The Conjurer

My earliest memory of cricket is not the clearest. Maybe it had to do with the TV. Or maybe it had to do with me being all of eight. All I remember is a diminutive man- quite unremarkable really to any novice spectator- in the midst of a sandstorm. As that memory has evolved over these past eleven years, for some odd reason, the image etched in my mind has gone from the little man braving the storm to him actually whipping it up. Perhaps it has something to do with having watched him whip up storm after storm all these following years. Perhaps it's just my mind seeking poetic satisfaction. Either way, my clearest, and least hampered, aspect of the memory remains that feeling at the bottom of my stomach- that until this man did what he was doing- there was hope left in the world. The unreasonable belief that he could put no foot wrong. And then on, cricket has never been the same. Nor has my life. Call it love, if you may.

When I recently read that the man completed twenty years in international cricket, I was surprised by how unaffected I was. While the world harped about the greatness of the achievement, the genius that lay behind the longevity, I questioned myself over and over why this seemed like just another ordinary fact to skim over. It didn't even make it to my facebook status updates, for crying out loud! Wasn't it true that since that glorious day at Sharjah, I'd spent every day worshiping the man with the kind of devotion that would shame the most devout believers? Wasn't it true that every small landmark, every single quote was collected, recorded and repeated verbatim at will? Wasn't it true that every time he walked out to the crease my heart surged with hope and happiness- and every time he walked back, the same heart was smashed to smithereens? Wasn't it true that after watching one of his specials, I'd look like I'd slept with a hanger in my mouth for days? Wasn't it true that he single-handedly controlled my happiness for a decade? Why then, this apparent nonchalance?

I think I have the answer finally. In so many ways, to me, Sachin Tendulkar is forever. He is the game, and the game is him. To imagine a game- a world, really- where he isn't at the crease wielding his relentless willow, would feel strangely incompletely. And somehow just not right. So the challenge is not to imagine him playing for twenty, or thirty, or even forty years for that matter. It is not imagining him there that is.

I don't claim he's perfect. He's far from it. He hasn't the spectacular flamboyance of Bolt, or the prodigal genius of Phelps. At least not at all times. What he carries- though- is something special. He plays with heart, and a dedication that is other-worldly. He plays as though he was born to play cricket. And they don't make them like him anymore.

Someday, many many years down the line, when the world has transformed into an unrecognizable place, I will be boasting to my grand children about the single proudest thing in my life- that I lived in the times of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. The Conjurer of Storms.