I learnt many things from many people and one of the aspects of positivism came in a very different form from Sunil Gavaskar. Nandu Natekar, who is a great badminton player had invited me and Sunil Gavaskar to his home for dinner. Nandu had achieved something in Badminton, Sunil something in Cricket and I had something, a little bit though, in Science. We were talking about our own experiences, sharing our views on how do you reach the top and stay there and so on. Sunil told us something very important. I asked him, "you are an opening batsman, you get on to a pitch whose condition you don't know, you don't know the bounce of the ball, nothing much but then how do you manage to bat. Sunil said" Many a times I missed the ball completely. When a batsman misses the ball he looks like a fool on the television camera with millions of people watching. At that time he is a defeated person." Sunil then said what I used to do then, was this. "When I took stance for the next ball, I used my unbelievable ability to completely wipe out the memory of the previous ball and take the next ball as the first ball of my innings"
Someone has said "I only think of the future because that is where one is going to spend the rest of my life" It is that philosophy that makes it possible. Because in life there are successes and there are failures. When there are failures, you don't go into the dumps and when there are successes, you don't fly sky high. You have to learn to take them all in your stride. This also is the part of the positivism.
No comments:
Post a Comment