This project is about exploring India’s regional football through the players coming from different parts of Chhattisgarh state and to understand their relationship with the sport and how it inspires each other. I am looking at football at the grassroots level to understand the part of football culture I missed out on as a kid.

In India, there is a lack of awareness about our football history. There exist just a few works of literature dedicated to football, and only recently have some efforts been made to study the sport in its political, historical and social context. Therefore, it has little visibility outside of the localised cultures of specific regions and specific communities. Where cricket has been successfully appropriated into Indian culture, football has not. I spent watching a lot of local football matches at the stadium observing the things I recently learned about. This led me to work on this experience of being at the stadium and looking at a match unlike on TV. Somewhere I wanted to create the same ambiance as in a stadium and make people realise the beauty of a sport as it unfolds in front of them. Also spending time with players during these training sessions, I got to know them better as a person as well. I started spending more time with them off-field. I got to know about their lifestyles, stories, their families and friends. All these experiences both inside and outside the football field helped me to live and become familiar with the local football culture in Chhattisgarh and to explore the environment of the game in my social landscape.

Beyond ninety minutes   (3-channel video installation)

Photo Exhibition