Make History....

Walking briskly in his room, he was worried about the outcome. Lines on his forehead were not allowing him to think. He walked to the window where his men were trying to calm the beast. ‘How is he now?’ Rana asked, concerned.  One of them, who was also chief medical officer looked up to the window and said, ‘I am afraid sire, he is not responding to the medicines.’

Without replying to the officer Rana went back inside and started gearing himself for the battle. There was no time left. He saw his army commander Jhala, in corridor, coming to him. Before Jhala could even greet him, he said, ‘Nathak is not well’. ‘I know my lord. This is why I have come here. Now when your best horse is out, we have no other option but to go with the second. I have asked men to bring him here. You can see it and then we can decide’

He thought for a moment and said, ‘prepare the army for battle, I will ride the one you chose for me, my friend’ without a delay Jhala left the room and Rana was left alone on the window, geared with battle cloths, watching his best horse struggle to stand.

They say, soil of the battle ground turned red with blood of thousands. Rana was trying to stop the blood drift from the cut on his shoulder when Jhala came rushing on his horse. ‘My lord, we won’t last longer, their army is fierce and unending. We are no longer…’ he left the sentence incomplete and waited for Rana to reply.

‘I will kill their chief commander’ he replied tying the knot of cloth on his cut. Jhala smiled, he knew Rana very well, he was not the one who will take defeat so easily. Before he could say anther word, Rana was already on his way, like a hurricane cutting the flesh all along, making way towards enemy commander. ‘Who could say this horse of him is the second best’ he thought watching the beast at his best.

It was a fierce jump; the horse drifted itself so high that for an instance Rana was face to face with enemy commander who was sitting on an elephant. That was the moment. Rana shot his sword to him, right on target. Cutting the head of the elephant driver and wounding the commander on his neck, unfortunately the wound on his neck did not prove to be fatal and the elephant swung his trunk and hit Rana’s horse, the sword tied to its trunk had cut a chunk of flesh from horse’s leg.

Jhala came running to Rana and snatched the royal insignia and wore himself. Rana heard him shouting, ‘if we want our land back, you must be alive’    

It was running like a wind, carefree of the stream of blood from his leg. How can he think about his wounds when his master’s life is in menace. It had a task of taking his master away from enemy and he was doing it with all his dignity.  Just crossing the canal will insure the safety he knew and it crossed, a jump even Nathak would have hesitated to take, but it did. Rana was across the canal, safe.

As the horse fell on the ground, Rana knew the horse had made history. He wiped the tears from the eyes of the horse as it died. Took his knife and scratched name of the horse on a stone, ‘Maha Rana Pratap's Chetak’.

Nobody remembers ‘Nathak’, though he was the best always. So if you are the one who has not been number one always, well it doesn’t matter. What matters is how you perform when you get a chance to do it. ‘Chetak’ has become a part of history in spite of being number two, because he performed when it was needed the most. Life is full of chances and opportunities, what matters is how one performs, you never know when the number one gets sick and it is you facing the race. So to make history, give your best shot, no matter you are number one or number two.