Captaining Life

A certain ex-captain of the cricket team of our neighbouring country is facing ignominy and may be behind bars soon. Feted for his alround performance that aged and flowered like French wine, he could not remain a captain either for life or of life. Many of his less acknowledged compatriots from the same or different countries, retired or diversified into other careers and excelled. They are the new captains.

Life is change – people change, their circumstances change and even climate changes. To learn to bat, bowl and field well in life, to be on top of all curve-balls life throws at you or throws you in, is the Trophy we are sent for.

One need not flinch from serving, from being the help-at-hand, a junior in any phase or facet of life. Key is to keep polishing, keep relishing, keep rejoicing in the works. No labour is futile – it was the knowledge of the terrain that a peripatetic Sugreev acquired while hiding for several years from his baying-for-blood brother, that came in handy in the search for kidnapped Sita.

The wheel of time turns for good – you assume a leadership position in an institution of mortals, only to find that it is termed – it is a raw deal we struck in our clamour for designations, prefixes and suffixes.

How to be a captain-for-life? By being an apprentice again. A constant awareness of the lifts and falls of material life and our dutiful yet dispassionate engagement with them make the reins – those that hold us, as well as the ones we hold – illusionary.

We are always the captains of our soul.

So when asked to serve, to be a deputy, do not fret, relish being an apprentice, and one for-life.