SA-CHIN! SA-CHIN! A Year After

On the first anniversary of the day he hung up his bat, a tribute from a fervent fan to the greatest of them all.

As I woke up at 4 AM this day last year in Pune, there was a sense of hanging emptiness. It was day 3 of the Wankhede test match, and one couldn’t help but believe that the end was nigh. When I reached the ground around 8.30 AM, there were Sachin masks, Sachin chants and polite enquiries for extra tickets engulfing every lane that led to the ground.

The three and half hours of the proceedings that unfolded on November 16^th 2013, involved two types of reactions in the ground – one set of fans were hoping West Indies scores enough to let India (and Sachin) bat again. The other set of fans was rewinding 24 years of emotions staring blankly at the ground and occasionally chanting “SA-CHIN, SACHIN” along with the crowd. I was part of the second set.

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Connectedness with individuals is a state of identifying common values and building bonds which underscore these values. Children leave home but more often than not cherish the bond with the parents. Friends separate but reunite easily after long stretches of time because there are common threads left unexplored. There are core, central reasons why human relationships transcend time, reason and belief.

Personally, I connected with Sachin growing up in the 90s, around one central tenet – aspiration. Things were changing around us – socially, politically, and economically. There were few public icons to look up to, and those who had been on pedestals, had faded or discredited or died. The aspirations were sky high – to achieve more, to earn more, to be more confident of oneself, to be part of the world on an equal if not better footing. And in parallel, there was Sachin, marching from strength to strength. My aspirations and wishes, and safe to say for many others too, started being increasingly embodied by Sachin’s achievements.

Sachin pushed the boundaries, raised the bar, and transformed the yardstick of success. When he appeared on television every night saying “Ye Dil Maange More”, he was not talking about the abstract brand values of a cola or his cricketing career. He was voicing the aspiration of a whole generation eager to re-baseline the notion of accomplishment. We, certainly I, may or may not have drank the cola, but we had drunk the Kool Aid.

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As the West Indian wickets fell one by one, it became clear that the day was upon us. It was the last time we were watching Sachin on a cricket ground playing for India. Some histories outdo rivalries and become participative, almost communal, as Darren Sammy had demonstrated the previous day not celebrating after catching Sachin depriving him of a fairy-tale century. MS Dhoni, the Indian captain tried to push this envelope of shared history giving Sachin a bowl. He didn’t take a wicket. He was deputed to field at various positions around the ground, where he acknowledged the fans, but no catch came his way.

And then the moment was there. Mohammed Shami cleaned up Shannon Gabriel. The events unfolded at a leisurely pace, no one objected to. When Sachin came back to bow down to the Wankhede turf, we bowed down to that upper cut off Shoaib Akhtar. And that dancing down the wicket to Shane Warne. To that 155 in Chennai. To that 136 also in Chennai. To that 134 in Sharjah. To that 169 in Cape Town. To that 146, also in Cape Town. To the 119s in Old Trafford and Perth. To that 90 in Mumbai. May be more – the memories were endless, and it was so easy to miss a dollop of gratitude.

When Sachin asked us to be quiet, so that he could make his valediction speech, we obeyed. But only for a few seconds before launching into another round of applause and the “SA-CHIN, SA-CHIN” chant. He choked and stumbled, he thanked and signed off. And so did we.

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24 years and a day, which started in Karachi, ended a few hundred miles away in Mumbai. The years, packed with a roller coaster of emotions, adulation reserved only for special ones, expectations only bestowed on the next of kin and scrutiny sharper than that reserved for the most dangerous people in the society. He lived through it all, sometimes complaining or suggesting a hint of annoyance but mostly taking all of it in his stride.

He faltered from time to time, personally and professionally, like any person would. The occasional follies confirmed he was indeed human. Some celebrated his being the tallest of them all, a handful bemoaned he was not God. His failure wasn’t that he didn’t always conform to the unreal standards we set for him; instead his greatness was that he leapfrogged them more often than not.

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As I walked out of Wankhede, the snaking queues were funereal. Hardly anyone was crying – partly because it is tough crying couple of hours at a stretch and partly because the retirement was a process which started in December 2012 – this was only the final event of the journey. Those of us, who were crying, were not ashamed to look into the empty eyes which were still grasping the cricketing bereavement.

As I got into my cab, I tweeted: For better part of 24 yrs, you were us and we were you. We move on to find new moorings. And may you @sachin_rt, find yours. #ThankYouSachin. I will be lying if I say I have found my new cricketing moorings. I am engaged enough to be interested, but not involved enough to emote. And it would appear that Sachin hasn’t found his moorings either – something I hope changes in the time to come.

The country as well as the game has moved on as they should. But my personal satisfaction and pride of aiming high and investing in the right individual remains steadfast. We aspired and he aspired, and whether or not we made a mark, he certainly did.

John Donne once said – “No man is an island, entire of itself.” He was possibly right. Sachin was a country, almost entire of himself.