ROHAN BOPANNA No.1 at Level 43

During our days of primary education, there were no mobile phones and no Google to enhance our worldly knowledge.

- GP CAPT ACHCHYUT KUMAR

Our means of gathering knowledge were books, magazines and newspapers. A few of such books that I remember were the Read and Tell series and some eight-page small pamphlet-like books that conveyed several interesting stories. The latter carried mostly character-building stories and the couple of stories that I can still recollect are Rama Cried Wolf and Robert Bruce: The King of Scotland.

Robert Bruce was the King of England who tried to conquer Scotland, but failed six times. After the sixth failure, Robert was hiding in a cave when he saw a spider trying to stretch its web from one end of the cave to the other. The spider failed six times but did not give up its attempt and climbed the wall each time to meet with success on its seventh attempt. Inspired by the small being, Robert the Bruce gathered his army and met with success to become the King of Scotland.

For the present generation, this story of Robert the Bruce may be a new one but then they needn’t get lost in the history of England and Scotland. For the present generation a personality imparting a similar inspiration about not to give up is that of Rohan Machanda Bopanna, an Indian professional tennis player who has etched a new level in tennis doubles which is now being termed as ‘Level 43’.