Miles away from Bombay,
I was stirred last evening by a loud roar. India had lost its second wicket at
the Wankhede. A predominantly Indian crowd was cheering at the fall. This was
not unexpected. Nor was the cold wave of nervousness that I stayed engulfed in
for the next two hours. I had felt this chill often over the last twenty years.
The giant screen at the stadium yelled, “DON’T EVEN BLINK!”
Not today, I didn’t. In fact, I never blinked when the great man batted. Did
they not know I was the boy my mother always thought was obsessed with his
hero? Over the last few months, her theory was disproved. The hero was an
international obsession.
When Sachin Tendulkar came out to bat one final time,
seemingly unfazed by the hysteria around him, my pulse dipped. I did not care
what he was going through. He knew better about dealing with pressure. But I have
never known how to deal with the agony every time he has walked off the field. Yesterday,
I noticed this more than ever before. ‘Watch him play one last time,’ I told
myself; instead, I lost context and travelled back in time.
1992:
I knew little about cricket, except that I knew his name. My
father had told me about a boy called Sachin who had recently taken the wind
out of an English team’s sails at Old Trafford and was on his way to doing
something similar with the Australians in Sydney.
I was made to watch the game. Ravi Shastri walked down the pitch to
congratulate this boy as he raised his Power-labelled willow to acknowledge the
applause. The image still lingers.
I began following the game because I was intrigued by
Tendulkar. The World Cup followed. India disappointed, Tendulkar did
not.
Yes, for me, Tendulkar had already become bigger than
the game.
1993:
The blistering form continued. My faith was reiterated. I
returned from school one afternoon, I had won an inter-class elocution and I
needed to tell my folks. But Tendulkar had scored 150 against England and was
going strong. I forgot all about my victory, it did not feel important any
more. He lasted only another fifteen runs. A tacit home rule was soon
implemented. I was to take ill every time India played a cricket match. I
would watch Sachin bat, then recover miraculously, and then be driven to
school. My parents did not mind, my teachers pretended to not observe my
sickness patterns. That summer, I enrolled in a cricket camp, where our coach
often asked us about our inspiration. ‘Are you kidding me?’ I always wanted to
ask in response.
The answer was plain obvious.
1994:
I was nursing a fever. I was upset because it was Holi
and my illness meant I was not to partake in the celebrations. Sidhu took ill
as well, Sachin Tendulkar replaced him, scored a memorable 82 against New Zealand
and changed the face of Indian cricket forever as he sealed his spot as an
opener.
It was the best fever I ever had.
1996-1998:
The images from this period are somewhat blurred. He was the
star of the World Cup, only to once again be let down by the rest of the team
that did not really matter to me. Later, his captaincy invited some negativity
from the media. I lost faith in the media but never lost faith in him. He
peaked again in 1998 at a time when we had just moved to a new house. We had
not unpacked, but a television was plugged in with urgency because Tendulkar was
now plundering Pakistan
in the Independence Cup. My board exams were nigh, but I could not care less.
95 off 78 balls, 67 off 44 balls, 41 off 25 balls, this man stopped at nothing.
The board exams were taken sincerely, all was well.
He resurfaced in Sharjah as if to say, ‘You have been
a nice boy, let me treat you to some wonderful sixes over these bowlers’ heads.’
I still watch Youtube videos of those two innings, and I
pause the clip at the instant I hear Tony Greig scream, ‘What a
player…that’s gone miles, it’s dancing on the roof!’
1999-2001:
Sachin Tendulkar lost his father during the World Cup.
Surely, everyone felt his pain. But we had still not measured his true courage.
I had seen it in the movies. The wounded hero returns to the warfront to avenge
his circumstances. Tendulkar replicated every inspirational legend we had ever
heard in a single innings against Kenya.
Against yet another World Cup failure, against the
match-fixing scandals that riddled our motivation towards the game, against the
chaos in my teenaged mind, Tendulkar continued to give me hope. Whatever may
have been the question, Tendulkar was always a reasonable answer. When he
became the first man on the planet to cross 10,000 runs in one-dayers a year
later, I finally began to wonder:
Was this the final countdown, or was it just the
beginning?
2003-2007:
Sachin Tendulkar’s promise of performing in World Cups
continued and how. The ‘beta aur baap’ legend followed the smoothest six
ever hit off a fast bowler. A mistimed shot in the final match was an
anti-climax; pictures of fans in tears flooded the news headlines the next
morning. A double century a year later at the SCG, and the World Cup was
forgotten.
Darker times beckoned. I did not know what a tennis elbow
meant, except that it potentially meant the party was over. Or so the critics
seemed to suggest. Fake articles announcing that Sachin Tendulkar had called it
a day were doing the rounds. He returned yet again – 93 off 96 balls against
Sri Lanka – and let everyone know that he was altering not just the nature of
the game but also his own destiny. India faced a most ignominious
ouster from the 2007 World Cup. Critics lunged at him again. For once, I had no
means to snap back at whoever said, ‘This guy should just retire now.’
But with the series that followed against England, his return to form ensured
I did not need to bother any more.
I had got my answer. This was but the beginning.
2008-2011:
‘Impossible is nothing,’ he said in an Adidas advert. He
meant every bit of it. Centuries galore in Australia,
a series win in the ODIs driven by his remarkable scores, and that
near-impossible Test victory against England that rode on the back of
his tribute to the victims of the terror attack – the hero had now transcended
all realms of reality. Two months before he created history with that ODI
double century, a friend asserted, ‘I do not think this man can ever go wrong.
The only time he can fail going forward is when he chooses to.’ He said it had
been his dream to lift the World Cup. I wonder if he saw that he was speaking
on behalf of a million others…
…I was snapped out of my reverie. Back to Wankhede. Tendulkar
struck that familiar straight drive off Sammy. Of course I will continue to
cheer for him over the next four days. But how do I detach myself from this
memory? This is one question even he doesn’t have the answer to.
