Sach ka saamna

Retelling a folklore is never easy. But Gautam Bhattacharya hits a home run with the Tendulkar story

A good batsman and a good biographer belong to the same species. They play on the mood of the spectator and the reader. And score big when they get the timing right. Though a biography of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is always a safe bet, getting it out around the World Cup is like a straight drive from the Master Blaster.


Sachin Tendulkar gestures during the Cricket World Cup match between
England and India at Bangalore's M Chinnaswamy Stadium. Pic/AFP

But Sach, veteran cricket writer Gautam Bhattacharya's book on Tendulkar (he specifies early on that this is not a biography, but a snapshot), is more than a smart publishing exercise. It has many things to keep the reader hooked through its colourful 327 pages. There's a forward by Mahendra Singh Dhoni, 83 interviews with big names on what Sachin means to them, there's Greg Chappell (breaking his silence after four years) on Sachin and 40 questions to the maestro that have never been asked or answered before.

Did you know for instance that even Sachin Tendulkar got rejected from a cricket coaching camp? This was in 1987 when he was sent as a promising quick to Dennis Lillee's MRF Pace Foundation. He was soon sent packing along with another promising youngster -- Sourav Ganguly!

So how hard was it to face rejection? "I was okay with it," says Sachin. "In any case I was not aspiring to become a fast bowler. I thought of myself as a fast bowling all-rounder. That is precisely the reason I had carried my batting kit to Chennai. I didn't get an opportunity to bat. I did bowl for one or two seasons. As for Sourav, I don't remember meeting him there. Later on at the national camp, I caught up with him."

There are also interesting observations on Sachin and what he means to his fans. Gautam writes: "From a tea boy to the Ambanis... from a plumber to an auto-rickshaw driver... from a senior Air Force officer to a Bollywood actress... they all have their own image of Sachin. Sachin is de-facto India's Macbeth, Arjun, Napoleon, Gandhi -- all rolled into one."

If batting is about putting bat to ball at the right time, well, Sachin has perfected the art long back. But he is more than a legendary batsman. As Peter Roebuck says, "Tendulkar is much more across the party line. India in his time has a nuclear bomb, is aspiring to become a member in the UN Security Council. He is an expression of happy, liberated India."

Or as the Adidas advertising campaign on him a couple of years back said: When Sachin plays India forgets its differences and divisions and teeters between tension and exhilartion, and breathes and laughs and cries as one, as its heart fills with pride and joy and patriotism. When Sachin plays, all else is irrelevant...

It is difficult to do justice to the life story of such a man in 327 pages. Because there is so much cricket still left in Sachin and there is so much of Sachin we still need to decipher. What can be done is capture a few moments of the life and times of the legend, a few snapshots. That is exactly what the author has done. A great read. Pick it up.