please no offence, will you call me by my name&hellip; not &lsquo;Bong&rsquo;. Den slowly one by one, everyone said, dat we should refrain from dese, community pet-names. Even &nbsp;my best friend in de team, &lsquo;Miya&rsquo; said dat it was ok, in de &rsquo;80s, but not now&hellip; &lsquo;Lobo Bhai, aaj se main Taqdeer hoon, please sirf &nbsp;Taqdeer&rsquo;.&rdquo;
Then Lobo Lobo broke into a smile and said, &ldquo;Accha but all is not a sob story, our Parsi dikra Nallaseth spoke up, &lsquo;Hey listen you rascals, I insist you still call me &lsquo;Bawa&rsquo; samajyu ke or else?&rsquo;&rdquo;
&ldquo;Why treatening, men &lsquo;Bawaji&rsquo;, we aksed him.
&ldquo;Because anyone who calls me by my real name, &lsquo;Dadabai Dhunjisha Dorabji&rsquo;, will pay for it!&rdquo; he said wid a twinkle in his eye.
Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com
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`You seem a little crestfallen, Lobo Lobo, beneath the bonhomie… didn’t you have fun, this was a reunion of all your old teammates... a boys get-together?

Lobo Lobo and his LGBT

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Lobo Lobo and his LGBT

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