The Importance of Being Sachin Tendulkar

If someone had told me that India would be booted out of this world cup in the very first week, and that The Icon of Indian cricket for the last 2 decades would be booed by the very public that would have pawned their right eye to see him bat, I would have told that person to jump in a well, after of course having laughed right at his face.
Well, the unthinkable had happened and my childhood hero is probably facing an inglorious end to an otherwise exemplary career. Even though I did not join the multitude in denouncing HIM from grace, I did not vociferously defend him like I used to in the past. In the past, when arm chair pundits (like my dad) talked about sachin reaching the end of his career or not performing upto expectations or rating batsmen like Lara or Ponting to be better than him, I immediately used to jump in to the ring armed with a plethora of past statistics, a dash of trivia and a whole lot of passion. This time around I couldn’t defend the man I had on numerous previous occasions. I sadly watched and listened to colleagues, friends and the media taking pot shots at the man who for me had defined Indian cricket.
The reason I write this article is not to melodramatically dwell in the past but to highlight an event which made me realize how deeply rooted He is in the lives of my generation. It was a lazy april fools morning and my idle mind was trying to conjure up some devious scheme to fool my friends with. I was quite a prankster in my younger days and have pulled some work of art april fool gags on my unsuspecting friends, but that’s another story. Anyways, while reading the morning paper and glancing upon the Bob Woolmer murder mystery, a sinister plot hatched in my brain. Before I tried the prank out on some of my more aware friends, I decided to test run it with my mom. A little background on my moms cricket knowledge, being in a family of 2 cricket loving sons she has been indoctrinated into the multitude of the Indian Cricket expert. And like many of her ilk her favourite cricketing son was Sachin tendulkar. In her earlier cricket watching days she came up with some gems like “Why cant the Indian bowlers always bowl dot balls?”. She thought that like the yokker, a dot ball was a type of delivery and not the resultant of no runs scored. Now she is as knowledgeable about the game as any of us with the exception of my bro who is an almanac of cricket.
So I called up and in a frenetic voice told her to quickly switch on the television, I told her breathlessly that Sachin tendulkar was found dead and it looked like a case of suicide. I quickly hung up the phone pleased with my theatrics and acting abilities. After waiting a while, I was sure that the hoax was caught by my mom as no news channel would corroborate the story, I called her again. This time however it was my dad who picked up and in a somber voice asked me if I had played a prank earlier. He said that mom was shaking and was in tears. Mom came on line and though she rebuked me gently between her sobs, I could sense the underlying relief in her voice that it was just a prank and not the truth. I myself was alarmed that mom had taken this so seriously and it had disturbed her otherwise stable emotional equilibrium.
I waited for things to cool down before I called again and had a chat with mom. Even she couldn’t justify why she broke down on hearing the news. She told me that upon hearing it, her thoughts went back to how much joy he had given to Indian cricket fan particularly my family and how unfairly he had been treated in the recent past and what a tragic end it was, when this world cup was being touted as his swan song. She was embarrassed that she had reacted the way she did, but I understood the implications of being Sachin tendulkar.
Growing up in Mumbai, when Sachin was at the peak of his devastating abilities (Sharjah series vs Australia), those matches were forever etched in my family’s memory and were counted amongst our most memorable times we spent as a family. Probably as much as any memorable holiday we’ve had or even as significant as a marriage or any other joyous event. As a result, he is subconsciously rooted into the fabric of our family and I would suspect a million other cricket loving families in India. This phenomenon I believe cuts across class, income groups and even religious boundaries. In a country where heroes are hard to come by and even harder to stand the test of time, this man has remained in our hearts and imaginations for almost 2 decades, from a precocious teenager to a mature veteran of the game. In a country plagued with uninspirational political leaders, and over hyped entertainment personalities, this man made his way into a billion hearts purely on the merit of his ability. His personal life too has been as admired as his cricketing one, an unflappable temperament, 2 lovely children, social causes, and humility which only accentuated his on-field achievements.
My stupid prank in retrospect had probably just one positive rub off, it made me realize the importance of Being Sachin Tendulkar.