Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar: The boy who became god

Sachin: A Billion Dreams marvellously captures how one man stormed an entire nation's conscience

A quick-witted Twitter user recently chose to point out how every Sachin Tendulkar interview is akin to the FAQ section of a website. In Tendulkar’s fanatically adulatory world, each word is almost charily thought over — no sentiments are ever hurt, no enemies ever spawned. Over the years, his personal life has been quite the staid antithesis of his cricket, devoid of the dauntlessness that typified his batting. 

Soothingly, Sachin: A Billion Dreams is different, but only just. Tendulkar, as the narrator of this docu-drama directed by James Erskine (Pantani: The Accidental Death of a Cyclist and Shooting for Socrates), lets you partially into his home by playing old grainy videos of him and his family, most of which feature his two children, Sara and Arjun. He also talks about his warm relationship with his late father, the sacrifices his wife made for him, the importance of friends and his penchant for cars. This refreshing candour, however, doesn’t last for long. 

Dubious occurrences such as match-fixing are conveniently soft pedalled despite Erskine’s boldness in highlighting some of them in the first place. “This was the hardest time in Indian cricket” is all you get from Tendulkar on a saga that abominably wrecked the image of the game all across the world. On Greg Chappell, Tendulkar dishes out pretty much of what appeared in his autobiography. 

Where Sachin soars is the exceptionally high maudlin value it offers all Tendulkar worshippers. Throughout a major part of 2 hours and 20 minutes, it evokes a dreamy nostalgia that so spectacularly speckled the ‘90s — perhaps a much-needed reinforcement in a Virat Kohli-dominated era. Much to the delight of fans, footage from some of Tendulkar’s greatest knocks — the twin hundreds in Australia in 1991-92, the decimation of Shane Warne in 1998, the astonishing assault against Pakistan at the 2003 World Cup — appears in resplendent detail. Some other significant events of his career are glaring omissions, but then Erskine is sure to have grappled with a time constraint while filming Sachin — packing in everything that happened during the course of over two decades was always going to be asking for too much. 

One of the more humourous parts of the film comes from the unlikely source of Anil Kumble. In a dressing room clip that shows the Indian team celebrating Tendulkar’s 35th Test hundred, against Sri Lanka at Delhi in 2005, the legendary leggie is seen saying: “I was there when he got his first hundred. Adidas came out with an ad then, ‘At 35’. They’re making the same one for me now, but that’s for my age.” 

But once you’re awash with the sentimentality of it all, you’re left alarmed at the film’s shoddy cinematic quality. The storytelling is linear and one-paced; Erskine’s attempt at punctuating the narrative with historic political events and Tendulkar’s present-day life does little to alter the script’s predictability. Tendulkar’s narration is part inspiring, part puerile. That Hindi isn’t his first language obviously doesn’t help. None of this, however, is more suffocating than Sachin’s cloying nature. 

While we appreciate and love Tendulkar’s gentleman-like demeanour, the sugariness does get a little claustrophobic in some parts. Virat Kohli, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan and Harsha Bhogle all say lovely things, but fail to add any newness to the Tendulkar phenomenon. Moreover, the severe dumbing down of the narration makes you wonder about the age group this film is dealing with. 

Erskine, though, blends the hard-hitting archival footage with Tendulkar’s lifestyle superbly. His likes, dislikes and superstitions are perhaps touched upon in a way unseen before. Sachin is a watchable film only because of how marvellously it recalls Tendulkar’s career — it captures how one man managed to so deliriously storm an entire nation’s conscience. To their credit, Erskine’s direction and A R Rahman’s music leave the throat parched and the eyes moist every once in a while. Simply put, Sachin pays the utmost tribute to the boy who became god. Maria Sharapova might not watch it, but then we don’t like imposing our religion on others, do we?