It was a cold winter morning. As the breeze was busy cracking the tender dry skin, we were preparing for the cross-country race for the early Sunday morning. The bells rang with no indifference like any other weekday as everybody left their laziness in their previous day night clothing.
The first boy and the first girl who make it across the entire village, the valley down the bridge and into the forest and back will be declared champions for the week’s cross country race will proudly hoist the national flag upon the school’s administrative office and will have their names in red bold letters on the main notice board for an entire week until somebody else will run his ass off!
As we assembled in those lines according to heights and spacing each other with our hands as rulers, I realized that I was standing next to the all time cross country champion! Who wouldn’t dream of being a person like that of him?! I had to satiate my share of curiosity and so asked him the question that had been so tirelessly running round & round in my head,
“Do you ever get tired?”
He turned towards me and gave me a weird look. I know it was a stupid question but I had a reason- I was just too young!
Then, more questions hit my head.
“Aren’t you scared of entering the forest alone before the entire group makes it?”
“What do you do when you feel really thirsty and when your legs ache very badly?”
“Do you take breaks?”
“How do you build your stamina?”
I didn’t know what to ask. He waited as I simply stared at him. I finally asked-
“What do you do when you when you feel like stopping?”
“Take a step further”; he simply answered.
The whistles blew and we ran in colorful shorts to entertain the drowsy on looking villagers. As I took the first breaths of the unused air scented with Eucalyptus, all I could think of is what he said.
Alas! It is not who that is stronger or who with the greatest potential that matters. The question that matters is, “ who endures it the hardest and the farthest of all?” When every cell in your very existence is devoid of energy; when the very breath is about to run out; when every iota of energy is spent- Can you dare to take one step further?
Stamina is no virtue or skill, my friend. It is just the will to take one another steps further!
p.s. Dedicated to Madhusudhan Reddy and to the conversation at the Amphi theatre hill on the Sunday morning.
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