Shangshak: When someone asked the captain of independent India's first national soccer team why they all played barefoot at the London Olympics in 1948, he is said to have answered: "We play football in India. Whereas you play bootball."
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The captain of the team, Talimeren Ao, was a Naga, a group native to India's northeastern frontier where most people trace their roots to Myanmar or China. Decades later, his words still ring true.
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In Naga villages, children playing soccer barefoot is a common sight. Sometimes balls are made from pig bladders or rag-stuffed pomelos.
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And when the matches are played, the entire village turns up to show support. Parents carry infants on their shoulders. Young boys make bonfires to keep spectators warm.
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The story is no different in Shangshak, home to the Tangkhul Nagas, where two neighbouring villages played a match on Saturday. They're not formal clubs.
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In India, cricket is the only sport that matters. Like Bollywood, it is one of the few things that knits together a disparate nation of nearly 1.4 billion. But the fervour for soccer is felt deeply in India's northeastern states. | Above: Nagas are silhouetted as they watch a friendly football match in Shangshak.
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A.S. Ngayaomi, 20, third right, who is sitting in as a substitute player, watches a friendly football match between villages in Shangshak. The region with a little over 3% of India's population is home to almost one-fifth of the national soccer team.
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Tangkhul Nagas walk dressed in traditional attire after church service in Shangshak. In a largely Hindu country, most Nagas are Christians. They're ethnically distinct from most of India, and for decades, Naga insurgent groups have waged fights for independence.
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Tangkhul Naga children watch a friendly football match between villages in Shangshak. Most Naga villages are perched on mountaintops, originally built long ago to spot approaching enemies when the region was little more than a forest. But on nearly every hilltop, a soccer pitch springs to life.
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"We learn to play the game from the time we start walking," said A.S. Ngayaomi, 20, who was a substitute in Saturday's match.
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Elderly Naga men watch a friendly football match in Shangshak village.
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Nagas watch a friendly football match between villages in Shangshak.
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K.B., Paishola, 80, an elderly Tangkhul Naga, stitches a pomelo fruit into a soccer ball in Shangshak village.
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