Saturday, November 14, 2009

Of Beer, Wine & Sachin Tendulkar

Beer is made by men, Wine by God.
---Martin Luther, German founder of Lutheranism, (1483-1546)

As one flips past every News channel today it is clearly evident what the flavor of the month is. Well, clearly it is SACHIN TENDULKAR.

As Sachin celebrates 20 momentous years in International cricket the nation is celebrating with him. His majestic 175 recently v/s Australia has served as a timely reminder to all of us just what this man is capable of & his natural God gifted talent.

In this world of beer lovers & slam, baam thank you maam beer lovers cricket (i.e. T20) Sachin Tendulkar is the real McCoy, The real wine….and the creation of none lesser than God himself. And like all good wine, this man too has matured gracefully with age, his gifted talent being wonderfully moulded to serve & play the role TEAM INDIA needs him to essay

There have been endless essays & numerous sheets of work that have been written on what really makes ST great or what really makes him tick….
For someone that has played intermediately level of Cricket & Someone who has seen & understood the sport from close quarters I can tell you its just one simple thing… ”the ability to harness what he was born gifted with”. Many people call that dedication or discipline. I will not term it as anything….just ”the ability to harness what he was born gifted with”

For me its also related to a larger Cosmic truth….this Man was born to play cricket…and with the choices that he made here, on EARTH …he chose to play cricket and just simply succeeded beautifully. Let me illustrate what I’m trying to say further…. Its like this….God gifted a lot of people varied talents.. he wanted Pavarotti to sing, Pachino to act and Rehman to create music… they choose to make a vocation of their gifted talents and they made history…. But therein lays their greatness, their choice to do what GOD chose them to do! For geniuses that’s not an easy choice!
There have been numerous instances…where GOD chose someone to do something…blessed them with an innate ability and that person has not been able to do it… (while on the topic of SACHIN, VINOD KAMBLI is the most prime example…someone as talented & gifted as SACHIN) but could not fulfill what he was blessed with.
The arts over the years have continually seen such mercurious talents. Talents just blessed to do things simply & easily, with grace… yet what others would spend a lifetime to achieve. From the world of Snooker Ronnie 0’sullivan is a sporting name that one feels of this way.. from acting one felt that way about Vivek Oberoi, maybe from singing about Kailash Kher (not withstanding his current fame & success) I think he could have done bigger, greater deeds with a voice like that….more akin to someone of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s stature….
Back to the cricketing world.. Maninder Singh… again a herculean talent that really never made it on the world stage.. this man ladies & gentlemen (like Sachin) made his test debut for India at the tender age of 17…and was hailed as the successor to the great Bishan Bedi! (but where is he today… such in controversies of alcohol & drug abuse)

It’s in these simple choices that greatness is born & manifested. Luckily for now all of 1.2 billion Indians can just smile & rest easy…for this man chose to play cricket & chose to fulfill his destiny!
Bravo Sir! And all the best…

3 comments:

  1. Great post...I'd say it's the classic case of free will vs destiny. You may be destined to be a leader, but the choices you make determine whether you are worthy of being one.

    "I don't believe in Destiny because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my own life" -Thomas Anderson aka Neo

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  2. life is all about choices, not good/bad, right/wrong, but just choices....and options.Aint it? :)

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  3. Really thought you would like this article. In case you havent already

    http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/434224.html

    Harsa Bhogle is such a pleasure to read

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