Farewell!

I have hardly seen a tennis match. Ok, maybe one. Fine, at most two. But still my heart is shattered to see them like this ,even if I have not seen their magic on court.

As a child,the main attraction for me in the newspaper had to be the sports section. Why? Because it has one complete page dedicated to Indian cricket and that was the only thing I could understand of all the things mentioned in the newspaper as I used to watch cricket vividly. Apparently , I had this habit of opening the newspaper from the back. Apart from the most evident faces whom I would see on TV most of the time,there would be some other faces too who would appear frequently. Whom I have never seen on TV and I was totally unaware about the sports they play.But over the time, I started recognising them and knowing them by reading the articles written under their large posters. I got to know about Serena Williams, Venus , Tiger Woods, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer from those articles.

Speaking of Roger and Rafael, I remember , it didn’t take me much time to understand that these are the two exemplary tennis players. Both of them have different approaches and attitude while playing but they were eyeing that same thing. Like two paths leading to that one single destination which is called greatness. And when someone chooses between the two of them, it totally depends on their own traits and the characteristics that they see in them. So, that is the only thing I knew about them. Definitely, I am not going to miss these two playing against each other on court, how could I? I have never seen them playing at all.

But still, this farewell felt personal. Seeing Roger cry pained me a lot. How his face depicted that he doesn’t want to leave all this but he has to. His heart is aching realising his journey has come to an end and he will never experience the same thing again. I too have felt the same emotion at different stages in my life: when I was leaving my 10th school ,12th school , or even my colleges.

Seeing Rafael crying was personal too. He knew that he has and will play against many great players but there will not be another Roger. He will not witness the same opponent again. Haven’t I felt the same on my last day of school/college/company when I was leaving my mentors or friends.

And lastly I was crying too. I, who has no fucking idea about how great these players are on the court. But this made me sad too. Because not only it took away a part of my childhood where I have pictured myself understanding them from reading their match articles. But it also subtly made me realised the darkest and absolute truth of our lives. The truth which I always find myself running from.

That beautiful things always comes to an end….