It is most likely that you would assume an Indian sporting fixture that regularly attracts more than a lakh could only be a game of cricket. Certainly not in Kolkata, where on Saturday, hundreds of thousands thronged the city`s Salt Lake Stadium for the latest instalment of the `Boro Derby`, as East Bengal locked horns with Mohun Bagan in what might well be the most heavily-attended and historically significant derby one has never heard of.

In fact, there appears to be a bubbling effervescence escaping the stadium each time the two take the field that makes fans want to jump the ticket barriers to get in. “The first derby game I attended was in January 1998. Four of us went, my dad and I the maroons, and my uncle and my cousin the reds. At the half time, with Bagan winning 1-0 and our stand being a sea of green and maroon scarves, everything seemed so sweet. At the final whistle, Bagan had won 2-1, I remember I was in floods of tears and inconsolable. I was only six at that time,” Prasun Sengupta told Mid-Day.