BHARAT RATNA FOR SACHIN TENDULKAR

For long, Sachin Tendulkar has been the toast of the nation. Beautifully put by the young but thinking Virat Kohli to the commentator on the night that India had won the World Cup 2011, ‘he has been bearing the cross of the entire nation for 21 years’. Every single Indian, even if he is not a cricket fan, is in awe of Sachin and is concerned of his welfare. For all mothers, he is the son; for girls, he is the brother; for every sportsman, he is the role model; for dreamers, he is the manifestation of ultimate achievement. He is the darling of the nation. He simply cannot do anything wrong. When Greg Chapel told him to prepare for retirement, whole nation wanted to kill Chapel and suck his blood. ‘How dare he bring such a thought’ was the nation’s cry!

How did he protect his reputation this long? For a nation of 1.2 billion people, whose only obsession is cricket, he is the SUPER HERO. And this person maintained his image without a dent for long 21 years. He is well behaved, very even keel and still maintains the same levels of humility as in the past. For a player who hasn’t had academic accomplishments, we consider him as the ultimate master. Players say that he is a great team mate. He still practices for longer duration than any other player and has the discipline of his life and career intact. He is a good mentor for the junior players. While they respect him, they are so protective of him. The most valuable player of the tournament, Yuvraj Singh consecrated all his achievements of this World cup, to Sachin.

There are only minimum examples all around the world of a sportsperson who had achieved the stature that Sachin had grown into. From his game, there was Sir Don Bradman; in the field of athletics, there is a Carl Lewis or a Sergei Boobka. There is a Michael Jordan in Basketball, A Pele in Football; very few to count. Though Cricket is not a game played by all the nations of the world, in terms of followers, Sachin will have more followers than anybody. Just see how many Indians are there in the world and you will understand it.

How many records can a person really hold? Sachin Tendulkar keeps practically all the records of the game with him. In some areas, he has gone beyond any one’s reach. Even in this world cup, he is the second largest run getter. The Indian team dedicated this world cup to Sachin for, that was the only achievement that had eluded him in his long career.

Going with the wishes of the nation, Sachin hasn’t yet started to think about retiring from the any forms of the game. Though he is not partaking in the 20-20 world cup matches, he is still the captain of the Mumbai Indian team for the IPL 20-20 matches. We would continue to see Sachin Tendulkar chugging along, at least for another couple of years as he still has enough cricket juice left in him. He would know when to call it a day. But for now, he is still enjoying the game and doing a great job of it.

Maharashtra government passed a resolution in the assembly in the week of World cup win to recommend Sachin Tendulkar for Bharat Ratna Award, the highest civilian award that the country bestows on a person. Getting Bharat Ratna is a rare honour. Only very few had the privilege of getting it. This darling of the masses has now been officially nominated by his home state for the same.

The question is, has Sachin reached up to it, to the extent of being the Bharat Ratna recipient? Going back at the history, if one looks at the roll of honour of The Bharat Ratna recipients, you will see that a majority of them received it very well past their prime. Some of the well deserving personalities (such as Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel) got it posthumously. There is not even one person who had received in his thirty’s, forty’s or the fifty’s. No sportsperson has ever received this recognition. It looks like sports persons are not included in the category of Bharat Ratna recipients. An award such as Bharat Ratna reaches a person at the fag-end of his/her life and career. Look at Personalities such as Lata Mangeshkar, Bhimsen Joshi, Ravi Shankar, Bismillah Khan, Amartya Sen, Abdul Kalam and M S Subba Lakhshmi. All of them got the recognition after they went past their prime. They were all maestros in their field but they had to wait long to earn it. The pertinent question therefore is, has Sachin reached that stage?

Looking at the stage of life of all the above personalities, they had received the Bharat Ratna recognition after they had gone beyond the stage of self-actualization to that of SELF TRANSCENDENCE. Has Sachin reached the stage of self-transcendence in life?

There is still a lot of cricket left in him. He is much more of a commercial brand proposition now than that of a transcended person. There are some more milestones for him to reach. I feel the Bharat Ratna will taste him better when he receives the same after he retires from the game or at least at the very last stage of his career.

There is another question. If he is given Bharat Ratna now, what else will we give him at a stage when he really completes his accomplishments to become a transcended person?

A mute question it is, I believe. Though I know for sure, every emotional Indian will want it to happen now.