Kamath’s Cafe

Sunday, August 21st, 2005

The sound of silence

His Blackberry phone is on silent mode and so is Sachin Tendulkar.

Ever since he went under the surgeon’s knife for his tennis elbow in May, the daggers have been out for him. There are suggestions, some from past players, that it’s time for Sachin to retire. That he’s not quite the force he used to be. The back is breaking, the heel is aching, the bat is too heavy, the runs are drying up and hey, so are the endorsements.

Criticism, unlike surgery, does not even happen under anaesthesia.

Sachin refuses to take the bait. “I have always preferred not to react. It’s not my nature. My father taught me very early in my career that I must not react and just stay focused on doing my job. He told me that as I go higher, some people will try to pull me down. They may do it to meet their own ends but I should not waste my energy in reacting. There are times when the provocation has been immense but I have held back.”

During his most trying moments, Sachin draws most from the lessons Ramesh Achyut Tendulkar has taught him. “My father’s nature was special. He was totally unflappable. He had this incredible sense of calm. When you grow up seeing that, it rubs off on you. His humility was exemplary too. Even a garbage collector who came to our doorstep would be offered a glass of water or cup of tea.”

Recently, a security guard, Laxman, at Sachin’s old housing society, Sahitya Sahwas passed away after serving the society for 40 years. The Tendulkars, Anjali and Sachin, paid Laxman’s family a condolence visit. Laxman’s son recounted how glowingly his father used to speak of Sachin’s father. When Laxman went from door to door with the monthly bill, most people would cursorily sign the register but Ramesh Tendulkar unfailingly invited him inside and offered him a cup of tea.

Seated in Laxman’s tiny house, Sachin felt proud of his father. His father, in turn would have been equally proud that Sachin, despite walking with kings, still retained the common touch.

Sachin’s most vulnerable moment came when his father passed away in 1999. “I was asleep in my hotel room in Leicester. We had a World Cup game against Zimbabwe the next day. At 2.30am, there was a knock on the door. I groggily opened the door. It was Anjali. She was staying at her mother’s place in London two hours away and had driven all the way to Leicester. I knew something terrible had happened. When Anjali broke the news to me, my body felt drained of all its strength.”

At 6.30am, Anjali and Sachin left for the airport and flew to Mumbai. “The people who saw me in that flight must have wondered what was wrong with me. I was completely numb.”

Two days later, Sachin was on a return flight to London. “It was wrenching to leave my mother behind but she said my father would have wanted me to go back and play and that’s what I should do.”

In the first game he played after returning to the World Cup, Sachin scored a hundred. So much for critics who argue that injuries impede his performance. In the 1999 World Cup, Sachin showed remarkable grace and focus despite being in emotional pain. During the World Cup in 2003, he demonstrated the same qualities in the face of physical pain. Despite calcium deposition in the web of his ring finger, Sachin emerged as the player of the tournament and had a major role in India’s journey to the finals.

The barbs that have followed his latest injury break will have limited impact on the little master. He knows he has overcome pain before and he knows he can overcome it again.

So, what gives? Perhaps pain is in the mind of the beholder. Maybe, just maybe, we’ve been too used to seeing Sachin as superhero. As more than one superhero, in fact. There is the Clark Kent side to him. Shy, middle class boy with curly hair, squeaky voice and a geek’s passion for the game. Then, during times of national crisis, he vanishes into the dressing room, emerges in a blue uniform and buzz cut and lets fly.

But Sachin doesn’t stop at being Superman. Consider the Bruce Wayne side to his personality. The billionaire, the businessman, the man whose garage resembles an F1 line up, complete with Ferrari, BMW and Mercedes. But when national glory is under attack from foreign invaders, he dons his headgear, his cricket whites or blues, picks up the weighty willow and turns into India’s Batman.

How, we ask ourselves, how can a superhero skip his duties on account of something as piffling as tennis elbow? We can’t bear the thought. The tennis elbow is hurting us, stinging our collective consciousness.

We tend to bring such situations upon ourselves. We trapped another of our heroes, Amitabh Bachchan, in an image of what we believed he should be. It reached a point where he tore himself away for five years, then returned and struggled to find his voice till, finally, we accepted him playing his age.

We have forgotten history. We are repeating it. We are condemned. We switch on our TVs to watch a dazzling 16-year-old Tendulkar. The point is not that Sachin is no longer 16. The point is that we need to grow up, you and I.

Unlike Mr Bachchan, we cannot hope to see Sachin return to glory after a decade’s hiatus. There are no second innings in the playing lives of cricketers. So maybe, we should just let Sachin be. Despite his billions, he continues to thirst for runs. Despite the peaks he has scaled, there are still some mountains left to conquer. For a man who never speaks about his goals, he has been pretty vocal about wanting to win the World Cup.

That alone makes 2007 worth waiting for.

This feature first appeared in The Times of India on 24th July, 2005

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