" I believe there's a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride"
-May Parker, Spiderman 2
The then Finance Minister of India , Dr. Manmohan Singh,announced the New Economic policy in 1991. The jury is still out on how Dr. manmohan Singh would be judged by historians further downstream in time, but that, that single moment is an epoch, is a widely acknowledged and heralded fact.
Soon the winds of change started blowing on the Indian horizon. The neighbourhood grocery and tailor shop were replaced by glitzy shopping malls. Sarkari naukari, which had hitherto been looked upon as a status enhancer and synbol of stability ,quickly became untouchable as private firms started offering salary cheques which had as amny zeroes as in the latest scam unearthed. Food chains started delivering pizzas within 30 minutes. The plastic money became as ubiquitous as the plastic bag. In fact, the list of phenomena that were created as byproduct of liberalization is long: Shahrukh khan, Facebook , IPL and of course the great Indian Middle class.
There is a thing with the middle class. To thrive , it needs intermittent doses of heroism and rolemodels. It was the same with the Indian middle class . And the forces of market economy got the wind of this yearning for heroism in no time. Like wolves hunting in a pack, sniffing their prey from far and then going for the kill, the entertainment channels, in cahoots with the media, built up larger than life images of these superstars and presented them to us gift wrapped in glossy papers with pink ribbons with a best wishes card to boot.
Everyone , from bollywood actors to politicians, from reality TV stars to regular TV stars , to actors who thought they could sing to singers who thought they could act, has had his fifteen minutes of fame
But no amount of clamorous cacophony blaring from the TV set in drawing rooms across the country can drown out one fact: that there is a difference between a celebrity and a winner , there is a difference between success and purpose, between pleasure and joy and between a superstar and legend.
And that difference is Rahul Dravid.
The word legend was not invented to be splattered across the billboards and newspaper headlines for everyone and anyone.It was invented to denote something more special, something purer.
But going by the strictest definition,the word sits very lightly on the broad shoulders of Rahul dravid.
Rahul Dravid is not a creation of the market economy or the media.He does not play cricket for the money or for selling colas. He is a legend cast in stone, as hard as they come.
To delineate Dravid's batting a little more , we have to think with the larger perspective of life.One has to shun cricket's technical jargon, which makes simple things complex , and English poetry, which makes complex things simple and romantic. A fitting tribute to the man must take recourse to something more intellectual, like the man himself , something like philosophy, religion and spirituality.
One of the doctrines of Hindu religion says that the world around us is fake, it is maaya and the purpose of the life is to realize the truth, to attain salvation . And the ways of attaining salvation is termed as yoga.
If cricket is a religion in India, then the pitch is like a temple for Dravid and he is its most holy saint. Batting for him is his yoga , it is his quest to find meaning in life, his route to realize the truth, to attain salvation.
One of the four noble truths that Buddha taught, was that Life is suffering. In fact in his acclaimed bok, The Road Less traveled ,M Scott Peck says ," one of the measures -and perhaps the best measure- of a person's greatness is his capacity for suffering". May be M Scott Peck never saw Dravid playing, but if he had , I am pretty sure that he would have stood up and taken his hat off and said "This is the man I was talking about"
To borrow and murder a kid's metaphor, Dravid is the Batman of Indian Cricket, a superhero without any superpowers.
Dravid recently completed his 34th test century and there was hardly any celebrations in the media.Sooner than later , Sachin Tendulkar will get his 100th International century and the media will celebrate it like it is the biggest spectacle in human history since the Moon landing.
That has been the fate of Rahul Darvid, away from the arclights, away from the frenzy, practising and practising hard , when no one is watching , when no one is cheering.
But this blog is not about comparing Sachin with Dravid, on commenting about how under rated Rahul is in the pantheons of greats.This blog is a token of tribute, an ode to, to again borrow and murder what can only be described as kid's metaphor, the Wall of Indian Cricket, on his completing the 34th Century.
Whenever you are faced with doubts, whenever you feel that the going has got tough, whenever you feel that life has given you the rough end of the stick, don't lose hope, go to a quiet and solitary place ,meditate and look inside you. You will feel that there is someone who is giving you the courage to stand for your own truth, someone who is telling you not to give up, not to blink first.
If you look deep inside you, you will find that there is a hero inside you.
That is , if you look deep inside , you will find a Rahul Dravid Inside you.
