Sunday, 24 April 2016

There is something about Sachin...

It was Gudi Padwa, the beginning of the new year for Maharashtrians and regarded as one of the most auspicious days in the year. It actually turned out to be a great day for me. On April 5, 2016, at 5 pm IST, I was scheduled to meet the one star of India who everyone wants to meet, Sachin Tendulkar. What’s more, I was to meet him in his house, the famous landmark, 19-A Perry Cross Road.

Thanks to the management of my company, IDBI Federal Life Insurance, we have embarked on a very exciting journey. We have adopted sports sponsorships as a means to build our brand. For an Indian who has always been excited by the proposition of sports, it turned out to be divine intervention in an otherwise regular day job. What took my job to a whole new level of awesomeness was our signing on Sachin to be the face of our marathons in Mumbai, New Delhi and Kolkata.

It was my Sadguru, Aniruddha Bapu’s blessings all along. I was the one to lead the deal with Sachin’s team, and my team and I am at the forefront of managing sponsorships for my company. This meant that when it was time to go and get the papers signed with Sachin, I was, by default, one among the 4 from my company.

5 pm that day seemed like midnight; the wait seemed endless. There we were, the 4 of us, in front of his house. I do not know about the others, but I was excited to the core but was putting on a very cool dude countenance. Deep inside, there was a concoction of feelings - excitement, nervousness and achievement.

We rang the doorbell and were taken to the guest room on the first floor. It was a long walk. All through, I avoided looking around, trying to blend in, wanting to make it look like a no big deal. Now when I think back, I should have seen the details of that house! How many people get to be in that house???

There we were in the guest meeting room waiting for the little man with a big personality. The sliding door opened and he walked in with Anjali in tow. We were all greeted very warmly and were offered sweets, typical of a welcome on Gudi Padwa. Then he sat and we started talking. I am very good with my cricket knowledge. In fact, my CEO, Vighnesh, who has been a Mumbai Ranji player, spends a lot of time discussing cricket with me. However, all through the meeting with Sachin, I was trying really hard not to talk cricket. You see, even my pronunciation of cricketing terms could be cues for him to know of my level of incompetence in the sport. You don’t show off your writing skills when you sit with a Nobel Laureate or a Pulitzer prize winner.

The discussion was varied, IPL, his schedule, his commitments, his charity work, etc. Then we signed the papers, took loads of pics (Anjali was very kind to volunteer to click a pic; a gesture that shows the magnanimity of the first lady of Indian cricket), chatted a little more and moved out. While we exit the house, there was a group of men standing right across the lane. I felt like a celebrity myself. After all, I was emerging out of the temple of cricket!

Again, luck was on my side and so were the blessings of Aniruddha Bapu. I was to meet Sachin in less than a week. This time around, to do more than just sign papers. I was to have a chat show with him at the press conference to announce our association with Sachin and the launch of IDBI Federal Life Insurance Mumbai Half Marathon. What’s more, the entire press conference was to be webcast live on the Mumbai Half Marathon Facebook page. So, it was a chat show with Sachin and Vighnesh and I was live on FB. Nerve wracking stuff but I had to maintain my cool.


Before the chat, I took Sachin through the questions I would ask and he discussed the responses with me. A full ‘me’ time where I was directing Sachin; kind of a Ramakant Achrekar feeling! Then we started the press conference and it all ended in 30 minutes. We wound up from Taj Land’s End and moved to Mehboob Studios for a still shoot with Sachin. Wound that up in an hour and a half and ended a day, which I can very safely say, had been one of the most inspiring days in my life.

I have had the good fortune of meeting and seeing a number of celebrities up close, mostly sports celebs but also film celebs. Never had I felt an aura as strong as Sachin’s. He is 5’5” but when he is around, he is the tallest man. He is like the sun and everybody else assumes the role of planets, literally revolving around him. There are reasons why he has the magnetism. Here are what I think are the reasons.

There were stories about how Sachin could not finish school, about how he was given a pass certificate even though he did not. I am not sure about the authenticity of those stories. Even if they are true, let me assure you, Sachin needed only to know how to read and write; he needed no exams, no courses, no terms. That is the greatness of the person. So early in his life, when most kids would be twiddling their thumbs, he knew what he wanted to do and he knew what it would take him to get there. He realised the role of education and ensured he got what would be necessary. Then he went on to create history. There is enough written about his training days, so I would not repeat the same here.

The most striking thing about Sachin is his self-awareness. It seems like his Johari Window is incomplete because there is nothing that would come under “Not known to self”. His strength comes from his self-awareness and it is this quality that helped him through his career. If you dig deep into the 24 years that he played for India, you will find numerous examples where he knew his shortcoming and he worked tirelessly to conquer it. His confidence in his abilities also comes from this acute self-awareness. And that is the man in summary for you – a person with unmatched core strength built on the foundation of super self-awareness.

I would not think twice before saying that Sachin would have been as successful in whatever he would have chosen to do in life. His confidence in himself would have taken him to great heights, whatever the choice of profession. There is a very thin dividing line between confidence and arrogance; Sachin respects that, and what you see in him is the outer limit of confidence. Some brilliant cricketers of the day are way into the arrogance zone. And that is the reason why in future, while there may be better record holders than Sachin himself, there will be no one who would be able to match his stature, his personality.

Sachin is aware of what he has achieved in life. He is also aware that his achievements will take a superhuman effort to surpass. All this awareness can easily give birth to a megalomaniac but it is the self-control that keeps him safe. His self-control has been documented many a time and you can click here to read about one such inning. Sachin holds his father in high esteem and his father had told him that the most important thing in life is to be a good human being. He lives by that advice and his self-control in the way he conducts himself emanates from that advice of his father’s. He his humble, yet reserved. He has a force field around him and that is the kind of person he is. You have to be blessed to make it into his inner circle. Another trait of great people – you can win their hearts with great difficulty; their trust parameters are tough to achieve! But when you are in the inner circle, you get more rewards than the most rewarding frequent flyer programme. (Okay, that’s a really bad analogy but I really don’t have an appropriate analogy for this!)


In the months to come, I will have more opportunities to meet the ‘God of cricket’ (a term that he is not very fond of, I am told). In each interaction, with the other professional tasks I will have to accomplish, one personal task would be to learn more from the man who is a living example of core strength, confidence and self-control. Mission “Become a great human being”!

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