New Delhi: Have you ever seen the Instagram profile of late shooting legend Jaspal Rana? If you do, the first thing that catches your eye is his bio line. Written in Devanagari, it reads: “When death is the sign, samrapta karana sarvotam to do good to swayam”.“
Translated into English, it reveals his basic philosophy. “When death is inevitable, devoting oneself to a good cause is the highest act.”Earlier on Friday, Rana, a multiple gold medalist at the Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, and Asian Championships, breathed his last just a fortnight before his 50th birthday, leaving behind a world that truly lived up to that creed.Becoming an Arjuna Award winner at the age of 18, Rana would soon become a coach and improve the likes of global batsmen. I beg youSaurabh Chaudhary, and Anish Bhanwala, among others. For his works, he was awarded the Dronacharya Award in 2020, before one of his protégés in Bhakkar made history by winning two medals in the same edition of the Olympics.Last year, he took charge as the high performance coach of the Indian shooting team. And because of that, he flew to Munich for the ISSF World Cup earlier this summer.The women’s 10m air pistol squad included 22-year-old Maskan from Bhiwani, Haryana. Surrounded by names like Manu Bhakkar, Saruchi Singh, and Isha Singh, a budding shooter could have easily been overwhelmed. But this never happened under Jaspal Rana’s watch.“Just recently, when our children went to Germany, my daughter Muskaan went, and Saruchi went too,” Suresh Singh, who runs the Guru Dronacharya Shooting Academy in Haryana and serves as Saruchi’s personal coach, told The Times of India. com. “So my daughter casually mentioned, ‘Sir, I don’t have it.’ He needed something, I can’t quite remember what it was. Jaspal Sahib immediately said, son, what do you want? I bring it now.He himself went to a stall, bought it and gave it to her. When he asked about the money, he said, ‘No, son, there is no money. I brought it for you, take it.’ He was a very open-hearted person.”Despite his legendary status, Rana routinely went out of his way to endorse and encourage grassroots coaches operating outside the national set-up.“Compared to him, I am a very small coach,” Suresh said. “But whenever we met somewhere, he would say, ‘Brother, you are a good coach, you are developing good kids, you are developing talent for India.’ We will take these children forward, don’t you worry at all.’ He was always very helpful. He would say, ‘If you ever need to ask for anything for a child, you can ask me.“To him, technological insight was not just proprietary knowledge for his personal disciples. If a young shooter from a different academy asked for a technical adjustment or a quick tip, he would stand behind them on the lane, patiently breaking down the mechanics of the shot.When the team arrived back in India, Suresh was at the airport at 2:00 am to welcome the students back from the Munich World Cup. There he saw that Rana was in physical pain.“He was already having some trouble with Germany,” Suresh recalled. “And when he got off the flight, he was sweating profusely. He looked anxious. It was 2 a.m., but as soon as he left the airport, he went straight to the hospital.”When the news of his sudden death shook the shooting community, the national team had gathered for a camp in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, the hill state where Rana was born. The entire ecosystem he helped shape was there in his birthplace, but he was nowhere to be seen.Few felt this void more acutely than Manu Bhakkar.“Manu is in a lot of pain today because he was his personal coach,” added Suresh. “The whole team is here. As soon as Manu got the news, she immediately left for Delhi.”Apart from winning medals for the country and coaching the best of his talent, perhaps his greatest legacy lies in acts of generosity that made a young player feel appreciated, a fellow coach appreciated, and a student of his left the national camp behind to pay his last respects. We might not see Jaspal Rana stepping into the shooting ranges again, but will he really go away?Devoting his life entirely to “Achhe Karan” (good cause), Rana gave life to the closing lines of his life. Rabindranath TagoreFamous poem “Mrityunjay” (Conqueror of Death):“No matter how great you become, you are not greater than death. I will leave with these last words: I am greater than death.”
