A day that has two noons - Sachin

This is the cricketing career of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. Twenty years long career that will forever remain a bible not only to the cricketing fraternity but also to every individual who seeks excellence and strives to stay at the scaled heights with all his heart. His life is a source of inspiration for the youth. He is God for all those who respect their profession, love every moment on their job and try and dedicate their lives to work. His approach to cricket is worth emulating in every profession. The was he handles commendation and criticism is a lesson that has to be taught in every college.
The ageless wonder, the little master has been doing the impossible all these 20 years. Thirty thousand runs in the international cricket, 90+ centuries in both the forms of game and a 200 in the shorter form of the game at an age of 37. At an age when most of the cricketers struggle to keep fit, this maestro has batted for full fifty overs and scampered like a hare in his 190s. Sachin's career graph has two plateaus and two peaks.Forget about the peaks, the plateau lines itself pass through the peak points of some of the best all time cricketers in the world. The first plateau began in 1989 and ascended a peak after 9 years in 1998. Sachin has scored 9 ODI centuries in this year alone and recorded 3 test centuries during this season. If you look closely most of the one day openers spent all their careers to score 9 centuries. That is the peak I am talking about. This was the first noon of Tendulkar. He tore the opposition down, scored back to back centuries at Sharjah against the deemed and feared Australian attack. In 1998 every time Sachin went out to bat it was a rain of runs, fours and sixes. He sent the ball rolling and flying all over the park. If he got out, he got out scoring.
In the following years he descended the peak and returned to his usual best to remain there till the year end of 2003. In the 2003 world cup he scored the highest number in runs. From 2003 to 2005 it could be described as shadow period by Tendulkar's standard but this shadow was bright enough to make a cricketing career for some batsman. Then comes begins 2009 and the tiger has matured to kill the prey with a single blow. He walked out to score hundreds. He hit them at will and wish. He started scaling yet another peak. The second noon of this son of India. In the past 12 months he has scored 3 out of his 4 highest scores. In the last 4 tests he has scored 4 centuries and more is just to come. I do not know what is running in Sachin's mind. But, I would wish and hope India wins the 2011 world cup, before this sunsets on the cricket ground.

What Alan Donald said about Sachin

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At Chilka - Part 2 ( last )

... I knew this will probably be my only trip to Chilka. I wanted to see what it mattered the most. I wanted to see how this lake merges into the sea and changes its tender,delicate watery dance into a lively,aggressive jump and dive of tidal rhythm. I decided to walk the shores of the island. It would be a long, heavy walk on this beach sand but it did not daunt me. I wanted to reach the tip of the island "The Sangam" before it was sunset but I could not hurry with my pace as I had company.
We started our walk to see the lake-sea confluence. I walked close to the waters to see how the character of the lake changed. The tender ripples in the green waters, which,earlier, settled for kiss of the banks, now, asked for more. Half way down, the once gentle ripples metamorphosed into puissant currents and started the touch and go game. Each time these currents touched the shores, they teased the shores to follow their trail into the apple green waters. But the shores wouldn't. Close to the tip, having failed with the taunts and entreats, the currents assumed the form of of waves and came ashore. They flattened the sands and etched their memories on those defiant shores, only to be dried to permanence by the sea breeze.
At last, I reached the tip of the island before the sun sank and left those sands.
Here, the sea swallowed the green lake into its azure vastness. The dying twilight bathed the no-longer-green waters in orange hues. The waves basked and roared in this golden glow.And, these waves are what the waves are meant to be. They jumped high into air and dug into the shores with a thunder clap and formed huge dunes facing the sea. I had to descend a meter high dune to get my ankles wet in the Bay of Bengal. Never mind I did it. It was close to sunset and I had the whole sea before my eyes. This was not the first time I had seen sea, or Bay of Bengal as a matter of fact. But I felt something for the first time - I felt my heart to be empty. I had nothing before me. The tip where I stood was the present, the sand I walked was my lovely past. The future laid unknown and enigmatic as that blue sea. The azure on earth before my eyes was empty without a visible speck of life on it. Not a ship, not even a bird was there. Could be that aquatic life laid camouflaged in its blue belly. But to a naked eye it was a blank unending eternity with blurred horizon in fading light.
For an hour and half I was riding the crest of my life and was waiting to see the Bay gulp the lake. When I reached the tip, my intended destination, life seemed empty in the aftermath of success. I did not know what I wanted to do after reaching the sea-lake confluence. But I knew one thing, I wanted to be there again in all the hovering improbability, because I wanted to feel empty again.I wanted to hit the ebbs and lows of emptiness. I wanted to feel my emotions drain into those blues just as the green waters did. I wanted the sunset to silence my pounding heart for a brief moment. A moment in which I could spend a lifetime.
When you strike a guitar chord, it vibrates, it moves left and right. In its moves the chord breaks off all the dust that settled on it and finally returns to where it belongs and waits for another of such movements. My soul is like that. It bears the millstone weight of emotions and when struck by a musical note or a nostalgic whiff, it rides the crest, hits the ebb, dumps the load and returns to where it belongs refreshingly empty, of course only to wait unconsciously for the chords to be struck once again.

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