Firstly, I think my blog looks bland, with hardly any pictures. I'm gonna add a picture for most posts I make from now on. I started this practice with the last post.
So finally IPL-2 is over and the Deccan Chargers have won. Personally, I supported the Bangalore Royal Challengers, after the Mumbai Indians exited unceremoniously. But I'm happy the better team on that particular day of the final, won.
A lot has been said about the stalwarts, the seasoned campaigners, having had a gala time in this version of the IPL, making merry with runs and wickets, sprawling dives and mind-blowing catches.
But the youngsters? The ones from the Indian domestic cricket scene? Those who had never been to South Africa before? Those who, not being part of Team India, had never known the limelight?
Some of them failed, unable to cope with the pressure and the bounce and pace of the livelier wickets. But some others like Manish Pandey and Abhishek Nayar shone brightly. In the end, it was not whether they failed or delivered, but simply that they were there, on that grand stage, playing alongside international players whose reputations had gone through the roof, who had scored 20,000 to 30,000 international runs, played 15 or 20 years on the international scene, who had taken 600 wickets, 800 wickets, 1200 wickets. Cricketers who were the cleanest hitters of all time, who were the most complete batsmen, the most techically correct batsmen. Cricketers who had single-handedly demolished powerful batting line-ups, won series after series with their unparalleled skills.
Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis, Matt Hayden, Adam Gilchrist, Muttiah Muralidaran, Shane Warne, Anil Kumble...the list of these super-heavyweights was considerably long.
How would it have felt for a youngster from the hinterlands of India to stand alongside the great Adam Gilchrist, who was holding the IPL trophy aloft, in a foreign country, fluff falling from the air, 40,000 people on their feet, Ravi Shastri's booming voice..."the IPL Champions, the Deccan Chargers!!"....
It is quite an unprecedented thought, a truly overwhelming moment. It is, the stuff of dreams, a fairytale so wonderful it becomes unbelievable even for a fairytale.
How do these youngsters feel? They would never have been on such a terrific stage before and some of them never will again. This would be a moment in history, that would be loath to be over. It would be over, it was over, for time waits for none. But in the mind of the youngster, that moment should have been still forever. Time should have waited. The clock of Nature should have stopped. The leaf blowing away in the wind should have remained suspended in mid-air. Parrots and mynahs should have turned their heads towards this wonderful place. Rain should have forgotten to come down. The sun should not have set. The world should have abandoned its daily, mundane routine and stood absolutely still. It must almost have happened so, for the fleeting moments that these youngsters occupied the podium. The feeling, the emotion is so very deep, so profound, yet so simple to comprehend. The joy is indescribable, unfathomable. I've felt this way once or twice before- under different circumstances of course- but the realization of success, in whatever measure it might have come, is really very astounding, incredibly beautiful.
The aspirations of youth are some of God's miracles. They are so eternal, so earnest, that their realization is almost unpalatable, surreal. How deep is the mind of a youngster, boy or girl, how optimistic his/her beliefs, how crazy the assumptions, how utopian the ideals, is perhaps incomprehensible to any poet, musician, lyricist, writer or artist. Youth is like a bird which wishes to fly and fly and fly into the open blue skies, without hindrance, without any chains, without a look behind. The potential of youth is immense, unrevealed, unmeasurable.
To what extent this brazen desire for the pinnacle takes the not-so-pleasant form of ego and self-centeredness is something to be thought of. Certainly, it is extremely easy for success to go to one's head. Again, I've known it myself- and my achievement was a very small one compared to that of these youngsters, behind closed doors, in a virtual world, in closed forums. However, being nearly 22 and close to home, I was able to pull myself back down to Earth before it had eaten me away. What about these poor souls then, thousands of miles away from home, 18, 19, 20 years of age, with instant fame and unprecedented adulation? Some handle it well, some don't. Those who do rise to the occasion, the opportunity, become greats, legends, stamping their legacy on the sands of time. Those who don't, wither away, either wasting away in indulgences or mitigating back into their ordinary, anonymous lives.
I shall leave this post here, unfinished. It does not deserve a conclusion; the incompleteness completes the journey.
P.S.: "Language post" later. Don't think interested people mind anyways. I thought this was a better topic to write about.
Amen.
