Sachin Tendulkar Minus Cricket

Tendulkar will take his final bow when the test which gets underway today between India and West Indies is done. If I state that I will miss him a lot, that won't make me exceptional in any sense. If my sorrow won't automatically elevate me to exception, it's because Sachin fan club is cosmic in proportion and a lone ordinary mortal won't count for much there, unless you happen to be a Mathew Hayden or a Lara or Bradman. Or  a Ramachandra Guha or a Nirmal Shekhar. Even the easily nameable list of illustrious big ones states the story of the fan club membership. If Sachin helped us proudly identity ourselves with our country, when the nation was dragging its belly through a quagmire of mediocrity, it indeed was some kind of a relief. There could be arguments of the Gamicider side of cricket and of pseudo- self-belief it provided to Indians, drugging them off the harder realities. Let’s leave that behind for a while.

If cricket can be discredited as a game, the debate about the cultural dialectic of the thus referred Gentleman's game will continue, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar needs to be respected on lots of other counts. Reels and reels print and hours of viewer time will be spent on analyzing stroke- bare the niceties of his flicks and cuts, lofts and drives. What has equally caught the attention of the sports loving public is the dignity with which he conducted over the 24 years of his game under the public glare. Tendulkar has been a model even if we take the Cricketing achievements away from him. A public figure pays heavy price for being popular by sacrificing lots which may sound ordinary to anyone who is on the other side of the divide. The on-field conduct, the media presence, the almost self-negating humility, the lightness with which he carried his laurels - these are but hard to parallel features in the colossally popular ones like him. Of those present today, someone like Lionel Messi, the footballer, comes very close in my estimate. But can we claim that Messi carried the kind of responsibility which Sachin did all these years? 

It has to be accepted that the age of arrogant swagger or haughty hyperbole aren't longer the habituated domains of the rich and famous. More and more of them, though still a wafer thin share perhaps, are finding it possible to act normal in site f the wealth and fame. Sachin was gentlemanliness personified. He did or he badly tried to rise the public expectations regarding his scoring in the crease. But not to get carried away by the millions  behind him, an ability to wait and weigh, to maintain a sense of proportion was always alive in him. Sachin always restricted himself, which is an important virtue from a super star of his stature. Unlike his school game mate Vinod Kambli, who loved  colours and  show, Tendulkar kept himself under check. Never overdoing his bit, sure, except when he was wielding the willow. He feared the media and public glare which is a quite mature strategy. 

Neither money, since he is up posed to be still worth around 1000 crores in the market, nor sporting achievements tipped his ego in the wrong way. It was a rare sight to see Sachin expressing protest when he was given out due to a human error. Umpires wrong decisions hurt him but he ever made it a point to let it all come out. This is why, when in a worst case scenario, if Tendulkar did show his frustration with a nod of the head, it began to reflect the failing quality of umpiring in the game. Except in a case or two, when Sachin is said to have protested when there was a string of human errors or a pattern in the bad decisions by the umpires, he kept it to himself. The knowing crowd screamed, the media hooted, but he let it pass. The 'let go' approach has its merits when we know that each such occasion could have been the fodder to further scale oneself up whipping up a media frenzy or crowd craze. This was not to be as Sachin was not after power and pomp sans wisdom. 

The increased emphasis which education is lying on using the game format in imparting lessons in the classroom, education through entertainment perhaps, seek to stress the role played by games in instilling respect for norms, regulation, respecting the structure, a feel of equality, among other things. The significance of Sachin against this backdrop is overwhelming. He treated himself as just one among others, not as one who automatically has leaner legs in front of the stumps or a shorter boundary to  clear, not as one who is entitled to more 'lives' than the lay players. When the finger of the umpire went up, he walked. When you look around and see the millions of fingers not just going up, but accusatory fingers pointing to people in all fields, and they fail to even take notice, Little Master grows further high in public esteem. 

Sachin always tried to keep a low profile off the field. This would have been an easy act for a star some times in the west, but in our part f the world, a hero is an idol, on or off the field.  But when the world around him unnecessarily needled him, he shot back. This was letting the world have an occasional lesson in where to draw the line. He did it even if the one at the other end was Mr. Bal Thackeray. His reported act of declining to have a dinner/meeting with the said politician too was bold statement from a man who decided to run his life within clear civilized limits to one who would not have found it hard to dictate lives of others. Axiomatically power may corrupt, but absolute power in the hands of Sachin only got purer and saner. 

In a world of the powerful and rich, where role models are increasingly becoming rare, the breed like Sachin should multiply. Children have a lot to learn from him. Stars too have plenty to pick up. Care for others is one such quality. Tendulkar always tried to help the young ones around. He has well set charity programmes, even though he may not declare it in corporate manner. His intensity is another virtue to take home for many of us. He was into cricket and so fully into it. I have read somewhere a commentator, don't know whether it was Harsha Bogle, speaking of Tendulakr's wife Anjali remaining helplessly watching as Sachin was in years after losing a test match during his tenure as a captain. His captaincy didn't work wonders as he expected from others the kind of devotion he gave to the game. Perhaps in his innocence he expected as much from others as he gave. The passion for the cause is all encompassing for him. 

I still find it hard to accept he tried to have tax exempted for a costly car he bought, thereby giving a chance for the Shiv Sainks to take to the streets of Mumbai with a collection drive for helping Sachin. God that he decided otherwise later.  I wonder who put that idea into him. It was so unSachin like that I feel it must be either a politician or a film star. Let us put that behind and salute the little master who showed us how life as a celebrity can be lived. How reason can live side by side with power and pleasure. How game stars of the higher kind need not go the Maradona Way or the McEnroe way, not even the Kapil Dev way or the Ganguly way. Gone are the days when Sachin held you spell bound when he stopped out and hit through the line. The pulsating race on the edges of seats, often on your feet, screaming at the soaring ball, yet with the heart in your mouth. The pleasure is old but the achievements are not. It is still easy to switch to an 'those were the days man' kind of trip down Sharjah memory lanes. 

Thank you Sachin for defying the limits of the possible in cricketing terms, stretching the bounds of the possible, inspiring the young as a sporting Abdul Kalam. Thank you for batting out of the box. Miandad may be right when he said that other youngsters are performing  and Sachin will be pushed to the oblivion. But We still remember the final ball six of Javed Miandad  in Sharjah. His mercurial temper of walking to a player with a raised bat for other purposes too is green with cricket aficionados. Sachin Tendulkar won't be forgotten in a hurry. The sporting and cultural yardsticks he is leaving behind are so rich.