Receiving a gold medalist 101 year old lady

Got the honor of receiving Bibi Maan Kaur, a 101 year old lady from the village of my paternal granny. She won 4 gold medals in recently concluded World Masters Athletics championship at Auckland, New Zealand. She was accompanied by her 79 year old son, who also won a silver in his category.

It was a matter of pride for me that I got an exclusive opportunity to receive them and only those who are sincere in their respect towards such inspirational figures were present, Super Sikh team (Lovleen, Raja, Aseem and Dheer) under Rajeev and Gurpreet.

When I hugged Beji (a loving name given to all punjabi elderly women) I realised age has affected her as she was wearing a waistband to support her bent lumber. This conveys a lot about her will power and the fact that achievements are a game of mental strength and not luck or just physical power.

And when you are determined of such nature and have perseverance, even God blesses you (perhaps that is why they say, God helps those who helps themselves). This was evident from her reaction on getting the welcome. She could not stop herself from singing praises of almighty (shabad of Gurbani) . Typing this makes my eyes wet as I can still feel the aura of that special soul.

I was also surprised to see that my mom was enthusiastic to meet her and even when many youngsters shrugged to spoil their sleep at 2 in the night, my mom was dressed up before me to receive her.

It was a blessed night.

Now I am at the airport again, ready to catch a flight to Bagdogra to travel further to Gangtok to run with a soldier named Lt Col Sundaresan Sen (last we ran together in Doon on 30th April). He is on a mission ” Run for the soldier, Run with a solider ” , doing 50 full marathons in 50 weeks in 50 different locations of India to collect funds to honor martyrs’ families. Generally he runs in an organised marathon however as there is no run organised towards Gangtok side , he was running alone, that is where I pitched in. How can a soldier who is on such a wonderful mission be left alone…… 🙂