Code name: GOD
Disclaimer: Wisden Cricketers’
Almanack (2002) may have placed Tendulkar behind the great Bradman (as second
greatest Test match batsman of all time) & behind the just as great
Richards (as the second greatest O.D.I. batsman of all time), but I firmly
believe that comparisons across generations and/or eras is, apart from being
unfair to all parties involved, an exercise in futility – far too many variables
have changed, & will inevitably keep changing, in this great game of ours
to provide a level playing field for all of them. (Yes, the pun is intended) There are thus no
comparative references to batsmen from other eras in this article.
“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” –
Genesis 1:3
And then, indeed, there was light. Coming from the old
Videocon TV, my uncle’s most prized possession, that sat grumpily atop the only
table in his room. My curiosity piqued by the pale incandescence & excited
voices that seemed to be spilling out from therein, I remember having peeped
into his room on that fateful February evening. An eerie yellowish glow
engulfed kakumoni as he sat in near-darkness, so enthralled by the grainy
telecast as to be completely unaware of his nephew having stolen a march on
him. Calcutta’s typically brief winter had left barely a few days ago, &
neither the oppressive heat nor the notorious humidity had really settled in
yet. Which is why it had appeared rather strange that even though the ceiling
fan was going at what had looked like full speed, kakumoni looked positively
anxious sitting right underneath the screeching blades. My father had only
recently deemed it fit for me, his 8-year-old son, to watch television (under
adult supervision of course); even then, all I knew of the magic world of the
idiot box were Duck Tales, TaleSpin and the like on DoorDarshan. Kakumoni, I
could see, was definitely not watching cartoons, so I had walked up to him
& enquired as to what it was. “Cricket,” he had said, ruffling my hair with
a patronizing air. “India... we are playing Australia... see those people in the
yellow clothes? They’re the Australian team. Our players are in blue, see?”
For me, a child of average intelligence who had never been exposed to sport on
TV, all of this was already far too much to grasp. And yet, at that very
moment, the gently curving screen of the television seemed to be filled by the
face of a man wearing a navy blue helmet, with some numbers written in yellow
at the bottom of the display. “And that...”
said kakumoni with great flourish, “is Sachin Tendulkar. He is the best player
we have, perhaps one of the five best players in the world right now.” A
child’s uncomprehending eyes had settled on the face on the screen, the face of
a man who seemed younger than his kakumoni, & whom the voices from inside
the TV seemed to be praising. The face stuck, kakumoni made sure I watched all
the remaining of India’s matches in the Wills World Cup ’96 & to me the
game of cricket had a face forever.
What has followed through the 17 odd years post that is that
the little man from Mumbai has gone on to own most of the batting records that
are worth owning. What has followed is that I have hoped against hope that
every match featuring Sachin be day-and-night, with India batting second, so
that school hours wouldn’t take away the pleasure of watching him bat. What has
followed is that, under the pretext of bathroom breaks during regular classes,
I have invariably turned up in the school Physics laboratory to listen to the
radio commentary during his presence at the crease. What has followed is
countless hours of shadow practice inside the safe confines of our Calcutta
house, envisioning how it would be to hit a straight drive as straight as
Sachin. What has followed is that I was present on Days 1, 3, 4 & 5 of that
epic Kolkata Test match of 2001, watching live as Sachin scalped Hayden & Gilchrist
on the euphoric fifth day. What has followed is that I have bunked UnderGrad
classes to stay home & admire his prowess, each shot even crisper on our
new LCD TV. What has followed is using a friend’s ‘connections’ in the Delhi
Police to watch Mumbai Indians v/s Delhi Daredevils at the Feroze Shah Kotla.
What has followed is fighting for a seat in the PostGrad hostel common room
during every ICC World Cup 2011 match. What has followed is a growing
dependence on ESPNcricinfo as corporate life & the Bombay traffic have made
it next to impossible to watch him on TV. What has followed is, simply put,
history. My personal history with the one cricketer who transcended the
boundaries of time & space, my personal history with the batsman who
transported me into a world where he was the Alpha & the Omega, the Yin
& the Yang, my personal history with the man I openly worship. What has
followed is my personal history with a cricketing God.
Was he truly the
greatest batsman of this generation? Ponting, Lara, Dravid, Kallis must be
pardoned for raising their eyebrows. Was he, then, the greatest batsman that
India has produced since Gavaskar? Most likely, although Dravid & Ganguly
have outshone him from time to time. Was he the most dependable batsman ever,
the most consistent? It would be a shame to overlook Dravid, Kallis, Inzamam,
Andy Flower, Jayawardene, Steve Waugh. Was he the most complete batsman among
those that played alongside him? Yes, a thousand times yes.
Think of your batting line-up. With sound technique, Dravid,
Jayawardene, Amla would pick themselves & then pick the gaps. The power of
Sehwag, Jayasuriya, Hayden, Gayle would make you reach for the skies &
beyond. The solidity of Kallis, Mike Hussey would make them almost
indispensable sheet-anchors. Try as you might, you couldn’t possibly find
better timers of the cricket ball than Ganguly, Anwar, Ponting, De Silva.
Elegance, thy names would be Laxman, Lara, Mark Waugh, Astle. For grit, you
would find perfect specimens in Steve Waugh, Andy Flower, Cronje. Dhoni,
Gilchrist, Cairns, De Villiers would give you those periods of sheer
breathtaking brilliance. The flamboyance of Klusener, Pietersen, Afridi would
grab you the headlines. But if you had to close your eyes and think of the one
batsman who came the closest to being all of them, at one time or another and
sometimes all at once, nine-and-a-half-times out of ten Tendulkar had to be
your man.
Manu Joseph, the current editor of the OPEN magazine & a columnist for The International New York
Times, had once written for one of the greatest tennis players of all time –
“In a way, Federer is like a good novel – it does not try to achieve genius in
every line, that would be amateurish; it is unafraid of the lull, accepts the
importance of the ordinary, and then there is a sudden moment of greatness.”
You could replace the tennis legend with our home-grown hero, and you wouldn’t
be even an inch off the mark. Genius, after all, extends beyond the boundaries
of the sporting discipline; it is timeless, it is exacting, it is enduring
& it is ultimately unforgettable. Genius is Federer, genius is Schumacher,
genius is Zidane. Genius was, is & always will be Tendulkar.
I’ve often wondered, as I’m sure thousands of us have, how it
must feel to be Tendulkar. No, not the Tendulkar who collected thirteen coins
from his coach Ramakant Achrekar for the sheer determination of not losing his
wicket. Not the Tendulkar who was involved in the unbroken 600+ partnership
with Kambli. Not the Tendulkar whose 16-year-old nose was bloodied by Waqar.
Not the Tendulkar who obliterated Fleming-Kaprowicz-Warne at Sharjah. Not the
Tendulkar who scored a World Cup century just days after his father had passed
away. Not the Tendulkar who had to take a lap around the field with to pacify
the Calcutta crowd in ’99. Not the Tendulkar who played the paddle sweep with
as much finesse as he did the booming straight drive. Not the Tendulkar who
carved Shoaib Akhtar for that downright audacious six over point at Centurion.
Not the Tendulkar who bowled Moin Khan with the last delivery of the day. Not
the Tendulkar who gave Brad Hogg the signed match ball & promised not to
get out to him ever again. Not the Tendulkar with an astronomical batting
average at the Sydney Cricket Ground, featuring an unconquered 241 that was
without a single drive through the offside. Not the Tendulkar who was one of
the very few batsmen who consistently got the better of Australia. Not the
Tendulkar who proposed the name of M. S. Dhoni as next India captain when
Dravid made it known that he wished to discontinue in the post. Not the
Tendulkar who threw that defiant punch after the unbeaten century in the first
final of the CB series. Not the Tendulkar who hammered the Kiwis into
submission with the whirlwind 163 at Christchurch. Not the Tendulkar who was
chaired all around the field by his teammates after India won the ICC World Cup
2011. Not the Tendulkar who was instrumental is recalling Ian Bell after that
controversial run-out during the nightmare English tour. Not the Tendulkar who
has thousands of people thronging to catch a first-hand glimpse of him wherever
he goes, be it Wankhede or Wimbledon. Not the Tendulkar who has been awarded
the Bharat Ratna, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna & the Padma Vibushan awards.
Not the Tendulkar who is the face of more than fifteen top brands & earns a
staggering amount just from endorsements.
I’ve wondered how it would feel to be a man who has gone on
plying his trade for years & years & years, simply because he knew no
other way. It must be an obsession, nothing short of insanity, sheer madness, obsession with an insanity far beyond madness. How could one man keep giving
it his all & more every time he stepped out onto the field? How could he
keep his feet on the ground when the press was intent on claiming copyright to
his every word, when experts all over the world were simultaneously orgasming
at the fatalistic divineness of his shot making, when every young kid with a
bat in his hand in every match of gully-cricket in every corner of India was
invariably masquerading as him in every follow-through? How could he keep his
head above the ground when the same press was repeatedly writing him off as a
washed-up has-been way past his sell-by date, when the past greats periodically
started finding multiple gaping holes in his previously flawless technique,
when the new generation kids left behind his timing & placement & moved
on to the pyrotechnics of the Sehwags, the Yuvrajs, the Dhonis? How could he
get into his battle gear out day-in day-out and perform for us, the people who
more often than not did not understand the subtleties of pitch & match
conditions? How could he keep us content, the rabble who expected him to break
records every innings? How could he still raise his bat in acknowledgment to
us, the masses who stubbornly refused to understand the toll of time on his
body & mind? How could he always have a smile of gratitude for us, the mob
that always demanded more & more? If he gave us a century, we roared in
approval; when he missed out, our silence was deafening. And yet he kept
going.. and, wonder of wonders, in an eternal pursuit of becoming even better. Was it the money? No, Tendulkar accumulated much more than enough a long, long
time back. Was it the fame? Well, all men covet fame, but Tendulkar has rarely
played to the gallery; besides, he has long since become the face of Indian
sport. Was it love for the game itself? What else could it be – a love
un-encompassed by Mills & Boon romances & Shakespeare’s sonnets, a love
that is testimony to the joy he always derived from it, a love that always made
us want to believe that cricket was a clean sport.
The legend of Tendulkar is not the meticulous quest for
perfection, not a refusal to settle for anything less. It is not austere levels
of discipline. It is not an unwillingness to give up. It is not unflinching
perseverance. It is not the art of sustained excellence. It is not a lesson in
remaining in the present, it is not about your best forward for the entire
team. It is not about actions speaking louder than words. It is not humility, it is not longevity. It
is all of these. But, above everything else, the legend of Tendulkar is one
man’s unconditional love for a sport to which he gave back just as much as it
gave him.
So what if one of the greatest batsmen the world has ever
seen did not get to 20,000 O.D.I. runs? So what if he will not achieve the mark
in Test cricket either? So what if he did not get his 50th ODI
century? So what if he will almost inevitably not have a Test match triple? So
what if the elusive Test match hundred at Lords’ is destined to always be
missing from his CV? So what if the many who wanted him to roll back the years
and still be around when the 2015 ICC World Cup came around were disheartened
on the 23rd of December last year? So what if the multitude who
wished to see him have one last great away Test series will now have to be
satisfied with replays? So what if the growing number of voices calling for his
head rejoice at seeing him go? So what if cricket will never be the same again?
Life is not meant to be perfect, and for so many of us, Tendulkar has been just
that.
It is strange to think – no, to know – that his name will never again appear on a scorecard for
India. The great composer he was named after went into a coma after rehearsing
for a song that went “Badi sooni-sooni
hain yeh zindagi...”; it must be apt that Sachin Tendulkar has left the
cricket world a much emptier place.
The die has been cast for that one final time. The moving
finger has writ; the magic willow has sung farewell. Hannibal has crossed the
Alps. The tri-colour curtain has respectfully been parted; the door is open,
looking out into a glorious sunset.. The Maestro stands at the doorstep,
looking back over his shoulder at all of us, the mesmerized audience to his
nonpareil genius, with the last of the rays shining off his bangle, the undimmed
brightness in his eyes and the boyish smile playing on his lips..
Yeh khel aaj jisey aap
ek loot chuki manzil pe sulaake chale gayein..
aapke badan ki chhoti-badi nason mein jo harr lamha machalta thah..
aapke lafzon mein subah-shaam din-raat dhalta thah..
aapki
harr muskurahat, harr aansoon mein kuchh kahee-ankahee tamanna likh jaata thah..
Yeh khel, jaane kitni sadiyon se yun hi shaklen badal raha hain..
Vipaksh k badalte
shaklon, badalte rangon mein.. bas ek hi atut khiladi, iraado se pakka..
jo harr ghadi naam thah aapka..
Isi se saara
pagalpan thah , isi se
roshan thah harr nazara..
Hum aapko sitara kahein, baazigar kahein, ya khuda kahein -
sach toh yeh hain ki
aapke balle se leke hamare dilon tak thah
khel sara..
Yeh khel hoga nahin dobara.. yeh khel hoga nahin dobara...
If they ever tell my story, let them say I beheld one man
standing up to the raging fury of a sand storm, unperturbed, silent, focused.
Let them say I grew up in the time of a man who carried the expectations of an
entire nation. Let them say I witnessed the moment when a batsman got to the
improbable number of 100 international centuries. Let them say I was screaming
myself hoarse when the first double hundred was scored in an ODI. Let them say I knelt down & touched the
ground in front of his house. Let them say I breathed in the aura of the man
who was a hero to a billion Indians. Let them say I lived in the age of
Tendulkar.
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