Sachin Tendulkar. He is not a sportsman anymore, he is a bloody phenomenon. Reams of newsprint have been filled with description, analyses and tributes to his genius. Websites have dedicated huge amounts of space and attention to every little thing he does. Everything that needs to be written about the man has already been written. Or has it?
A majority of us look to him to make us feel better. When he walks out to bat, the weight of the nation's inadequacies is on his shoulders. What we can't achieve in our day to day lives, we look for Tendulkar to make up for on the cricket field. If he slams a century and takes us to victory, all of a sudden the world looks a better place.
Tendulkar is excessively professional in his approach. He is one cricketer whose integrity has never ever been questioned. One look at the intensity with which he approaches the game makes it plain that no bookie would have the guts to approach the man. And yet he got together with Mark Mascarenhas and WorldTel long before cricket became the multi-crore industry it is today. The boy wonder signed a landmark deal that guaranteed crores of income from endorsements. To fulfil his contractual obligations, he turned up at various functions, endorsed a range of products from watches to car tyres to credit cards to toothpaste. Was he selling out? No one remotely suggested that. While a host of television advertisements based on cricketers has been taken off the air after the match fixing scandal broke, Tendulkar remains an eminently saleable commodity.
If an avid cricket lover finds an old lamp, shines it and a genie pops out offering him any one wish, there would be very little dilemma. "I wish I could spend 24 hours listening to what goes on in Sachin Tendulkar's mind" would be his knee jerk reaction. If such a thing could be done, it would provide priceless insights into modern sport. At the end of the day one has to admit that Tendulkar is a true product of his times.
The marketing, the hype, the drive. It is certainly a recent phenomenon. There was always a drive for excellence. But for someone to be such a public figure and influence the minds of millions is a phenomenon that has come about in the last few decades. He is no statesman, no politician, no religious leader. And yet he holds sway with as much power of as any one of the above. Whether he faces it or not, he is one of the few Indians who binds the whole of this country. Probably, no other person in the country is as uniformly admired as him. He is in a position of immense power. Did he choose to get to this position and work towards it? One reckons not. The price he has had to pay as an individual is incomparable to the rewards. Okay, so a majority of youngsters in this country would kill to be in his shoes. But what about the maestro himself? Fortunately or otherwise he doesn't have a choice.
It is tragic however that a man who has given so much to the country and touched us all in some way or the other cannot enjoy a moment of peace when he wants it. If he wants to take his wife Anjali and kids out to dinner there would be such a mob at the restaurant it would be claustrophobic.
And what of his kids? Can they ever have a normal upbringing? Will their friends treat them as just any other kids? That is hardly possible given the fact that Tendulkar is not any other man. He is special. Very special. And trapped by that.
When his back injury threatened to ruin his career, the speculation was immense. Major newspapers and magazines carried detailed medical diagnosis and plainly asked whether his career was over. There was even a case of a teenager committing suicide on merely hearing that Tendulkar might not be able to play again. God forbid, but if something like that were to happen, where would that leave Sachin Tendulkar? Sure, he's made enough money to live luxuriously for the next few generations. But would he be able to live with the fact that he was ordinary once more?
The media, the sponsors, the people of India have in the last few years made it extremely difficult for Tendulkar to live with himself if he was ordinary. A classic product of our times, Tendulkar's life goes parallel to the likes of Pete Sampras and more distinctly Tiger Woods. When modern society sees an outrageous talent that is coupled with the drive to be successful, it seizes upon it like never before. Even if Tendulkar were content with his achievements and decided to call it a day, he would not be allowed to without a hue and cry. Let's face it. He runs the cricket industry in India. Who can see a headline that has the word Tendulkar in it and ignore it?
If Sachin Tendulkar has a breakdown of sorts at any time, we all will have blood on our hands. That's a fine way to thank someone who has given us so much, isn't it?
