Legend

When Sachin plays,
big-city roads are easy and trains and buses ply empty at rush hour and the markets take a beating...

When Sachin plays,
grandmothers who know next to nothing about the game forget knitting and resting and
medicines and pray their gods as they sit frozen, staring nervously at their television screen...

When Sachin plays,
busy, ambitious executives ignore their calls and cancel their appointments
and avoid their clients and miss their deadlines and their careers on hold...

When Sachin plays,
college Common Rooms are dense and tense and hushed as an entire generation sits on pins and needles...

When Sachin plays,
school-yards are silent and playgrounds are deserted because those who normally make such a racket
imitating their hero are all too busy watching him make batting look so ridiculously easy...


When Sachin plays,
fathers who want the news and daughters and mothers who always want soft stuff
and brothers who fight for action, for once all agree on what to watch...

When Sachin plays,
bowlers and fielders and opposing captains feel their impotence and inadequacy like at no other time and curse themselves and wonder what they can do, if anything, to end the shame, the nightmare, the humiliation...

When Sachin plays,
commentators and experts run out of adjectives and expressions of wonder and comparisons...

When Sachin plays,
lay spectators have no need for words at all and just jump and scream and whistle and clap and hug
each other and cry and wave their flags and banners and thank their lucky stars for being there...

When Sachin plays,
India forgets its differences and divisions and teeters between tensions and exhilaration and
breaths and laughs and cries as one, as its heart fills with pride and joy and patriotism...

When Sachin plays,
all else is IRRELEVANT