Kolkata: It all began with a wait, a long wait at a packed ballroom of a top hotel here. Pele was an hour late for the media interaction but, then, that was okay this day. The actual wait had been way too long, after all. It took 'The King' 38 years to revisit the city he had mesmerised with his appearance on a football pitch. So, what had changed in the city from that September of '77, someone asked the legend.


Pele greets West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata yesterday evening. Pic/PTI

"I have been in the hotel since my arrival yesterday," offered Pele. But, then, he wouldn't have had to step out to find out that a lot had changed. It had to. This is a different era. If the 1977 visit was about a football match, and of that rare opportunity to watch the incomparable 'Black Pearl' in action, this day was about a city connecting with those indelible memories.