I am a sportsperson, hence a Geologist!

I am a sportsperson, hence a Geologist!

                                                                                                             - Sandro Chatterjee

From collecting Rafael Nadal’s posters in schooldays to stealing money from my mother’s purse to watch India vs. Pakistan at Eden Gardens, Kolkata; I always dreamt big, when it came to sports and I still live with it. The ultimate legacy of the Samba football and the ruthless mentality of German blood- both attract me like iron shavings to a magnet.

Being smashed with statements like “Everybody is not Sachin”, a simple boy, bearing a simple family name, I had to give up my dream of being a jock, quite early in life. School days failed to motivate me to fall in love with any academic subjects and I got completely lost by the inexplicable chemistry equations. The playground appeared to me as the most exciting of them all. I had to, somehow, choose a career to pursue my dream, otherwise I’d be stuck in a boring headspace throughout my life.

That’s when I stumbled upon Geology (Earth Sciences) and for the first time, in my life, I fell in love with something other than sports (P.S. -I come from an all boys’ school). Sports isn’t only played in the field, it is played in the cranium of the human brain, it is played in the sweating gym and I found the exact charm of a subject in all its academic beauty, in Geology. From the brainstorming concepts of structural geology to the unending shlokas of Stratigraphy, it will teach you to solve countless puzzles really fast, albeit with serious patience. It can lead you to the best destinations in the world; from the hot beaches of Maracana to the cold mountains of Alps, which even Lionel Messi dreams for a holiday. You can’t get grip of it until and unless you have the proper eyes to study the field, its structures and you sweat a lot through the terranes, to reveal the hidden treasures, exactly like Kante runs across the field for 90 minutes with the same passion and exhilaration.

That’s how to train everyday for a 9.58 seconds Olympic 100-meter finish

You might be a mediocre student and might not like quantum mechanics, inorganic chemistry, quadratic equations but you know you have all the potentials and need a stage to perform; Geology is the place for you. Carry your concepts and just explore the charms of field geology, you will come out as a star. The testing field arena will also teach you how unfriendly an area can be and you have to judge and plan well enough to come out at the top against all odds, otherwise it could be a mess similar to what PSG put themselves in, in Camp Nou.

You can know the very basics of Earth, its evolution, its history, geography and all the fascinating stories, the breath taking debates. This beauty provides a huge scope for all creative and artistic minds to show off their skills in fields like geologic mapping, plate reconstructions and so on, seems to be a beautiful combination of The Portuguese Machine and the Argentine Artist. You can learn the life lessons as in sports, you can be a travelling butterfly; interact with all the people in the world, go to the destinations everyone’s scared of, can see the true rural world and taste the finest wines across the globe.

Imagine setting up a tent after a tiring field day and looking up to the stars in the hills of Eastern Ghats, you are already having goosebumps. What if I tell you the exact place you laid your feet on, was once part of the great Antarctica? (BTW you can also have a trip to the Antarctic; which isn’t even blessed with CR7’s footprints). What if I tell you the vast lands of Kutch in Gujarat resemble the surface of Mars? Yesss! Maaarssss. What if I tell you, one day your bar magnet could flip to give you an opposite direction of North? No, you can’t blame Modiji for everything. It’s Geology! That it is fascinating is an understatement. It has every aspect to turn you into an enthusiastic lunatic for so long just like Ronaldo still tearing the nets at 35.

Me and Supratik during detailed mapping of a ridge at Galudih, Jharkhand, India.

Life will break you down as a penalty kick broke Ramos in the Euro quarter final but you will always have the option to bounce back in the most unexpected situations as he did in the Champions League final against Atletico. Geology will lead you to this struggling battle from failure to success.  It will teach you to lie down in the dust and read off of clinometers, at the same tourist spot where a couple of younglings may flock for selfies, and laugh at you. That’s how to deal with life. Blatter laughed at Ronaldo only to find himself in the news next day, being mocked by CR7, after the famous hat trick. It will teach you to ignore the surroundings and change the stones into milestones.

A geologist doesn’t even break down after breaking up from a ten year long relationship as we are used to break ups at continental scale and love to deal with a rock 4.56 billion years old, still standing strong like nothing happened. Where else will you find this motivation? If you are a fan of Dhoni’s calmness, Federer’s elegance, Virat’s struggle, Serena’s dominance, Messi’s art, go ahead...Geology is for you! You are confined only by the walls you build for yourself. Yes, they say it right; it’s your life, make it large!

Special thanks to Srinanda, Supratik and Arindam.