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Sourav Ganguly’s hero-worship reinforced by documentary

'The Warrior Prince', as its name suggests, attempts to bring out the heroic essence of the former India captain.

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Sourav Ganguly © Getty Images
Sourav Ganguly — one of Calcutta’s most celebrated sons © Getty Images

‘The Warrior Prince’ is a decent effort to capture the life and career of one of Bengal’s revered sons, but the bias of the fan is evident and robs the show of an engagement necessary in a documentary, writes Abhishek Mukherjee.

When Sourav Ganguly speaks, at least on camera, there is a casual air about him that is typical in the short, straightforward answers or statements. His fans are perhaps awed by this relaxed manner that exudes confidence. A documentary on him named The Warrior Prince, discusses all major events and milestones in his career via words of a number of people important in that journey of his and sugarcoats them into an audio-visual product that would most likely appeal to the emotional fans.

The makers have done a fair job of doing basic homework on him. The perspectives on him and his cricket gets richer with the significant number of people providing their thoughts on him, but the effort gets diluted with overly dramatic presentation. VIDEO: The Warrior Prince: A movie on Sourav Ganguly, Part 1 of 8

Ganguly provides recollections of various noteworthy events with unsurprising simplicity, starting with his first century at Eden Gardens and the accommodation he was provided on his first trip to England. He barely skims the surface: there are no major warming revelations or anecdotes. The only topic that sees him a bit serious and philosophical is his clash with the then coach Greg Chappell in 2005 and his hurt in being ignored from the team in 2007-08 that catalysed his retirement. However, to be fair to him, he maintains his dignity in everything he says.

People talking about him in the documentary have nice things to say about him. Sachin Tendulkar is seen talking with warmth about his time spent with Ganguly. His family talks of his school days and first steps to professional cricket. The national selector who included him in the team in 1996 talks about what happened in the selection meeting for the tour of England. Ricky Ponting elaborates his observations on the man and his career. Youngsters Virender Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh show their respect and gratitude to him, and Yuvraj Singh talks about an April fool joke that had the man stumped.

But the surprise was Chappell, who spoke clearly about the difference in phases of Ganguly’s demeanour and mindset: in 2003, during India’s tour of Australia; in 2005, when a major tussle between the two saw the Kolkatan out of the Indian side; and during his comeback to the Indian team in 2006-07. The aggressive, streamlined captain gave way to a stagnated one, which thereby worked to inspire him towards a fitter, meaner version later that Chappell said was close to the youngster he had seen in 2003. Chappell’s words, however, were repeatedly interrupted by Ganguly’s explanation of what was wrong during that controversial phase, showing a clear bias that would not satisfy a truth-seeker. READ: ICC World Cup 1999: Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid take Sri Lanka to cleaners

The anchoring by actress Chaiti Ghoshal was an attempt at being poetic without much substance of profoundness. The idea was to bring out the aura of the man that justified the title The Warrior Prince;  what it ended up doing was to dumb down the seriousness of the endeavour to capture the essence of the man. Phrases like “It was in this modest light of shadow and sunlight that Sourav’s cricketing journey began” had little meaning besides exciting the teenage fan. She also says, “Playing for the state is no mean achievement, especially in India, where cricket is so big. And that achievement arrived in Sourav’s life with a bit of melodramatic setting”. Was this an obscure joke of some kind?

The aesthetics of the visual montage and the background music were also dreamlike. The opening had the graphics of a hardbound book with the words The Warrior Prince written on it alongside a bat and a ball. The ending had a montage of Ganguly’s expressions on and off the cricket field — in other words, his ‘moments’ — played with a song about a hero whose autograph was sought. The YouTube user who uploaded the video mentioned it wasn’t a commercial but a documentary; but on the basis of its presentation, it wasn’t far away from a commercial that encouraged hero-worship.

Ganguly is currently involved in helping Indian cricket as a part of an advisory panel of BCCI. He has remained busy with work, be it anchoring or commentating or helping Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB). When this documentary came out, he was still playing IPL. The hero-worship, it is fair to say, has waned, and maybe the makers of this docu-film will have done a more substantial job of it today.

(Abhishek Mukherjee is a reporter with CricketCountry. His Twitter handle is @bhejafryyy)

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