Sachin Tendulkar is not a superhero
Sachin Tendulkar
It is 16th November 2013 and without a speck of doubt on my mind, this is the single most memorable day of my life yet. It has been an emotional see-saw, but the last 24 hours have taught me much more about life, humanity, relationships, success and theism etc. than any other experience of mine. This was the day the great Sachin Tendulkar hung up his boots and this nation has just seen the last of its greatest citizen on a cricket field.
I have been wanting to dedicate an article to this superlative athlete for quite some time now, but can you blame me for this procrastination. I am just human, filled with all of its defining sluggishness and indisipline unlike the subject of my article. It is common among sports fans to elevate their heroes to teh status of superheroes and even idolize them as demi-gods and I was no exception to this rule.
The task of assigning a superhero name to SRT was quite time consuming but after much contemplation I realized that Sachin was never a superhero but much more meaningful and existential than that. I have made a sincere effort to take you all through various stages of my life and elaborate how every stage was shaped by Sachin’s rise as a cricketer and hopefully by the end of this article, I will be able to depict a true picture of what SRT means to me.
The genesis of gaiety
The very first time I had any tangible cognizance of SRT was in the sports section at the back of of ‘The Hindu’ newspaper which covered an article on his maiden century against England. The admiration for the player grew in leaps and bounds and it was because of him that even today I am accustomed to first turning to the last page of any newspaper or magazine, even The Economist. I remember getting up at 3 am to catch a glimpse of Sachin at his very first World Cup in Australia and NZ and though at this point in time, not too much was expected of this genius he still shone against our arch-rivals and that one half century brought a lot of joy.
The expectations and as a result disappointment at times was humongous and once during this world cup game against the West Indies we were beaten so badly and Sachin failed to inspire even a fight. I ended up feeling severely ill and this taught me a valuable lesson about the mind’s dominance and influence over the body. More than a year later an enviable opportunity presented itself as the England team traveled to India and I went with my family to the Chepauk Stadium in Chennai and watched this much-hyped player smash away boundaries with great precision and finesse. This century made me and the entire Chennai crowd fall madly in love with him ever since.
Paper covers rock, His numbers trump gayatri manta
As a Tamil brahmin (TamBram being the more hip term) the thread ceremony is an important milestone and this happened to me in 1996, and although I was quite dedicated at performing all the rituals all my focus and cerebral powers were diverted towards one thing. This was the 1996 World Cup and SRT was touted to be the greatest attraction and rightly so game after game he notched up scores like 127, 70, 90, 137, 3, 31 and 65. Believe me when I say this that the run of scores was jumping out of my memory without the help of any wikipedia or cricinfo website.
I watched and revered this superstar and it just made my life much more joyous knowing that I could just get over any of my academic tensions and stresses by watching one straight drive off the centre of his willow. I was a teenager bereft of any peer pressure to date girls or smoke the odd cigarette butt. I am not intending to take any credit away from my mother’s flawless parenting techniques, but SRT mania was my only source of mass distraction and thus this adoration and hero-worship for SRT kept me away from vice.
Runs and Ruins
1998 was a year which catapulted SRT to another orbit of athletic stardom, as anybody who grew up during those years would remember this famous series of shows called “Sachin at 25″. This was a year where records kept tumbling as SRT amassed an incredible 1894 ODI runs and scored 9 hundreds. Sharjah was where this hungry wolf hunted and he devoured the famous Aussies as well as the meek Zimbabweans. Unlike the nature and style of wolves, Sachin was on the prowl without a pack to support him. His innings against Australia in April 1998 where he battled a fearsome Aussie attack and an Act of God ( the sandstorm) to take India into the finals was the greatest 3 hours of sporting revelry for me as a fan.
This was immediately followed by another blistering rendition two days later and Sachin helped India beat Australia. For obvious reasons I was glued to the TV and this meant that lesser time was allocated to preparation for my Engineering entrance exams which was on the next day. To this very day my Dad believes that my career would have headed into a higher plane if I had stayed away from viewing that match.
Later that year Zimbabwe was at the receiving end of this willow-wielding maestro and especially one fast bowler who was humbled by the sheer prowess of SRT’s stroke-making. Like I always tell my sister, in a lighter vein of-course, Sachin is diabolical for he has ruined many careers like mine and other professional bowlers.
Cricket at the top of the pecking order
Something bewildering happened in 1999 when I entered into a graduate program in Electrical Engineering ( this was not the bewildering part) and India began its participation at the World Cup in England. After a loss at the opening fixture against South Africa, a remorseful news broke out that SRT’s dad had passed away back in Mumbai and Sachin had to fly back home and this was doubly disheartening for fans like me who not only grieved at his loss but also were nervously wondering if he could ever make it back to play for India soon.
Surprisingly enough, after just missing one game against Zimbabwe, the master returned to English soil to play against Kenya. Pretty soon he eased into the game and batted like everything around him was approaching a state of normalcy. He scored a brilliant century and led India to its first victory as I could not stop bowing and saying hallelujah to this cricketing God. I vividly remember his interview after the game because he was sporting a pair of shades and he said that his mom had wanted Sachin to get back to playing for his country rather than sitting at home grieving.
If one thought that SRT was a Godsend, once cannot garner words to describe the unselfish attitude of his mother. Tears rolled down my cheeks and Sachin just climbed a further 1000 levels towards Godliness. Roundabout the time, I prayed that I would fast until India made it to the next stage of the competition thinking that my prayers would get the objective met. It was only later that I realized that what the team actually missed was a demi-god in the form of SRT.