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When a dear family member succumbed to the dreaded cancer in 2017, Jairaj Galagali was obviously distraught; juggling work, home and hospital was stressful.
The California-based Indian technician had to do something to relieve the stress. The cricket bug that had bitten him years ago came to his rescue and an inspiring idea was born.
“The mind needed a breather, to escape to another world, to my 12-year-old self when life revolved around cricket and movies,” Galagali begins in his deep baritone.
“I decided to dig up vintage footage of priceless moments in India’s rich cricket history,” he says, sitting in his Bengaluru apartment while on a bus holiday.
Today, their non-profit YouTube channel “Jai Galagali” features several old videos dating back to the 1940s from the Indian film division, as well as self-made videos related to the cricket
His channel has over 30,000 subscribers and millions of viewers across all cricket playing countries. In addition, Galagali has come to be known as an archivist and aficionado of Indian cricket history, a fact acknowledged by well-known cricketers and the media.
However, his journey from 2017 was not a smooth one. Sitting in his studio in California, he had to make numerous late-night phone calls to the film division in Bombay that often went unanswered. Galagali doggedly pursued his goal, knocking on many doors before finally getting his booty after paying for it. The shipment of 200 DVDs (each DVD was a newscast that also contained bits of cricket) arrived at his door.
“I brought that box that literally contained the history of Indian cricket and when I took it to my room, tears welled up in my eyes,” he says with a half-smile.
The telecasts included every cricket match filmed in India since 1948, a year after India’s independence in 1947. Some of them had soundtracks, many did not, he adds.
Galagali jumped into action quickly and posted the videos on his YouTube channel with some editing. Little by little, he added some depth to the videos with a short narration adding context, background and interesting information. The libraries of Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, were useful repositories for his research.
The first video, Galagali recalls, was a three-minute one from the 1973 India-England match in Calcutta and the last video is an interview with former India wicketkeeper Syed Kirmani, who recently released his autobiography in Bangalore.
Some of the popular videos include India’s first Test cricket win in 1952 at Madras; Indian players are seen wearing black wristbands as a mark of respect to the late King George VI. In this memorable video, Galagali also interviews CDGopinath, now in his nineties, who took the winning catch in that match.
Another is from the first India-Pakistan Test series in 1952 where the bowling action of the legendary Subhash Gupte is presented live for the first time.
There are other memorable bits of cricket matches played in the 1950s and 1960s between India and England, India and the West Indies, Pakistan’s tour of India and the debut matches of some of the best players in india cricket
Cricket matches have always seen a bit of drama and an amazing video is of an enthusiastic lady in a saree who beat the security and reached the pitch to kiss Brijesh Patel as he scored 50 runs in the India Test match -West Indies in Bombay, 1975.
Unexpectedly, Galagali’s labor of love hit a snag in 2020 when he received an email from YouTube citing a copyright violation from the Government of India. Realizing that he was not wrong, especially after paying for the DVDs, he made several requests to the Films Division that fell on deaf ears.
Galagali then contacted cricket-loving politician Shashi Tharoor, who wrote a scathing letter to the ministry highlighting the importance of this channel. Some cricketers also expressed their opinion in favor of the channel. Soon, the channel resumed.
During the Covid lockdown, Galagali posted videos regularly, giving viewers, especially cricket lovers, an option when live matches were not telecast.
The response on Galagali’s YouTube channel is encouraging. “The footage brings a lot of the warmth, nostalgia and joy of cricket’s many stories to so many viewers,” he gushes, going on to quote some responses.
A teenager from Delhi called to thank Galagali because his grandfather, who suffered from dementia, opened up, recalling the past after watching some videos.
Legendary India captain Pataudi’s daughter sent a message saying that the videos brought back a lot of memories of her father.
An economist, who suffers from cancer, wrote to say that she watched the videos endlessly because she was a spectator in one of them.
It was “yesterday again” for a Sri Lankan cricketer, who currently lives in Australia after watching a reel of the first Test series between India and Sri Lanka. The cricketer played in this series.
So far, Galagali has only released about fifty percent of the valuable treasure it holds. Fortunately, with the family member back in good health, viewers can look forward to many more Indian cricket videos.
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