No. 7

Believe me, I was a good volleyball player! I should thank to our PE teacher in high school(8th STD), Jagadal Sir. He is unique in everything he does. A good teacher, motivator,social reformer and a drinker also. In my small village - Tamba, he is famous for everything he does. 

Under his guidance I learned volleyball. All students of college were divided into four teams like white, blue, red and green. I was in white team which was strongest team in almost all sports like Baseball, Volleyball, Football and Kabbadi too. I left high school year after joining as we moved to Indi and joined SVVK high school. 

Couple of months passed by in new high school. New PE teacher Jadhav Sir joined our school. Sports season started. I was chosen as captain and a team is formed where me and my PE teacher selected players. We didn't have good ground for football so everyone's concentration was only on volleyball.

 A week after team selection, my grandma passed away and I was forced to take leave for about 15 days. When I came back from long holidays, I had a big surprise!

Our PE teacher, Jadhav Sir, was such a good coach, he just proved what he can do even with immature players. My team members were playing so good that I couldn't compete with them anywhere. I became an extra player. Number 7. Seven is my lucky number but not  at this time.

I had a big setback. I am odd man out of a team which was formed by me. I took it as a failure and I never played volleyball with interest. I had been to all competitions as No. 7 and thats all. I never entered playground; not even once in real competition, helped in arranging drinks, net practice and accommodation etc. We won everywhere we played, just lost to qualify at state level. I have certificates of all games I played who laugh at my failure.

Most of us had such situations in our life. Just like me we don't know where it went wrong.  We cannot avoid cases like long holidays/leaves, sickness, transfer and the most important thing is accepting change. If at all there is anything in this world which is constant then its CHANGE. We don't accept the change easily and we don't accept the fact that our juniors climbing higher than us. I was jealous of team. To name few of good players like Vishal Loni, Siddu etc they were all my good friends before. If I could have taken above situation sportively?  

I even started blaming my family who forced me to take such a long leave and to my grandma who died at that time. I always thought if I was there for those 15 days, I could have played better than team and I could have retained my position as a good player and captain. I was not ready to come down, I was just not ready to accept the fact. I denied the change. 

Here I am now, after almost 12 years of this incident. I still play volleyball sometimes but I always have it in my mind that I am not a good volleyball player. I realized my this mistake last week when I saw someone in same situation. I wish they won't repeat mistakes like I did. All experiences counts, no matter they are good or bad. 

Think of any teacher or lecturer; they taught us when we were kids. Today we might be earning in lakhs but they are still doing same! They are proud of us when we say that we are working as so and so, earning so much, whatever. They spread such information across society with proud and never jealous of us. A society is complete only when we have dedicated teachers. We have lot to learn from them, as always they are role models to us from childhood to our pension plan. Its a great honor to be a teacher. And it will be pleasure for everyone to be like teacher. 

Sometimes we will be left behind. Its natural. But if we don't fight back, we will be left behind forever.