Sachin Tendulkar Retires!

Sachin Tendulkar finally announced his retirement from test cricket yesterday, thereby allowing the millions of posts people had written over the last 2-3 years to finally go out of their drafts folder and get published. Phew.

There isn’t much else left to write that hasn’t already been written in tributes from journalists, editors, politicians, filmstars, standups, and the jobless millions on Twitter. In fact, today must be the first day in the last six months that someone has replaced a certain Gujarati politician as the most-written about person in the country.

So many tributes. So many ‘memories’ posts. For god’s sake. He has just announced his retirement. He still has two tests to play. If you write everything now, what will you do when he actually plays the last ball of his career?

Everybody seems to be going into so much depression that suicide helplines must be having a hard time keeping up. I am guessing alcohol sales must also be up, with people trying to drown the sorrow in shot glasses.

It is fun watching people’s reactions. There are the ones who were ranting against him till yesterday.

‘Abeyaar, what’s wrong with him. He is becoming annoying. Why doesn’t he just announce his retirement and give some youngster a chance?’

Today suddenly they are all going

‘OH MY GOD. There’s goes my childhood. My hero is gone. My life suddenly seems empty. Holy crap. Let me slit my wrists.’

Only a Tendulkar could change people so much.

Me? I was hardly one for tributes. He stayed on top of the game for a couple of decades. Broke plenty of records. Time to move on and enjoy retirement. In a game where players typically have a shelf-life of a few years, he managed twenty five. Even IT people these days dream of retiring by the age of 40. And that when they don’t even need to do any running around on a massive ground.

My worry is about how this news will impact the nation?

With the Tendulkar retirement debate over, Twitter troll-baits will only be left with NaMo fans that they can bait with loose tweets and then see them spew venom. Oh, also Salman Khan. But the trinity is broken.

Sachin had a pan-India appeal and his popularity swept across all barriers of religion, region, gender or whatever. Even people who didnt like Cricket loved him. Wives who wouldn’t let their husbands watch TV would happily sit along and watch a Tendulkar innings. My worry is that with this sort of appeal, what if he ends up becoming a politician?

At parties, water cooler gossip sessions, or even board-room meetings, Sachin’s retirement always provided a safe topic for discussion. You could go on and on debating the right time when he should hang up his boots. What will we discuss now? Rahul Gandhi and his love for physics concepts?

When all seemed bad with the world - the boss shouted at you, the son didn’t score enough marks in that weekly test, a rickshaw scratched your new BMW, the CAG revealed a new scam - all it took was news of a splendid Tendulkar innings to lift your spirits and make the world look like a better place. Nope. Won’t happen anymore. Deal with it. Or rejoice in Virat Kohli showing his middle finger to an Australian bowler.

In an age of brute aggression and dirty politics, he was one man who shone for his sheer understated brilliance, a man who slogged it out in the nets while the boys partied. Our children will only read about him in Cricinfo tributes. Maybe they’ll understand the values he stood for. Hopefully they would.

No no this is not a tribute. Wait, there’s a lump in my throat. Not a trib…come on. Dammit, now i have visions in my head of how the entire home fell into gloom whenever he got out, and the TV got turned off in disgust. Of how at one time i even started cutting out newspaper clippings of each of his new record. Or how i performed better at studies when he did well, but felt too depressed to study if he didn’t.

Gosh, he was such a part of my childhood. I guess you do need to grow up one day and see your legends fade away.

But then, even gods need rest some times. We’ll manage. Somehow.

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Tags: God, sachin tendulkar, tendulkar retirement