He is known as the greatest cricketer alive, and his fans call him the 'God of Cricket'. But Sachin Tendulkar recounted how he had a near death experience before he even began his Cricket career.
While kicking off a safety drive launched by Mumbai Police, Sachin appealed to the people not to risk their lives by crossing the railway tracks in a hurry.
He told the gathering how during his school days, once he and his friends decided to cross the rail tracks to catch a train in a hurry and had to duck and crouch between rail tracks as trains passed on them.
"While crossing the tracks, halfway, we realised that trains were coming fast on all the tracks. We ended up crouching on our knees in between the tracks with our kits. That was a scary experience and then onwards we never crossed train tracks," he said.
"The numbers, what I saw, was 700 people last year died because they fell out of the train, which is really unfortunate, and 1,600 people lost their lives while crossing tracks. I feel in today's world every minute matters, there is competition everywhere."
"I feel a lot of time (the thinking is), if we cross railway tracks, then we will reach quicker, there will be benefit of five minutes instead of crossing the bridge while going to the other platform. These are small things - one, you are breaking the law, and you are risking life for five minutes," said the cricketing great while appealing people to observe safety rules and not to risk their lives.
