Who is Vijay Barse? Man who inspired Nagraj Manjule & Amitabh Bachchan's 'Jhund'

The much awaited and much talked about movie 'Jhund' by Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan has been released. This is Nagraj Manjule's first Bollywood film as a director, he has directed Marathi films like 'Sairat', 'Fandry', 'Naal'. The film 'Jhund' is based on the life of Vijay Barse, a football coach from Nagpur. From the teaser, to the trailer, there is a lot of talk about this movie. Artists like Aamir Khan and Dhanush have also praised 'Jhund'. 

Who is Vijay Barse ?

Vijay Barse, founder of 'Slum Soccer' has been providing football coaching to underprivileged children for 20 yrs. His life inspired film 'Jhund'. "I did development through football. I now want to do development of football & give players for country", he said.

It has been 20-21 yrs now since I stepped into this field. Some children in Vasantrao Naik slum were playing with a broken plastic bucket as football, it started from there. Children whom I used to see stealing are now seen on football grounds. This became my mission, said Vijay Barse.

If you do good work for everyone & the neglected, slum-dwelling children are also helped, people are obviously going to notice it. We didn't stop midway due to absence of money, we continued-as a result, what we started in Nagpur has now spread into 130-140 countries, said Barse

Vijay had appeared in an episode of Aamir Khan's 'Satyamev Jayate'. This time, he said, while working as a sports teacher at Hislop College in Nagpur in the early 2000's, he once saw some children playing around kicking a bucket in the rain. Vijay gave the children football to play and they gladly accepted. He said in a TEDx talk that he saw another group of such children playing around a tennis ball. Vijay brought those children together on the playground. As long as these kids play on the field, they will stay away from other bad tendencies, they realized. He was of the view that they could actively contribute to the future of the country. "It simply came to our notice then. What more can a teacher give to his students than this, ”he said in an episode of Satyamev Jayate.

When an article about Vijay's work appeared in a newspaper in 2003, his fame spread to many. The Slum Soccer League became popular across the country because coaches and children from all over the country wanted to be associated with it. In the early days, there were no sponsors available to fund Vijay and he was spending his own money. When his son, who lives in the United States, read an article about his father in an American newspaper, he returned to help.