So I woke up late today, after a night of disturbed sleep. With
eyes still closed, and mind still half asleep, I involuntarily reached for my
phone, wanting to read the news for the day. Eyes slightly opening, I touched
the familiar blue icon and logged on to Facebook. A friend had tagged me on a
link to a newspaper article, with the headline that Dravid had retired. I
cried.
I cried because I was happy for him, and because I was sad
for him. I cried because the part of me that longed to see him play all these
years had died. I cried mostly due to a fond remembrance and longing for the days
gone by.
I never got excited by Indian cricket before Rahul Dravid. A
team filled with Azhar, Sachin etc. never caught the attention of a girl in her
tweens. Not when there were men like Jonty Rhodes and Mark Waugh around. So
when I tuned into watching a test match in which England was playing, and out
walked an Indian lad by the name of Rahul Dravid, my heart skipped a beat. An
in him, and Ganguly, and later Laxman, I found a reason to watch and be excited
by Indian cricket.
And follow his matches I did. When it seemed that every time
I was watching him play, he seemed to be getting out fast, I stopped switching
on the TV and also stopped following his scores on Cricinfo. But I had great
friends, who’d let me know if he scored a century or if had gotten out. Never
did I watch any of his great innings live. I was lucky though to see him play
at three places, Rawalpindi, Chennai and Johannesburg. Only at Rawalpindi did
he go on to make a half century. At Chennai, I did not get to see him bat, and
at Joburg he got out in single digits.
It used to hurt when I read articles which indulge in Dravid
bashing, or ridicule from friends about his low strike rate. But I stopped
getting into arguments about it. I never did see the reason to defend Dravid.
He was much more capable of defending himself through his performances.
I loved Dravid. Not as a star stuck fan, who would know when
his birthday was and rattle of his statistics, but as a person who valued and
respected the traits Dravid stood for - sincerity, hard work, dedication, someone
who does not talk too much but lets his performance speak for itself, and a
honest love for what he was doing. He played with Sachin and still managed to
thrive under that pressure, and not get into a jealous state of comparisons and
debates about who is better. All those spoke to me so much during my teenage
years. In school, you would always have someone who would seem to be good at
everything, but the key is to find what you like to do and keep at it. Avoid
the comparisons.
When my niece plasters her FB page with pictures of Kohli
and Raina, and I am thinking to myself, kids these days, I know, the time has come
– to cry for one’s lost youth and to find happiness in the journey that you
still get to go on.
