I am almost 28 years at the time of this writing. During the course of my life i have met many great people. Beautiful, skillful, kind, caring, disciplined, dedicated, you name a quality and immediately the pictures of people flashes in front of my eyes to whom i can attribute the virtues. But of all the people one guy stands out whenever i think of the best i have met. My judgment or admiration is more from the point of view of completeness rather than of prodigy. By completeness i mean who was competent in all the aspects i can or could think there are in life.
Starting with the first thing that gets noticed, the physical aspects. He was at least 6 feet, a tall and handsome man. If a little interpolation is allowed and a visual clue is needed you can think of Hrithik Roshan. Trust me i am not exaggerating much. Under similar circumstances and with similar resources at their helm he will be quite a match to him. He was quite proficient in dancing and what to say of English songs he was totally into it. It was quite unusual for someone from the place i belong to have so much interest in English songs and be so much aware of it considering that those were the years from 1998 to 2003 with no Internet. He had some relatives living abroad may be that was the factor.
Moving to sports he literally had the batting style of Ricky Ponting. His stance and pull shot was exact carbon copy of Punter. Once our gully team played against the team he was in. It was a 12 over match i think with a cosco ball in the proper ground. We swept of their team very cheaply in very few overs and at the end he alone was standing. We had a rule for the match the last man who is left after everybody gets out also gets to bat till he gets out. Then came the big thrashing. I don’t remember the exact scores. But he alone took the score of his team to 75 by the end of the innings. I was literally dumbstruck to see him scoring so easily and so quickly. Then there was once a cricket match at our school where our class played against our seniors. I was not in the team since it was played using the red cherry the leather ball. Our seniors scored quite a good score and sitting behind the stumps on stage i was not sure whether we will anywhere near the total. But then came the Punter, he thrashed them all over the place and with a magnificent hit which landed on the swings on the other ground of the school our class won the match.If all that is not enough he was quite good at bowling and batting left handed also.
Coming to his leadership skills, there was hardly anybody in our class who did not have his respect. Everybody was at his command. He was the chief of all the mis-chives. From starting the class cricket using a ball of paper sheets to throwing people in the paddy fields in the recess time, convincing other boys to bunk the classes for 2 to 3 hours and go to market to buy the eatables. Clapping suddenly unnecessarily in the class, not sitting after the teacher has repeatedly asked to sit down after the afternoon wish. This may not show much of the leadership skills and the following he has as there were hardly any opportunities to put them to good use.
Now considering all the above adoration, one may get the impression that he might not be good at studies. To be frank he was the star in this arena also. He was mostly in top three at school. All the teachers had very high hopes from him always. During his spare time he used to learn C programming from a local teacher. It may not sound like much an accomplishment considering how aware people are of computers and programming because of the recent revolutions in the computing world. But considering the times they were and on top of that a small municipal with a population of ten thousand where it is still hard to find a science teacher to teach in a school, i was astonished to know how aware he was of things going around. Even now at my place hardly anybody learns programming in school.
I literally used to look at him with an awe and always wanted to be like him. I always felt like he could choose any thing. Acting, Sports, Studies and he would become a topmost player in his field. Of the many things i was curious about future, one was what profession he will choose and how excellent he will be in it. We all passed our senior secondary and he took a very strange decision to drop for a year and try out his hand at various things. Once i was in my hometown during vacation that year and he asked me what should he do for a career. He seemed so confused and unsure that day. I felt so bad and low seeing him in such a state. Here was the man i was thinking would conquer the world and i would get to rejoice in his success and here he was asking me for advice. I felt like my dream was shattered a diamond was lost. An Ashoka was left confused in the maze called world because no Chankaya picked him up. An Alexndra has lost his path as no Aristotle was there to guide and teach him.
But in the end we all get what we want subconsciously deeply in our hearts. He once told me life is all about seeing the world. World he is seeing now. But i still feel he could done much much better with his talents and definitely a diamond has been lost.
