Sachin retires at Eternity !!

For those who don't know yet, India is a country where men don’t age well. And we have one too many examples of them- starting with Rajinikanth ofcourse. Another true observation in that breed of people is Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, a man who is, at 40 years and some 200 days, the oldest and most favored member of India’s cricket team.

Mr. Tendulkar a.k.a Sachin is the most celebrated cricketer India has ever seen; in fact, it would be entirely accurate to describe him as the most celebrated Indian, or even, with only a pinch of exaggeration, the most celebrated Indian since Mahatma Gandhi.

Sachin dominates India’s imagination even more than usual: Today, in his native Mumbai, he is begin playing his 200th "test match" (look up what a "test match is.) against West Indies, a once-mighty team now fallen on hard times. This is also be his last test match, for he will retire. 

"With the end near", the country is in the fevered throes of one last, mammoth celebration, but also  of mourning. India will say on the day Sachin hangs up his white cricket flannels: “The light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere.” (Quote- Nehru)

Taking whatever I have said into consideration, there is a remarkable unsentimental view of Sachin, which is that he should have retired two years ago (or earlier), that he has been pushing it far too long. 

But hey! We're Indian, The inherent human vanity of an authority reluctant to cede the public stage is reinforced by a culture of adulation, of shrieking, ululating crowds, of an uncritical elevation of heroes to godlike status by devotees who will not let go. In politics, in cinema, even in corporate business houses, old Indian men do not fade into the sunset. They totter on and on. And when they die (figure of speech. Before you stone me), they are “kept alive” by heirs who succeed them: sons, daughters, wives. Sport, by its very nature, is different, or so they say because imposed it laws of retirement have been defied by fans in the case of Sachin. After all, idolatry is an Indian art form. 

Sachin was remorselessly efficient in a team that was once chronically inefficiency; he was the best in the world when the world said India was "globally inferiority"; he was the picture of humility when all public figures want is a Page-3 photograph.

In purely sporting terms, however, he is second to only his old self, in which he shone as one of the finest players cricket has ever produced.

There is more: For a man who built his reputation not just on supreme batsmanship but also on his unwavering modesty, impeccable manners and an evident pleasure in being part of (and never greater than) the team on which he played, he has been relentless in pursuit of milestones. No cricketer has ever played 200 test matched before. And guess what? No other cricketer will. 

For all this a more, we are proud to have been alive to see this happen.

Sachin batted on for 24 years. And still counting. 

Dedicated to Prashanth Kumar. The biggest Sachin fan I have ever known. RIP.

-Yogesh Babu

(www.fb.com/yogesh87)