LIFE IS A NEVER-ENDING RELAY RACE

 FROM SAMPATH’S DESK:

  



 




LIFE IS A NEVER-ENDING RELAY RACE

 

At the outset, let’s trace the origin and basic truth of life's journey and life relay race. According to Mary Pride, “God intended motherhood to be a relay race. Each generation would pass the baton on to the next.”

 

In the olden days, whoever was physically the strongest held the stick, called the shots, and passed diktats of administration of the group of persons living in an area. The richest also wielded the baton. Then came the post of Village Mukya (Chief). At the macro level, we had Kings, Emperors, and Dictators (both benevolent and malevolent) who commanded everything with their overall, unassailable, and unquestionable powers.

 

Even a journey of thousand miles starts with a single step. At the micro-level, every second, minute, hour, day, and week is a step in human life. At the macro-level, every month, year, decade, and century stole the limelight for the events.

 

Little drops of water finally go to make a mighty ocean. The transitory life we live is connected to something much greater, even stretching infinitely, beyond one’s lifetime. History is a relay of revolutions with far-reaching repercussions and ramifications with enduring footprints and well-defined hallmarks. Everyone running in the life relay race has to hand over the baton to someone else to continue the journey. It’s a never-ending chain that transcends times and generations.

 

Kotaku Wamura (Japan -1909-1997) had this to say, “In life, a person’s most useful asset is not a head full of knowledge, but a heart full of love, an ear ready to listen, and a hand willing to help others.” Only such a person’s life will ever remain etched in the memory lane of others and the history book.

 

Life being a relay, problems do occur when the baton is received in our hands from someone. It’s for the receiver to solve them and run forward.

  

Destiny decides the thoughtful succession plans and players who are to hand over the baton to others after running their distances.

 

In life, what counts is the progress you make all the way to the logical end. The momentum you generate is the process in that progress tightly holding the baton to be safely handed over to the next runner in the relay. While there is necessarily an end of life for individuals, there is no end for the mankind collectively.

 

Needless to say, the life relay is not a simple but a complex race encompassing many persons, and aspects that impart lessons of teamwork, giver-receiver cooperation and coordination, resoluteness and steadfastness to run your segment with a 'never become tired' determination and spirit as part of your team - a euphemism for your family, society and the country at large - as fast as you can till your retirement. In the process, you get insights of leadership.  

 

Unlike the popular track event, life doesn’t always present smooth and straight road(s) clearly and evenly laid to run on. The challenges-ridden life relay race roads are full of potholes, ups and downs, speed breakers, slippery spots/stints, wet patches, and other pace dampeners for the relay runners to grapple with and overcome without dropping the baton midway. Yes, yet the race is beautiful to the discerning minds.

 

The real-life relay race is a unique journey without a destination but with a perennial scope to gain knowledge throughout that is infinite. As long as you dare, new things can be found and they are value additions to your life. In that, more than the speed, the direction clinches the issue and makes the difference.

 

In athletics, we have different races like short sprints, longer distance/marathon races, hurdle races, sack races, and another that is called ‘athletes walk’.

 

Paulo Coelho de Souza (a Brazilian lyricist, novelist, storyteller, and a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters) asked people, “When your legs are tired, walk with your heart.”

 

History repeats itself. Many good events (some bad ones too) that occurred a long time back enter the pages of history with ever-lasting impressions and impact transcending times and giving appropriate lessons.

 

Let me now conclude the piece with the quote of Brandon Lee “Immortality is to live your life doing good things, and leaving your mark behind.”

 

 

R.SAMPATH

9/1/2025

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

KAVIGNAR (TAMIL POET) VAALI

Image
FROM SAMPATH’S DESK:         KAVIGNAR (TAMIL POET) VAALI ( வாலிப கவிஞர் வாலி) (29 October 1931-18 July 2013)       Vaali Sir (T.S.RANGARAJAN) – born in Srirangam, Trichy, Tamil Nadu - was a great legendary Tamil-poet-cum-lyricist with a gift of the gab and pen, who had to his credit more than 15000 film songs and a host of other literary works, He was a contemporary of Kannadasan. His songs were thought-provoking, conscience-stirring, awareness-generating and highly inspiring. Yes, with his departure, a great saga of an eventful career of a distinguished lyricist spanning more than five decades has come to an end. The poetic circles, and the literary and tinsel worlds have become poorer by his passing. Transcending barriers including generations, he had offered something for everyone belonging to both old and new generations to remember and cherish forever. Vaali made his humble beginning, as is the wont with every writer, with a devo...
Read more

Sir C.V. RAMAN

Image
FROM SAMPATH’S DESK:       Sir C.V. RAMAN (7 November 1888 – 21 November 1970)   Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was born on 7 th November 1888 in Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu.   An Indian physicist well known for his work in ‘light scattering’, he invented, duly aided by his student KS Krishnan,  that ‘when light traverses a transparent object (say like a prism), the wavelength and amplitude necessarily get changed for some of the deflected light’. This phenomenon of scattering of light was named as ‘Raman Effect’, also well known as ‘Raman Scattering’.   Raman was conferred with Nobel Prize in Physis in 1930. The other awards received by him were:   Fellow of the Royal Society (1924)   Matteucci Medal (1928)   Knight Bachelore (1930)   Hughes Medal (1930)   India’s Bharat Ratna (1954)   Lenin Peace Prize (1957)   He was associated with the Indian Finance Department, Rajaba...
Read more

RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Image
  FROM SAMPATH’S DESK:   RABINDRANATH TAGORE (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941)     Needless to say, Rabindranath Tagore is synonymous with India’s national anthem ‘Jana gana mana’. Born in Jorasanko Thakur Bari, Bengal (British India), Rabindranath Tagore was a polymath and versatile persona viz. poet, playwright, dramatist, novelist, essayist, story-writer, composer, philosopher, social reformer, educationist, linguist, grammarian, and painter - all rolled into one - who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for his profoundly sensitive, fresh, and beautiful poetic collection called GITANJALI. He was the first non-European to receive the accolade after Theodore Roosevelt (26 th President of the United States) who received the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize.   Tagore wrote the national anthem of Bangladesh also called 'Amar Sonar Bangla' in 1905.   Although  Rabindranath’s father sent his son to a public school in Brighton, England with ...
Read more