A cricketer who died too young
Subhash Rajta
tribune news service
Kapurthala, May 14
On March 23, 2016, Karan Bhargav walked off a cricket ground for the last time. Less than a month later, on April 18, he breathed his last at PGI, Chandigarh. The upcoming all-rounder was just 20.
Every death is sad, but death at 20 is especially tragic. Karan didn’t have to die at an age his dreams were beginning to be realised.
“He lived his life playing cricket, and died playing cricket,” said his father Subhash Bhargav, his back pressing hard against the chair, his lips curled inwards and eyes turned upwards. He had been talking about his son for more than an hour, right from the day he picked up bat and ball as a toddler to the time he took his last breath, bravely holding back the tears and emotions threatening to spill over.
Theirs is a family of astrologers, deeply moored in religion. They believe life and death are predestined. And the belief is helping them to “live on”. Nevertheless, if there’s one thing Bhargav could change about the past, he would go back in time and stop his son from playing what turned out to be the last match of his life. “Sometimes I wish we had forced him to skip that match,” bemoaned Bhargav.
Mysterious fever
Karan had actually been unwell while playing Punjab’s U-23 inter-district matches. He had contracted a mysterious fever that would come and go. Driven by his love for the game and ambition to make it big, just like any other dedicated youngster, he ignored it and continued playing. In the sizzling sun, he played two three-day matches while running fever. It’s not that he and his family had been careless. His father got him examined twice, but the reports were all fine. “Our family doctor told us it was a viral fever, and Karan just needed to have some rest,” recalled Bhargav.
“So we decided he would not play the next match. He also agreed. On the morning of the match, though, I found him ready with his kitbag,” he added. “When I objected, he said the fever was gone, thrusting his wrist forward for me to check the pulse. It was indeed gone. So, we had to reluctantly let him go.”
But the match had barely begun when the fever returned and Karan got so unwell that he had to sit out for a while. But he didn’t quit and was soon back on the field. “When he went out to bat, he said his head was spinning,” said Harpreet Singh, his childhood friend and teammate. “But he didn’t leave and fought till the very last to save the game for the team.”
And once the match finished, the worried father took him from one hospital to another, from one city to another even as Karan kept pleading that he was absolutely fine, that it was just a minor fever he was suffering from. Unfortunately, Karan was wrong. The fever never went away, and on April 18, 26 days after he played his last game, he died in PGI.
Passion and pressure
It’s commonplace to see players ignoring minor health issues to keep playing. For them, especially the youngsters who know they can make it big and hence want to make every opportunity count, sitting out for even a single game is not an option. For instance, Rishabh Pant, an upcoming star who lost his father a couple of days before the start of the IPL, was back with his team a day after the cremation of his father! The passion for the game, dedication to the team and, probably, the fear of falling behind their competitors is just too intense.
For Karan, a supposedly harmless fever was too trivial to sit out an important match. “The match against Jalandhar (his last game) was crucial, a win would have put them into the semis,” said Bhargav. “And as the skipper of the team, he didn’t want to let his team down by missing such an important game.”
Unnecessary risk?
On a personal level, too, Karan had been doing really well and was eyeing a berth in Punjab’s U-23 team. He had finished as the most successful left-arm spinner in the U-19 Nationals (Cooch Behar Trophy) the previous year. In the state’s U-23 matches, he had already picked up 18 wickets from two games. “He was at his peak. He had been doing really well for a while and didn’t want anything to disrupt his run,” Harpreet said.
“He was running a mild fever in the first game against Patiala but things got bad in the second game against Mohali. The fever would run up to 102° Celsius... A few of us told him to leave the match and take rest but he didn’t pay any heed, he just wanted to play and perform.”
His team wasn’t expecting him to play the third match, yet he turned up. “I think he shouldn’t have played, even the match referee advised him not to take unnecessary risk. But again, he didn’t listen to anyone,” said Harpreet, his voice slowly losing its steadiness.
Health warnings
Would Karan be still alive if he had listened to his family, and his teammates? It’s impossible to say, but he surely would have given himself a better chance to pull through if he had not spent six days under the blazing sun while running fever.
It’s been a year since he left for his heavenly abode, but for his loved ones, it’s still not easy to talk about him. Yet, for this story, his father agreed to relive the painful last days of his son’s life. Why? Well, he wants other youngsters to learn a lesson from their tragedy. “Life and death are in God’s hands but one should be alert, and shouldn’t ignore health issues. Matches and opportunities will come again, but you have to be there to make use of them,” said Bhargav, his eyes turning upwards yet again.
