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.
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