Last Tuesday I was watching the IPL match between Kolkata and Mumbai. I was never a keen cricket watcher except a brief stage during my school days when I was expecting myself to grow up as a cricket all-rounder; though I was never chosen to play for either any local or school team. These days my only interest and excitement is to watch Sourav Ganguly at the crease, batting for his side. The dear dada of the Bengali clan rarely fulfills our expectation nowadays. Most of the time he winks his eyes, then pats a few ball before nicking one for an easy catch. We rarely see him to rule the field. Yet he is still a darling of a cricketer, a wonderful example of self esteem and determination. A rather uncharacteristic Bengali indeed.
So many needless words were spoken to prove or disprove Sourav as a cricket persona. But in the public domain, the sheer quality of his struggle to restore his image back was permanently embedded. Public memory may be short but there is something called collective memory and Sourav will wait there, quietly, to inspire many others fighting there own battle.
