Personality of the month: December 2004
www.nihindia.org
Fauja Singh: 90 year old Marathon runner:
When does life start? The Japanese believe that it starts when the embryo is conceived; hence they take the period of gestation as one year. Some think it starts when the child is born; some, when they think the human develops a consciousness to its surroundings. Depending on whom you are life starts at different times.
If you were Mozart life would have started at age of nine when he composed his first symphony. If you were Alexander it would be seventeen years when he set out to conquer the world; or if you were George Bernard Shaw it could be thirty-five when he wrote his first play and went on to become a playwright that earned him name of “20th century Shakespeare”. It could be eighty like for Jessica Tandy who won an Oscar for her role in the movie Driving Miss Daisy; or it could be ninety as for our personality of the this month, Fauja Singh. Most of us at nineties would be communing with heaven or hell depending on our pot of deeds on earth but not Fauja Singh. And what is so wondrous about him?
Most people are dead at ninety; a lucky few either bed-ridden or with various other handicaps; a few geniuses are healthy. But this man did not go on the moon, he leapt passed the moon and landed into the sun. He ran a marathon at the age of eighty-nine. He finished it in 6h and 54 mins and came first in that category. And there is more. He ran a second marathon at the age of ninety-two with an improved timing of 5h and 40 mins. The Kenyans are quaking in their boots about what would happen when this man reaches hundred.
In these days of crass materialism and capitalism where dollar, euro and yen rules, Adidas has recruited a model for its shoes. Its not David Beckham who apparently is in touch with his feminine side; nor is it ET who was chosen the sexiest man of the year in 1982 (I wonder what told the viewers that ET was male or female or had any gender at all!). If truth can be stranger than the imaginations of schizophrenic mind; the model is Fauja Singh a 93-year man, who has a vegetarian food, practises Sikhism and donates all the money that he earns (maybe Adidas should get inspired by that) to noble causes. The orthopaedics surgeons actually examined his bones and found them dandy. For those who are awaiting inspirations and/or meaning in life I post his bio-data and some titbits that you might care to acquaint yourself with. He is breathing epitome of the axiom that life starts when you start it and ends when you give up. Birth and deaths are mere stamps to these processes like marriage is for two souls that decide to unite.
http://www.rediff.com/sports/2004/mar/23fauja.htm
Moloy Goswamy