We All Have a Rohit Sharma Within Us

How many times have you set an alarm for 5.30 a.m., woke up at 5.30 a.m., felt proud of yourself, and rewarded yourself with an extra five minutes of sleep? And then you never know when those five minutes turn into an hour and you’re late as usual! It has happened to you, and it happens to me on a daily basis. It has almost become a part of our routine. We seem to have a bad habit of squandering a good and solid start. So we’re basically Rohit Sharma! Yes! When Rohit Sharma is “in the zone,” he can score a double century not once, but three times; his shots can cross any given cricket ground faster than the speed of light; six hitting looks fantastically smooth; and the non-striker appears to be a VIP spectator who gets to watch the match on a premium velvet lounge. But how many times has he squandered a promising start by taking a risky shot? How many times has he failed on the biggest stage (like the Champions Trophy 2017 Finals or the semi-final of the 2019 World Cup?) How many times has he failed to turn a well-crafted half-century into a century? There have been days when he looks a bit sluggish on the field and days when he takes a stunner. He generally looks as lazy as a Sunday morning on the field, but there are days when he is a live wire.

Does this sound familiar? Doesn’t that sound like our routine? There are days when we are late for work, screw up the crucial presentation we were told to prepare, spill coffee on our shirt, feel sleepy almost the entire day, get whacked by our superiors, and then stare blankly at the wall, expecting it to fall off and cover us beneath. Then there are days when we exceed expectations, finish our work well ahead of schedule, and with accuracy, and our chest nearly explodes with pride when we are praised in front of the entire staff and our juniors are told to learn from us. We are satisfied by our peers’ jealous smiles. When we’re “in the zone,” we outperform almost everyone and appear invincible, but the rest of the time we’re just sitting ducks waiting to be hunted.

“In India with its modern obsession with self-promotion, the strong, quiet, efficient ones get overlooked,” writes Harsha Bhogle. We are frequently overlooked because we do not have consistency on our side to promote us. That’s what we’ve become, the polar opposite of what we were yesterday. We are the type of people whose parents always say, “Dimaag bohot hai iska, bas padhta nahi hai!” (He’s quite intelligent; it’s just that he doesn’t study.) We are frequently described as talented. Talented, but inconsistent. That is what we lack. We are inconsistent. We have lucid intervals of work sanity, just as an insane person does.

But that is what makes us unique! That is what makes Rohit Sharma so compelling to watch, and it is what inspires us to believe in ourselves. More than Mr. Modi, Rohit Sharma represents the common man (or, perhaps, today’s digitally social youth). He represents office workers, white-collar daily wagers. People never know what tricks we have up our sleeves. We are actually saving ourselves from boredom. Imagine, will it be as entertaining to watch, if Rohit scored a century in every game? Similarly, if we did the same work with the same accuracy every day, our lives would become monotonous and bland.

We are bruised, beaten, and exhausted mentally, but the next day we accept the challenge and overcome all odds. That is what gives us immense satisfaction and makes our tedious work bearable. So there you have it: we are proudly inconsistent. Our appraisals, like a motorcycle, are measured by RPM (Recurring Paradoxical Moments).

So, remember Rohit, the next time you feel down, like you’ve lost your way, or like you’re stuck in your current situation, you have the ability to rise again and knock all the odds out of the park!