December 23rd: Today, A God has left his Religion.

I never understood the concept of religion. The whole “Good is a result of an Almighty Force’s creation” boggled me entirely. That there was an immortal force, who couldn’t be seen, heard or felt and yet could be the nexus for everything good or bad, is something I never found easy to deal with. If things make me doubt on their functioning or existence, pretty much later, I give up on the idea. And hence, religion, faith and God-worship were omitted from my psyche.

I have been brought up in a country where a sport has been perceived and labeled as a “Religion” ever since I’ve known it. No person born in India can say that he’s never watched or played the sport. Every religion is centered around an idol[s] and such worship differs from person to person and community to community. But for a sport such as Cricket, the religion that it became, Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar became my idol. He is that one persona who, within his stay at our television sets, could create an environment where nothing bad could be felt. And the victory if would be achieved, was to be perceived as a major morale booster, irrespective of the situations we faced, be it getting late for schools, skipping our home-works, ignoring our loved ones or even sharing family bonding moments to say the least. Our stories would be webbed around his innings, like the time I told my girlfriend that I wouldn’t meet her until my God gets out and she muttered jokingly “I hope he doesn’t then”; and that was the day he became the first man on Earth to score a Double Hundred in an ODI.

Coming back to my point, the one thing that deterred me about religion, was the same point which I implemented toward him. That every single second spent watching, admiring and emulating him created such an environment where no bad could be done. It is my tranquility, my calling so to speak. And it just didn’t stop at having him on screen. Every time I played the sport, or even acted out a shot, I tried being him. The footwork, the balance, the elegance, the timing, the weight transfer, the majestic follow-through was all so simple and brilliant, that I lost count for the number of breaths I missed or heartbeats I skipped. At one point of time, I felt my organs came in sync with my mind; like they would prepare my body for the minor shocks, the dropped catches, the edges going past slips and point or missing the stumps. I blurted my first loud abuse at Alan Mulally who caught God off his own bowling. I shouted at 6am in the morning when Steve Bucknor raised his finger at Brisbane to judge him leg before. I cried when I saw him sprinting on the field, embracing the Indian tricolor on his body as he was carried through Wankhede on his teammates’ shoulders.

I hated him when he had his slump due to injury. I regret for being one of the naysayers. Pretty soon, he shut me up and I loved him for that. I realized that just like religion, once you fall into faith, you can’t doubt it, blame it or condemn it. You just need to see it through and stand by it; and it shall reward you; and He taught me that. I have argued with people over him to the point that I lost respect for them, gravely. I learned to dodge around such arguments and not risk losing someone I truly admire. I hated him for making things seem so simple, like it was a normal stroll for him, which I mistook again. What he did arose out of twenty five years of repetition. He absorbed the expectations of millions while I couldn’t do so of the 10 people in my team. He faced every delivery with the same amount of concentration, that of which was eons ahead of a magnitude imaginable by me. He created landmarks and broke numerous ones more than what could be calculated, or counted or even thought of by experts. If that isn’t God, then at least he is the closest thing to him. And when there are people pointing their fingers at him, finding chinks and flaws in his armor, they simply show me how fickle minded they are. People who just couldn’t seem to digest a loss and found his Ageing Mortality as a reason to judge him.

But today, i.e. the 23rd of December 2012, 10 days after my 24th birthday, I suffer my biggest loss. Nothing shall or might ever come close; whether it was the loss of my friend, or the loss of my three year relationship, or my realization to squash my hopes and dreams to someday play alongside him. Just that this is the end of my religion. With the way Test matches have come down to, with Captains itching for defensive mechanisms by monopolizing the physical conditions, it has lost it’s sheen. Mahendra Singh Dhoni has ruined Test Cricket for me thanks to his unbearable escapist theories. My God announcing his retirement from One Day Internationals, is like Krishna walking out of Hinduism. The person with whom I would compare my balance and poise every move I made with the bat, is no more in the action of things. This void will be extremely hard to fill now.

I have grown in the 90s, where the vision of the letters MRF off a straight bat gave me the biggest joy; where the deafening cheer could be heard all along the shores of Marine Drive louder than the waves hitting the rocky coast on a High Tide; where the silence on his departure could make silent movies seem noisy. Just that now, that silence is permanent in my life. With the advent of faster scoring, much of the basics have been considered redundant now. When I see my younger generation of players with their cross batted swaggers and their open faced shots, I pity them for the ones they follow or copy. And sadly, as we strike off generation after generation, that aura of Sachin will dissipate to a point where our grandson’s reaction to Sachin Tendulkar would be equivalent to our reaction to Jack Hobbs or Polly Umrigar.

As I long now hoping for ways to cope with this loss, I know for sure that I shall never have a kind of similar conversation with my father or uncle as I used to have when I missed a match due to school.
Me: “How much did Tendulkar score?”
Dad: “It doesn’t matter, we lost.”
Me: “I don’t care for the victory, just tell me how much he scored.”

Sir, You mean a lot to me and I may be a needle in a haystack in comparison to the millions that follow you. Everything I am in this sport, is a result of being as similar to you as I could. Thank You for everything you gave me. I love You, Sir from the depths of my heart. Sorry I ever doubted you.

Sincerely,
Your worshiper and devotee – Khushrav.