Sachin Tendulkar: A tribute to the timeless master

Sachin Tendulkar waves the tricolor after winning the 2011 World Cup

Long before Sachin Tendulkar unfurled his famous farewell speech that sent a nation into mass delirium on a sunny November afternoon, Brian Lara’s poignant riposte to a boisterous Barbados crowd would have qualified as perhaps the most moving parting shot by a cricketing genius.

“All I ask is, did I entertain?” roared the West Indian master, as cricketing world nodded in passionate affirmation. Almost six years hence, on November 16 at Wankhede, Tendulkar signed off with a statement as diabolic as it was definitive.

“I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, and also say that time has flown by rather quickly, but the memories you have left with me will always be with me forever and ever, especially “Sachin, Sachin” which will reverberate in my ears till I stop breathing,” said Tendulkar, exquisite as his straight drive, powerful as his back foot punch, flawless as his cover drive and effortless as his wristy flick.

To all of us who saw the moment unfold, it was the end of our childhood. We grew between 1989 and 2013. We endured the Babri barbarism, we lived through the Mandal-Mandir madness, we scratched past the Balance of Payments (BoP) crisis, we saw the mushrooming of malls and multiplexes, the flowering of dotcom diaspora, the arrival of Nokia handsets and cable TV, the war in Kargil and the pogrom in Gujarat.

We winced each time his hamstring gave way, we cringed as he conquered back spasms to carve that masterpiece in Chennai, we prayed when he leapt out to Shane Warne, we danced when he upper-cut that six; with little realisation, we grew while he batted. We believed him when he declared “Main Khelega.” We knew he meant it when he said, “I am Sachin Tendulkar and I play for India.”

In retrospection, we were never really an unromantic and uncaring bunch of boys and girls and mommies and daddies; we were always in love with a man called Sachin Tendulkar. We lived by the Tendulkar timeline, proudly.

He toyed with us the way he toyed with bowling, holding the strings to each of our conceivable emotion, tugging at them, twisting them, turning them, and as BBC once eloquently observed, we “switched on our television sets and switch off our lives” when he batted. What he did was, to put it rather euphemistically, beyond the measure of science and superseded the ambit of art.

It exceeded stated standards of calibration, dwarfed trivial trammels of logical reasoning, and stumped the idea of insanity. It bordered on the proverbial fourth dimension scientists quibble about. It was hard to put to words, for each time he walked out to bat, he brought along our childhood- not Hindu or Muslim childhood, not Indian or Pakistani or Australian childhood, not rich or poor childhood, not upper or lower caste childhood – just childhood.

He made us skip classes, offices, dates, dinners and heartbeats. He made believers out of atheists and dreamers out of no-hopers. He helped us overcome the trauma of exams and scars of report cards. He lifted us when we were down, supported us when we were somber, humoured us when we were hurt. He made ice-creams taste sweeter, transformed ‘MRF-brand bats’ as ‘must-haves’ in a child’s armoury, and catapulted little Lahli to the world map. If magic needed an embodiment, the five-feet-five-inch frame of Tendulkar sufficed perfectly.

He wore the Indian tricolour on his heart and helmet, but managed to remain unbelievingly untouched by jingoistic jousts. He never abused the opposition (well, Glenn McGrath is allowed to take offence to that), never brought the game to shame, and never let go off his middle class values.

Despite flashing a Ferrari, he made a virtue out of simplicity. He stuck to his roots while he soared, giving us a case study on striking the fine balance between wisdom and vanity. He was a dream that we chased, for as a nation, perhaps we were never too convinced if we really deserved him. In more ways than one, he embodied a nation and its nationhood more fittingly than career nationalists.

Sachin Tendulkar reacts after scoring his 100th century

From Manchester to Mumbai, Sharjah to Perth, Cape Town to Karachi, Nagpur to Nairobi, he implored us to strive until we gave in. By the slightest, even nonchalant waftures of his willow, he turned our clocksb- and stopped it too. Like a seasoned romantic blessed with magical charming powers, he came riding on his unmistakably ageless aura, descended to levels of mortality, extended his soft but strong hand to us, and whispered things that silently sneaked in our psyche and soaked our souls.

With succulent sophistry and relentless regularity, he asked us to believe- in victory and wisdom, in love and life, in dreams and desires, in simplicity and serenity, in impossible probabilities coming true and established norms going haywire- and needless to mention, we tried our best to oblige.

Thanks to Sachin Tendulkar, we started to dare and dream. When he blasted the blinding pace of Allan Donald and company in Cape Town, we knew we can catch up with a world that had hitherto seemed too fast for our liking. When he tore into Warne in Chennai, we knew we were better than the very best. When he stood up to Wasim and Waqar in Sharjah, we knew we can be dignified neighbours. When he launched into Shoaib Akhtar in Centurion, we knew the phantasmagoria of Miandad had been laid to rest.

Each time he walked out to bat, a nation walked with him, hoping fervently for their sole hope to deliver. He carried the yoke of being an Indian from an India that was yet to look beyond its colonial masters for acknowledgement and appreciation. He was the legitimacy we craved for, the representative we had always wanted, the idea we never knew existed. He was our passport to acceptance; our gift to the world.

Indeed, he was the one who freed us from the bondage of Indianness, and fired us up with the kind of pride that had more meat than myth. He was Sachin Tendulkar, the man who mastered and served 22 yards of dust, soil and grass for 24 years of his life; the man game loved back.