For the love of kabaddi

Over the last two days, the National Kabaddi Stadium in Paltan was the site of some curious and indeed unprecedented goings on. Although it was not the Kabaddi season, the final of the National Kabaddi Championship seemed to be taking place. Also, there seemed to be significantly more fans and television cameras than one would expect for the oft-neglected national sport. And why would a kabaddi final take two days? Even the names of the two finalists will cause alarm -- Fire Club and Hawa (air) Club. Upon closer inspection, it was not a real match, rather a match enacted for an upcoming movie called “Bhalobashte Mon Lage” (Love requires a heart).
This low-budget movie is the first movie made in the country centred on the much-neglected national sport. The producers took the noble step of highlighting the chivalrous aspects of the game in a bid to revive the sport.
Shot on digital cameras over five months the plot of the movie, directed by Kalam Kawsar for Padmo-Kanan Production, takes a course similar to most other contemporary Bengali movies. The hero is a happy-go-lucky boy named Sagar (played by debutant Hridoy Chowdhury), who loves this sport more than his life and hires himself out to different teams. On one such assignment, Sagar meets his to-be-beloved Nadi (Nirjona) at a village and rescues her from the evil eyes of the antagonist. Sagar makes it his aim to win the love of the girl through kabaddi.
In the last sequence of the movie, Nadi ducks a flight abroad and comes straight to the stadium to encourage Sagar, who is captaining Fire Club in the final. The denouement contains much drama, passion, and a fistfight. Can the Fire Club emerge victorious? Readers will have to find out for themselves. It is expected to be released during Eid-ul-Adha.