It was one of those occasions when deserted by your own vernacular you seek consolation in else's vocabulary and when even that is found to be depleted, you are left haywire–fixated on fixing a proper adjective to your newfound emotion. That emotion which allures both but falls neither on the lap of joy or sorrow.Like it occurs to me quite often nowadays, I was dumbfounded and then appalled at my loss of words in describing Virender Sehwag's double hundred.
As I missed out on the live telecast of the match, (for reasons best known to the people in my office, the television was tuned to Aaj Tak) I had to rely on ESPN Cricinfo for score updates. "Sehwag reaches his 100 off 69 balls. And runs out Gambhir off the next ball. 176 for 1," tweeted they. All merry on this side. Viru had, after months of waiting, reached the triple figure and keeping the upcoming Aussie tour in mind its timing could not have been better.
Moments had passed in my juggling between Twitter and Facebook when someone updated their status pleading, "Sehwag, for heaven's sake don't score a double". The immediate response was to laugh; laugh out loud. I did and then regretted. The profundity of the Facebook status was much greater than seen. For what Sehwag was chasing was not a mere figure. For a generation born a couple of decades ago, it was a brutal invasion on their years of growing up. The childhood, the adolescence, there was so much to trade; so much to be traded to fill the next generation’s kitty. And as it often happens in periods of transition, our kin were reluctant to fritter away their remains. And trade but for whom—an impostor of our idol, a porcelain replica?
I remember this miserliness did not fall from nowhere; it's an inheritance we are carriers to. Somewhere in 1998, if not mistaken, I got into a minor war-of-words with my dad when he dismissed Sachin Tendulkar (at the pinnacle of his career) away calling him a debaucher. In his words, Azhar was the artist. With the touch of his brush, he had painted many of their dreams.
The small-town boy's rise to fame, jostling past the elders to elderliness, extra-marital fling, eventual divorce and re-marriage: Azhar gave them their first celluloid cricketer, before he himself robbed them off.
Of Azhar, it could be said that he was brash and unpolished. There were stories about him being aloof, always being at loggerhead with the seniors of the team—even convicted of ending the careers of luminaries like Kapil Dev, Navjot Sidhu and Ravi Shastri. The media talked about his linkups with the underworld, with bookies.
Vinod Mehta in his autobiography The Lucknow Boy, recollects an incident where in a match against Pakistan, Azhar on winning the toss, pocketed the coin and blatantly claimed to have lost it to Aamir Sohail.
His crimes were fragrant, not that he cared to hide. And it was this puzzling impunity that separated Azhar from the rest.
Rohit Brijnath writes in his column for Cricinfo, "He (Azhar) was my favourite because no sportsman ever made me struggle so much, no Indian athlete demanded so much inner debate, no cricketer so confused the senses." He was liked because he wasn't perfect; he was liked because he never tried to be liked.
However, the turn of the decade changed it all. In the match-fixing fiasco, which still rests like an indelible scar on the face of Indian cricket, Azharuddin was found to be the most culpable of all sinners. And this blow was hard to swallow for even the most ardent of Azhar followers.
Somewhere between all this, but hardly under anyone's shadow, emerged a curly haired kid. His rise was inversely proportional to Azhar's fall. By the time the fixing scandal broke loose, he was already an established star. Tendulkar stood in contrast to the former’s frivolity. A complete antithesis, he was more consistent, hardworking, disciplined and lacked the petulance which his long-time captain was inebriated with. Our fathers' invention was fast-slipping out of their own embrace, they knew, still it was shameful to adopt the insignificants' imagination.
To the generation gone by, all things we found cool were scornful luxuries: Burgers, Pizzas, the new Colas, the word 'cool' and every other evil liberalisation brought. Sachin seemed to emblemise this change; he was fast, his batting was fizzy in a way and he could also be described using that word, if I am allowed to use it thrice in one paragraph. They looked at him with childish cynicism as if he was the reason why Campa Cola lost its vitality.
Our Tendlya would dance down the ground, swat the balls all around, score at run-a-ball (if not less than that) and then in between would endorse everything from Power shoes to VISA power. The coming generation of engineer-cum-writers, doctor-cum-actors, accountant-cum-singers who were bent on breaking conventional barricades had gotten their multi-tasker to look up to.
Around us all revolves a halo, a circle, which takes from one generation and passes to another. Before your bond of memories mature it gets transferred to someone you had once known to be unknown.
For some, Sachin exceeded the game itself. I know people who remember the exact Sachin innings which coincided with the appearance of their first pimple, and also those who would tell you when they first parted with the budding patch over their physiognomy and Sachin scored a duck and for months they never picked up a razor again.
Amidst all adulation and idolisation Sachin kept his conquest on. Undeterred by the flurry of out-field activities; he continued stretching boundaries, waitressing to the insatiable millions. Sehwag showed up and vanished and showed up again.
On his debut, which he made in a One-Day International against Pakistan in 1999, much less stouter than he now is, Sehwag looked totally innocuous. He scored only one run, before falling LBW to Shoaib Akhtar and went for 35 in the three overs he bowled.
His positioning in the batting order — at number seven, below the likes of Saba Karim, Khurasiya and Robin Singh — showed that even to the team management he was as inconsequential.
In his next outing in national colours, which came after almost two years of wilderness, Sehwag performed admirably well. In the fourth match of our Tri-series against Zimbabwe and Australia, he made 58 (off 54 balls) and then picked up three wickets to bag the Man-Of-the-Match.
So far so good. Sehwag did shine in the series but so did Vijay Dahiya. Conceiving him as a utility player, I even made him a regular in my favourite game, book-cricket.
Due to Sachin's unavailability for the tour of Sri Lanka, he was promoted to open the innings. Sehwag delivered a hidden message in his 69 balls century against New Zealand. I failed to decipher. It was the third fastest hundred by an Indian. But accidents do happen, I had said to myself.
However, he started chasing himself. In every innings thereafter, he started giving tuitions on hard-hitting. The nineties were nervous of him. Even when on 99 he would attempt for the big hits and if and when he faltered, there was no shame, no discontent. The jatt from Najafgarh who had hardly envisaged fame and feat would walk towards the pavilion with a self-assured contentment.
Blasphemous comparisons to Tendulkar were made. Stance, shots and even physical attributes were measured and when human vision failed, they resorted to graphics.As if the need was to establish a dummy. During most part of the nineties when Sachin scored in losing causes, I had seen placards asking for 'Ten more Tendulkars'. Those statements were laudatory, these comparisons bordered on lunacy.
But soon, the dummy started looking livelier, at times shining brighter than the deity. Sehwag soon formulated his own brand of atheism. He preceded a number of players who would wear their heart on their shoulders, cover it with their armbands and advertise it to their fancy.
Harsha Bhogle's tweet after Sehwag reached his double hundred was, "I wonder sometimes if Sehwag achieves these landmarks because he doesn't worry about achieving them." It is true. Nothing bothers. Nothing worries him. For nervousness had been parted with, when he parted with the placenta.
Wanting not to fall prey to the rules of evolution; not to let my dream become a requiem so soon, I have tried various tricks of sustenance. To my little cousin, in eulogies—guised as lullabies, I would preach how great a batsman Sachin was. How much faster he still was and how much more responsible and steady.
Flashbacks, now remind me how in stages of life we all are juxtaposed; and in clockwise alignment how 'me' and 'my cousin', 'dad' and 'me', we all stand. Around us all revolves a halo, a circle, which takes from one generation and passes to another. Before your bond of memories mature it gets transferred to someone you had once known to be unknown.
My cousin, who was barely four or five years old, at the time of my preaching, soon gave up all I had infused in him. He must have celebrated Sehwag's double-hundred. Sehwag, in the process of scoring also surpassed Sachin's 201, which was previously the highest individual score by any player in a 50-overs game. But the next time we meet, I will brag about how my hero still remains the first one to reach there. Bring it on.
Published in Cricinfo blogs and SportsKeeda
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