SACHIN: A BILLION DREAMS (U)
Director: James Erskine
Running time: 139 minutes
During the first day-first show of the last cricket film we saw at the theatres, MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, the packed crowd were clapping and cheering throughout the film, at every shot, turning the theatre into a stadium.
For Sachin: A Billion Dreams, it was a full house (at Cinepolis Lake Mall) as well but throughout the film no one clapped or cheered. [Except the moment when the bare-chested Behala boy waved his tee on the Lord’s balcony; you can’t not applaud that, no matter how many times you’ve seen it.] Till the end credits rolled, when everyone, many with teary eyes, clapped in unison, rising slowly to give a standing ovation.
Sachin: A Billion Dreams is a very personal look back at the phenomenon that is Sachin Tendulkar. Barring the first few minutes, where his childhood scenes are enacted, it’s a hard core documentary punctuated with actual footage and interviews. It’s not made for the galleries, it doesn’t add filters to any part of his journey, it doesn’t force-feed any emotion at any stage. Come to think of it, there is not even an extreme close-up of Sachin during his interviews.
Is it an exercise in eulogy? Of course it is! But then if you don’t eulogise Sachin Tendulkar, who will you eulogise? This is no untold story here. Sachin fans would know even the little anecdotes, like how playfully practising with his aunt as a kid helped develop his back-foot defence or how he used to win coins from Achrekar Sir every time he would remain unbeaten at the Shivaji Park nets.
But it’s still a beautiful feeling to jog your memory back to all those historic matches that he was a part of — also a few of those where he didn’t contribute all that much like the Dravid-Laxman Eden Test — and find out what exactly was going through the Little Master’s mind at that point. Or how he didn’t let Sehwag go to the toilet when Gambhir, Yuvraj and Dhoni were winning it for India in the 2011 World Cup final.
Director James Erskine, a veteran of many documentaries including a few on sports, tries to look at Sachin as a concept, a concept which turned around a nation. Inter-cutting Sachin’s rise in the cricketing world with political and economic events in the 1980s and 90s and then in the first decade of the millennium, the film pitches the man as that one collective inspiration which held it all together for 24 long years.
Interviewees include
♦ Viv Richards ♦ Shane Warne ♦ Wasim Akram ♦ Ricky Ponting ♦ Nasser Hussain
♦ Sourav Ganguly ♦ Harbhajan Singh ♦ Yuvraj Singh ♦ Virat Kohli ♦ Harsha Bhogle ♦ Amitabh Bachchan
Right from 1989 in Pakistan, when during the fourth Test, Waqar Younis drew blood and Javed Miandad almost bullied the 16-year-old to go check in at the hospital. He decided to bat on and even at that age Sachin had the presence of mind to anticipate that the very next delivery would be a yorker, which he glanced away for a boundary. “I became fearless after that!”
There is no real conflict in the film and the lack of drama might prompt you to think that this could have easily played on a sports channel on TV, maybe broken into episodes. The minor villains of the piece are his stints with captaincy (blame it on Azhar), the Cronje-exposed match-fixing racket that rocked the nation and finally his injuries. But none of them really could calm the Sachin storm, in reality or on reel.
The big high of the film is getting a sneak peek of the relationships that made Sachin — his bonding with his father, “his best partnership” with wife Anjali, his quiet support system in brother Ajit, his fun times with kids Sara and Arjun and the unwinding sessions with his close friends including some crazy go-kart racing to Bappi Lahiri’s Yaad aa raha hai.
The major drawback of the documentary, something which nothing could have possibly been done about, is that Sachin himself is not much of a showman. So he might be saying something very emotional, something very touching but his body language and speech are so matter-of-fact that it’s difficult to get past them.
But still Sachin: A Billion Dreams is like reliving our favourite fairy tale. A fairy tale so many of us grew up watching. A fairy tale we believed in. A fairy tale which came true almost every time he walked into bat. Every time he hit a boundary. Every time he won us a match.They won’t write a tale like this ever again. Saaachin Saaachin... Saaachin Saaachin...
SPOILER ALERT
XI THINGS THAT A YOUNG SACHIN FAN WILL REMEMBER FROM A BILLION DREAMS
I The ‘Bratsman’
He might have grown up to be a world-beater, but he was just like the rest of us while growing up. From
deflating tyres to setting traps for his friends… Sachin was one naughty brat (yep, there’s still hope for the rest of us)! The one person he was scared of in his family was brother Nitin.
II A win for A-jit
Ajit, Sachin’s other elder brother, emerges as the man behind the god of cricket. From telling Sachin ‘tujhme kuch baat hai’ to flying off to Pakistan to be with him after he was dismissed for 15 in his debut Test. “We were always in touch. Ajit mentally mere saath tha,” says Sachin. Thank you, Ajit Tendulkar!
III Aww-dorable
Sachin and wife Anjali spill the beans on how Sachin’s “best partnership” started out. Anjali first saw Sachin in 1990, when she’d gone to receive her mother from the airport and Team India were returning from a tour. “Isse zyada cute ladka dekha nahin life mein,” says Anjali, as the two couldn’t stop looking at each other. Anjali eventually called him and asked what she was wearing that day to check if he really remembered her!
IV Sachin’s “Mini Me”
An adorable video shows Sachin holding newborn son Arjun, with a name in mind for him. Yes, it’s Mini Me! Sachin and Anjali go on to share how protective Arjun is about his dad. When a schoolmate taunted Sachin for being responsible for India’s 2007 World Cup debacle, Arjun pinned him down on the ground. “Iss baar chhor diya… agli baar zaroor marunga,” smiles Sachin, recalling what Arjun told his schoolmate.
V Captain Controversy
He admits being appointed captain at 23 made it difficult for the senior players to play under him. When he was sacked, he wasn’t even consulted before the decision: “Kum se kum phone kar ke bataa dete mujhe”.
VI Mum on match-fixing but...
Unlike his autobiography, which ignored one of the darkest phases of Indian cricket, this one attempts to shed some light on it, but very little. Sachin plays it straight about match-fixing, with a punchline: “Kuch pataa rahe toh bolun, kuch saboot rahe toh phir bolne ka matlab hota hai. Aise galtiyon ko maaf nahin karna chahiye.”
VII Warne-d
The only bowler who he specifically trained for was Shane Warne. After the leggie dismissed him in the first innings of the 1998 Chennai Test, Sachin locked himself in a room for two hours. But after his knock of 155 in the second, Warne came around and congratulated Sachin, and the two soon became friends.
VIII Villain Greg
No prizes for guessing who the villain of this film is! “Jab woh team ke coach baney, kuch seniors ne aakar kaha, yeh achha kaam nahin kar rahe hain, inko apna attitude badalna chahiye,” he says about the Chappell who changed the batting order with just 30 days left for the 2007 World Cup.
IX Music Magic
Sachin says, ‘Music is my secret weapon’, and with Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits playing in the background, you don’t doubt it. He sometimes listened to one song all day to feel emotionally stable. Yaad aa raha hai....!
X Superstitious Sachin
Sachin didn’t like people wishing him luck before games and if he scored a ton after a cup of green tea, he would drink it for the entire series! In the 2011 World Cup final, he stayed inside the dressing room till Dhoni hit the winning six.
XI The Missing Fab Five
Barring one locker room video, which was pretty funny, short clippings of VVS Laxman and Sourav Ganguly, there was barely any other mention of the Fab Five of Indian cricket. Their camaraderie, their friendship… NOTHING!
XIIth man: A statutory warning for the weekend Bolly watcher came from the gent next to me at Forum’s morning show: “Dhoni (The Untold Story) jaisa nahin hai... gaana-waana kuch nahin hai....” Sorry Rahman Sir, dil maange Bappida!
Rwitoban Deb
My best moment from this film on Sachin is.... Tell t2@abp.in
