Tendulkar: Fame & Family

In an exclusive extract from his new biography of Sachin Tendulkar, writer Gulu Ezekiel focuses on the private side of India's top sporting icon.

Every entertainer, whether on stage, screen or field of play, has an ego. In Tendulkar's case, he has accomplished what all superstars strive for, to harness that ego in a positive manner.

Ego has driven some international sportspersons when they visit India to bring the media in tow as they do their good deed for the day. It is the done thing to be seen and heard, attempting to alleviate the misery of India's teeming downtrodden.

Quiz Tendulkar's biographer

When was the last time you saw even a photo of Tendulkar at a charity function? And yet, he gives his spare time unstintingly.

Journalist Joe Hoover knows this hidden side of Tendulkar well.

Sports Editor of Deccan Herald (Bangalore), Hoover has organised numerous charity auctions and functions where Tendulkar is the star attraction.

Man of the Series against England last year

"He is so approachable and he never says no," Hoover told me.

"He doesn't need the publicity because unlike some other sportspersons, he sees no need to use these acts to improve his image."

Hoover recalled an incident in Pakistan in 1997 when he called Tendulkar in his hotel room and asked him if he could give some signed bats for a charity auction.

"Within minutes he was on the phone, informing his bat manufacturers in Meerut to send over a dozen to New Delhi for this purpose."

Down to earth

Vijay Lokapally, the cricket correspondent for The Hindu and The Sportstar, has undoubtedly interviewed him more often than any other journalist.

"Sachin once said to me "kiti lihishil?" ("how much will you write?"), Lokapally told me.

"I first met him at a Wills Trophy match at Kanpur. This was before his 1989 Test debut. The next occasion was in New Delhi just before the Pakistan tour, his first.

"He and Vivek Razdan, the other debutant were very excited. And do you know, he has that same excitement about playing cricket after all these years?" according to Lokapally.

Tendulkar is an icon for fans young an old

"I have always been impressed by the dignified way he carries himself both on and off the field. Despite all his fame and wealth, he is very down to earth. That has not changed a bit in all the years I have known him."

Friends, family, food (particularly sea food - he enjoys a spot of cooking too), cricket and music. These are Tendulkar's passions in life.

Lokapally says you can guess which hotel room is his by the music blaring out of it.

"Dire Straits used to be his favourite group. But these days he is into old Hindi music. He seeks these out and gets them specially recorded."

This incidentally is another trait he shares with Sir Don Bradman who would lock himself up in his hotel room and play his gramophone records after the day's play.

Price of fame

"Sachin Tendulkar is an important person of our country. He is our country's wealth and we will protect him," said Mumbai's Commissioner of Police, MN Singh.

This followed reports that Tendulkar and Ganguly (India's captain) were kidnap targets for militant groups.

Dire Straits used to be Tendulkar's favourite band

Such is the price of fame. Another heavy price is the loss of privacy.

"Ask me anything you want about cricket, but keep my family out of this," he has told journalists repeatedly.

Wife Anjali, daughter Sara and son Arjun are the centre of his existence. Just as his parents and siblings were when he was growing up.

"My family life is altogether a different issue. I have always kept it a very private affair and I don't want that to be public. Everybody is watching whatever I do on the field.

"Even today they (his family) look after me and ensure that my feet are on the ground," he said when questioned as to how he copes with all the hopes and adulation of the fans. (The Week, November 29, 1998).......

Family influence

.....Sachin has spent all his life in Bandra, first with his parents and brothers and sisters at Sahitya Sahawas in Bandra (East) and since the middle of 2001, at the swank La Mer apartments in Bandra (West).

They may share virtually the same address. But Bandra (East) and Bandra (West) are worlds apart.

"West looks down its nose at East," says one long-time resident of the more up-market side of town.

Tendulkar with wife Anjali

For the first few years of their marriage Sachin and Anjali stayed in a separate flat in the same building where he grew up.

Le Mer was recommended to him by Prahlad Kakkar who has been directing his many of his commercials for a decade now. The Tendulkars bought a duplex apartment there in mid-2001.

"The apartment has more glittering stars than the milky way," one Mumbai sports journalist told me.

In that sense, Sachin has made the transformation from his solid middle-class youth to the world of Mumbai's glitterati.

The influence of Anjali and her parents, Anand (an international bridge player) and Annabelle Mehta (who is English and a leading philanthropist) have played a large part in this transition.

After they first met and then started dating, it was Mrs. Mehta who would disguise Sachin in wig and beard and smuggle the couple out to the family holiday homes in Lonavala and Goa, according to a family friend.

The Mehta's are one of Mumbai's wealthiest families, a fixture on the city's high-society circuit.

That's all a far cry from Sachin's roots. But he still keeps in touch with his old school-friends and often drops by to enjoy his mother's seafood dishes which he relishes. ("Favourite Food: Anything cooked by mother" according to a 'Life Lines' article in 1997).

Anjali was a practicing paediatrician till the birth of Arjun in 2000. Now she looks after the two kids who are the apple of their father's eye.

It is the daughter who has inherited her father's curly hair. As for Arjun, his father has already gifted him a plastic bat and ball.

"It may be a batsman's game. But I would want him to become a good all-rounder", says the proud father with characteristic determination.

'Sachin - The Story of the World's Greatest Batsman' is published by Penguin Books India. Extract taken from chapter 35 - Man and Myth.