Ishfaq Ahmed has grown up in the shadows of guns and strife.
But even for him, Sunday’s Srinagar was spine-chilling. Army personnel roaming the streets, tension-laden faces of the common man unsure of what the future has in store and the fear of the unknown.
“It’s a different feeling altogether. Eerie I would say. Srinagar has never been like this,” Ishfaq told The Telegraph on Sunday, a couple of hours before Internet connections and telephone lines were shut down.
But all that could not stop football. Arco FC played a match against Real Kashmir Football Club at the TRC Synthetic Turf, the home ground of RKFC, on Sunday. Part of the match was played under floodlights.
“More than the match, people were discussing the latest developments. Rumour mongers had a field day and that’s not helping us,” Ishfaq said. “The atmosphere at the ground was very tensed.”
So what is his plan? “What can I do other than wait? I do not know when normalcy would return. But I cannot leave my parents alone,” he said.
The former India footballer was a regular for Mohun Bagan and East Bengal during his playing days and at present he is part of the support staff of the ISL franchise Kerala Blasters. Ishfaq, along with another former India player Mehrajuddin Wadoo, are the faces of Kashmir football.
The young footballers in the Valley look up to them, idolise their iconic status.
Ishfaq was in Srinagar when the stone-pelting agitation broke out in the summer of 2010. “That was different. Twenty-three hours of curfew, but we were able to communicate with the rest of the world… Somehow managed to watch the 2010 World Cup too,” Ishfaq recollected.
“I still cannot forget… During the one-hour relaxation of the curfew, we used to rush to get things from the market… But what’s happening now is not the same… I hope everything will be fine… I hope football will continue. I have no interest in anything else… RKFC’s promotion to I-League last year created such an interest,” he said.
From Monday, a women’s tournament, organised by the Jammu and Kashmir Football Association, was supposed to begin. Lone Star Kashmir were to play Bemina Football Academy.
“It got cancelled on Monday. We knew it on Sunday itself that match would be cancelled,” Lone Star chairman Iftikhar Ahmed Lone said from New Delhi.
“We have roped in seven-eight outstation players for the women’s league. They are safe. We have our hostel… So there is nothing to worry. The father of one of the players has accompanied the girls. He is also safe,” Lone said.
Have the parents been in touch with Lone? “No, not yet.”
Like others, Lone also has not been able to contact anyone in the Valley. “Just waiting for normalcy to return. What else can you do?”
