In the end, the broken pieces of a legendary cricketer will come together, if it doesn't its not the end yet ! - The ramblings of a Sachin Fan

A single Indian victory brings in harmony. A single Indian loss brings in anarchy. As the estranged love affair between media and cricket continues, the normal cricket fan is put under the pressure to differentiate his thought from what he feels and what he is made to feel. Why is that, on a spin friendly track, the entire focus has been made to shift from the poor showing of the spinners to the poor showing of a single batsman? A frail hearted cricket fan might have got consumed, with media butchering an inimitable cricket legend in the name of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. The average fan might feel that, Sachin's off-field defense is getting as scratchy as his on-field defense. But hold I'm no diplomat, I'm a cricket fan & Sachin Tendulkar is my god. 

Any belief worth having must survive doubt. My belief on Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar has not only survived doubt, but has also managed to massacre it. Its not because he's got the numbers behind him, but its a simple fact that, he's thought us on how one person can carry the hopes of a billion people over a decade or two. Every single day of his life there are expectations. And no one can be blamed for that apart from himself. He has set the standard sky high, that even a small error looks magnificent. Even while so much is happening around him, it is so easy for a person to get consumed by the situation. But all this man does is, walk up to the nets without paying much heed to the hoopla, knock a few deliveries with pristine concentration. Often the question arises, "Why does he still have to play cricket? He's achieved every single thing possible!." The answer I'd give to that is, he's still learning and he will always continue to learn. Being a keen student of the game you love the most, throws age out of equation.

To be fair, he knows the value of this game much more than any cricketer who has ever played this game. The value is just not about the sport and how it is played. The value of it is how much you are able to carry apart from just a sport. Often people and pundits wonder, why Sachin is not treated the same way, other legends were treated from other countries. To put things under perspective, Cricket is a sport across the globe, but not in India. It is a religion here. A healthy percentage of the billion population, under any circumstance will have something or the other to chat about cricket, every single day of their lives. When it is considered as a religion, everybody consumes it. You can't help it if cricket is more emotional than rational in our country. Every cricket follower in India, is just not a fan, he's a captain, he's a selector, he's an umpire, he's a fielder, he's the referee, he's the curator and he assumes almost every singe role available in the sport. With almost a billion people like this in our country, spare a thought the amount of pressure that is stuffed on a single personality, each and every time he walks into the field. A good part of his career, he's carried the weight of a billion, no other sportsperson in any sport in the world has manage to do that. Ganguly, Dravid, Laxman and many other contemporaries are no doubt legends, but they did not carry the same baggage or the expectation that Sachin carried all these years every single time he stepped onto the cricket field.  

 

 

 

How many times have there been emotional uproars during the midst of an important cricketing series? But why is there such a mood swing in the cricket fan's mind? A century can make you glitter over night and a failure can make you look worse than a puff of dust. Like Krisnamachari Srikkanth rightly put it, why would you want to postmortem a performance even before its completely so openly? Why would you want to make yourself susceptible to unwarranted criticism? Along with the soup, the media needs just a spark of warmth to ignite the entire situation and elevate it to an altogether new level. Their concern is morphed with commercialism. Their debates are like what the Joker says in Dark Knight - "I know why you decide to have you little "group therapy" sessions in broad day light." Ultimately you've got to be sensitive to the situation and see what is on top of the priority list to discuss. Whether its an entire team failing to live upto the expectations or the focus needs to be shifted to a legend having an elongated rough patch in the climatic stages of his career. 

 

 

 

Sachin Tendulkar himself has recently stated that htere is not much cricket left in him. He might be god on the field, but he's still a human off the field. He has come to terms that the final stages of his razzmatazz filled cricket career is coming to a close. You've just got to give him his time. You may wonder, why other players were asked to leave unceremoniously? Is Sachin so special? The answer to that is an obvious YES! Sachin is special. He's just not another cricketer. The problem people are identifying with Sachin is that he's growing old and he's thereby holding the position of an upcoming talent. Which cricketer doesn't have a rough patch in their lives? Sahcin's has been treated as god all these years, and people are not able to accept when god makes a human error. That is the dilemma between the heart and the mind. Without getting too emotional about this, lets take it by the step. Coming to terms with the current Indian batting set up, India are a batsman driven team. But who are the people in form? Gambhir - No. Sehwag - No. Pujara - Yes. Kohli - almost Yes. Yuvraj - No. Sachin - No. Dhoni - No. So technically you are just talking about 2 people in prime form, and this stage a wise cricket fan would back experience than to try something out of the box and lose even the little respect that is still hinging on the famed batting line up.

 

 

Sachin Tendulkar, you either love him or hate him. If you love him, keep the faith. If you hate him, keep the doubt. Both of these feelings are bound to bring back the best from him. Lets not drive him to an unceremonious retirement. Atleast he deserves to be sent of in style. A lot of questions have been raised about the selectors role in such a situation. Its not the question of the selectors having the guts to go and talk it out with Sachin Tendulkar, but its just that they unanimously believe that he's a player of such capability, who will take a call on his own when the time is ripe. A lot may call this the timidness of the selectors, but full marks to them if they have respected the decision making power of a single individual, thats the only tribute that they can provide this living legend. Frankly no one can push him to retirement or change his fate. Only he has the capability to decide his own fate, because he has written it all by himself till date.    
 

Is Walmart coming to the streets ? - A stroll into a chai shop

Here's my blog first blog over the last 6 months. Not Laxman's retirement; Not Yuvraj Singh's comeback; Not the World T20; Not the champions league. A non-cricket blog after a long time. Don't be afraid. This blog, for a change, doesn't feature even an ounce of cricket in it. But I guess I have an interesting experience to narrate.  

Its an ongoing debate about Walmart's entry into India. I'm not a pundit to be commenting on the nuances of their entry into India. But there is a small incident that makes me think if Walmart is really coming to the streets. Nothing negative about the statement, though it might just sound that way.

I came across something really interesting, at the same time mildly alarming. A couple of days earlier, while is I was mulling over a few personal issues and how to overcome them, something hard stuck me in my already jammed mind. So what do you do generally when your mind is stuck about something? The most safest and logical solution for any chennai-ite, is to walk up to the nearest tea stall, preferably empty, order for a cuppa chai and aimlessly rant about some solution in your mind. By the time you finish contemplating which way to approach the solution, the chai glass is almost empty. And the following act will unsurprisingly be to order another cup of chai. If there's a thought that makes you wonder whether this is unusual, here's is a common phenomena if you have studied in a boys college in Chennai. It was just a mere hangover from the past, traces of the time when you weren't really sure about what was coming up next in life. While a sense of restlessness set in, here walk a couple of people straight at the owner of the chai shop. It was getting to that part of the day, where a chai wala would just give you a disgusting stare when asked for a cup of tea, as if he was doing us a favor. If he had such a mindset towards his customers, you can imagine his reactions towards random promoters.

As these 2 gentlemen walked into the already small setting of a chai shop, a normal middle aged customer storms into the shop with sweat and irritation on his face. When you look at people like these, you often wonder if he had missed a meeting with Obama or he just missed beating Bolt's record by a micro second. This middle aged man looked a bit decent but seemed to have a sense of mistimed curiosity. As I'm sitting in the corner, well into my second cup of chai, I slowly start paying attention to the conversation between the shop owner and the marketing personnel. That guy looked 25, a bit proactive and a lot provocative. So I assumed it was one of those random promoters who was trying to sell his products in vain to a mildly rigid and arrogant chai shop owner. I turned away from their conversation worrying about my second cup of chai which was getting cold, even without me finding a start to my solution.

As I was sipping into my depleting tea, I heard a frail voice say "We are from Walmart" (translated text). All of a sudden, my importance towards my chai was replaced by my curiosity towards the voice I heard. My sudden change of attention was keenly noticed by this middle aged man sitting opposite to me. Without paying much heed to my surroundings, I deeply followed that conversation. The guy from Walmart explains the following " We are coming from walmart, it is supposed to be the worlds biggest retail store. Now they are venturing into India. Have you ever heard of Walmart sir?." The shop owner looked really confused and apprehensive. After a long thought, he says "Yes." It was clear to me that he was listening to the name of this retail giant for the very first time in his life. The promoter continues by talking about the positives of Walmart and about how they are planning to open up a store in a massive area of 6 acres. He was trying to explain to a simpleton, the real weight behind Walmart. The owner was not a bit amused by this random promoter and an unheard retail chain. 

Ok, here is what the promoter was trying convey to the shop owner. He was trying to explain, how one can get every single need of the shop, under one roof at an insanely subsidized price point. The Walmart apparently offers a card for all the retailers around the city, free of cost. That card makes the shop eligible for the inflow of Walmart supplies. He later added that as a shop owner, all he had to do is give a call whenever he needs to restock, and the supplies from Walmart would reach his store in quick time. The promoter pulled out his file and showed how many shops have already enrolled with Walmart from the very same street. I thought that was being aggressively smart. But did the shop owner budge? Even before I could run that thought in my mind, the middle aged man sitting opposite to me enters the conversation with a bang. "They have come here also, to destroy us and our shops. Never fall into the trap. They have to be thrown away from our country." The shop owner, the promoter and myself, from various points, sharply turned our heads towards him.

The questions that popped in my mind were varied after I heard that. "Who is this guy?"; "Where did this guy come from?"; "Does he know what Walmart is?"; "What's his problem?"; "Is he correct?"; "Is he wrong?". But I paused for a moment and quickly rewound my questions and I realized that he was one of those persons, who sits at the bench of a chai shop ranting endlessly about the various news he spots in the free newspaper he reads. The conversation continued, so did my attention towards them. The shop owner told the Walmart promoter, that he was happy with the way his original supplier was dealing with him and he is not interested in any other third party. The promoter put forward many questions in his bid to convince the shop owner to enroll with Walmart. The owner even tried saying that the shop did not have a license and they are running it illegally. Even for that, the promoter came up with another option to convince him. All the promoter needed, was to get a address proof and disburse the membership card to the shop owner. The transaction might sound simple, but the process is a painstaking one.

The exchange of words continued for a couple of laps, but the promoters efforts went in vain. The shop owner literally sent them out of the shop and he looked a relieved man once he sent them out. As I was still trying to grasp the mood, the shop owner turned towards me and gave me a look filled with disapproval. He thought even I knew nothing about Walmart, thanks to my messy hair; thick beard; shabby shorts and pair of loose flip flops, even the little bit sanity I had in me was hidden. My tea was over; Didn't find solutions to my problem; But that exchange made me think. 

Without critically digging too deep into the financial and economic aspects of this suave upsurge of Walmart, my passerby notes is as follows:

Walmart is silently slipping into the grass roots of our retail market. Not too sure, if their professionalism into slicing up the market needs to be appreciated or attacked. With this, it may be safe to say that Walmart is not only for the 'Pure customer', but they are also turning the small retails into that category. This might be a switch, which has the potential to demolish an entire eco-system, which seems content and self sufficient atleast in the lower segment of retails. The concept of credit buying may soon be out of the window, if this trend continues. Well, its for the pundits to carry a complete autopsy of this situation. But I never fancied Walmart literally coming to the streets !