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| The best partnership: Sachin Tendulkar shares a smile with wife Anjali at the Mumbai launch of Playing It My Way earlier this month. (AFP) |
He let his bat do the talking over 24 years of international cricket. Playing It My Way has Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar talking about his journey like he would have batted in his heyday: assured, precise, hardly putting a foot wrong. Tendulkar the writer tells the story of Tendulkar the cricketer in a manner that reintroduces you to the legend, draws you into spaces you didn’t know existed and paints a picture of a child prodigy-turned-extraordinary achiever who is as much flesh and blood as the legions who worship him as god.
Here are t2’s Top 10 reasons why Tendulkar’s autobiography is a must-read.
CUTS, PULLS AND HOOKS
Tendulkar launching into anything other than a cricket ball was unheard of during his career (often to the frustration of some fans). Unburdened of his cricketing duties a year ago, India’s most-loved sportsman says it as straight and hard as he batted. His much-talked-about demolition of Greg Chappell is one of several instances in the book where he is unsparing of cricketers, commentators, critics, match officials and administrators who had tried to sledge him out.
In a chapter aptly titled Endulkar — borrowed from a headline in a national daily in the wake of the 2007 World Cup debacle — Tendulkar recalls a “most interesting discussion” with Ian Chappell during which he had told the Australian commentator that “critics like him change with the wind” once a player they have written off returns to form.
The elder Chappell had found flaws in Tendulkar’s technique in 2007 and suggested that he “have a good, long look into the mirror”. Tendulkar, fresh from scoring a glut of runs three years later, held a mirror up to the Aussie: “I reminded him that he was conveniently changing his stand, considering what he’d written about mirrors and retirement in 2007. I said to him that I had not done what he suggested back then because I was well aware of what I needed to do and how much cricket I had left in me.”
Ouch!
CLEAN BOWLED
For a man chased by the spotlight since he was 16, Tendulkar had managed to keep one facet of his life a secret: the story of how he met, fell in love with and married half-Gujarati and half-English Anjali Mehta. Playing It My Way offers a rare peek into the couple’s personal world — from the day their eyes first met at Santa Cruz airport to the moment they hugged, prayed, cried and celebrated Tendulkar’s Bharat Ratna with haleem and champagne.
Tendulkar’s ode to Anjali isn’t mushy; he tells it like it is. He speaks of missing out on the small pleasures of life like going out on a date without being recognised, of how Anjali was the one who had to speak to his parents about their decision to get married, of the mangalsutra she never takes off and of the career she has sacrificed for the sake of his great Indian dream. It’s an endearing insight into the master’s “best partnership” that Wisden never recorded.
IT’S LUNCH
Food is a recurring theme in Tendulkar’s autobiography. Whether he is talking about his mom’s cooking, the first time he tasted tandoori chicken, his surprise at discovering that meat can be had cold, chocolates, desserts or sushi, the Little Master’s love of eating is never in doubt. Apparently the only time he was not in the mood to eat was after his second hernia surgery in as many days in 2008. And guess what kept Tendulkar in good spirits during that night of pain? “A laxative... a sweet sugar syrup with a very nice taste was the only thing I enjoyed having that night!” he writes.
No wonder former England captain Michael Vaughan (@MichaelVaughan) tweeted after reading Playing It My Way: “Things I have learnt about @sachin_rt from his book... 1.He likes Food... 2.He likes more Food. 3.He likes even more Food....#Justsaying”
THE NAUGHTY SON
Episodes from Tendulkar’s wonder years make for wonderful reading, his naughtiness and pranks a far cry from the measured ways of the master cricketer he grew up to be. In many ways, they reinforce the belief that childhood is about freedom from worry, something most modern parents who would want their children to be like Tendulkar find hard to acknowledge.
THE GOOD SON
As in his famous farewell speech, Tendulkar reserves the highest praise for his family without it ever sounding like an Oscar-night awakening. He doesn’t dedicate a chapter each to his father, mother and siblings. They are a constant presence, though seldom conspicuous. Tendulkar’s description of his parents is at once arresting, be it in the context of a carefree childhood or the complexities of a cricketer’s life. Of his father’s death, Tendulkar writes: “I put a gold coin with my face on it in his pocket before the cremation so that I could always be there with him.”
THE FUNNYMAN
Tendulkar’s ability to be light-hearted about most things in life has gone unnoticed in the straight and narrow of his career in the public glare. Here is a man who loves a chuckle as much as anyone else, many times at his own expense. His recollection of humour-laced incidents from his childhood to his time as a top cricketer is among the highlights of Playing It My Way.
Sample this: “Coping by myself sometimes caused great embarrassment. One incident involved my first attempt to use a washing machine. I had no idea how much detergent was needed and must have emptied about half a packet into the machine before starting the washing cycle.... That was the first and last time I did the laundry on my own.”
THE DO-GOODER
Just as Tendulkar never forgot the snide remarks, he always remembered a good turn. Playing It My Way has many mentions, often in passing, of instances where he brought a smile to someone’s face. He talks of a taxi driver in Sydney, Australia, who refused to take money for giving him and his family a ride and also insisted on paying for some burgers they had bought. Touched by the gesture, Tendulkar left match tickets for him at the hotel reception along with one of his Test shirts autographed by the entire team. Another such instance is of Tendulkar calling Fan No. 1 Sudhir Gautam into the dressing room after the World Cup triumph in 2011.
“I felt a deep sense of satisfaction at being able to make him so happy.... I only wish I could have let every supporter at the Wankhede pose with the trophy,” he recounts.
TEAM AS FAMILY
The idea of a team as an extension of the family is exemplified by the relationships Tendulkar struck with almost everyone he played with. His favourites, however, remain the younger teammates who had grown up idolising him and went on to be part of the legend. His fondness for the GeNext of Indian cricket comes through in the final pages of the book, also giving an insight into what he meant to them as a role model, teammate and mentor.
Of Virat Kohli, he writes: “As I was sitting by myself in the dressing room (after his farewell speech last November), Virat walked up to me again. I could see tears in his eyes. He held out his hands and said his dad had given him these threads... and he had always wondered who he would give them to... Then he handed them to me before touching my feet as my younger brother. I was speechless. I held him tight....”
ANECDOTES
Legend has it that Tendulkar remembers each of his dismissals. Not surprising that he can also vividly recall every moment, small or big, that contributed to his journey. From learning to sleep on the floor in the narrow passage between the bed and the cupboard of hotel rooms whenever his back gave him trouble to engaging conversations with cricket brains like Nasser Hussain (this one in the loo!), Tendulkar opens up like never before in Playing It My Way.
PHOTOGRAPHS
If a picture is worth a thousand words, Tendulkar’s choice of photographs for Playing It My Way illustrates the story of his life like little else can. A black-and-white shot of Ramesh Tendulkar holding the son who would be cricket’s king is t2’s pick of the lot.
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A BOOK OF RECORDS
Even in his new avatar as writer, Sachin continues to smash records. Released on November 6, Playing It My Way (Hachette India, Rs 899) has already broken all records for an adult hardback across fiction and non-fiction. Sachin’s story docked a neat 200,000 copies in orders, pulling ahead of both pre-order and lifetime sales of top hardcovers like Dan Brown’s Inferno, Walter Issacson’s Steve Jobs and J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy.
With Indian publishers falling over themselves to acquire vernacular language rights of Playing It My Way, Hachette India is now looking forward to co-publishing the book in Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati, Malayalam, Assamese, Telugu and Bengali. The publishing partnerships are being finalised and the target is to release the translations in the summer of 2015.
