‘My heart will go on’: How Titanic’s Kate Winslet inspires Yashasvi Jaiswal’s India dream

In 10 IPL games this edition, Yashasvi Jaiswal has scored 442 runs at a strike rate of 158.42 with 57 fours and 19 sixes. What’s his way to inspire himself, visualise goals? He sings, “my heart will go on …” from the movie Titanic.
“I always sing one line of ‘my heart will go on’, which creates some memories. ‘Every night in my dreams I see you and I feel you’ – that’s the way I visualise what I want to do,” he tells BBC TMS podcast. It’s been his favourite song ever since he saw the movie Titanic, and he still uses it to inspire himself. “I love ‘my heart will go on’, Celine Dion, Kate Winslet .. it makes me happy.”
The 21-year-old then adds, “I am still searching for a partner! I would love to have a nice girl in my life some day.” A surprised host gently says ‘you are just 21, you will have lots of time,’ and a laughing Jaiswal adds, ‘Yes yes, at the moment, I am focused on cricket”.
The pod rewinds to his early days when he left his village at the age of 10 to seek a life in Mumbai. How he stayed in a tent at the cricket ground, sold panipuris, did this and that.
It’s a well-chronicled story but there is a charming visual that he provides in the recent chat. How from his tent, he would see the Wankhede Stadium lit up in the nights and how it triggered him to greater things.
“Where I used to live , I used to see the lights of Wankhede Stadium. I had a dream of playing for my country and also for the IPL. I would see the floodlights at Wankhede and think one day I am going to play there. I would shadow practise for hours and hours in the nights, and keep improving my skills.”
He would hit his first IPL hundred this season in that same Wankhede, raise his hands, shut his eyes and slip into emotional nostalgia. “When I scored ail century in Mumbai, it was emotional. When I raised my hands and shut my eyes, I had a flashback of everything I guess … These memories, these moments, I am proud of myself, happy, but I need to keep doing the same thing going ahead,” Jaiswal said.
“In Mumbai, you have to fight for everything – local trains, food, you have to fight… I really want it and that’s how you will get it. That fighting spirit gives me confidence … It has been a long journey at a really young age but I need to continue to do the same thing that I have been doing for the last 10 years.
“It wasn’t easy. I left when I was really young, left my village, went to Mumbai, stayed in a tent, selling panipuri, working here and there, but I had a dream, something to achieve, I had a motto for life. There was no electricity, no good water, you had to cook your own food… not enough places to practice, people with better connections get practice time. So I would start going really early, in a way I was living in the ground. The first person on the ground and had a lot of training with my coach Pappu sir, who was really nice to me,” Jaiswal says.
He says he carries all those moments with him, and dips into his past to motivate and keep him disciplined on the right path. “All these things remind me of what I was thinking when I was ten. It’s still with me and I carry it with me when I get down or feel motivated. I always look back, visualise how I came from the village, what I was doing in Mumbai. How I wanted to do well when I got chances. It’s all been worth it. If you work hard only then you will get some opportunity and luck.”
He doesn’t want to stop in the IPL; his dream is to play for India. “Every night, I feel one day I will chase my dream of playing for India and that’s the only reason I started playing cricket. I am also waiting for when God will make it happen. If it’s in my destiny, it will happen. I am not worried, I am patient. I am working on my process. When the chance comes, I wish I grab it; I just need to express myself. God will take care of it,” Jaiswal says.