After nearly a year of waiting, the average Indian Cricket Fan has begun to breathe normally. Over the past year or so, there have been numerous opinions and discussions from the pundits, the not so pundits and almost anybody and everybody on how the landmark is affecting the game of probably the greatest cricketer of all times, the one normally associated as the God of Cricket in India. While some said that the milestone was affecting his game, a few others disagreed. But in the end, the God himself finally confessed that it was playing at the back of his mind for the past 1 year, and thereby made the average Cricket Fanatic understand that the God is Human after all.
However, there is an Indian side to this pressure that the Little Master was facing. To start off with, the God is Indian first and Human later; he has his routes in a humble Middle class Indian family, a family which most of us normal people can relate to. Ever since we learnt to read and write, we have had to deal with typical middle class statistics and comparisons. And this has crept into every part of our life, be it in class rooms, playgrounds, news rooms, elections, family gatherings; we Indian can go about it all the time, even while discussing our physical attributes.
Every thing in our day to day life has some form of a number associated to it. From personal experiences, I can relate to this Indian statistic at every step of my life. At school, its about the percentage of marks that you have scored, I remember when I first joined boarding School in the class 5, I got the 10th rank in the first mid term exam and that was my highest ever rank that I secured in my entire School Life. The first time, my parents were happy but the happiness came with a disclaimer, "Congrats my Son but you know you can do better; you just have to work a little harder". But that I did not surpass that rank ever is another matter altogether. Once the board exams came in, the days of the first class was out of the window, my generation was about topping the First class and achieving distinction. Most students today cannot even get a seat in a college of their choice if they do not score more than 90%. We are living in a society where society sets the parameters on happiness and satisfaction.
I for one thought that this whole pressure will wear off once I start working but it has actually turned out to be a Bethal that just doesn't seem to be getting off my back. Not bad enough I studied Law and then decided that it was not my thing and took upon a profession where most people initially thought I was arranging tables at weddings and corporate events. Today, they have seen my work but now its about the money being credited to my bank account and my bank balance and the comparison with an old classmate of mine and how he works lesser hours than me but earns a lot more. In a years time, it will probably be about getting married and settling down. It definitely is one vicious cycle and in a few years time, roles will change and my offspring will probably go through the same pressure that I went through.
This brings me back to the pressure on Tendulkar and his 100th century. The numbers game is a part of our culture and will continue to be. Tendulkar probably played a selfish innings just so that he reached the landmark and it must have been one of the factors for India to lose that particular match but it had to be done. An entire country was waiting for the landmark; mortals like us can just about manage the pressure from our families but imagine the expectations of an entire Country on your shoulders and carrying the burden for nearly a year and not able to achieve it. We might have lost back to back series in England and Australia at the cost of a particular milestone but that is the way we live. No matter how much we deny it and say we are different, this numbers mentality is in all of us; we might not apply the conventional traditional milestones to ourselves but we do set a certain yardstick in our way of life and that is the Indian Way of Life
And the GOD IS INDIAN!!.. He has got a couple of years of cricket left and let him at this penultimate hour play it like that 16 year old teenager who hit Qadir for those mighty 6's. He has carried the burden of the nation for more than 16 years, its time to let him enjoy the game....
