Gavaskar and Sachin - Products of two different times

The socio economic conditions of an era play a huge role in shaping the attitude of a player on the field.

Gavaskar was brought up in times when India had just won her freedom and now faced challenges that were much

bigger than the colonial rule itself.

Acute shortage of food grains, widespread poverty and religious hostilities.

It was a time when officially the govt urged people to forego one meal a day. Can we even imagine such a thing today?

In the backdrop of such grave times, imagine the single most significant statistic in test cricket history - 13 centuries that Gavaskar has against the then mighty Windies. It’s an unbelievable feat and each of those hundreds instilled a sense of liberation in the nation.

Needless to say it came against bowlers that were the most fearsome of that era.

Just think if we were born in those challenging times where our country was insignificant to the outside world that was starting to grow by leaps and bounds, where would we look for a national hero that might help us to rise above our mediocrity? I use the word mediocre because belonging to a middle class family, the Gavaskar story is very much the same as Sachin except that he never had an Achrekar or a brother like Ajit who devoted his life to his younger brother's game.

Each century that Gavaskar scored would have given us so much pride because it would show the world that India was not only about rope tricks. And it actually did. Talking to people of that era, they say that it gave them the sense of belonging, achievement and most of all inspiration.

In a middle class society where self perseverance was the way of life and flamboyance was unheard of, how could we have expected Gavaskar to hit the ball in the air? Each and every ball faced would have been as important to him back then as his own life. A whole nation went out to bat with him with their share of problems , hoping that somehow the runs from Gavaskar would heal their wounds.

How could he have then, attempted a cross batted slog to mid wicket as most of the T20 batters do.

On the other hand, Sachin signified an angry young India. that can afford to take risks and that won’t sit back and carry the burden of a conservative market economy. An India that prepared to take on the world in every field and had started to ask the question of 'Why' to every restriction imposed in their paths.

Hence when Sachin stepped on the field in the late 80's and early 90's, mind you still carrying millions of aspirations, he did so for a country far more liberal in thought and action as compared to the Gavaskar era. Who knows, maybe that's the source of the aggression and freedom of play even for a born genius.

Mind you, batting is still a one ball game whether it’s the Gavaskar era or sachin's but it’s about the difference in approach and the possible reasons for that.

The point here is not the lame question of who is better, Sachin or Gavaskar. It is about a logic far more deeper than that. It’s about the prevalent conditions in a society and the solid family upbringing that plays a huge role in the making of the individual we eventually become.

It’s about not just blindly mocking the way Gavaskar played, but understanding the reason for the solidarity he showed at the wicket.

It’s about putting a thought about India's position not only in cricket but in other areas in the Gavaskar era which was very different as compared to when Sachin went out to bat. Why did the former had to be that extra cautious on the field and minimize the risk factor? Many say that maybe he played selfishly. I say he is a legend who ensured every time he batted, the world took notice. In spite of the open wickets, lightning quick bowling and legendary oppositions he won't budge from the crease. He will toil that extra mile to prove the world that India had arrived.

VANDE MATRAM

"There are just two types of players. One who hold their nerves and win championships and the rest are all the others" -- the greatest game ever played.

As yuvi descended on the middle of the pitch in wankhede the whole nation stood up. Some in awe, some in praise while all with a sense of proud of being an Indian. Our moment had arrived and it had taken some time alright.

For me the journey to this day began way back in the year 2000 at the ICC Knockout trophy at Nairobi, kenya.  That was a tourney which saw players like Yuvi and zaheer make their debut at the big stage, and they did it in style. A young team with veterans like sachin and ganguly , humbled the then world heavy weights australia and SA. Though the men in blue lost the finals to new zealand , they made sure that the world takes notice of a new force in cricket and move ahead of the fixing turmoil.
Ganguly's captaincy heralded a new era in Indian cricket. It touched greater heights after nairobi, in the famous series against Australia in 2001, when Steve Waugh's strong team was defeated 2-1 in a Test series after having taken a 1-0 lead at Mumbai. It was all about self belief, a quality missing from the Indian teams of the decade before 2000.
The team started winning abroad, something that was unheard of and was never associated with this team. Test victories came in Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, West Indies, England, Australia, and a famous series victory against arch-rivals Pakistan in 2004. It was during this time that the Indian batting order became one of the strongest in world cricket. We had players like sehwag and Yuvi who were unaware of the term "fear". We had the God of offside and the most aggressive captain this team has seen, Dada. Then we had players like VVS and Rahul who by their sheer grit and technique would make the opposition bowlers cry. Then Of course we always always ....had Sachin.
Sure there have been ups and downs in the past 10 years with this team, but nonetheless it always showed a promise of evolving and shaking off the tag of a one man army.
What we see today is a team that has taken a decade to mature and has kept faith in their ability to win. Dhoni has been a revelation. He is perhaps the coolest captain on the field since S.Waugh. The ability to absorb pressure and remain calm is his greatest ability.
A month and half earlier we had planned to go to GOA on this long weekend and had no idea that the finals were on 2nd April..That saturday was a dream. I remember we left for the shacks when sachin got out. It was a terrible feeling. we were in the Las Vegas of India and still the mood was gloomy. Till the time we were actually able to find a place the situation was a bit stable on the field. It was about a hundred or so on board and the flags and whistles were out on the beach. Unbelievable atmosphere. Really what more do u want from life....  A table with candlelights on an awesome beach, with friends. World cup finals, big screens thousands of people, india chasing well. And we won it .....the crowd speechless for a second... thunderous the next. The mind caught in a state of frenzy whether to dance or to shout or cry or just stare in awe....  the body though didnt wait for the signal , it started doing everything.We cried with Yuvi and bhajji ...we cried and were on our knees when pathan lifted sachin .This was our moment. It was a celebration of being an Indian...the pitiful cultural and caste divides dissolved. It was one of those rare occasions in this country when people shed that narrow mindedness and braced one and all. The hysteric slogans of Vande Matram from a thousand people belonging to a multitude of backgrounds  exploded in the skies throughout the night.
My friend asked me the other morning,,,, please tell me it wasn't a dream...and i just smiled...

GOD's luck and the Game

This was not for the faint hearted. How many breaths would have paused when the replay showed the ball missing the Sachin's leg stump by a whisker. A ball later, time virtually came to a stand still when the stumping was being reviewed. Just one frame and he was safe. If this was not enough the Pakistani fielders had other plans for the day. They looked as if they were not expecting the ball to be hit to them!! A phrase had started doing the rounds on Facebook and its apt for what happened that time - "GOD makes his own luck". Period.
The game was given a blitzkrieg start by Viru. He batted the strike bowler of Pakistan out of the game or for at least his first spell. Viru himself doesn't seem to think much about the stage, if the ball is there he just hits the shot. Simple enough. But that onslaught kept Umar Gul away from making any significant impact even later in the game.Gambhir looked comfortable till he was done by the spin of Hafeez. I personally believe that he might be one of the best players of spin, yet he just overdoes the dancing down the track. For a player of his caliber a quick 30-40 is not good enough for the team. Still, the partnership between him and sachin was a great foundation for India and the value of that scratchy 85 was just beginning to descend given the way the pitch turned.
Apart from the extras showered by the Pakis the innings that made the difference was that of Raina's. I have always believed that this so called small town boy has a Lion's heart and an attitude that can humble the uber cool metro lads. Even in the match against the aussies the way he landed Lee out of the ground was awe inspiring. Through his determined efforts India were able to pull up a challenging score.
After a cautious paki start, finally Akmal departed in the 9th over. It was an important wicket as he has a history against India and he likes the bowling attack. Once Hafeez departed, the pressure of a world cup semi was clearly showing up on the Paki team. The middle overs was where India tightened the screws and a panic struck batting line up started to dismantle. With each wicket the sound of joy blasted thorough every street, through homes with friends and family, through the Pubs and through every heart that has ever dreamt of India going into the finals of the world cup. Its a bit ironic that the last time I returned from my friends place after watching a cricket match was when india lost to SA. The heart break and the tears were just too loud to shun. The streets were quite.
A few weeks later  the same streets were full of people dancing at 11:30 in the night. I joined them at every juncture , at every step and at every beat. It was liberating from the sadness and the routine that has cobwebbed our lives. It was liberating from the depressing nonsense of the political parties and the 100 crore scams. From the ever increasing oil price and the ever reducing residential land. I wrote in my last article, this is not just a game. People who were dancing with me at those traffic signals were not drunkards. I haven't seen such scenes ever on the streets and to talk about it this was just the semi final. The big one is yet to arrive.
Bring it on Lankans. Its Mumbai, the place where about a quarter of a century ago a lad took up the willow inspired by the '83 world cup win and resolved to do it for  his country again. He never had a better team with him to accomplish that dream. He might not have another chance to do this all over again. This is the moment we had been waiting for since we started playing and following the game. This is a champion team which has defeated and matched champions to reach the finals. Now they just have to do it. A billion people are waiting and sachin has the cap with the most number of lives under it. Jai Ho!!!

Two Days of fame

3 pints KF, a heavy heart, a hot head and cool wind gusting past the bike at midnight. That's when thoughts took the shape of words and it took another 2 hours to pen them down. Maybe that's why the article struck the right chords cutting through age groups and professions. 
However the way it spread left me awestruck. Who would have thought of associating with  it the name of perhaps one of the best cricket columnist and commentators of our times. I still haven't figured that out but whatever was the thought process of that person, it actually worked in my favor. The day i posted it on the bulletin board of my office, i received fair bit of compliments and i was content with it. However, the next day i saw the same thing being circulated in Harsha's name through forwards. I was furious to say the least. The whole day my mailbox and IM was flooded with people congratulating me while some were still not ready to accept that I wrote the piece! I barely did anything else in office that day other than replying to mails. By evening Harsha tweeted denying the association with the article. It created ripples across the bulletin board and my mailbox sort of crashed!! But I couldn't thank enough my colleagues and friends who took it upon themselves to start replying to forwards, posting on the blogs on which it had already spread and tweeting, giving me the credits.  
But things have a way to spread on the web and its beyond anybody's control. it was everywhere on the web. People called up to tell me that its spreading on facebook like wild fire. It was crazy.
Two days on and it kept spreading. Harsha had to tweet again. The mailbox crashed again. The forwards kept roaming again and the bloggers kept posting it again. In the midst of all this commotion I kept wondering was it really that good. One of the comments on some blog was - 
"Too much melodrama... Did Karan johar wrote this" !!! :) 
Well I don't know and never thought that way. Believe me, i have only read it twice. 
Nevertheless, those couple of days were magic. Finally i have started with my own blog. 

Why I don’t want to be SACHIN

Don’t be mislead by the title. I know noone can be sachin.

Last night GOD came in my dream and told me that Dude now that you have seen a great deal of sachin’s life , I ll reverse time and we will start all over again from the day he was born. Just that this time you will be sachin.

I POLITELY REFUSED.

But why. He has attained the status of GOD himself in these 22 years. Who wouldn’t like to be him. Well simply because we haven’t seen the world from his eyes ever. We always have liked/envied his stature, his Ferrari, his ads, his bat, even his curly hair. But we have never tried to see the world from his side of the fence.

Remember when you failed an examination. How many people recall that, your class, friends, relatives? You failed to make it to the IITs or IIMs. Who remembers. How many times have you had the feeling of being the best in your class, school , university, state….., you failed to get a visa stamped this quarter…, you missed a promotion this year…, how did it feel when you dad told you in your early twenties that you are good for nothing…..and now your boss tell you the same...

You keep introspecting and go into a shell when people most of whom don’t matter a dime in your life criticize you, back bite you, make fun of you. You are left sad and shattered and you cry when your own kin scoffs at you. You say I am feeling low today. It takes a lot from us to come out of these everyday situations and move on. A lot??? really?

Now here’s a man standing on the third man boundary in the last over of a world cup match. The bowler just has to bowl sensibly to win this game. What the man at the boundary sees is 4 rank bad bowls bowled without any sense of focus, planning or regret. India loses, yet again in those circumstances when he has done just about everything right.

He does not cry. Does not show any emotion. Just keeps his head down and leaves the field. He has seen these failures for 22 years now. And not just his class, relatives, friends but the whole world has seen these failures. We are too immature to even imagine what goes on in that mind and heart of his. That’s why I would never want to be Sachin.

True he has single handedly lifted to moods of this entire nation umpteen number of times. He has been an inspiration to rise above our mediocrity. Nobody who has ever lifted the willow even comes close to this man’s genius. His dedication and metal strength is unparallel. This is specially for those people who would have made fun of him again last night when India lost. They are people who are mediocre in their own lives. Who just scoff at others to create cheap fun. Who have lived in a small hole throughout their lives and thought they have seen the oceans.

Think about the man himself. He is 37 years of age. He has been playing almost non stop for 22 years. The way he was running and diving around the field last night would have put 22 year olds to shame. The way he played the best opening quickies in the world was breathtaking. He just keeps getting better which is by the way humanly impossible. Its not for nothing that people call him GOD.  

But still I don’t want to be in those shoes. We struggle in keeping our monotonous lives straight, lives which affect a limited number of people. Imagine what would be the magnitude of the inner struggle for him, pain both mental and physical, tears that have frozen with time, knees and ankles and every other joint in the body that is either bandaged or needs to be attended to every night, eyes that don’t sleep before a big game, bats that have scored 99 international tons and still see expectations from a billion people.

And he just converts those expectations into reality. We watch in awe, feel privileged.

Well I think its time that his team realizes that enough is enough. They have an obligation, not towards their country alone but towards sachin. They need to win this one for him. Stay assured that he himself will still deliver and leave no stone unturned to make sure India wins this cup.

This is not just a game, and he is not just a sportsman. Its much more than this. Words fail here.

nipun dixit