‘I am greater than death’: How Jaspal Rana gave life to Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Mrityunjay’

More than just a decorated shooter and coach, Jaspal Rana’s lasting legacy was his generosity and unwavering commitment to nurture Indian shooting. (Photo/Agency) NEW DELHI: Have you ever visited the Instagram profile of late shooting legend Jaspal Rana? If you do, the first thing that catches your eye is the line in his bio. It is written in Devanagari and reads: “When death is inevitable, it is supreme to sacrifice oneself for a good cause.” Translated into English, it reveals his underlying philosophy. “When death is inevitable, the highest way is to devote yourself to a good cause.” Rana, winner of multiple gold medals at the Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and Asian Championships, breathed his last in the early hours of Friday just a fortnight before his 50th birthday, leaving the world with one less person who truly lived by that credo.After becoming an Arjuna awardee at the age of 18, Rana soon transformed into a coach, grooming the world’s best such as Manu Bhaker, Saurabh Chaudhary and Anish Bhanwala, among others. He was honored with the Dronacharya Award in 2020 for his exploits, long before one of his protégés in Bhaker made history by winning two medals in a single Olympics.Last year, he took charge as the high-performance coach of the Indian shooting team. Thanks to this, he flew to Munich at the beginning of the summer for the ISSF World Championships.Among the women’s 10m air pistol divisions was 22-year-old Muskan from Bhiwani, Haryana. Surrounded by established names like Manu Bhaker, Suruchi Singh and Esha Singh, the rising shooter could have easily felt overwhelmed. But under Jaspal Rana’s watch this was never the case.“Just recently, when our children went to Germany, my daughter Muskan left and Suruchi also left,” Suresh Singh, who runs the Guru Dronacharya Shooting Academy in Haryana and serves as Suruchi’s personal trainer, told TimesofIndia. com. “So my daughter casually mentioned that ‘Sir, I don’t have this.’ She needed some item, I don’t quite remember what it was. Mr. Jaspal immediately said, ‘What do you need, beta?’ I’ll bring it right away.” He went to the stall himself, bought it and handed it to her. When she asked about the money, he said, “No, beta, no money. I brought it for you, take it.” He was a very open-hearted person.”Despite his legendary status, Rana routinely sought to validate and encourage grassroots coaches working outside the national set-up.“Compared to him, I am a very small coach. I come from the army and I have not achieved anything close to what he has achieved,” Suresh said. “But whenever we met somewhere, he said, ‘Brother, you are a good coach. You are preparing good kids. You are producing talent for India. We will take these kids on, don’t worry at all.’ He was always very helpful. He would say, ‘If you ever need to ask anything for any kid, you can always ask me.'”For him, the technical overview was not protected information intended only for his personal students. If a young shooter from another academy asked for technical adjustments or a quick tip, he would stand behind him on the range and patiently dissect the mechanics of the shot.When the team landed back in India, Suresh was at the airport at 2am to receive the students returning from the World Cup in Munich. There he noticed that Rana was in physical distress.“From Germany itself, he had some trouble,” Suresh recalled. “And when he got off the plane, he was sweating profusely. He looked uncomfortable. It was two in the morning, but as soon as he left the airport, he went straight to the hospital.”As the news of his sudden demise shook the shooting fraternity, the national team gathered for a camp in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, the hill state where Rana was born. The entire ecosystem he helped shape was present in his birthplace, but nowhere to be seen.Few felt the void more keenly than Manu Bhaker.“Manu is suffering extremely today because he was her personal trainer,” Suresh added. “The whole team is here. As soon as Manu got the news, she immediately left for Delhi.Besides winning medals for the country and coaching some of its best talent, perhaps his greatest legacy was the acts of generosity that made a young athlete feel seen, a fellow coach feel valued and one of his students left the national camp to pay her last respects. We may never see Jaspal Rano walking the ranges again, but is he really going to leave?Dedicating his life entirely to “acche kaaran” (good causes), Rana gave life to the closing lines of Rabindranath Tagore’s famous poem “Mrityunjay” (Conqueror of Death):“No matter how great you become, you are not greater than death. I leave and leave these last words: I am greater than death.”