The god of cricket, Sachin Tendulkar, has been displaying those attributes because of which we ordinary mortals become disenchanted with the concept of God. We worship God because of our abiding faith in His omnipresence, His ability to conjure magical moments for enlivening the tedium of our daily routine, and His promise to intercede on our behalf in moments of peril. These attributes projected on Him stoke expectations that are impossible to fulfil, eventually breeding indifference in us towards the Divine. In the end, the omnipotent God becomes the victim of his votary?s fervour. There could not be a bigger irony than that.
Omnipresence will acquire another meaning the day the god of cricket enters the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament, to which he has been nominated. The founding fathers incorporated the principle of nomination in the Indian Constitution because they wanted to enhance the intellectual quality of debate in the Rajya Sabha. Over the years, its quality of debate has diminished palpably. It is now a veritable club of the rich and famous, much to the seething disgust of people. The Association for Democratic Reforms, an NGO, analysed the assets of 224 out of 242 members of the Rajya Sabha (maximum strength: 250) and discovered that 58 percent of them were worth over Rs 10 million. To this club surely belongs Tendulkar, who is a veritable industry, flourishing in spite of the recession.
His wealth is an additional qualification that entitles him to obeisance he otherwise commands because of his status as the god of cricket. Haven?t we in our personal lives seen the rich and powerful bestow lavish donations in the name of God? The nomination of Tendulkar is consequently just a small price the nation must pay, damn the quality of parliamentary debate. Think of the other advantage: it will prolong the omnipresence of Tendulkar for another six years ? the term of his Rajya Sabha tenure ? sometime during which he is bound to hang up his cricketing boots. It is a terrifying situation the nation cannot countenance, incorrigibly addicted as it is to Tendulkar, who is arguably the best opiate of the masses bored with their lives.
His absence from the public arena would create a vacuum impossible to fill. His ubiquity in our lives is stunning ? he smiles at us from billboards, quenching his thirst with cold drinks, making a call over a cell phone, and often popping between two grim headlines on TV news to persuade us to buy sundry consumer durables. We know the date of his birthday, the cars he loves, the music he enjoys, the spiffy house he has built, the school his children study in, even the kind of bowler his son is. He dominates the media, at times for a cricketing feat but also because of an injury, even for gracing Wimbledon and Formula One competitions. India can?t do without the god who has been worshipped from the time he made his debut in 1989. His nomination to the upper house is an insurance against such a calamity. Perhaps we are underestimating the longevity of the god of cricket, in much the same manner as German philosopher Nietzsche did about God, declaring him dead all the way back in the 19th century. Yet God remains in fine fettle, as does Tendulkar. Ask the Australians, who four years ago would stand up every time the god of cricket returned to the pavilion, believing he couldn?t because of his age possibly tour Down Under in 2011-12. But return he did, trying to roll, like Sisyphus, the boulder called Indian cricket to the summit and, unlike the Greek god, failing against the thunderbolts of the Aussies.
Call it a Sisyphean tragedy of the Indian kind, a tragedy still in the making, slowly, imperceptibly. As Tendulkar?s body becomes vulnerable to the ravages of age ? eyesight weaker, hand and eye coordination a little out of sync ? he will increasingly fail to intercede for the Indian team, as happened so frequently on the last tours of England and Australia. Yet our abiding faith in the god of cricket will lure us to hope as the diminutive champion steps out on the field to bail out his struggling team. Should he get dismissed cheaply, as is likely to happen more frequently than before, the fickle among us will cite parliamentary records to wonder why taxpayers should bear the expenses of a rich man who is mostly absent from the Rajya Sabha, as is likely because of the crowded schedule of Indian cricket.
He no longer enlivens the tedium of our daily routine, as was his wont in the past. Over the last one year and more it has become his style to reach 70 and begin his yawning crawl to reach yet another century. A lesser mortal would have been pilloried for his selfish play. Not Tendulkar, for he is the god of cricket, entitled to his capriciousness. So the stadium will roar every time he steps out to bat, hoping he would lift their mood. We will become silent at the betrayal of faith we have reposed in him, as has been happening in this year?s IPL, in which he has been often getting out cheaply or scoring at a rate considered embarrassing for the 20/20 tamasha (rowdy festival).
Now and then Tendulkar will score a century, a 50 or 60, which Sunil Gavaskar will predictably hail as a gem. But brilliance loses its allure because of sheer repetition. We witnessed Tendulkar?s flamboyance in his heyday ? his majestic straight drive, his contemptuous lofted stoke over midwicket, his cheeky slices over third man, his ballet-like balance in executing his off-drive. What we see today is a poor imitation of his best. Every ton of his after his hundredth will be a meaningless milestone on the road of decline of Test cricket. The alienated Meursault in Albert Camus? The Outsider famously said, ?Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don?t know.? To every century of Tendulkar, we will wearily ask, as we reflect upon it, ?He scored that in 2012. Or in 2000 maybe, we don?t know.?
Partially, the blame for alienating us from the god of cricket must rest on the priests of the game, those cricketers-turned-commentators. They hail him with the enthusiasm of a teenager, irrespective of his performance. The god of cricket can?t be blamed for getting out cheaply ? either the ball was unplayable or his concentration wavered because the batsman at the other end was hogging all the deliveries. The excuses are doled out without the mirth with which C L R James describes a West Indian club batsman?s poor shot in Beyond A Boundary. The batsman played a lofted stroke, the fielder leapt in the air, and the ball grazed his fingers before bouncing to the fence. During the drinks break the batsman asked the fielder to explain his need for interfering with a shot so beautifully played.
In bestowing upon Tendulkar the status of god, we will eventually make him our victim. It is a pity that gods don?t retire ? their omnipresence makes them linger around to bore us into disbelief.
The writer is a Delhi-based journalist
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