Mirra Bank’s documentary ‘The Only Real Game’ examines the popularity of baseball in the troubled North-Eastern state
By Mridula Chari
A still from ‘The Only Real Game’
One
of the jokes about the Major League Baseball World Series is that only
one country participates: the United States of America. While this is
factually inaccurate, commentators might soon be able to add India to
the relatively short list.
The Only Real Game, a new documentary by American film-maker
Mirra Bank, showcases Manipur’s unlikeliest products: young baseball enthusiasts.
America’s cricket, rather than India’s national game, captured the
imagination of Manipuris during World War II. US troops posted in
Manipur during the war set up makeshift pitches to pass the time between
battles, and while they were at it, taught the game to Manipuri
children. Today, there are about 27 teams with 300 players across the
state.
Muriel Peters,
one of the documentary’s producers, first heard of baseball players in
Manipur in 2004. “I’ve known Muriel for 25 years, and when she told me
she was about to go to Manipur, and that there might be baseball there, I
said, take a camera,” says Bank. “There is a film there.”
The documentary won an award in New York
Once
she reached Manipur, Peters realized that the game there was
underdeveloped, and that the players relied on locally sourced equipment
of questionable quality. She set up an organization, First Pitch, which
promotes baseball collaboration between Manipur and the US. One of
their goals, to bring Major League coaches to Imphal, is the subject of
The Only Real Game.
For
now, baseball aspirants in Imphal have to settle for an uneven and
rocky pasture they share with football players and cows. Though promised
a pitch about five years ago by
Jarnail Singh, chief secretary of Manipur at the time, this is yet to materialize.
One
of the aims of First Pitch is to take Manipuri children to New York to
meet Major League baseball players. “We really wanted them to come to
New York,” says Peters. “We even put mortgages on our own houses to
stand as security for them.” Though all but one of the four or five
applicants shown in the film were denied visas, Peters is still
optimistic.
“We had initially wanted to take younger children to New
York, but the Manipuri baseball associations selected older ones who are
considered primary flight risks by visa officials.” They plan to try
Bank began shooting
The Only Real Game in 2006—the shooting continued intermittently for five-and-a-half years. The film, made on a budget of around $300,000 (
Rs.18.3
crore), was shot at a time when foreigners were restricted from
travelling to Manipur and permits were given for only 10 days at a time.
While the crew wasn’t prevented from shooting, they were accompanied at
all times by armed guards.
“It
was almost comical at some points,” says Bank, talking of how an entire
military convoy was organized to escort them to a lake in the interiors,
out of the safe zone.
“It wasn’t difficult to shoot, but they were
overdetermined.”
The
documentary is not silent about Manipur’s long-running insurgency, and
intertwines depictions of a handful of sports enthusiasts being trained
by two American coaches with externally-sourced footage of violence
caused by insurgents and the military.
“If
you make a film about baseball, that’s one thing, but if you make a film
about a place like Manipur, to me, it would be completely artificial
and unreal to do it severed from the context,” Bank explains.
“That
situation changes every day, but at the time we were there, this was the
context our characters were living. We see this as necessary for people
in the US as well. They know little about India, let alone about
Manipur.”
The
primary focus of the film-makers was to “portray an unsentimental
version of India”, Bank says. “The term I use is ‘dropping down’—you
don’t try to impose your vision, but you get close to people where they
live emotionally, in their everyday lives, with their children, their
dreams,” she says.
“As much as you can, you stay with them and you
listen.”
The Only Real Game,
which won the award for the Best Documentary at the New York Indian
Film Festival this year and was also shown at the recently held Mumbai
International Film Festival, will travel to various cities in India,
including Manipur where an invite-only event is being held today.
Major
League coaches have visited the troubled state only twice or thrice
after production finished in 2011, and the hope is that the documentary
will revive interest in supporting the sport.
The film-makers hope that
they will be able to use the game as a message of peace for insurgents
as well.
“This
is a story of hope,” says Bank. “The reason the film took so long to
make is that we wanted to find a story that honours the people and their
spirit.
We wanted it to be about their future, their joy. In a way—and
not that I would recommend this—the things they don’t have validate that
they still do what they love.”
The Only Real Game
will
be shown on 31 October at 4pm, Classic Hotel, Imphal (011-46018541); on
5 November at 3pm, Press Club of India, Delhi (46018541); on 7 November
at 6pm, Bangalore International Centre Auditorium,
Teri Complex,
Domlur (9886599675); and on 8 November at 7pm, Suchitra Film Society, BV Karanth Road, Banashankari, Bangalore (26711785).
Click here for details.
