He shuffles away from the conversation and brushes the Mohali pitch affectionately with a bat that looks too big for him. It is quite a weapon, 2lb 12oz with edges two inches thick and a pick-up like a magician's wand. It is curved like an oar. "I like a bow in it," he says, "I can't bat with anything else."
Sachin Tendulkar, the most prolific Test batsman who ever lived, is literally telling me that he wouldn't score a run with anyone else's blade. "I would not feel right at the crease," he says.
We chat in the middle for half-an-hour. He wants to talk, wants to express his genuine gratitude for England coming back to play. He speaks softly, sincerely, self-effacingly. We talk about the unusual way he acknowledged the crowd at Chennai. "Sometimes I do it," he says, "but it is not my way," he adds sheepishly. He casts his eyes down; an essentially shy, private person. He is not stiff or awkward but he generally avoids engaging with his fans. He has to. As soon as he makes eye contact with one, they will all expect it. And he will be trapped in adulation.
The Indian poet CP Surendran captured superbly what it is like to be Sachin Tendulkar:
Batsmen walk out into the middle alone.
Not Tendulkar. Every time Tendulkar walks to the crease a whole nation, tatters and all, march with him to the battle arena.
A pauper people pleading for relief, remission from the lifelong anxiety of being Indian, by joining in spirit their visored saviour.
The poor Indian lifts his hands to Sachin Tendulkar in supplication; Give us respite, a sense of liberation; lift us up from the dark pit of our lives to well-lit places of the imagination with your skill-wrought perfection.
Tendulkar never shirks this enormous responsibility. He spends almost every waking hour seeking that perfection, practising, planning, preparing. He rings his brother, the man who knows his game best, every day, talking bowlers and bat angles and shot selection. He looks at the pitch and contemplates how he will make runs on it. He is thankful of his talent and dutifully delivers it to his public, the majority of whom have nothing.
And yet the man who is the property of a billion Indians, who is escorted everywhere by a posse of policemen, who is photographed almost every second of his life, craves a normal life. His kids (aged 11 and nine) are his pride and joy and he treasures the precious times he has with them. Usually that is two weeks in December and a month in the English summer. He is taking his family to the hill country for Christmas. "There might be snow," he said.
He reflects quietly on the first Test, complimenting England on their batting, virtually overlooking India's win. I say the result was fated, it was meant to be, and that the way he manipulated the bowling was masterly and amazing to watch. He chuckles with a mixture of pleasure and embarrassment. He has not a scrap of ego.
Tendulkar lives in Bandra, in the north of Mumbai, Bollywoodville. But he often goes south to Colaba with family and friends, to eat in the Taj Mahal Palace hotel or the Oberoi. The Mumbai attacks were close to home and affected him deeply. The England players remarked on his extra patience and intensity at the crease. This time he was doubly determined to lift his people out of their pit.
We discuss our families some more. He is friendly and engaging. And then he is gone from the centre, from the roped off pitch, from the place where he is only truly at peace, there in the middle with a bat in his hand. He returns to the real world to be photographed and congratulated and bombarded with a million demands, all of which he handles with total equanimity. He is a gracious god. We will never see his like again. Or maybe we will. His nine-year-old son is just beginning to show signs of useful talent.
By Simon Hughes
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