And then they played a recorded footage where the father (Punjabi actor and former cricketer Yograj Singh) told his son that he had to play cricket and be the best for no reason except for the sake of his father. Apparently he was pained when his son played other sports without any special interest in Cricket and so one day he told him:
"Son, how do you want me to live in this world with the same face if you don't complete my dream? I want you to play cricket for the country and complete my unfulfilled dream."
And then followed years of rigorous training - six hours on the ground and four hours at home in the nights - and the rest as they say is history.
For those of you who do not know the saga of Yograj Singh, here it is in his words:
Years ago somebody snatched my right to play for the country. I lived this game all my life and then someone who was afraid that I would take his place in the team snatched it from me. These so-called living legends took the life out of my soul. the hurt they have caused will go with me to my grave.
If you are interested, you can read the rest of his words in this interview here where he says he breathes through his son. In fact you can read any interview with Yograj Singh. This is all he says over and over again.
I do not understand this whole business of sons fulfilling fathers' dreams - what about the son's own dreams? Why the hell is he made to live his father's life by proxy? And what kind of a father uses his child to have his revenge on people who were unfair to him? Of course our mythology has examples of this - for example Drupad who observed severe penance to please the Gods so as to have a son who would kill Drona and a daughter who would marry Arjuna through whom Drona caused his disgrace. That is all their purpose in life was to be - tools to help their father avenge the shame he suffered.
In the case of Yuvraj it all ended happily but what if he did not possess the talent or perseverance required? Imagine putting a child through this kind of torture if all he wanted was to skate or to play tennis. It seems like a classic case of child abuse to me. I know a boy who took to drugs in college to escape his sense of failure at not being able to live up to parental expectations - a very bright boy, only he did not enjoy doing what his parents wanted him to pursue. Left to himself, he might have been successful following his own passion.
Speaking of child abuse, I think the same of parents who put the child through similar torture in academics. For every Yuvraj tortured into cricket there are a thousand boys who are kept forcibly away from taking sport as a career. The arguments are too familiar to repeat.
I know some parents who start their day by taking the child to some tuition or other and then feed them breakfast and drop them in the school. In the evening they are waiting outside the school with snacks and a change of clothing after which the child is taken to some coaching class or other. They feel proud of their superior parenting skills. I say "Please let the child be." It is one thing to be supportive and encouraging. This is pushing, stifling, suffocating, imposing parental ego on the child killing his desires and passions. But they tell me that the child will thank them for all this when he gets into IIT or REC or one of the top engineering colleges. The child does not even know what he wants to do with his life. He is not allowed to think - the parents have already done it all for him. And I have heard many parents say that they wanted to be something but could not so they hope that their child would do it and "fulfill their dream."
Time we realised that we have the right to dream only for ourselves . Let the children have their own dreams. Too bad if we did not achieve ours in our lifetime - we have no business to dump it on someone else, even if we gave birth to that someone. Whatever else we can give them is of no use, if we snatch their dreams away from them.
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