15th Nov 1989, the day was set
for a long haul. India was playing a rare test match at Pakistan’s soil. The
tempers and challenges were running high. The pace battery of Pakistan was at
its best and yet another stump was uprooted when the pace King Imran Khan
struck at the woods. In came a 16 year old boy named Sachin Tendulkar. He was destined
to be bloodied into a battle which he would partake again and again for a
number of years. Imran Khan, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis came in to bowl at young
Sachin and he took many a painful blows to score his 15 on that day. Soon
enough, in the same tour, he scored his first 50 and went on to become a legend
of the Indian Cricket as he piled up record number of runs. The numbers just
kept on adding up as one after another the records were marked against his
name.
Vostok
1 (was the first
spaceflight of the Vostok Programme and the first manned spaceflight in history. The Vostok 3KA space capsule
was launched on 12 April 1961 from Baikonur Cosmodrome with Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin,
making him the first human to cross into the outer space.
Yuri sat inside the capsule and the countdown to the take-off began. The
countdown was in numbers as time ticked by to reach the zero second when the
engines fired and the capsule took off against gravity. The orbital spaceflight consisted of a single orbit around Earth which skimmed the upper atmosphere
at 169 kilometers (91 nautical miles) at its lowest point. The flight took 108
minutes from launch to landing. Yuri Gagarin parachuted to the ground
separately from his capsule after ejecting at 7 km (23,000 ft)
altitude. The numbers played a crucial role.
Numbers form an integral part of human
existence. They are found in all arenas of human life and keep counting in
positive or negative directions as humans move on with their lives. The
relevance of numbers can never be underestimated. Humans start getting into the
number game soon as they are born. They end up being either the first child or
some number thereafter. In schools, the Roll Number takes charge and soon the
numbers settle behind humans as their performance is gauged at various levels.
Numbers are needed to seek admissions for higher courses in education. Post
education, even the job search has its own numbers associated with the game.
Salary is also numbered and along with it the temporary partners before the marriage
also are numbered. Post marriage, humans again get into the game of numbers of
various kinds and then set off into a life cycle where different numbers keep
them on the path of existence.
The facets of human society hinges on
numbers as they crisis cross the myriad challenges. Some humans get burdened
with numbers while some play their best parts with numbers favoring them. Good
numbers bring smiles and happiness. Bad numbers can lead to depleted souls. Who
then defines the human life and its vagaries? Should humans keep the numbers as
the guiding principles of their lives? Time also becomes an ever juggling
number for the humans of today’s age as life unfolds its drama. Numbers seem to
be getting better of the humans at each stage.
The chase for various kinds of numbers is
unending and steep in nature. The demand for a new number leads humans to spend
more of their crucial energy and mental faculties are constantly under strain.
Are the numbers too difficult to capture?
Most humans have a tendency to depend upon other humans for their existence.
They wait, watch, cajole, follow or lead other humans to be on the path of
their existence. They get delayed majority of the times as the response of the
partnering humans cannot be predicted. The response can be sluggish or fast,
but, the chasing human has a lot of work to do in both the cases. The various
numbers associated with the human life, therefore, start moving in
unpredictable fashion and a life cycle begins. Depending upon the
circumstances, the life cycle can be good or bad and then comes the famous
quote, “Bad times do not last forever”. A number features again as times change
and years fly by counting the human life.
Humans need to keep numbers in their
conscious mind to keep pace with the ever changing scenarios. Age moves and the
numbers move. At each stage, numbers demand humans to pre-empt the next
evolving number. It is a random calculation and the numbers simply keep moving
on silently but at a hectic pace. All that humans need to do is to keep
watching the numbers carefully and keep moving with them. The effort should be
to keep on syncing the various plans with the numbers.
What must have been in both Sachin Tendulkar
and Yuri Gagarin’s minds as they both faced an unfamiliar situation for the
very first time in their lives on their respective debuts? Training is a
different ball game than the actual scenario. A great bowler coming into bowl
at his best and to stamp his class all over the young man and a rocket ready to
propel a man into outer space- the adrenalin rush would have been unimaginable.
The bowler had numbered his steps and so was the countdown of the rocket’s
take-off. Both Sachin and Yuri went on to achieve unique number of records in
their respective lives. They had the courage and conviction to count their
numbers well and the numbers just swelled in the positive direction. They both
would remain icons for this World and continue to motivate countless number of
humans!! The numbers just do not give up, isn’t it?
Human lives cannot operate without numbers.
These are both finite versus infinite and predictable versus unpredictable in
nature. Humans can catch up with some numbers and have the ability to control
their lives to match up to many of the other numbers. It is for each human to decide
where he or she wants to head for in their life. The plan can lead to a
certainty of numbers and many issues can be closed properly with least of the
adverse effects.
Silent numbers keep plodding their way up to
various counts. Are you ready to match up to your numbers and scale up your
lives, eh?
