Stanley Carvalho | 12:48pm GMT 22 January 2025
When a dear family member was afflicted by the dreaded cancer in 2017, Jairaj Galagali was obviously distraught; juggling a job, home and hospital runs was distressing.
The California-based, Indian techie needed to do something to de-stress. The cricket bug that had bitten him years ago came to his rescue and an inspiring idea was born.
“The mind needed a respite, to escape into another world, to my 12-year-old self when life revolved around cricket and movies,” begins Galagali in his deep baritone.
“I decided to unearth vintage footage of priceless moments from India’s rich cricketing history,” he says, sitting in his Bangalore apartment while on a busman’s holiday.
Today, his non-profit YouTube channel ‘Jai Galagali’ features several old videos dating back to the 1940s sourced from India’s Films Division as well as self-created videos relating to cricket.
His channel has over 30,000 subscribers and millions of viewers across cricket playing countries. Moreover, Galagali has come to be known as an archivist and history buff of Indian cricket, a fact recognised by well-known cricketers and media outlets.
However, his journey from 2017 was no cakewalk. Sitting in his study in California, he had to make numerous phone calls at night to the Films Division in Mumbai that often went unanswered. Galagali doggedly pursued his goal, knocking many doors before finally getting his booty after paying for it. The shipment of 200 DVD’s (each DVD was a newsreel comprising cricket titbits too) landed at his doorstep.
“I carried that box which was literally holding the history of Indian cricket and when I took it to my room, tears welled up in my eyes,” he says half-smiling.
The newsreels comprised every cricket match filmed in India since 1948, a year after India’s independence in 1947. Some of them had soundtracks, many didn’t, he adds.
Galagali swung into action fast, posting the videos on his YouTube channel with some editing. Gradually, he lent some depth to the videos with a brief narration by adding some context, background and interesting information. The libraries of Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley were useful repositories for his research.
The first video, recalls Galagali, was a three-minute one of the1973 India-England match at Kolkata and the latest video is an interview with former Indian wicket-keeper Syed Kirmani, who released his autobiography recently in Bangalore.
Some of the popular videos include India’s first cricket test match victory in 1952 in Madras; the Indian players are seen wearing black wrist bands as a mark of respect to the departed King George VI. In that memorable video, Galagali also interviews C.D.Gopinath, now a nonagenarian, who took the winning catch of that match.
Another is of the first India-Pakistan test series in 1952 where the legendary Subhash Gupte’s bowling action is brought live for the first time.
There are other memorable snippets of cricket matches played in the 50s and 60s between India and England, India and the West Indies, the Pakistan tour of India and the debut matches of some of India’s finest cricketers.
Cricket matches have always seen some drama and one striking video is of an enthusiastic lady in a saree who beat the security and made it to the pitch to kiss Brijesh Patel on scoring 50 runs in the India-West Indies test match in Mumbai, 1975.
Unexpectedly, Galagali’s labour of love hit a snag in 2020 when he received an email from YouTube citing copyright violation from the government of India. Realising he was not in the wrong, especially having paid for the DVD’s, he made several pleas to the Films Division that fell on deaf ears.
Galagali then reached out to cricket loving politician Shashi Tharoor who wrote a scathing letter to the ministry highlighting the significance of such a channel. Some cricketers too voiced their opinion in favour of the channel. Soon, the channel resumed.
During the Covid lockdown, Galagali posted videos regularly, providing viewers, particularly cricket lovers an option when live matches were not telecast.
The response to Galagali’s YouTube channel is encouraging. “The footage brings so much of the warmth, nostalgia and joy of the many cricketing stories to so many viewers,” he gushes and goes on to cite some responses.
A teenager from Delhi called to thank Galagali because his grandfather, suffering from dementia, opened up, recollecting the past after watching some videos.
India’s legendary captain Pataudi’s daughter sent a message saying the videos brought back a flood of memories of her dad.
A renowned economist wrote to say that his late sister while going through chemotherapy would endlessly watch as she spotted herself among the spectators in one of his videos.
It was ‘yesterday once more’ for a Sri Lankan cricketer, currently living in Australia after seeing a reel of the first test series between India and Sri Lanka. The cricketer played in that series.
Galagali has thus far posted only about fifty percent of the valuable treasure in his possession. Thankfully, with the family member now back in good health, viewers can expect many more videos of Indian cricket.
