We are the same, you and I:
imagine Harman and mithali but in a more negative way—it’s not a relationship but it’s about a girl looking at her idol and realising she is only human.
like, harman idolising this woman, who is known to be lady tendulkar, and has all these qualities that harman wishes she had. all calm and serene and cool.
but then come the losses and her constant comparison to men and harman sees the real woman, the one behind the idol one, the anger and the frustration to be called lady Tendulkar and not mithali raj. her need to be the best, her anger at being beaten, her anger at not being enough, her anger at not winning and her anger at being surpassed, perhaps, by harman.
harman is so different to mithali, that's what harman thinks. she sees mithali struggling and she grows outside of her idol. mithali likes her till harman is in her shadows. but then harman is coming out of them. making her own name. bringing that aggression. and mithali starts favouring smriti. because smriti is like mithali. 'a man will die but not his ideas' and mithali wants smriti to live with her ideas.
and, harman, who starts realising that mithali is not going to favour her anymore, stops expecting the praise that mithali had once showered on her. she is hell-bent on making her own name. hell-bent on showing her aggression, showing that she won't be pushed, that she'll change the game. she is building her own legacy and mithali, who has been the whole of it once, is barely a shadow in it now. so there comes mithali's withdrawal.
and then harman wins the world cup. mithali is standing there and she is clapping. mithali didn't want to come down, didn't want to meet harman. harman doesn't know if it's because mithali was ashamed of herself or was it because she hated seeing harman achieving what she couldn't. but then she sees the smile. sees the pride. sees the unshed tears at seeing the trophy finally belonging to the nation that had not been kind to her. and she is giving the trophy to mithali, offering it to her, and seeing the smile so bright on that face, of running away from the legacy, of trying so hard to make herself believe that she wasn't like mithali, only to realise that mithali was a part of her. a part of the game they played. a part of who they were.
mithali is everywhere. that's the thing. harman tries so hard to escape it, escape the legacy of the great before her, but at the end of the day, she is her successor. mithali has passed the crown to her. willingly or unwillingly. and no apple falls far from the tree.
mithali is in her, not just smriti, harman stands in front of the mirror, and sees mithali standing behind her.
once it was a ghost, haunting her, and now it's her light, guiding her.
i also think harman might have had the thought to be haughty, to show it off in mithali's face, to taunt her after all the times mithali had doubted her. but then, when she does look around, and sees mithali standing in a corner, just so proud, she can't. as if all of it didn't mean anything anymore because harman looks and realises that they are moulded of the same clay. they are the pots of the same clay. they were all fighting for the same glory.
‘there might be no trophy without harman but there would be no harman without mithali'
this is for @fortuna-majoris (yes, I love you, too)
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