In Kolkata, they kick off with some shopping

When K.S. Ramakrishnan, an accountant decided to buy a new TV set last month, little did he know that it was going to be a purchase of a lif...

When K.S. Ramakrishnan, an accountant decided to buy a new TV set last month, little did he know that it was going to be a purchase of a life time. The TV set, won him an all expenses paid ticket to the biggest sport spectacle — the World Cup football final.

‘‘I have been counting the days for my trip to Japan,’’ says the Kolkata-born Tamilian. Like him, another businessman, Vinod Sharma, won an all expenses paid trip to a semi-final match. ‘‘For me a TV was a necessity. I wasn’t lured by the offers. But the package is certainly a boon,’’ says Vinod. An IAS officer of the Bengal cadre, Prashant, who just came from Darjeeling, also got lucky.

The TV company, which sponsored the programme, has already collected their passport details. The event, to be kicked off just 10 days from now, has, however, not prompted too many people from this football-crazy city to make it to the venue this year. Says Benu Das Gupta of Leisure Sports Management: ‘‘In every World Cup we have taken 70 to 80 football enthusiasts from the city to the venue. But this year the number has come down to 16.’’

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He attributes the reasons to two principal factors — the costs and unprecedented security measures. ‘‘On earlier occasions a person had to spend about Rs 80,000 for a trip to the World Cup,’’ Das Gupta said. ‘‘The charges have escalated to about Rs 1.5 lakh now.’’

However, there are afficionados who won’t let the opportunity pass. But the fever is definitely missing. ‘‘There is no hype, nor is there any craze for new TV sets even though companies are coming up with various lucrative offers — for example junkets etc,’’ Barick said. ‘‘This never happened before,’’ he says.