Justice done, belatedly

Justice had been delayed for far too long. But it could not be denied forever. And so, the greatest limited overs batsman the world has seen is now the holder of the highest individual score in that format. It had always seemed unfair that this record should have remained anyone's but his. At the post match presentation ceremony, he said, "Batting for 50 overs was a test of my fitness. It would be good to bat for another 50 overs some other time and see if I can last that long." Wow! The 36 year old boy wants to go on forever! Is it hard to see the reason for his phenomenal success? It is the hunger and the passion that he retains even after having spent more than two decades in the grind of international cricket. Money must have stopped being a motivating factor long back, if it ever was one. His wife has said that the day he stops enjoying his game, he'll call it a day. Enjoy! That is the key word. He himself has often said that the sound of bat hitting ball is enough motivation for him. That is the extent to which he loves the game.

And there's a lesson to be had in this for each one of us. Let our passions dictate the course of our lives. Why are we alive? So that we can continue living? Why do we exist? So that we can continue existing? Is that why we slog ourselves to death at work? To what end? Whenever I speak to friends, they are just awaiting the arrival of the weekend, so that they can 'enjoy' themselves away from the drudgery of their work. Did anyone ever hear Sachin saying that he 'enjoyed' his break away from the game? For that matter, can we ever imagine Sachin doing anything else but play cricket? What would have been his fate had his father pushed him to become a singer, as imagined by Rancho in 3 Idiots? So, all you poets masquerading as consultants, all you authors disguised as bankers, all you actors hiding behind the facade of being accountants, give the real 'you' a chance to live. You owe that to Sachin and his maiden limited overs double century.

P.S. There are a fair number of curmudgeons in India who still believe that Sachin plays for 'himself' and not for the 'team'. And each time the legend scripts yet another batting odyssey, these curmudgeons, blinded by the prism of their own bias, say that its just another innings by him for the sake of 'his records'. What would such people be saying after he became the first man ever to score a double hundred in a one day international? Curmudgeons that they are, they'll probably say, 'Oh, just another record for him'. Blast them!