Lets hear it for...Dada

Saurav Ganguly’s retirement has come in at the perfect time. If not for any body else then certainly for the thousands of bloggers for whom writing on cricket was becoming increasingly tepid. Ganguly has always been a character which has aroused a huge amount of passion among the cricket crazy millions of India, either people hated him or worshiped him but there was hardly any cricket buff who was indifferent to him. I am no one to comment on the timing of his retirement and frankly one can never be objective while commenting on such topics, however, lets just hope that one of the best timers of contemporary cricket has played his final stroke with perfect timing.
My own impression of Ganguly has always been sort of wavering, while I couldn't but admire his guts and his grit and the fierce determination to succeed, I have also had many a fight with scores of friends and accomplices(especially ones from WB) who went ga ga over his talent. But now that he crosses over to the other side of the horizon, which sadly all sportsmen must do some day,I think of nothing but celebrating the moments which the man has given to so many of us. A sportsman’s retirement is always an occasion of mourning for his/her fans but I will mourn for him later. For the moment, I Will look back at his days in our collective conscience and cherish the memories which will remain. Ganguly has had many an achievement on the cricket field, some as an individual player of great calibre ,most as an extraordinary leader of men. His lasting legacy will be the aggressive nerve that he has instilled in the system of every Indian cricketer. And his ascendency to the captaincy also coincided with the emergence of a new and aggressive brand India in every sphere. As all true heroes do, he deserves all the applause and love from the country that he served, as he spends his last few days under the spotlight. He has been a true symbol of the changing image of the average Indian in the eyes of the globalised world. Ganguly has numerous fans across the world but nowhere are people as crazy about him as in his beloved Bengal. For the Bengali who has had been constantly loosing ground over his position as the most developed and cultured community in India, the emergence of Ganguly as a national hero came as a fresh lease of life. Yet the irony is that Ganguly is such an icon in Bengal because he was so un Bengali in nature. The Bengal that he emerged in, was considered to be mild ,nervous and unsure of its place in the basket of India. He changed all that, he emerged as a symbol of the man every Bengali wanted to be, a man who was so much like the Bengali heroes of yore like Bagha Jatin or Khudiram or Tagore. Heroes who inspired millions.
As the sun sets on Ganguly’s career, the sadness that engulfs me is also because of the fact that his retirement has reminded me of my own battle with that unconquerable foe, age. Indeed, as the heroes that we grew up with begin their long walk into oblivion, it also bears a testimony to our growing old. I was a kid when Maradona retired but still I could feel the void created by his departure, I was deeply saddened when Sampras said good bye but this time the feeling is even more sombre and I dread the day when the greatest hero of my growing up years(the man who has given more joy to the Indian diaspora than any other individual in its history), Tendulkar, hangs up his boots. But I will save that topic for some other day.
…For now… friends, fellow Indians and sports buffs around the world, lets rise up and give a grand farewell to Dada ,for this is the least that we could do for all the service he has rendered to Indian cricket and the smiles he has brought to so many faces over the years.