What is life actually? As we grow up, life is what our parents make it, as we enter youth life is what we make it, and as for the rest, I cannot share my wisdom with you without experiencing it.
Wickets 11, the cricket tournament at BIM Trichy, effectively ended for Third Quadrants today, with us winning our last match against Nakamukka Tigers. What a journey its been. For all it began with was a dream, a dream conceived over breakfast with Abhik, a dream to form a cricket team, a dream so fragile that if you so fmuch as whispered it, it would be gone. I asked a team called Zeroes for a place in their side, they said they already had 18 players and that is where the team formation started. And what a journey its been! Motivating people, finding people who are dissatisfied with their current teams, encouraging non players, oh what an experience its been.
Initially kept secret, I understood true HR, what a bad recruitment really meant and what a good recruitment could do to your team. I understood sales and after sales, what it really meant to motivate people and how difficult it was to sell a concept and then keep it embedded by repeated promotion. I remember the initial ridicule when people gathered in my room and asked me to use chowkidars, mess workers and librarians to form a team. One thing I promised them then was that I'd make a team even if I had to use bamboo sticks for players. Then came getting jerseys, recruiting brand managers ( here I admit I failed miserably- asked a girl to take care of the promotion and thought she'll live up to her reputation of being a good marketer- guess I should have handled it myself, and not delegated which should make a bad manager :( but a good leader :) ).
Oh the joy of seeing the 11 on the field, the sacrifice I made while appointing a local as a captain and not myself to lead what had been my creation, and to see people put up a fight and then start believing in each other. I dont know how entrepreneurs feel but surely to make such a team in such a place and at such short notice felt awesome. Like what a Father wrote in our school book- "it is only when you are prepared to lose sight of the shore that you can find new lands".
In between that is while the holidays were on, the captain of Zeroes called each of our team members up and asked them to join his team saying that I wouldnt be able to put together 15. In fact they even printed a jersey for a different guy to prevent him from joining our team! Such was the politics surrounding the tournament. I remember the first friendly match against Zeroes where I played the entire 12 overs and scored 72 not out, out of 116 which was our team score. In fact that was the time when Brand Abhishek got established. Then came another innings of 43 not out of 18 balls with 5 sixes and 4 fours. Along with it came compliments like "I never knew u were such a fierce batsman", commentators saying "Mukherjee, star batsman for Third Quadrant walks out to bat" and so on and so forth. And finally the last match where I led, took 3 wickets in 3 overs, made a run out also and won as a captain. I think the moment is too big and the achievement too much for me to put it in words- there were so many along the way. But I never gave up on my abilities to motivate others.
What can I say? Its been a great journey of finding myself, I think this is perhaps among the finer moments in my life. Things might be going wrong around me but then what finally mattered in the end was how much I fought. And fight I did.
Life is bad. all it tries to do is take things away from you, make you miserable, put you in trouble. You cant be strong here- you are meant to suffer, But what matters in the end is how you choose to suffer. To fight with life to wring out some joy or just go easy. I think its bullshit advice when people say that The tough get going when the going gets tough. I think you should suffer when things are going badly, thats what is meant to be, but what you can do is wait. Wait for the suffering to lessen, for the suffering will get tired of making you suffer and if you dont fight back it wont be intereseted for long and move on. And then do your stuff. Whatever it may be- in my case it was fulfilling a childhood passion of being a star batsman, captaining a team to victory, taking wickets, and hitting huge sixes. Cant say I have left out anything here. :)
Wickets 11, the cricket tournament at BIM Trichy, effectively ended for Third Quadrants today, with us winning our last match against Nakamukka Tigers. What a journey its been. For all it began with was a dream, a dream conceived over breakfast with Abhik, a dream to form a cricket team, a dream so fragile that if you so fmuch as whispered it, it would be gone. I asked a team called Zeroes for a place in their side, they said they already had 18 players and that is where the team formation started. And what a journey its been! Motivating people, finding people who are dissatisfied with their current teams, encouraging non players, oh what an experience its been.
Initially kept secret, I understood true HR, what a bad recruitment really meant and what a good recruitment could do to your team. I understood sales and after sales, what it really meant to motivate people and how difficult it was to sell a concept and then keep it embedded by repeated promotion. I remember the initial ridicule when people gathered in my room and asked me to use chowkidars, mess workers and librarians to form a team. One thing I promised them then was that I'd make a team even if I had to use bamboo sticks for players. Then came getting jerseys, recruiting brand managers ( here I admit I failed miserably- asked a girl to take care of the promotion and thought she'll live up to her reputation of being a good marketer- guess I should have handled it myself, and not delegated which should make a bad manager :( but a good leader :) ).
Oh the joy of seeing the 11 on the field, the sacrifice I made while appointing a local as a captain and not myself to lead what had been my creation, and to see people put up a fight and then start believing in each other. I dont know how entrepreneurs feel but surely to make such a team in such a place and at such short notice felt awesome. Like what a Father wrote in our school book- "it is only when you are prepared to lose sight of the shore that you can find new lands".
In between that is while the holidays were on, the captain of Zeroes called each of our team members up and asked them to join his team saying that I wouldnt be able to put together 15. In fact they even printed a jersey for a different guy to prevent him from joining our team! Such was the politics surrounding the tournament. I remember the first friendly match against Zeroes where I played the entire 12 overs and scored 72 not out, out of 116 which was our team score. In fact that was the time when Brand Abhishek got established. Then came another innings of 43 not out of 18 balls with 5 sixes and 4 fours. Along with it came compliments like "I never knew u were such a fierce batsman", commentators saying "Mukherjee, star batsman for Third Quadrant walks out to bat" and so on and so forth. And finally the last match where I led, took 3 wickets in 3 overs, made a run out also and won as a captain. I think the moment is too big and the achievement too much for me to put it in words- there were so many along the way. But I never gave up on my abilities to motivate others.
What can I say? Its been a great journey of finding myself, I think this is perhaps among the finer moments in my life. Things might be going wrong around me but then what finally mattered in the end was how much I fought. And fight I did.
Life is bad. all it tries to do is take things away from you, make you miserable, put you in trouble. You cant be strong here- you are meant to suffer, But what matters in the end is how you choose to suffer. To fight with life to wring out some joy or just go easy. I think its bullshit advice when people say that The tough get going when the going gets tough. I think you should suffer when things are going badly, thats what is meant to be, but what you can do is wait. Wait for the suffering to lessen, for the suffering will get tired of making you suffer and if you dont fight back it wont be intereseted for long and move on. And then do your stuff. Whatever it may be- in my case it was fulfilling a childhood passion of being a star batsman, captaining a team to victory, taking wickets, and hitting huge sixes. Cant say I have left out anything here. :)
