Down the track, and he smashes the ball right over the bowler's head for six, yet another blow by the Prince of Calcutta.....
These lines will probably be said for the last time during the 2008 Australian tour of India. It marks, most probably, the start of the end of an era.
The present post is not one of the many odes to Ganguly's careers which will be written in the next few weeks. I do not intend to write that though I am tempted to. Instead, this is my attempt to describe a paradigm shift in my life.
The earliest memory I have with cricket was in 1996, during the world cup of that year. Initially i was highly irritated with the perpetual viewing of the matches at home as that resulted in me missing my daily dose of cartoons. That also led to some fights with my brother at home over the television.....and then it happened.
The first match of India was on, and it was against Kenya. As usual that day, I was going through the motions. I was still pouting when the Indians started batting. Tendulkar started carting the bowlers around, and somehow I stopped my ranting. I never realized I was silent for two hours when my mother called me to run an errand. When I came back to watch, the presentation ceremony was being shown and I had to suppress a feeling of disappointment that I missed the latter part of the innings. Looking back, it certainly seems the moment when my love affair with cricket started. Ever since, I cried when India lost, jumped up with joy when Inda won. More than anything else, it was my respect for those cricketers who have been in the Indian team ever since I started following that made me watch the matches. These cricketers captured my imagination, and their feats never failed to inspire me. Maybe it was the dearth of achievements in other sports, or maybe it was simply due to peer influence, but cricket has ruled the feeling of inspiration and motivation.
The most interesting thing when I look back is that the developments in cricket paralleled the events in real life. When Indian cricket was marred with match fixing scandals, I was neck deep with teenage problems. When Ganguly led a correction of wrongs in the sport and restructuring of cricket soon after, during the early years of the 21st century, I was part of a beautiful period of my life. The ups of the cricketing world matched my ups and the failures matched my failures. Whether it was by design or by my own fanatic nature, I have no idea but the fact was this was how it was.
Now, we are at a turning point. Sourav Ganguly has announced his retirement. When I read this, I was prompted to re-evaluate my circumstances. What is the analogous thing that is happening in my life? It is the end of my childhood. The icons I have grown up watching are slowly going out. My childhood is coming to an end. I have never had to worry about money, food, a roof over my head ever before. Now I have to. I have entered adulthood and have to face the struggles that come along with it. Just as the icons are disappearing, the innocence is fast disappearing. There have been heartbreaks, problems with the opposite sex, disappointments, successes, struggles to be financially independent, in short everything that a life of a bachelor is made up of. That, what they call the end of an era in the cricketing world is the end of a phase in my life. It is time to move on.
I will forever miss the towering sixes of Sourav Ganguly, as I will miss the pleasant charm of being a kid and a teenager. But as Indian cricket does not stop with the retirement of a great icon, so does not my life, it is time to stand up on my feet and face the music. As should be said in Ganguly's case, it is time to face the "chin" music.
These lines will probably be said for the last time during the 2008 Australian tour of India. It marks, most probably, the start of the end of an era.
The present post is not one of the many odes to Ganguly's careers which will be written in the next few weeks. I do not intend to write that though I am tempted to. Instead, this is my attempt to describe a paradigm shift in my life.
The earliest memory I have with cricket was in 1996, during the world cup of that year. Initially i was highly irritated with the perpetual viewing of the matches at home as that resulted in me missing my daily dose of cartoons. That also led to some fights with my brother at home over the television.....and then it happened.
The first match of India was on, and it was against Kenya. As usual that day, I was going through the motions. I was still pouting when the Indians started batting. Tendulkar started carting the bowlers around, and somehow I stopped my ranting. I never realized I was silent for two hours when my mother called me to run an errand. When I came back to watch, the presentation ceremony was being shown and I had to suppress a feeling of disappointment that I missed the latter part of the innings. Looking back, it certainly seems the moment when my love affair with cricket started. Ever since, I cried when India lost, jumped up with joy when Inda won. More than anything else, it was my respect for those cricketers who have been in the Indian team ever since I started following that made me watch the matches. These cricketers captured my imagination, and their feats never failed to inspire me. Maybe it was the dearth of achievements in other sports, or maybe it was simply due to peer influence, but cricket has ruled the feeling of inspiration and motivation.
The most interesting thing when I look back is that the developments in cricket paralleled the events in real life. When Indian cricket was marred with match fixing scandals, I was neck deep with teenage problems. When Ganguly led a correction of wrongs in the sport and restructuring of cricket soon after, during the early years of the 21st century, I was part of a beautiful period of my life. The ups of the cricketing world matched my ups and the failures matched my failures. Whether it was by design or by my own fanatic nature, I have no idea but the fact was this was how it was.
Now, we are at a turning point. Sourav Ganguly has announced his retirement. When I read this, I was prompted to re-evaluate my circumstances. What is the analogous thing that is happening in my life? It is the end of my childhood. The icons I have grown up watching are slowly going out. My childhood is coming to an end. I have never had to worry about money, food, a roof over my head ever before. Now I have to. I have entered adulthood and have to face the struggles that come along with it. Just as the icons are disappearing, the innocence is fast disappearing. There have been heartbreaks, problems with the opposite sex, disappointments, successes, struggles to be financially independent, in short everything that a life of a bachelor is made up of. That, what they call the end of an era in the cricketing world is the end of a phase in my life. It is time to move on.
I will forever miss the towering sixes of Sourav Ganguly, as I will miss the pleasant charm of being a kid and a teenager. But as Indian cricket does not stop with the retirement of a great icon, so does not my life, it is time to stand up on my feet and face the music. As should be said in Ganguly's case, it is time to face the "chin" music.
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