Former India opener Gautam Gambhir is an open-minded personality who wears his emotion on his sleeves. We have seen many instances where the cricketer had lost his cool or become over emotional on the field. He has been the man who speaks his mind and never believes in hiding his thoughts.
Off the field too, Gambhir has appeared to be a similar personality, especially when it comes to matters connected with the pride of the nation. Some of his recent actions tell the story and justify the fact that he is a man of action and not of hollow words.
He has openly raised his voice on social media. He condemned the video in which a security personnel was seen being roughed up by a youth while he was returning from a polling booth in Srinagar and had said at least 100 jihadi lives must be taken for every slap on an Indian soldier’s face.
Expressing his anger towards the same, Gambhir wrote on Twitter, “For every slap on my army’s Jawan lay down at least a 100 jihadi lives. Whoever wants Azadi LEAVE NOW! Kashmir is ours. #kashmirbelongs2us.”
Recently when the 25 CRPF jawans lost their lives in an ambush by the Maoists in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district, an infuriated Gambhir called for stringent retaliation and even pledged to support the families of the Border Security Forces (BSF) or Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawans. Gambhir is now ready to bear the educational expenses of the children of the paramilitary personnel, who were killed in the attack.
As a professional cricketer, it is best to stay away from distraction. But, Gambhir hasn’t been able to that. Ina recent post for KKR, the 35-year-old opened up his mind and spoke about the feelings he went through in the past couple of week.
“I can even watch and enjoy a cricket match being played between associate nations. I just love this game. But some incidents shake me so hard that I lose the context of playing cricket. Our last game on Wednesday was one such day where I experienced the hollow feeling,” his post read.
“The recent CRPF attacks in Chhattisgarh were still fresh in my mind. On Wednesday morning I picked up newspapers and saw gut-wrenching pictures of the daughters of two CRPF men killed in the latest attacks. One of them was saluting her martyr father while in the other picture the howling young woman was being consoled by her relative.
“We were to play against Rising Pune Supergiant in the evening. As the day went on and I was going from selection meeting to batsmen’s meeting to bowlers’ meeting the pictures kept growing on me. I thought to myself how does it matter to the families of those 25 CRPF men whether KKR won or lost. I spoke to few close people about it and their advice was try to shut out these incidents and do my job. Hell,” he added.
The KKR skipper further revealed that this was not the end of the story.
“I kept thinking and decided a few things. First, my team KKR would play with black armbands to express solidarity with mourning families. Second, Gautam Gambhir Foundation will take care of the entire education expenses of the children of these martyrs. My team has already started work on this and I shall soon share the progress we have made. I was a little bit at ease when I reached the ground,” he said.
“Winning the toss helped me a bit to readjust my focus. I was trying to push Chhattisgarh in the background as the first ball was about to be bowled. But it was just not leaving me. After a point, I gave up as the images were too strong and I knew they’ll only go with time.
“My colleagues were fielding poorly. In the normal course, it would have infuriated me no end but at the back of my mind Chhattisgarh was shouting, ‘It is just a game’. Bang, four and I was transported to present,” he added.
The left-handed opener also praised Kuldeep Yadav for his courage, saying,
“I was also proud of Kuldeep Yadav’s courage. Bowling to MS Dhoni didn’t faze him one bit. I think Monty Panesar summed it up really well in a tweet. He said, ‘@imkuldeep18& @robbieuthappa have a story for their grandchildren ‘Dhoni st Uthappa b Kuldeep!’ It wouldn’t have been a bad idea if Kuldeep had requested MS to sign the match ball and preserved it for life.”
“These are the reasons I love this game,’ teamwork and selflessness. For the same reasons I love armed forces too, although the quantum of losing a dear one while serving the country can never ever be compared to losing a cricket match,” he concluded.