The day I met the sun

I remember the day very clearly, even now. I suspect that I’d remember it even if I’d been struck down with some debilitating disease and forgotten every other detail of my life. It was the day I felt hope again.

I was an internationally renowned running coach at the time. Well, not exactly. I’d retired six months earlier after my last batch of students had ascended to the top ten national rankings. The reason for my retirement? In part, it was laziness; the sense of happy contentment that creeps into life as one ages. It was also, in a way, fear – that I had at last exhausted my reservoir of knowledge and expertise, that I had nothing more to give to the next generation of runners. I thought retirement would bring me relief.

I was wrong. The six months for which I was unemployed were among the worst I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing. This was not due to any lack of money or resources. Rather, retirement proved to be a source of boredom for me. I cannot put into words the feeling of uselessness, and the lack of productivity.

It was for this reason that I found myself on a bus to a remote, isolated village in rural Punjab, the day I met Tanvi. I hopped off the bus and strolled through the market, glancing from time to time at the varied stalls on display. To me, this whole exercise was just to give me something to do with my time.

I spotted a girl of about fourteen, then, with long, dark hair and a slim build. She was slight, but not thin. She was laughing, skipping around a little puppy that I assumed to be hers. The puppy barked voraciously as the girl’s feet kicked up clouds of dust around it, but its ferocity was somewhat muted by its wagging tail. It made to chase the girl, and she darted away with surprising speed. No, not surprising – astonishing. I could hardly believe my eyes – one moment she was there, and the next, gone. Before I even knew what I was doing, I turned in search of her. Nothing. How? She was just here, I thought frantically, as my eyes swept the market in vain for the girl who had, after six months of torturous boredom, awakened life inside me once more.

Finally, I had the bright idea to ask one of the stall owners where she might have gone. When he asked me to describe her, I said, “A girl, maybe fourteen years old, dark brown hair… a puppy! She had a puppy with her!”

He thought for a moment. “I think I know of a girl like the one you described. She lives in that house, over there,” he said, pointing. “With her brother.”

Something about the phrasing of the sentence and the delicate way he said the words made me pause. “What about her parents?” I asked.

“Doesn’t have any,” the man replied. He seemed relieved that I had asked the question, and that he hadn’t offered up such private information himself. I thanked him profusely, and headed in the direction he’d pointed me in, lost in thought.

Eventually, I reached a little mud hut with a thatched roof that seemed to be the one the stall owner had considered. The puppy was rolling around on its back next to a little boy, who was sitting on the doorstep, drawing things in the sand. The boy looked up as I approached, and seemed to note my expensive suit, my shiny shoes. “Who are you?” he asked suspiciously. I tried not to take this too personally and opened my mouth to answer when the old wooden door creaked open before me.

The girl stepped out of the hut into the bright, blinking sunlight, and my heart clenched. I have come to look for something when scouting new students. There comes a moment, which comes rarely, but comes all the same, when one can sense the greatness of a destiny, the mark one will leave upon the world. I felt that then, looking at my next student, the future national, and then world champion.

I explained myself to her. “My name is Ranvir,” I said. “I’m a running instructor. I saw you running in the market, and I think you have potential. I can train you, make you something great. Would you like that?”

She hesitated. “Sir,” she said respectfully, “I’ve never even left this village.”

“What’s that got to do with anything? Look, there are two components of greatness – talent, and training. You have the first, and I’m giving you the second.”

 I shot her a look that I hoped conveyed what I wanted to say – that I knew about her parents, that I understood the weight of the burden that had been so unfairly placed on her young shoulders. “You’ll be well taken care of,” I said instead, not wanting to upset her. “You and your brother.”

I could sense her reluctance – understandable, from someone who’d seen practically nothing of the rest of the world. “It’ll take a lot of work,” I said. “There will probably be days when you’ll wish you hadn’t taken this path. But I think the end will be worth it. What do you think?”

She looked at me. Looked down at the ground, at her brother, at her little mud hut. Looked back up at me, and smiled.

That day was nearly seven years ago now. Tanvi is almost twenty and among the top ten runners in the world. I gave up on retirement after coaching her, and now help children from all over India take their first steps towards greatness, towards success, towards fulfillment. And if, while flipping through the newspaper in the morning, I find the most incredible student I have ever known smiling up at me, just like she did that day, I feel something achingly, something overwhelmingly like love.

by: Evan,

Class X,

Apeejay School, Mahavir Marg