Arnab Sengupta, the star of the November 2015 Indian short film, By the Baize, proudly exclaimed that the film was “the first movie of any kind based on snooker to come out of India.”[1]
India makes more movies than any other country – about 1,500 to 2,000 annually.[2] And, as with American cinema, sports play a fundamental thematic role in those films, whether it’s cricket (Azhar; Sachin, etc.), rugby (Sye), auto racing (Ta Ra Rum Pum), basketball (Vallinam), swimming (Koni), running (Bhaag Milkha Bhaagi), field hockey (Chak De! India), wrestling (Dangal), boxing (Irudhi Suttru), or the local contact sport of kabaddi (Kabaddi Once Again).
But, Mr. Sengupta was not kidding. In fact, aside from the 1971 documentary biopic Wilson Jones about one of the greatest Indian billiards legends, there is a near pan-cinematic absence of billiards (and/or snooker) across all genres and formats of Indian film, excluding the very rare cameo, such as in the 1985 Bollywood film Sauda.
Perhaps, the conspicuous void is because of India’s somewhat bumpy history with the sport. As billiards historians know well, snooker can trace its origin to the the city of Jabalpur in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. British armed forces began playing the game there around 1876. But, as acknowledged by the Billiards and Snooker Federation of India (BSFI), the central authority overseeing the growth and development of cue sports in India, snooker (and cue sports more broadly) has struggled to gain acceptance due to the popular notion that the game is elitist and not meant for common people.
The irony of this perception is that the country has produced a number of billiards powerhouses, including Michael Ferreira, Ashok Shandilya, Geet Sethi, and the aforementioned Wilson Jones. More recently, “The Prince of India” Pankaj Advani has electrified the sport, holding the World, Asian, and Indian National Championship titles simultaneously, in three different years: 2005, 2008 and 2012. And while Mr. Advani has seesawed between billiards and snooker (“billiards is my wife and snooker [is my] mistress”[3]), Aditya Mehta has emerged as India’s international face and standard-bearer of snooker.[4]
All of which brings us back to By the Baize, the five-minute film, directed and written by Debapriya Sengupta and produced by her company Kairos Productions. Released at the Delhi Shorts International Film Festival and winning multiple Indian film awards, By the Baize tells the fictional story of a young boy, Ricky Sharma, watching his father compete in the World Snooker Championship. Believing his father could never lose, tragedy strikes. Sixteen years later, an adult Ricky (Arnab Sengupta) now has the chance to put the accident behind him and honor his father by winning the same Championship. The full film is available to watch here.
Relying on the narrator’s voice-over and the interweaving of the musical composition “Time for Chopin” by Belford Hernandez, the film’s opening has an elegiac, albeit somewhat maudlin, tone as we watch the father (played by former professional snooker player Lucky Vatnani) compete in his final match. (For snooker enthusiasts, it’s hard not to smile during the scene, as we know the father’s opponent is of course Peter Ebdon, the renowned world snooker champion with more than 350 century breaks to his name.)
Fast-forward sixteen years and Ricky steps into the “world [he] remembers” to compete in the finals (against snooker pro Cao Yupeng from China), though we continue to toggle back in time through flashbacks and the ongoing use of “Time for Chopin.” This time, Ricky is victorious.
And so too, to a moderate degree, is By the Baize. Like a poignant haiku, the film is an ode to snooker, nothing more and nothing less. To paraphrase Ricky’s final words: Today, this game matters.
[1] https://www.snookerisland.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=6549
[2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/robcain/2015/10/23/indias-film-industry-a-10-billion-business-trapped-in-a-2-billion-body/#75a91d6b1005
[3] http://www.deccanchronicle.com/140227/sports-other-sports/article/pankaj-advani-return-his-first-love-billiards-after-pro-season
[4] http://www.inside-snooker.com/snooker/2015/3/11/mehta-still-the-standard-bearer-for-india
