Kolkata, March 20 Former India captain Prasun Banerjee, younger brother of P.K. Banerjee who breathed his last on Friday, said he lost a father figure and not just an elder brother.
Indian football legend Banerjee died at a city hospital after battling a chest infection for a long time. He was 83.
A two-time Olympian and the only surviving goal-scorer of India's 1962 Asian Games gold medal winning team, Banerjee, the Asian Games gold medallist, was suffering from sepsis and multi-organ failure due to pneumonia on a background of Parkinson's disease, dementia and heart ailments.
He was on life support at a hospital here since March 2 and breathed his last at 12.40 p.m. on Friday.
"He was not just my elder brother. He was like my father," Banerjee, 64, said moments after P.K.'s death in the afternoon.
"We lost our father in 1960. He was the one who raised me. I am whatever I am because of him. He was my family," said former India and Mohun Bagan left-back who was known for his brilliant left foot.
Prasun has played both for club and country under the coaching of P.K. but he said it was his guidance off the pitch that shaped him as a human being.
"I don't know where to start. He taught me everything. Through thick and thin, he was there for me. On the pitch, he was a mentor of so many not only me. But as an elder brother, he was my father all the while as I said," said Prasun who is a Trinamool Congress Member of Parliament from Howrah constituency.
"This loss can never be repaired. I have lost my family," said Prasun with a lump in his throat.
P.K. never played for any of the three big clubs East Bengal, Mohun Bagan, Mohammedan Sporting at the Maidan because he had to look after his family of which he was the only earning member.
He plied his trade for Eastern Railways for the most part of his career after starting out with Aryans.
( With inputs from IANS )