Somewhere in Space

Oh my God…the sound of the weeping willows!!!

And behind that harsh banality is a nation milking its eyes for those last tear drops of joy…’cause the Master has stepped out into the ring for the last time (officially) and who will author masterpieces after him is a question that no one dares ask just now…

When Shakespeare died, no one asked who would be the next bard…when Tagore went on, the Bengalis didn’t wonder about the next Gitanjali…when we grew up and stopped playing ‘gulli’ cricket with ‘tennis’ balls we didn’t for a moment think that our youth had died…

Then why this hysteria? Of course I excuse all those who will be directly affected by Sachin’s retirement. The chaps he kept busy all these years, collecting trivial facts just as their Icon collected runs. The fellows who studied a subject called Tendulkar because they had failed in Commerce or Engineering or whatever. And for sure those lazy lards who just grew fatter while Sachin went out there and won matches for them…or lost as the case may be.

Come on. The man has been playing with a nation on his shoulders for a few decades now…let’s give him some space. Hello, the amount of time his groin has spent guarded must have given his genitals chronic claustrophobia. Time for him to let his hair down and let his @3@$$ loose.

Now is the time to calculate how much time and money this man has singularly caused the world to lose. The number of people who left everything including their wives just to see this man stroke-playing an opponent into submission. The number of man hours that had to be written off just because he hit a century. Because remember, while he was going collecting accolades and wasting all our time and taking up significant chunks of our built-in RAM he also had a family.

Now how long has it been since he just sat in front of a TV and cuddled up to his wife? Has his son ever had the courage or the liberty to chori-chori take the Ferrari for a spin? How many years since he and that dark friend of his…Vinod Kamblee or something…how many days since they walked out onto Juhu Chowpatty and dug into some typical Pav Bhaji?

Forget it. In the lonely mission of creating records and carving out niches for himself, the man has had to make do with much less than his more humble friends. Now he wants his time off…and he is demanding it. Oh come on, he deserves it.

So let’s leave him be. Let’s just thank the real God that he gave us a chance to see this marvel…and thank Star Sports for making his matches so much more colorful and exciting. And You Tube for giving a whole world a genuine taste of Replays and Rewritten Records.

Let’s just hope there are no more horizons he is set on and that he has reached an end point he had dreamed about…let us hope that he doesn’t become a commentator…because all he would do instead of compering an event is that he would compare his performance with the younger batsman’s…

and that can be a bit of a bore, right?

And suddenly it’s news!!! Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel is now going to get a big statue…supposedly bigger than the Statue of Liberty. Oh wow!!! Where were we all these days? How did we forget him?

And suddenly the Father of the Nation is no longer Page 3 material. Obviously his statue won’t do. His name you see is a bit of a problem. Because if it is a question of using a Gandhi for statue-tory purposes, which Gandhi will you use?

The original Gandhi’s standard pose of an old, balding man wearing glasses and a stoop and carrying a cane is so servile that today’s generation  will just not accept it.

Indira is a woman…so she’s out. Sanjay’s most memorable feature is that he couldn’t make an ‘emergency’ exit. Rajiv would not like his statue to be so tall that it may hinder air traffic. And a Sonia statue may need more Italian marble than we can afford.

Rahul would have been a good bet but he is under aged. So Patel it has to be…or does it?

Today’s generation recognizes a Tendulkar and a Dravid more. Admires them. Venerates them. Even looks up to them as God. Another tall claimant for the honor could be the Bachchan. Of course if either Katrina Kaif or Deepika Padukone was the chosen model, the statue may at least merit a second look and maybe even a whistle.

So Rahul Dravid has to be content with having been labeled as the Wall…the Chinese Wall be damned to Greatness…and Shahrukh has to console himself with a stammer and a stutter. And Patel (nothing to do with the motels in the US) is by default, the chosen bakra.

Why not PV Narasimha Rao? Why not NTR? Why not Rajasekhar Reddy? Or bloody hell…why not Mahesh Babu?

Is it because none of them can serve the purpose of being a rallying point for an opposition party?

I think a lesson has to be learnt from Andhra Pradesh who to my understanding is the only one state that has idolized its vary thought. The Telugu Talli (the mother of all Telugus) is a borrowed concept for sure…the original was obviously Bharat Mata…but in our projecting the father of the nation for namesake we seem to have forgotten our lady.

I think if we are to make a statue to rival the Statue of Liberty we should work on Bharat Mata…that would be a concept to rival liberty…or have we all lost the freedom to think?