How often has an article from the 'Times of India daily' been motivating or mentally stimulating? The question should be lauded for the humor content in itself :-P. The answer to it is 'Most often not'. Today, journalism is a field with high levels of cash flow in its arena and as is rightly said, in today's environment, 'Media means Business'. Having celebrated the luxury of being India's largest daily for ages together, the newspaper has created a new dimension in the field of advertising and media. Sex, Fun, Youth, Masala, Movies, Paparazzi news, Celebrity talk and a few more on the same lines can be termed as suitable labels for most of the articles that are covered these days. Nevertheless, Economics, Strategies, Terrorism and Politics do take center-stage in the Editorial section with contributions from stalwarts from the above mentioned domains. So I have in no way taken up an evaluation of the celebrated daily.
Having said that, what I wanted to write in this post was something completeley different. The first paragraph is more of a digression and the basic intent was to write about a full page article on a recent edition of the Times.
No points for guessing the topic chosen for discussion as terms like 'Master Laster', 'T-20' and twenty-"Ten" are ubiquitous in recent-day print and media. Yes, it was an article on 'The great Man'. A lot has been spoken and debated about his closeness to 'Divinity' in the religion of cricket and of late, even in a newer religion called 'Sport'. I am not going to grind that grain once again. What caught my eye was how motivating that article turned out to be.
I have heard of an incident in North India, which is not the sort that makes the headlines but yeah, interests a few amongst us. - "On a train from Shimla to Delhi, there was a halt in one of the stations. The train stopped by for few minutes as usual. Sachin was nearing century, batting on 98. The passengers, railway officials, everyone on the train "waited" for Sachin to complete the century. This Genius can stop time in India!!". Now how does the process of 'deifying' happen? What are the ingredients that enable one to become a candidate running for that post? Trying to figure out answers to these 'almost always' rhetoric questions, I realized the answer lies in removing the abstraction in them. Take the example of the same game and the gentlemen who've evolved in the last decade. I can think of England captain Kevin Pieterson's debut about three or four years back. In a period of six to eight months of international cricket, the 'modern media' that we were referring to at the beginning of this discussion, elevated him to a status of being compared with the master. Terms like 'Next Tendulkar' and 'English Master' did the rounds owing to his aggression and technique. 4 years into the arena and take a look at where he is now? He is undoubtedly one of the most important players of the English cricket team today. No denying that fact. But why isn't he tipped to be the next sensation any more? Genius is made out of perseverance, determination and a host of other virtues. But to me, the most important ingredient to it is 'feet on ground' and that is in coherence with the answer to the 'KP question'.
Achievement is something that every one of us encounter and come across in various stages of life. But the way we treat those encounters with 'achievement' is all that matters. The answer to that intriguing question on ingredients was in one quote from the Master himself - "Let the world think of our past. We should think of the future". An adage comes to my mind at this juncture. "You are very unique, just like everyone else". So, celebration should be a fleeting phenomenon when it comes to a bigger picture of life and its obstacles. Having said that success has to do with a combination of a variety of virtues, some more important than the others, one should stay motivated to reach the pinnacle of glory and be smart enough to keep that place until another touchstone is spotted high up the same ladder of life.
Anjali Tendulkar revealed in an interview that Sachin has sleep-walking tendencies and surprisingly, she said "Now we know what it takes to make a genius". I mused for a while after reading those two lines for i am an astute 'sleep-walker' too. But jokes apart, what was meant by usage of 'sleep-walking' is important. The determination and obsession that leads one to think of his duties day in and day out is what makes the genius. Sleep walking in most instances is associated with toiling minds and continuous thought flows during sleep as a result of the obsessive nature of the mind.
Masters come and masters go and we, for our part incessantly speak of them. But the paradigm shift from the connoisseur's role to the artist's role is what should be mulling in our minds and food for that kind of a thought comes from such great personalities and their lives.
Now, as a vindication of the levels of confidence and fearlessness involved in such instance of genius, watch this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oez4TSdZvJI
2 comments:
Awesome piece. That's so true about sachin. I don follow cricket that much, but, sometimes i feel, we as Indians feel equally happy for sachin scoring a century even if India loses the match!
Absolutely Arun, He is close to divinity. A master of his Art
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