Happy Birthday Sachin!

9th April 2011, 10 45am.

Mom-"Jatan, I need you to get things from the market."

Me-"Sure".

Mom-"I meant now".

Me-"Sure".

 

3 45pm.

After yelling at me 6 times, “Why haven’t you got the vegetables I asked you to? Go and get them, NOW!"

Me-"Sure"...This time I do it. After 20 minutes when i come back and enter the house, "Where are the vegetables?"

Me-"Oh shit! I forgot them in the dikki.

Mom-"Is everything alright?? What is the matter with you?"

Me-"Nothing, just this article I’m writing about Tendulkar".

Mom smacks her hand to her forehead-"Not again".

Me-"Sure".

 

24th April 2011.

And the day arrives when He turns 38.

 

Sachin Tendulkar, the one man who is above all. What makes this statement true is the fact the He personally does not believe so.

Today, on his b'day, all I’ve tried iis to put the emotions of 1.2 billion Indian fans into words...to wish him, to salute him, to thank him.

I've been trying to write about him since quite some time now...But all that I could think of is..."From where the hell do I start?! The guy's worth a library...How do I write about Him in just a page?" Even if I do write about him...expressing how "incomparably unmatchable" that man is, any guy who reads it would call me just a fan, who has tried to put together a few words about Sachin. So, I’ve amalgamated excerpts about him by famous people, from here and there, not to prove his greatness to the world (no he doesn't need it)...But as a token of appreciation from the heart of a 21 year old crazy fan who grew up carrying a photo of Him in his wallet.

 

"I want my son to become Sachin Tendulkar." -Brian Lara

'Nothing bad can happen to us if we were on a plane in India with Sachin Tendulkar on it.''-Hashim Amla, reassures himself as he boards a flight.

''He can play that leg glance with a walking stick also.-Waqar Younis

"There are two kinds of batsmen in this world. 1. Sachin Tendulkar. 2. The rest of them"-Andy Flower

"I have seen God. He bats at no.4 for India in tests.-Matthew Hayden

"I see myself when I see Sachin batting.-Don Bradman

"Do your crime when Sachin is batting, because even God is busy watching his batting. -Australian Fan

"I don't know about cricket but still I watch cricket to see Sachin play...Not because I love his play

It’s because I want to know the reason why my country's production goes down by 5 percent when he's in batting"...-Barack Obama

"Don't bowl him bad balls, he hits the good ones for fours."-Michael Kasprowicz                

 "I will see God when I die, but till then I will see Sachin." -Indian Fan

"In an over I can bowl six different balls. But then Sachin looks at me with a sort of gentle arrogance down the pitch as if to say 'Can you bowl me another one?'"- Adam Hollioke

Warne:"You have to decide for yourself whether you're bowling well or not. He's going to hit you for fours and sixes anyway. Kasprowicz has a superior story. During the Bangalore Test, frustrated, he went to Dennis Lillee and asked, 'Mate, do you see any weaknesses?' Lillee replied, 'No Michael, as long as you walk off with your pride that's all you can do' ".

"The more I see of him the more confused I'm getting to which is his bestknock."-M. L. Jaisimha

"What we (Zimbabwe) need is 10 Tendulkars."-Paul Strang

“The more I see him, the more I want to see him.”- Mohammad Azharuddin

"To Sachin, the man we all want to be."-What Andrew Symonds wrote on an aussie t-shirt he autographed specially for Sachin.

"Beneath the helmet, under that unruly curly hair, inside the cranium, there is something we don't know, something beyond scientific measure. Something that allows him to soar, to roam a territory of sport that, forget us, even those who are gifted enough to play alongside him cannot even fathom. When he goes out to bat, people switch on their television sets and switch off their lives."-BBC Sports

"I am fortunate that I've to bowl at him only in the nets!"-Anil Kumble

"Sachin cannot cheat. He is to cricket what (Mahatma) Gandhiji was to politics. It's clear discrimination."-NKP Salve, former Union Minister,when Sachin was accused of ball tempering

Tendulkar's daughter, Sara, tells her class her father's name after the teacher informs them of a restaurant of the same name in Mumbai-"Even my father's name is Sachin Tendulkar". 

"Sachin is a genius. I'm a mere mortal."-Brian Lara

"If I've to bowl to Sachin, I'll bowl with my helmet on. He hits the ball so hard."-Dennis Lillee

"On a train from Shimla to Delhi, there was a halt in one of the stations. The train stopped by for few minutes as usual. Sachin was nearing century, batting on 98. The passengers, railway officials, everyone on the train waited for Sachin to complete the century. This Genius can stop time in India!!"-Peter Rebouck, Aussie journalist

Shahrukh Khan-

Quoting Shahrukh from an interview.

Que: Who do you think as the most important celebrity ? 

Shahrukh: "There was a big party where stars from Bollywood and Cricket were invited. Suddenly, there was a big noise, everyone wanted to see Amitabh Bachhan. 

Then Sachin entered the hall and Amitabh was leading the queue to get a grab of the GENIUS!!"

"India me aap Prime Minister ko ek baar katghare me khada kar sakte hain...Par Sachin Tendulkar par ungli nahi utha sakte.."-Navjot Singh Sidhu

 

 

Harsha Bhogle-after we lost the match against SA in this World Cup--

Remember when you failed an examination. How many people recall that, your class, friends, relatives? You failed to make it to the IITs or IIMs. Who remembers? How many times have you had the feeling of being the best in your class, school , university, state….., you failed to get a visa stamped this quarter…, you missed a promotion this year…, how did it feel when you dad told you in your early twenties that you are good for nothing…..and now your boss tell you the same...

 

You keep introspecting and go into a shell when people most of whom don’t matter a dime in your life criticize you, back bite you, make fun of you. You are left sad and shattered and you cry when your own kin scoffs at you. You say I am feeling low today. It takes a lot from us to come out of these everyday situations and move on. A lot??? Really?

 

Now here’s a man standing on the third man boundary in the last over of a world cup match. The bowler just has to bowl sensibly to win this game. What the man at the boundary sees is 4 rank bad bowls bowled without any sense of focus, planning or regret. India loses, yet again in those circumstances when he has done just about everything right.

He does not cry. Does not show any emotion. Just keeps his head down and leaves the field. He has seen these failures for 22 years now. And not just his class, relatives, friends but the whole world has seen these failures. We are too immature to even imagine what goes on in that mind and heart of his. That’s why I would never want to be Sachin.

 

True, he has single handedly lifted to moods of this entire nation umpteen number of times. He has been an inspiration to rise above our mediocrity. Nobody who has ever lifted the willow even comes close to this man’s genius. His dedication and metal strength is unparallel. This is especially for those people who would have made fun of him again last night when India lost. They are people who are mediocre in their own lives. Who just scoff at others to create cheap fun? Who have lived in a small hole throughout their lives and thought they have seen the oceans.

 

Think about the man himself. He is 37 years of age. He has been playing almost nonstop for 22 years. The way he was running and diving around the field last night would have put 22 year olds to shame. The way he played the best opening quickies in the world was breathtaking. He just keeps getting better which is by the way humanly impossible. It’s not for nothing that people call him GOD.

But still I don’t want to be in those shoes. We struggle in keeping our monotonous lives straight, lives which affect a limited number of people. Imagine what would be the magnitude of the inner struggle for him, pain both mental and physical, tears that have frozen with time, knees and ankles and every other joint in the body that is either bandaged or needs to be attended to every night, eyes that don’t sleep before a big game, bats that have scored 99 international tons and still see expectations from a billion people.

 

And he just converts those expectations into reality. We watch in awe, feel privileged.

Well I think it’s time that his team realizes that enough is enough. They have an obligation, not towards their country alone but towards Sachin. They need to win this one for him. Stay assured that he himself will still deliver and leave no stone unturned to make sure India wins this cup.

This is not just a game, and he is not just a sportsman. It’s much more than this. Words fail here....."

 

 

My favourite-Sehwag-"Hum log Pakistan ke against khel rahe the aur Shoaib Akhtar ball daal raha tha...mein karib 200 pe khel raha thaa aur woh mujhe dekh khe bahut bore ho gaya tha...Voh thak chuka tha mujhe dekh kar.Usne socha shayad mein (Shoaib) use gaaliyan waaliyan du aur ye out ho jaaye.Toh round the wicket aake usne bouncers daalne chaalu kiya.Har ball ke baad mujhe aakar bola, Hook maarke dikha..Hook maarke dikha. Toh ek over ke baad mujhe jab yahi realise hua ki ise yahi bowling daalni hain, toh main bola, woh tera baap khada hain nonstriking end pe Sachin Tendulkar...Use bol woh maarke dikhaayega. Next over main jab usne Tendulkar ko bouncer maara to Usne chhakka maara. Maine kaha- Beta beta hota hain, Baap baap hota hain. "

 

It's not just the batsman within Him that is so great, but He as an individual radiates humility and innocence so appealing that even if Hitler was alive, he would take efforts to understand how someone so great has the modesty to be so altruistic and down-to-earth despite having achieved everything humanly possible in Cricket. Cricket would no longer have been called the "Gentleman's Game" if not for instances like when Sachin walked out despite being not out by Australian umpire Steve Davies against the West Indies on the 21st of March.

His dedication and sincerity to Cricket, and specially to play for his country has and will always remain unparalleled. I still fail to comprehend how He scored 140 against Kenya in the '99 World Cup, the match immediate after his father's death. It is times like these, that i salute Him not only as a Cricketer, but also as a hardworking and a 'genuinely' patriotic person.

How can he have never done anything stupid! Kumble was asked in an interview to tell one dressing room secret of the Indian Cricket team. Kumble said- "I've seen so many players get out and break things and bang bats in anger. But, Never have I ever seen Sachin do anything like this."

 

It's great that we won the World Cup. Yes! Yaay! Hurray! But if we hadn’t, I would have been disappointed. But, at the same time I would have been extremely furious at the rest of the players because they owed it, not only to the country, but more deservingly to Him. During the post World Cup final match celebrations, Kohli rightly said-"He's carried the burden of the nation for 21 years, it’s time we carried him on our shoulders".

I was thinking about the day when Sachin scored that brilliant knock of 200* against SA at Gwalior, and I literally had tears in my eyes. It was the 24th of February and i could have asked for a more perfect gift. I asked God, "How did he do it? I mean he is 37! My 28 year old neighbour beat up the watchman because the lift wasn’t working and he stays on the 2nd floor...” But then, the sheer brilliance of that Man, who testifies both to remarkable longevity and an insatiable appetite, made my question sound so rhetorical.

I know I’ve said it like a gazillion times but there never was, and there never will be someone like Sachin, the man with the World Record for the maximum number of world records in Cricket. To anyone who feels that Ponting might be able to break His records, or that India loses whenever and because He scores a century, or that He plays only for runs or even the fact that there's someone who might be even remotely close or better than Tendulkar...Fuck you. Seriously.

 

Sachin started playing one year before I was born. I finished schooling, my+2 and I’m almost through my graduation but He still plays. Does anyone even remember when Tendulkar was last dropped because of poor performance? I’ve been following him from as early as I can remember. In my head, he’s more like a friend. After India won the World Cup, he was asked if he was going to retire. Personally, I too wanted him to retire; it was the perfect time for him! Sachin replied, “I’ll retire the day people ask me ‘Why?’ instead of ‘Why not?’ ”. And I was like, “Tendlya, tu veda zhaala aahes ka?”Sidhu once said, if people retire at their best phase, they will be remembered the longest. I completely agree. But Sachin is Sachin. The Little Master simply has only one goal in mind-To play for his country for as long as he can! He is one Bugatti running on the fuel of passion. And I cannot possibly imagine what the scenario would be, when all the bowlers in the world would be relieved-the day He retires. If one day, I am lucky enough to meet him, I am going to touch his feet and ask him just one question, “How the fuck did you manage to do everything better than it was supposed to be done?”

 

20th April 2011-Mumbai Indians vs. Pune Warriors, Wankhede. The first time I saw him play live. I wanted Pune to win but secretly wished Tendulkar score a century. As that Man with the Orange cap walked down the field with 21000 crazy Indians screaming his name in chorus, it took me not more than 4 minutes to realize how impossible it is to not support a team which has Sachin in it.

40 years down the line, when my grandchild says to me, "You are so lucky to have seen India win the World Cup. What did you do then?" And I know what exactly me reply is going to be-"Dude, I’m luckier to have seen Sachin Tendulkar play! I don't remember well, but I do remember climbing on top of a Santro on F.C.Road at 2 in the morning, shirtless, breaking the car roof and yelling 'India India!!' and 'Sachin Sachin!!' ".

I am an Indian. And yes, I am proud of that, but if I had to make a list of things as to why, the first one undoubtedly would be-Sachin. I am so sure that many people in the West may not even know "India"...But they hell might be knowing it as the land where Sachin Tendulkar comes from. People today call him God. I wouldn't. Every religion has its own God. For there may be many Gods, but there is only one Sachin.

 

 

Yes, I may be just a fan, but He is not, just Sachin Tendulkar.

Amen.