Panaji: Being the first Goan to be awarded the Arjuna honour and the first Goan sportsperson to receive the Padma Shri was not enough for Brahmanand Shankhwalkar. On Monday, he debuted at the 55th International Film Festival of India (Iffi).
A 46-minute documentary, ‘Famously Found @15’, produced and directed by Savio De Noronha, on the Goan football great, premiered at this year’s Iffi.“He is an icon, one of the greatest Goans ever born,” said Noronha, on what inspired him to make the documentary for Doordarshan, Panaji.
The film provided a packed auditorium on Monday with a good glimpse into why Brahmanand is among the greatest Goans. As the name of the documentary suggests, Brahmanand’s talent was discovered at just 15. He reached his first professional match in his school uniform and was signed for Panvel Sports Club by Goa Football Association (GFA) secretary Antonio Botelho, outside the doors of Brahmanand’s Progress High School in Panaji.
“The sporting atmosphere at home helped,” Brahmanand said humbly in the documentary, about being put through the rigours at a young age by his older brothers. In the absence of television back then, all the exposure he had to international footballers to learn things like angle marking was from photographs of goalkeepers in the Portuguese publication ‘Bola’.
He was just 18-and-a-half years old when his team won the Bandodkar Gold Trophy. It was only the beginning as Brahmanand later went on to lead the Goan teams that won the Rovers Cup and Santosh Trophy. The most remarkable remains Brahmanand’s long stint, playing for quarter of a century.
“The way he led the team, playing for 25 years, is an inspiration to youth in the future as well,” Goa chief minister Pramod Sawant said in the documentary. Brahmanand remembered playing for India 117 times, being 70 times on the field. When he played in Zambia, the newspapers nicknamed him ‘leopard’ for his astonishing agility.
Brahmanand played football for four big clubs – Panvel SC, Salgaocar SC, Churchill Brothers, and Anderson Marine – and later captained the national football team. Noronha’s documentary on the footballer is part of a series ‘Stories and Documentaries from Goa’ which will showcase iconic personalities and institutions from Goa. The series started with the production of ‘Famously Found @15’.