Ekala Chalo..

One of the most intriguing lines I ever heard in my life was from gurudev, the great Raivindra Nath Tagore. Its a simple line, "Ekala Chalo Re". Why of all people, RNT choose to utter this line. The man who is a philosopher, thinker way ahead of his time, poet par excellence, what was the compulsion he had to utter this line could be line for dejected as well courageous, extrovert as well as introvert. Whats magical about that line is that you can apply this philosophy in any walk of your life and it would fit in any situation. You can go alone, march ahead, go with the righteous even if entire world is against you, stand as part of crowd if crowd is right, but have the courage to standalone if crowd is wrong. The history if full of people who showed amazing defiance in face of adversity, they refused to be cowed and bent in front of authority. My all time favourite is the "gadfly" from Greece, the father of modern philosophy as we know, one and only Socrates. He lived his life preaching the righteous path to life, challenging people to awaken, challenging establishment in case they are wrong, stimulating people to think. And the end came as it normally come to defiant people. He was given the choice to choose between his life and poisoned chalice. The condition was simple, he need to curb down his protests, he need to curb down the preaching, basically he was needed to go against what he thought was right. The speech Socrates made before he drank the poisoned chalice would always remains in the minds of all true lovers of philosophy and truth. Nonetheless he choose poisoned chalice over the life of lies and deceit, but in his death he became immortal. Today Socrates is still alive inside each of us, centuries after his body was buried in Greece. Aristotle carried the legacy forward and then came Pluto, all directly influenced by Socrates. What Socrates did was great example of "ekala chalo". He choose to go alone, in face of adversity and death, but he choose not to let go of one thing, his independence of thought.

Our generation is again facing this challenge today. Challenge of choosing between poisoned chalice and righteousness. With the moral fibre of society at all time low and people choosing to "win at all cost", our generation is going too fast to nowhere. Football, the beautiful game, the game which provides joy to millions of people worldwide, is the microcosm of our society and of changing times. Football is a game which brings the best and worst out of individuals and those individuals which, choose to kick a helpless leather ball around the lush grass field for 90 minutes, become the role models for millions of people watching around the world. Every action of their is copied, every statement become sermon, every injury bring ache to our hearts, every failure brings tear to our eyes. I remember crying with Ronaldo when potugal lost in euros, I remember being sullen for almost of week after brazil was beaten by france in world cup, when arsenal goes unbeaten throughput the season, my heart was also bleeding like all true red devils. That is the kind of effect football has on our lives. Collar up becomes by style when I saw a smearing Cantona walking on the lush greens of "theatre of dreams". Obnoxious he may be for most people, but for me Cantona will always remain the my hero, and his immortal quote, "seagull follow trailer because they think sardines would be thrown" would always remains one of my favourites. Monseuir Cantona, was a fair player. He tackled ferociously and did not mind when someone repeated the dose. Then why the other monseuir had done something which brought the shame to the beautiful game. Come forward "titi", you were a role model to millions and the in the match against Ireland you had the opportunity to become modern Socrates, you had the opportunity to make kids watching the match to fall in love with the game for life. But what had you done sir, blatant handball, not once but twice, and millions of Irish hearts are broken in one moment of maddening cheating from you. You were idolized by many, but after this you would join the hall of shame sir, in the distinguished company of crooks like maradona, the only difference being that maradona had the pretext of falkan war, what do you have against the Irish. Marodona was genius personified and you would never be near to him in footballing terms, but when we say Marodona, the firstthing that came to mind is "hand of GOD/devil". That fateful night 1986 he broke english hearts with blatant cheating, but he had the advantage that coverage was far less that time, but what will you do Henry. You are condemned by your nation, your people, all french would hang their heads in shame because of this act of yours. You should have done what Di Canio had done and the fascist, nazi saluting roman became the west ham legend in one pure moment of truthfulness. But Henry, you will "always walk alone" now, under the burden of your dishonesty and with the knowledge that better team is not there in world cup because in that maddening moment you choose to forget what football stands for. May GOD have mercy over you, and I hope GOD is not Irish.

I believe this is not what RNT had in mind when he said ekala chalo, but now you will walk alone.