Why Sachin is God

With all the mourning going on amongst fans at the moment about Sachin’s retirement, some others are questioning the over-the-top press coverage being given. Some cricket ignorants don’t understand what the fuss is all about. You might have thought we were taking fan-following to nonsensical proportions and might have been annoyed at the absurdity of our devotion. Yes, we are devotees and we take an irrational stance when it comes to Sachin. Here’s why.

For most of us, our earliest childhood memories will be times when we were about 4-5 years of age. For many, it was attending school during the day or video games after. For girls, it might have been learning a dance or such. But for most boys then in India, it was playing cricket in the colony park or a nearby playground. 

In those days, we just focused on bringing the bat down in one swift motion and giving an oncoming ball a thwack, or bowling such deliveries that would break the stumps. While batting, we were little concerned about understanding where the fielders were placed and trying to find a gap. While bowling, we never really considered covering a particular batsman’s scoring areas to force him to hit somewhere else. And we never viewed cricket as a team game. We believed we alone could score all the runs while batting and take all the wickets while bowling. Thoughts about fielding was not even on the horizon for most of us. In fact, many would switch off when they weren’t batting or bowling. That was at 5 years of age. The cricket lessons we learned at that stage weren’t permanent ones.

With growing up, came the actual understanding of the game. By the time we turned about 8 years of age and beyond, we began to appreciate the facts we had missed earlier. We understood techniques. We learnt to play the forward defensive. We not only played more cricket amongst ourselves (sometimes under a coach if we had joined a club), but also gained a lot of input from watching cricket matches on TV and the accompanying commentary. We tried reproducing what we learnt from the players and the commentators. While batting, we began looking for gaps in the field. While playing longer matches, we no longer tried to hit 10 runs off each over. ODIs taught us the art of preserving wickets and consolidating during the middle stages, so as to have a go at the end. While bowling, we tried to find out quickly if a batsman liked pace, and subsequently bowled him spin (and vice versa). While fielding, we looked out for the slower of the two batsmen and always targeted his end during direst hits. Most importantly, the concept of the team came into the forefront with the realization that you should have 11 good players rather than 3 excellent ones with 8 scrappy ones. We realised each of us had a job to do if we were to win – someone to consolidate and someone to hit out while batting; someone to press for wickets and someone to keep the scoring down while bowling. The point is, truths of cricket entered our heads when we were 7-14 years of age. We formed our understanding of the game and learnt our life lessons in that period. These truths have been thoroughly entrenched in our minds and most haven’t been removed ever since.

Now, for most of us, this period (when we were truly understanding the game) coincided with the period when Sachin alone bore India on the cricket field (his golden age of the late 1990s). There was this entire duration of a few years when Indian wins against standard opposition came only when Sachin scored, and Indian losses came when Sachin failed. Televisions were turned off if he was dismissed early with people knowing that India had no hope of winning. When Sachin is dismissed, if a dad turns off the TV and tells his kid to go study or play outside, what kind of impression is supposed to form in the mind of the kid? Obviously that Sachin is the be all and end all of the Indian team. This has happened personally to me dozens of times. I remember my mother giving a glance at the TV once in a while and asking me something to the tune of “Sachin has been dismissed. Why are you still watching? Go do your homework.” I would of course not budge and after 20 mins she would be back demanding what I was still doing there.  Then I would be forced to comply, although I would still be back at intervals. During those years, everyone in India believed that we couldn’t win without a Sachin special, and it was mostly true. The issue is, for many of us, this was our first impression of the game.

So, the lesson I learnt in my formative years was that “India is Sachin, and Sachin is India”. Even though it’s a team game for every other country, for India it’s an individual game. He is the one who hits out during the field restrictions, consolidates in the middle stages before opening up again at the end. Whatever be the total we are setting or chasing, only he is capable of achieving it. He is the equivalent of 11 people, and his success or failure determines the success and failure of the country. Thus, he is superhuman. A God. And because my earliest life lesson of the game was this, I have never been able to shake it off. He is still God in my mind. And not just me, all those people whose initial impression of the game was formed in this period regard Sachin as God. Basically, that’s the entire generation born from the mid 1980s to the early 1990s. Obviously, everyone’s story would not mirror mine, but in some way or other, the notion that formed in all of our minds was that India wins with Sachin succeeding and loses with him failing. As a case in point, Virat Kohli, a member of our generation famously remarked “He has carried the hopes of an entire nation on his shoulders for so long……. and it is time we carried him on ours” after the 2011 World Cup Final, and we all praised him to the skies for that.

So, to conclude, please do not judge us ‘devotees’ before standing in our shoes, and Sachin deserves every moment he is getting these days. With all the Gangulys and Dravids and Dhonis and Kohlis who have come in after him and won us matches, our dependence on him has gone down. And we might not see him as powerful as he was in his peak, but still “Cricket is our religion and Sachin is our God”.

Cyclone Phailin

An account of me witnessing the cyclone 'Phailin' at home in Cuttack.

Events on 12th October 2013

  

Cuttack, Odisha.

It had become known from 9th October that a tropical storm had gathered over the Bay of Bengal and was headed towards Odisha. It was scheduled to hit the Odisha coast on the evening of 12th October making a landfall in Jagatsinghpur, Puri and Berhampur districts at speeds touching 250 kmph. Since Cuttack is a bit inland, the cyclone was expected to get there about 4-5 hours after landfall i.e. at 10-11 pm, and pass over in 6-7 hours after that.

Precautions

These were taken keeping the aftermath of the 1999 super cyclone in mind. That had a speed of 300 kmph at the coast and 200 kmph in Cuttack. This had been predicted to hit the coast at pretty much the similar speed. Then, the cyclone had been so devastating that there had been no water for 4-5 days afterwards. I remember hauling water from a bore well a hundred metres away and standing in a pretty long line every time to do so. There had been no electricity for a week. Trees had uprooted and blocked roads, and a cycle was much better than a car or motorcycle as it could snake its way through gaps and could be lifted over roadblocks. Food was not available as shops were closed, and was being sold in black for or 20 times the original cost. I was a kid so I don’t remember much else.

1.Fill all vehicles to the brim with petrol, and get some extra in a bottle. I went to get my bike filled on 11th, but there were crazy crowds at all filling stations. Besides only vehicles were being filled with petrol and nobody with a bottle was being given any. So, do this work days in advance.

2.Get a lot of money out of ATMs as they will run out within a couple of days. Everyone will withdraw at the same time, and the banks won’t refill them as they would be closed.

3.Charge mobiles and laptops to the fullest. Power supply was discontinued by the electricity department as a precaution after wind speed reached 40 kmph on 12th morning.

4.Get batteries for torches, and candles for lighting purposes.

5.Water: both for washing and drinking. I put a couple of drums out on the terrace to collect rainwater as a backup.

6.Get a radio or transistor from somewhere if you don’t have one. Radio stations are the last to shut down services and the first to resume them.

What happened

There was continuous (but never torrential) rainfall from the evening of the 11th, 24 hours before the scheduled landfall. Winds were normal monsoon ones and only picked up speed on 12th morning at 10 am, as when the electricity was cut off. Winds intensified after 5pm and were continuous after that with rain no longer permanent. I checked for leaks in the windows and then settled down with a book.

I slept at around 1 am in the night. From 5 pm till around midnight, the situation had stayed the same, with strong winds and interspersed rain. The winds had started to pick up at midnight, and were still howling (about 100-120 kmph) when yawns overcame me. I woke at around 9 o clock in the morning, and there was devastation all a8round….

13th  October: The mornong after

I’m kidding. Nothing had happened. No tree had uprooted anywhere near my house. Not even a branch had broken, only the dry twigs. The weather in the morning had reverted back to normal monsoon type with sporadic rainfall accompanied by a sudden gust of wind once in a while. It had been announced that it would be safe to venture out of the houses only after noon, but a friend of mine from the neighbourhood turned up at around 10 0 clock on his bike and announced he was going to the market to see if he could get some groceries. I asked the same of my mother (“Get 2 kilos of potatoes.”) and accompanied him there. Not only were most of the shops selling essential items open, but bizarrely, there had been no increase in any prices with potatoes 20 rupees a kilo and onions 60. We got what we needed and returned .My friend told me that he had been up throughout the night (he had to do something to his aquarium every hour which electricity usually does or else the fishes would die) and the high winds that had started at 1 o clock had continued for a couple of hours before calming down. He dropped me off and I spent some time reading the newspaper (yes, even the newspaper of the same day had been delivered in the morning).

Mobile services resumed at around 2 pm, and electricity was restored in the late afternoon. I met up with another friend and we had a couple of rounds of snooker followed by some evening snacks. He lives on the 8th floor and he told me the wind intensity during the night was such that he had felt a part of his building might collapse or get carried off, and the condition there was still pretty bad with the wind rattling the windows and water entering the apartment every time it rained (for reference, me and my friend in the neighbourhood live in 1 and 3 storied houses).

The weather continued to be bad with intermittent showers, but the winds had gone down completely by the time night had arrived. I reflected on the panic that had spread when the “cyclone” had been declared, and figured out it was mostly on account of people’s memories of the 1999 super cyclone. And there was also the domino effect that when you see your friend or neighbour getting prepared for emergencies and obtaining rations for 4-5 days, you also tend to do the same. But it was all unfounded and the storm passed without much damage. Of course, it helps when you are 80 kilometres from the coast (as Cuttack is) since the cyclone is much dissipated when it reaches you. Let’s wait for the final story from the coastlines to see how much of the state is actually affected, although going by the stories of evacuations from the coastal towns (50% the population of Paradwip is supposedly in Cuttack), there seems to be nothing much of concern. The govt has done a good job, being thoroughly prepared (over-prepared I would say, and hyped this beyond measure to grab eyeballs), and all essential services are back. Only broadband internet connections remain absent and internet access is via smartphones only. Tomorrow is expected to be like any other day.


Signing off.

13th October 2013. 9:00 pm.