Prodigy, Genius, God: At 50, Sachin Tendulkar opens up on his journey

And it’s done in a few minutes. Tendulkar walks, trying to squeeze his head into the hat, trying to hide, trying to stop his tears. They still flow down his cheeks. “I couldn’t control myself. I get into the dressing room, look for the biggest towel, throw it on my face, and sit on my own, for a while.”

Outside, the crowd is getting equally emotional. They, too, are fighting back their tears but failing spectacularly. After a point, they stop trying.

It was said that Tendulkar was the biorhythm of the nation in the 1990s. If he did well, India soared; when he failed, her spirits sank. He single-handedly won difficult games, broke records, and became the best in the world. Nations are known to confer God-like status on sporting icons. India kept it simple. Having watched too many of his miracles, they just started calling him God.

Nations are known to confer God-like status on sporting icons. India kept it simple. Having watched too many of Sachin Tendulkar’s miracles, they just started calling him God. (Photos: Express Archives)

Tendulkar never imagined the expanse of his game but knew he was made for bigger things. At 11, Class V essentially, he was already convinced he was going to play for India. “In my mind, there was never ever a doubt. I never grappled with yeh ho sakta hai, nahi ho sakta hai; there was no such doubt. I knew that I was going to play for India. The question was when. By 12, I was sure.”

The world never called Tendulkar a great cricketer. He was always a genius. What does it take to help a genius flower?

Guru Achrekar, Asha tai and a rolled-up roti

We are at his home in suburban Bandra in Mumbai for the answer. It’s the month he will be turning 50. It’s a milestone that offers a neat frame to peer into his past, trace his early years, and find what makes a genius tick. He is sitting on an L-shaped sofa that aesthetically curves in his long, tastefully decorated living room.

Up close, there is still a boyishness that belies his age. The crinkly-curled unruly hair of his boyhood, tamed in his adulthood, is still thick and crops his face. He is articulate, modest, frank, reflective, and open. It seems he thinks as he talks, measured words fall out, his voice rises in passion when a cricketing memory perks up, laughter often escapes, and so does wisdom and a sense of contentment about how his journey has unfolded.

“When I moved schools and started living at Shivaji Park, I had become serious. My family gave me such freedom.”

At 12, Sachin Tendulkar moved away from his family to live with his aunt and uncle as the daily commuting from Bandra to Shivaji Park was too tough. (Photo: Sachin Tendulkar/Instagram)

It wasn’t as simple as changing schools. At 12, Tendulkar moved away from his family to live with his aunt and uncle. The daily commuting from his home at Sahitya Sahawas in Bandra to coach Ramakant Achrekar’s Shivaji Park academy was too tough. The young body was unable to keep up with the ambitious mind. Early morning alarms, two bus journeys, school and more practice. Late in the evening, there would be the return journey home. Two more bus rides to end the draining day.

The guru, Achrekar Sir, saw the way ahead. He suggested a shift to Sharadashram Vidyamandir, a school with cricketing pedigree where he taught, that was closer to Shivaji Park. A phone call came to the Tendulkars’ household. Achrekar sir, and the parents, already prepped up by brother Ajit who was first to spot Tendulkar’s ethereal talent and remains a life-long cricket mentor, seeded the sporting dream.

Sachin’s first coach Ramakant Achrekar suggested that he shift to Sharadashram Vidyamandir, a school with cricketing pedigree. (Photo: Sachin Tendulkar/Instagram)

“I was out of that conversation but was asked just one question by my parents: Was I prepared to leave all my friends and go? There won’t be anyone there. I said yes ‘okay, I will do it.’”

The uncle and aunt, who lived in a two-room house near Shivaji Park, had no children. “I was like their son. Our families were very close. So I never had any emotional pangs. But I understand it was a massive decision. One realises only when one becomes a parent. To allow your child to go away is the biggest loss, I would say. I was only 11-12. My parents had full confidence that aunt-uncle were going to look after me no less than 100 per cent.”

Tendulkar would wake up at his aunt’s house to the voice of Asha Bhonsle. Recently, he went to an award ceremony for Bhonsle, and childhood memory-flood deluged him. “Aunt’s home had two rooms, one outside and one kitchen, that’s it. I would sit and listen to Asha tai’s bhajans, bhav-geet with my uncle and aunt. They would listen to it during breakfast — two chapatis and chai. Aunt would give that extra fold to the chapatis and say, ‘So that you are full till 1 pm!’ I would take the chapati, roll them with a bit of sugar and ghee, and listen to Asha tai.”

Cricket in the morning, cricket on his mind at school, cricket at sundown — a genius needs loads of hard work, sweat and toil. And some love.

While Tendulkar’s travel hours shrunk, his parent’s daily commuting increased. Working with Life Insurance Corporation, his mother would make the daily trip from her office at Santacruz to Shivaji Park to meet the son. His father would come from wherever he was in Mumbai to Shivaji Park.

As he lived with his uncle and aunt, Sachin’s mother would travel from Santacruz to Shivaji Park to meet him. His father would come from wherever he was in Mumbai to Shivaji Park. (Photo: Sachin Tendulkar/Instagram)

“Meeting me, or having any conversation with me, at aunt’s house was no guarantee. Sometimes, I would be so tired that I would doze off at 8.30 pm. In my sleep, my grandmother, aunt or mother would feed me. It was a huge commitment; in today’s world, almost impossible,” says Tendulkar, looking at nothing in particular.

Tendulkar’s father was a poet and a Marathi professor. Even today, he meets deeply-obligated IAS officers, who his father taught. “They talk about his warmth and affection. I never ever saw him lose his temper. He was calm, balanced. Never once did he tell me, ‘I am your father, you do as I want you to’. Instead, he would seek my wish, and then extend his full support. I picked the calmness and sense of balance from him.”

Sachin Tendulkar’s father was a poet and a Marathi professor. Even today, he meets deeply-obligated IAS officers, who his father taught. (Photo: Sachin Tendulkar/Instagram)

From his mother, he says he picked up the grit. “She has that. My in-laws always tell me that I picked my determination and grit from her.”

His brother Ajit made his young mind see things that he could have never imagined. “He spotted that I bat well, it was he who laid out the pathway.” He also has an elder brother Nitin and sister Savita but they prefer to be in the background. Tendulkar says there have been times when they would leave the frame where he was. It is only when it is totally unavoidable that they reveal their second name — Tendulkar. “They all helped me to become what I have become. The atmosphere in the family is so important. Till today, no one uses the surname outside. Just the first name.”

Then there was that wise guru, Achrekar sir. The cricketing world knows his dedication, and his immovable conviction that the young Sachin was going to lord the cricketing world one day. Together, they all combined to chart Tendulkar’s life. To help him become what he wanted to become.

The genius flowers; watered by his parents, brother, coach, uncle and aunt, and by an unmistakable self-conviction about his own destiny. And insane hard work.

A 22-yard homage, note of thanks

Tendulkar comes out of the dressing room for one last time at his farewell game. The lap of honour unfolds. He is carried by Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Virat Kohli and others.

At his last game, in New York for Cosmos club in 1977, football legend Pele was carried by goalkeeper Shep Messing, and at the end of the emotional lap, Messing said that Pele whispered to him, “One more time, please!”. Something similar happened at Wankhede during the emotional farewell in 2013. “Sacheeeen, Sacheeen” cries were piercing the Wankhede air. Tendulkar was suddenly hit by an overwhelming urge to offer his one last pranaam to cricket. The crowd around him clears, a path to the central square magically forms.

“That walk to the pitch was about that — to thank cricket. I knew whatever happened till that moment and what was going to happen beyond is because of what I did between those 22 yards. So, for one last time, I wanted to thank cricket for everything I experienced in my life.” And so he went on his walk of homage, bowing to the pitch.

“One of the guys from Star TV came to me and told me the plan: The man of the match will talk, West Indies captain will speak, then I was to answer three questions from Ravi Shastri. Then the winning captain Dhoni will speak, and the trophy will be handed and photographs taken. That’s it. Over.”

The world would not have seen that emotional farewell speech if Tendulkar wasn’t moved by the urge. “My final speech was planned for the sixth morning — the day after the Test at a press conference. Not with the fans around. Something inside me said this is the moment to speak. I asked the TV person, is it possible that I can speak for sometime? He said they will be more than happy. I asked him ‘How much time will I get, my speech will be longer than a couple of minutes.’ He said, ‘We would be fine if you want to speak for two hours also! Take your own time’”.

Tendulkar had written the note out, with names of people he wished to thank. “That speech was decided spontaneously. I had written down the names in chronological order as I didn’t want to forget anyone there. The words flowed. I kind of knew what I was going to say about people in the list. But it wasn’t planned. It was a message from above — it was meant to be. Then I saw Rahul (Dravid), (Sourav) Ganguly on the big screen and spoke about them. It all just happened organically.”

Debut in Pak, grit and a bloodied nose

Even his fears tell a story. It’s never been anything in cricket. “Natural calamities, that’s my biggest fear. There, no one can do anything. It’s equal for anyone and everyone. I have always been worried about that. Not something like Covid — if one is at home and takes care, this virus can be beaten. I am talking about earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, etc. There was that huge earthquake in Gujarat in 2000. The way the building where I stayed shook gave me sleepless nights.

“From one window, I could see Mount Mary Church and I could also see Shivaji Park. I would pray all the time that we don’t want to see such calamities again. So that is something I have always been scared of. Nothing in cricket, no.”

If not fear, does a genius ever have self-doubts at least?

“Only once,” Tendulkar says, after one prompts him not to be modest as the genuine desire here is to understand the world through the eyes of a genius. “After my first innings against Pakistan in my debut Test. That was the only time in my life that I had some doubt whether I belonged at this level.”

A 16-year old Tendulkar, who cricketing India thought was hard done by not getting a chance to play against the West Indies, was blooded in against Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Abdul Qadir. That too in Pakistan.

Tumultuous events unfolded worldwide that year, in 1989. The Berlin Wall came down, incidentally, just a week before Tendulkar’s debut. The famous Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests erupted in China. India launched the Agni missile. The Vishva Hindu Parishad laid the foundation stone at the disputed site in Ayodhya. When Tendulkar left as a boy wonder to Pakistan, Rajiv Gandhi was the prime minister, and when he returned as a budding star, VP Singh had taken over.

On his debut, as he would recall countless times since, Tendulkar walked into a mini-crisis with India on 41 for 4, donning a milky-white helmet with brittle flaps. Pakistan threw him in the cauldron with bouncers and pacy reverse swing. The boy fluttered around in a seeming hurry, picking up two fours, but his rawness was exposed. Younis got him with a reversing delivery that rammed into his pad before falling on the stumps. Tendulkar would wipe his mouth with his sleeve, another familiar image from his early days, and walk back under a cloud of self-doubt. “I felt I didn’t belong there. The doubts were all over; looks like this is going to be my first and last Test. I felt I wasn’t good enough. I was upset in the dressing room.”

The teammates sensed it and moved in to offer comfort. “The captain Kris Srikkanth was extremely supportive. I had chats with Mr Chandu Borde, our manager, Ravi (Shastri), and there was Sanjay Manjrekar and Salil Ankola, my roommate. I remember telling Ravi I was in too much of a hurry — ghaai keli, I told him in Marathi. Shastri said, yes, you played as if this was a school game. Remember, these are world-class bowlers. You have to respect them.”

The thought stuck in his mind. “Next match, I decided that I am not going to look at the scoreboard, just at the clock. Normally, you look at the team score, your score and all that, I told myself ‘No, I am just going to look at the clock. Nothing else.’”

Such was his focus that the image of the clock is still imprinted on the mind. “It was on the opposite side of the dressing room, at the third man’s side. I just kept looking at the clock. I had decided to bat for the first half hour without bothering about the number of runs I scored. Just be there for 30 minutes and see what happens.” Tick tock, tick tock. Thirty minutes passed. “I was absolutely fine. I told myself I am comfortable here. That (30th minute) was a big moment in my life. I told myself, ‘Yes, I belong here.’”

There would be numerous obstacles later in his career — world-class bowlers, tennis elbow issue, ageing, the unimaginable burden of expectations, but he never doubted himself again. He made 59 in over four hours that day. “It was possibly the grit from my mother’s side that helped me that day.”

That grit would be tested a few days later when Waqar crash-landed a missile on his nose in the fourth Test. Blood oozed out. Ajit had travelled to Pakistan for the Sialkot Test, the final game of his brother’s debut series. In those days, it could be done, and Ajit would walk into the dressing room to check up on his little brother.

In the middle, even as Tendulkar was telling non-striker Navjot Singh Sidhu, “Mai khelega (I will play)”, there was chatter around the two. Javed Miandad pounced. “I remember Javed saying, ‘Tera naak bilkul toot gaya, tujhe hospital jaana padega (Your nose is broken, you have to go to hospital)’. He wanted to send me off, because we were 138 for 4 and it would have been 5 down with a day and a half to go. We had played that series really well, we needed to finish well.”

Pakistan captain Imran would step in. “Imran told Javed, ‘Tu chhod isko (Leave him alone!)’. But I was okay with all that. I wasn’t bothered, I was used to all that, having spent so much time at Shivaji Park.” Tendulkar’s 57 in over three hours would help India draw the game and the series.

Tendulkar would leave Pakistan shores with a dazzling attack on Qadir that’s gone down in folklore. Much has been said about it, but there is a small postscript to it when he returned to Mumbai.

“I had gone with some friends to have a burger at Santacruz when a few college students stopped and asked for autographs. “Kya dhulai kiya tune,” they said, and I realised how the people viewed me. For me, the most priceless accomplishment was that Sialkot Test when I was hit on the nose, carried on, and helped save a Test. To them, it was the sixes that stayed in their mind. It was also the first time I realised I was getting popular, recognised.”

The roadside burgers would have to stop. Soon, he was everywhere, playing to Tony Grieg screaming “whadaaplayaaaa”, and quickly turning into the inexplicable God, with his bhakts’s chief mantra reverberating everywhere he played: ‘Sacheeeen, Sacheeen’.

Did the expectations ever get too much for him?

“The expectations, I actually enjoyed that. I wanted them to expect something. Rather than when I am walking out to bat and nobody was expecting anything. That would have been odd. I should have picked up a guitar or something other than a cricket bat in life, then.”

‘Sachin, baap hai, baap‘

At home, in his basement office, in a small conference room, mounted on the wall is the famous photo by Mid-Day’s Atul Kamble. That frame from Tendulkar’s farewell game won the Wisden-MCC Cricket Photograph of the Year award.

On #WorldPhotographyDay, a throwback to the winner of the 2013 Wisden-MCC Photograph of the Year competition, this stunning image from Atul Kamble of Sachin Tendulkar walking out to bat in Test cricket for one final time. pic.twitter.com/GU9wUI3Bp7

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) August 19, 2021

Tendulkar has walked out of the dressing room and stepped on the upper landing of the staircase that will take him down to the arena for one last time to bat. From the stadium opening, the sun is painting him in a golden hue. Just a few feet below are the fans. Hundreds of hands with mobile phones are stretched out towards him. It is a surreal picture as if they are reaching out to touch him. One last darshan before the sun sets. Tendulkar seems to be in his zone.

“It’s difficult to ignore when someone is five feet away and all those cameras flash. You know all that’s happening. But one is expecting all these things to happen. It’s part of your preparation. It’s not just about what the bowler is doing; when you are visualising, you are figuring out all these elements. What the pitch would look like, what the outfield would look like, the noise, all these elements come into the picture. That was my routine.”

Didn’t he ever feel the weight of expectations? Was it a burden that pulled him down? “I didn’t think that way. If I have failed, I am also in the same boat as them; not happy! It would have spoiled my day too. But I have to make sure I am in the right space by the end of the day.

“When you are away from the game, you hear the stories people narrate to you. And you go ‘wow, this is what was happening when I was batting and I wasn’t aware’. But not then.”

He harks back to his family for helping him stay grounded. “The atmosphere at home helped — they never made me feel like a superstar. It was normal. Once I walked into home, they would be happy but it was a balanced celebration. At the most, mother would cook something. Our way of showing appreciation, love — and that’s bigger than anything,” Tendulkar says, sincerely.

Sachin says the atmosphere at home helped keep him grounded — they never made him feel like a superstar. (Photo: Express Archives)

“There was an unwritten mantra at home — let the rest of the world talk about the past game, we think about the next one. So, we would keep the ball rolling. That kept my mind occupied on what I should be doing, from very early on, before I played for India also.” One expected him to nod his head, as he would after letting one go or defending or slamming a four off Glenn McGrath.

For Tendulkar, the batsman’s ego has always been a complex one; he doesn’t like to fall prey to his ego. It’s a feature of the almost-maniacal, critical self-control that accompanies the Bombay school of batsmanship. They rarely indulge themselves.

Early in his career, it was said that Tendulkar was a mix of two batting deities — Sunil Gavaskar and Vivian Richards. At some point, he left the Richards persona behind and went the Gavaskar way. Tendulkar never indulged in showmanship; he just tried to wear bowlers down.

He dictated to the bowlers when he would attack, and when he would defend. They weren’t going to force him to do anything. Genius does what genius must — but at his own choosing.

Tendulkar agrees. “To give you an example, when we played Australia in Adelaide in the first Test in the 1999 series, on the second evening when I went out to bat, the Australians bowled away from me. McGrath bowled four to five maiden overs to me. I kept leaving the ball. Couple of times I was beaten. It was generally said that I was not playing my natural game, that I was in a shell, etc. Next morning, same type of attack, I hit two boundaries in the first over itself.

“Shane Warne told me later on that tour that on the second evening, the Aussies had a meeting and said that our plan A — to frustrate me by bowling away — is being kind of messed up. I had understood the plan early. It’s me saying, ‘Ok, you don’t decide when I play and when I don’t play. I will decide.’ I would force you to come back to me. They stuck to their plan and I stuck to mine. It can’t be just about technique, but you should be thinking what the bowler wants you to do. That I picked from bowling in nets, seam-up, leg-spin. I enjoyed playing mind games there, with my friends. It gave me a lot of satisfaction but simultaneously it was teaching me a lot. Certain things can’t be taught — how you get into a bowler’s head and figure out what he is trying to do,” he says, “Sometimes, you have more time to play, sometimes you don’t. It’s the clarity in the head. That evening, for the rest of the world it seemed like I had lost the battle but the Australian team knew I had won the battle. And I knew I had won the battle. The guys who mattered knew exactly what happened. In that meeting, they said, Warne told me, that ‘We are in trouble, he is playing a different game.’ Next morning, I hit a couple of boundaries from the same spot — it was a message that I decided when to play and when to leave the ball.”

For a cricketing nation that closely watched his every little mannerism — from the signature crotch yank to the shake of his right wrist when bowling with the jangling metal kada (bracelet) (“It’s my engagement kada); I told Anjali to give me this instead of a ring which I might lose. This way, I would never have to remove it even when batting”) — one thing was missed: how he saw his own bowling as the gateway to his batting.

“Bowling to other batters in nets taught me a lot. Cricket is not about one end, you have to think in both capacities; cricket is always played at best when your mind is at the opposite end, if your mind is stuck at your end, you are in trouble — you can’t be obsessing about your technique when you are batting,” he says.

Tendulkar’s genius doesn’t lie in the rapid bat-speed or the straightness of the bat in its downward swing, or in the precise foot movement, or in the awe-inspiring punches off the backfoot after picking length early. It lies in how he read the bowler, how he accessed his own subconscious mind, how he knew when to surrender his conscious mind to the unknown.

It lies in his understanding of the mystical. A Sufi batting master, then.

“Your focus needs to be on the other side. That transition from keeping your conscious mind at the bowler’s end and as the ball is released, in that moment, you surrender yourself to the subconscious mind — that is really important. That’s the secret,” he says.

We are still sitting on the sofa. The coffee is lying cold. He hasn’t touched his beverage. An internal switch has seemingly flicked on in him. He is now stripping the mystique. He carries on, looking straight ahead, his left hand weaving an arc, as if he is tracing his thought to its source. The voice remains calm, steady, but the passion is unmistakable.

“So you are picking what the bowler’s doing, what side of the ball has he held, which side is the shine, is it a split-finger grip etc, is he winding up as for bouncers they are winding up a bit more, for out-swingers they are closing the front arm that little bit — all these you note, absorb from your conscious mind.”

“What is happening at my striker’s end is that the subconscious mind takes over at this moment. When your subconscious mind is not taking over, and your active conscious ego is still on, that is when you are in trouble.” Then comes the clincher: “So, these things I figured out when I was bowling,” he says.

“When bowling, you are constantly looking to outsmart each other. I am trying to set up a batsman, say bowl three outswingers before the inswinger. Three bouncers and then one to go away fuller from wide of the crease. I am doing it in the nets. When the bowler does it to me in the match, I then get it, ‘Ok, so he is planning this now. It may not happen now but six deliveries from now, he will try. He is trying to set me up. This is what he is looking to do’. I am aware of all that now.”

He is actively looking for cues from the bowler, and surrendering to his subconscious at the time of response, at the release of the ball. Rather than fretting about his back-foot movement, or whatever the case may be, the attention is on the bowler.

“It’s tough to go into that zone instinctively. There are certain things one can do to go back to that same zone. What is that zone? That space is your subconscious mind. Where you don’t see anything, hear anything — 30,000 or 100,000 people screaming, you just see the bowler running in to bowl. Other things go unnoticed. You are in the zone. You are not worried about your end, you are focused on the other end. On what the bowler is doing.”

The genius mind isn’t worrying; it’s actively accessing information, processing it. “There is nothing to worry as you aren’t focusing on your technique or whether I am doing this right, wrong. Instead, my focus is on the other side. On the good days.”

Silence hugs the air. The mind drifts to an idle chat with Sunil Gavaskar once, when it was put to him that for a particular generation, it will always be his batting and him who would evoke awe. Gavaskar looked with a sense of bemusement and quietly shook his head: “Sachin, Baap hai, baap. No comparison.”

Boy prodigy, parent

A day or two before his last day as an India cricketer, his wife Anjali had famously voiced a sentiment shared by the nation: “I can imagine cricket without him but I can’t imagine Sachin without cricket.”

He smiles when it’s put to him. “I am absolutely in a good space. I have zero regrets. I am a fully content athlete sitting here, grateful for all the experiences that cricket gave me. We have also set up the Sachin Tendulkar Foundation to bring all our philanthropic initiatives under one roof. My wife, Dr Anjali Tendulkar, is the captain of this ship, and as a team we keep learning every day.

“Every day is a different day. There is no fixed calendar as such. I have the freedom to decide. Earlier, it was decided by the matches. There were multiple clashes, important things happening in my children’s life that I couldn’t take part in. That was a big loss. Any parent would want to experience that — that is something I have lost out on. Now they have grown up. Now I wait for them to be free!” he smiles.

Sachin says that not being able to attend important things happening in his children’s life was a big loss. (Photo: Sachin Tendulkar/Instagram)

He is 50 now and the boy prodigy who grew up to be a country’s lodestar is a content adult. Luckily, a few days before he turned 50, his son Arjun would make his Indian Premier League debut. The two are sitting in the Mumbai Indians dugout. When Arjun runs in with the new ball, Wankhede brings down the roof. The son’s debut at the venue of his father’s farewell — the Tendulkar fairy tale continues. Also in the stands is daughter Sara.

Later that evening, father Tendulkar would post a moving Twitter message. “Arjun, today you have taken another important step in your journey as a cricketer. As your father, someone who loves you and is passionate about the game, I know you will continue to give the game the respect it deserves and the game will love you back.”

Tendulkar gave cricket respect, his devotion, his childhood, his being — and the game and the cricketing world adored him back.