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Is this anything?'s avatar

I wanted to pin some parts of this and respond in comments but I realised I would need to pin the whole post.

I came looking for your write up. I think you know why. I hope you don't remember why.

Back when I was growing up, I had a similar relationship with a tennis elbow of a certain player. Because of him I never smoked growing up and have never smoked a cigarette when it was all to easy to smoke. I want to forget all what that player has done off the field because he has never been as candid as Jota was in that quote that ends this fabulous post.

I don't follow football and I cannot name any league but I just came here to read your post to share grief.

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Sarthak Dev's avatar

:) So glad the essay spoke to you.

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Abhishek Shetty's avatar

This was hard to read Sarthak. But you captured some of the difficulties of articulating how tragic and sudden all of this was in the life of that athlete. Thanks for this reflective piece Sarthak and for expanding the scope of sports writing for me as a reader. These players dedicate their lives to this game and it is so unfair that this happened to him and his family.

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Sarthak Dev's avatar

Thank you for reading, Abhishek! Terribly tragic incident, this.

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Aakriti's avatar

Beautiful essay, Sarthak. It has been a painful few days and writing and reading is definitely helping a lot of us fans process it all. Funny, we both quoted the same lines from DFW in our essays. Grateful to also have your words now to help make sense of it all :)

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Sarthak Dev's avatar

Thank you, Aakriti. :) That DFW essay is quotable about so much.

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Rakhi Kurup's avatar

Beautiful start and ending Sarthak.

My son A2 is a Liverpool fan and he is heartbroken.

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Sarthak Dev's avatar

Thank you so much, Rakhi :)

Regards to your soon, it must be so tough.

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Ila Reddy's avatar

So tragic! :( Beautiful writeup, I particularly loved the opening bit about the intimacy of closely observing athletes we love and all that sparks in us :)

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Sarthak Dev's avatar

Thank you, Ila :)

So, so tragic indeed.

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