Sachin pours his heart out about his reasons for writing the book Playing It My Way
In his recently-launched autobiography 'Playing it My Way', Sachin Tendulkar has fleshed out critical issues that he witnessed in his 24-year-old International career. Photo: AP
Mumbai: He walked into the room in a pinstripe suit looking every bit the boy who popped out of newspaper pages and television screens saying, “Boost is the secret of my energy”. He doesn’t look much older since his sensational international cricket debut at the tender age of 16 in 1989. He seemed as if he was an airbrushed version of the little boy with the cricket bat in his hand and big dreams in his heart. The maturity, however, was in his words.
Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar speaks today with the certainty of a man who knows he had a tryst with destiny as the world’s leading batsman and entertainer and who has now set upon a journey in which he can give to others and to the society that made him a national icon.
Keeping a promised appointment with cricket writers in a luxury hotel near the Mumbai airport on the eve of the international release of his book, Playing It My Way, Sachin spent the better part of two hours explaining why he wrote the book.
“I come from a literary family. My father was a writer and my elder brother writes. I said to myself that I couldn’t let down the family tradition.”
Justifying taking up controversial topics now, Sachin says, “My family had advised me not to speak out during my playing career. I had an important job on hand and that was to score runs for India and help win matches. Speaking rather than letting the bat do the talking would take away my energy.
“I thought this was a good opportunity to write a book and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wanted to share some things that were funny and some that you may call controversial. I wanted to play it my way,” he adds cheekily.
Recalling an experience with the media, Sachin pointed out how his guru Achrekar’s stinging rebuke had put him on a path of truth. “I made 24 in my first match for school and the scorer who would give the match scores to newspapers said why not make it 30 so that my name appeared in the papers? I said if you can do it, why not? My Sir caught me, scolded me the next day and said achieve things on your strengths. His words drove the message into me.”
With his mother in hospital and a brother in delicate health after a bypass surgery, Sachin could have excused himself from the events he took part in for his book’s promotion. In the words that flowed from him in a voice far manlier than the squeaky timbre of his youth, he brought out the family values that have driven this man throughout his life. He thanked his wife Anjali and his family for standing by him in good times and bad, in stress and in happiness, in victory and defeat.
Asked if he had analysed the reasons why he had failed to achieve much as a captain, Sachin said he had addressed the issue in his book. “I never believed in criticising my players. If you go back and look at the scoreboard, you will find we never had a team to take 20 wickets or put up big totals. There were matches we should have won which we lost and that disappointed me most. Sport is a mixed package, you win some and you lose some,” he says.
Have you ever heard of Sachin breaking down? That is what he did in his room in Bridgetown on the night after the team’s failure to chase 120 to win in a Barbados Test in 1997. He wept inconsolably with only Anjali to comfort him. It was then, when the anxieties started bothering him and he realised that captaincy was not his cup of tea. “I was beginning to change as a person. It was bothering me. I know captaincy has little to do with two guys batting out there and scoring runs. But it was not for me anymore,” he said.
And he could have easily escaped after the grilling hour and a half of questions. But he stayed on to pose for endless pictures. He brushed aside the “no pictures” rule laid down by those behind the closed media event and obliged whoever wanted a snap or a selfie with one of India’s most famous personalities.
Never mind if Maria Sharapova has not heard of him. The photo op and photo bombing session went on and on before the young man excused himself after a round of mimicry by scribes of some legends of Indian cricket, which brought out the youth in Sachin again as he laughed his guts out.
( Source : dc )
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