Sachin Tendulkar, world cricket’s greatest run maker, is now the most popular author in India with his publishing debut, Playing It My Way.
The book is flying off the shelves in book stores around the country even as it is making waves internationally. The book is heading for a record as the biggest selling sports book ever, beating Don Bradman’s The Art of Cricket and such other willow classics.
Publishers Hachette India (a division of Hodder and Stoughton) who printed the book in Manipal are thrilled with the response.
Some critics may be slamming the book on various acts of omission and commission.
Even Bishen Bedi, former India captain, is somewhat miffed that Sachin chose a ghost writer (cricket historian Boria Mazumdar) to pen the book.
He says, “Experience tells us biographers can stretch imaginations. So do ‘authors’ who help an autobiography. Sachin allows unwittingly words in his own mouth. I am constrained to say historians often tend to become bigger than history which can be nauseating.”
Parallels are being drawn with Paulo Coelho, the Brazilian author who has sold more books than the Bible worldwide in myriad languages. The critics invariably panned him but Coelho went on to conquer the world of publishing.
With Sachin’s book likely to sell at least half a million in hectic print runs in the near future, he may someday justify the fact that he is from a literary family with father Ramesh, who was a professor and Marathi poet, brothers Nitin and Ajit all having been writers who were well received.
Having sold more books than the late Steve Jobs, the revered IT guru, on day one, Sachin is headed for a place in publishing history.
An early sign of the success was at the launch itself when guests lined up to buy the books at the Grand Maratha hotel and those manning the counter were objecting if anyone wanted to buy more than two of the specially autographed first editions.
Playing It My Way will find a place in the record books as much as its author has in various books of cricket records.
