A few days ago, in response to Rihanna and Greta Thunberg’s tweet in support of the Farmers’ Protests, Sachin tweeted this:
‘India’s sovereignty cannot be compromised. External forces can be spectators but not participants. Indians know India and should decide for India. Let's remain united as a nation.’ #IndiaTogether #IndiaAgainstPropaganda
And soon after, friends and colleagues were asking me for my response.
Not just because my stand on the Protests has been unambiguous, but because ever since I can remember, I have been a Sachin fan. Like many of you, he has been an essential part of my growing up years, a rite of passage right up there with heady first loves and headier first sips of beer. Like many of you, I have my own personal Sachin campfire stories. I took a bus trip with a co-Sachin-tard to Pakistan in 2004 to see him play. A 5’ft poster of the old Adidas ‘Impossible is Nothing’ credo – with him standing in relaxed dominance – stares casually from the wall of the living room, sizing up all those who enter our house. This poster has travelled cities with me, and both us now show our age. On my morning runs, I'd go past his front gate and pay my regards – a quick fold of the hands and a turn – much to the amused stares of passersby. Other small big bits. I was nearly fired from my last job for wanting to take time off to go for his retirement Test (I went and I didn’t get fired). I’d stopped following cricket after he retired, despite knowing well that no man is/should be bigger than the sport (till the recent Aus series, which roused something deep within). I’ve written poems, tributes and other pieces on him, have had the unbelievable fortune of meeting him (some 11 times, thanks to advertising shoots) and have his autographs gracing so many mementoes.
I also have a 10 tattooed on my wrist.
Like you all, Sachin for me was never just a player. At 16, he was the Slayer-of-Goliaths. In his 24 years on the field, he was both the hammer and the anvil, the fire and the forge, often the valiant hero in a poor script and always the only wicket that mattered. He was the one for whom trains stopped and time stood still, the alchemist who made bad days better by the mere act of walking out to play. And such was his sorcery, that he was infallible even when he would fail at his game.
As Vishnu churned the oceans, so Sachin ploughed the 22 yards.
The runs came in droves, the hyperboles, even faster.
So when Sachin tweeted, it took so many of us by surprise. What felt like a Waqar snorter to the nose was that in this polarising face-off, David had cast his weight on the side of the giants. After a career of silences, his public stance was uncharacteristic. His tweet also didn’t feel authentic as it came soon after the MEA’s statement, with supporting hashtags.
In the past, his keeping quiet on things non-cricket was something we’d come to expect; it also gave us fans a straw to clutch. We brushed off criticism and shushed the soul-voice in our ear, defending him, ‘'He's an introvert' or 'He doesn't want to get into controversies.' But this time, he had chosen to put himself out there. And to many of us, the horror was akin to an in-form batsman reaching out for a ball just tantalisingly wide of off-stump.
Somewhere I can imagine Sachin thinking, ‘You didn’t like it when I used to keep my opinions to myself. Now you don’t like it when I have spoken.’
Amidst the uproar, the cries of the faithful and the cackles of non-believers, the painfully-clever wordplays on balls and spines, I’ve tried to assess how I feel about this. And just maybe, it might help you too. So here goes.
The hard conclusion I’ve reached, is this. We failed to separate the ‘Church from the State’, in a manner of speaking. Unlike those knocking on doors asking for Mandir donations, Sachin never asked us to do the things we did for him. None of them did. That he finds himself in the company of others like Kohli, Kumble, Yuvi or Rahane in this tweet-strom, doesn’t give me any solace. But it does help with the clarity. We build the pedestals and lift our idols to them; we anoint mortals as gods and then demand divinity. Their ‘fall from grace' comes from the loftier, perhaps unreasonable standards we expect of them. We think that a champion on the field has to be one off it too, always and in the way we want – perhaps because noble, gallant, scrappy sport is a metaphor for life itself. But there’s a difference between heroic acts on the field and heroism off it. The first comes from a rare gift honed into luminescence, in territory made familiar through years of singular commitment. The second is straight out of the comfort zone. There’s also another ordinary, un-romantic fact: The men (and women) we prop into messiahs are cut from the same cloth and birthed from the same flesh as the rest of us. They have their biases, their prejudices and also their own world views. They are entitled to evolve their beliefs, change or reveal what they stand for. They are also free to tweet on whatever they want, whenever they want, and in a manner entirely of their choosing.
So, in sum, am I devastated? No. Am I terribly, painfully disappointed? Yes. Do I respect Ali infinitely more for giving up his best boxing years to stand up against his government? Yes. Will the picture of Peter Norman, the unsung white Aussie from the 1968 Olympics – who wore the badge for human rights alongside two more famous black athletes – bring a tear to my eye? Always. Am I happy that I've made no defense on Sachin’s behalf or changed my moral stance on the protests to mirror his? Very. Am I also proud that for all the years of my steadfast devotion, I discovered that at the clutch, I was no ‘bhakt’? Undoubtedly.
However, I am not with those who think they’ve now been gifted a free pass to unleash contempt towards all that Sachin and the rest have earned in play. To do so would be a double disservice. It would mean that all those epic battles they had on-field were somehow lesser, or less praiseworthy. It would also mean that every honest frisson of delight those moments gave me, was a lie.
In attempting to reframe Sachin, in seeing him again with fresh eyes, I hope to find a modicum of peace. This is on me. It is on us. We expect our sportsmen to be statesmen. We want them to use their privilege and influence to ‘explore the power they have to change the world’ (to paraphrase that canny ‘Impossible is Nothing’ mantra again, penned as it was by none other than the cannier Ali, who had the foresight to call himself ‘The Greatest’ - and the courage to live up to it). We expect the best players to be the best human beings – as we define the latter. Maybe we should be fair to them, and as fans, simply hold them to the objective standards of the former.
The parting, cruel epiphany is this. In a country where religious feelings get hurt by every other tweet, this one time, it was ‘God’ who did the hurting.
Also thank you, Sachin. For the exceptional, extraordinary cricketer you turned out to be.
Ram
