"What's FAFA, Lobo Lobo? Surely you mean FIFA?" "No men, FAFA. Dat stands for 'Football Amen Football Ah Men'. The name is given to us our mentor Maradona."
Illustration/Uday Mohite
So, my cable guy Lobo Lobo came to my house, unannounced, as the FIFA game between the USA and North Korea was about to begin.(Yes, before you correct me, dear reader, North Korea has a team. Kim Jong-un's demand to President Trump was that they be allowed to field a team, or else they would nuke the world.) Lobo Lobo stood at my doorstep, dressed in Egyptian football fan garb, complete with Tutankhamen headgear.
"Why are you dressed like the Sphinx?" I asked. "Mr Rahul… I'm a fan of Mo Salah, he's my choice for GOAT (Greatest of all Time). We are trying to get him as Chief Guest for our 'Vaka-Vaka' tournament, next year," Lobo Lobo replied. 'Uh, Mr Lobo, that was Shakira's song at the FIFA 2010, and the song is actually Waka-Waka." "No men, Vaka-Vaka, stands for 'Virar All Kick Association'. It's our own World Cup men; we hold it at the back of de church in Virar. Also we have our own official Vaka-Vaka song, we don't need dat bliking Robbie Williams or anyone else to sing for us."
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"So, who sings your song, then? Mika Singh? Sonu Nigam?" I asked "My wife Myrtle, and my girls, Cinderella and Petunia. Dey call demselves 'The Lobo Lassies." "Okay, and what's your official song called?" "It's called Virar De World. Here are de lyrics - Virar De World Virar De People, Football is our world So let's believe it, Dere's a goal for you and me And a couple of penalties Red cards make a brighter game For Ronaldo and Messi" I paused for breath.
"Who are the teams that play at your World Cup, Lobo Lobo?" "See Dikuna, we are very toughtful and careful how we plan. We don't want to be like all de udder footer tournaments, all dose Chhetri–Fetri, Bhutia-Futia ones, or the Abhishek Bachchan ones where dey use wrong English terms like 'Let's Football'. Our teams are from all over de world and also India — but all dese cities have to begin wid the alphabet 'V', like Virar. Got de idea na? Clever no? So we have 11 teams — from Vadodara, Vidarbha, Varanasi, Vizag, Vakola, Vellore, Vancouver, Vladivostok, Venice, Vasco and a special team from Vagator, mostly made up of Russian expats, captained by a bloke called Stalin Lenin. That is our FAFA tournament."
"What's FAFA, Lobo Lobo? Surely you mean FIFA?" "No men, FAFA. Dat stands for 'Football Amen Football Ah Men'. The name is given to us our mentor Maradona." "The Maradona… Deigo Maradona... the Argentinian legend. You know him? How? How?" I enquired incredulously. "No no, men, not dat fellow, men. He is the 'Hand of God'. We have our Hand of God, he is our priest at our Lady of Perpetual Succour, Fadder Maradona Machado."
Rahul da Cunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahuldacunha62@gmail.com
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