The Travails of a Tendulkar Fan...

I have come to realize that of all the players you could be a fan of, being a Tendulkar fan is the most unrewarding. And I request you to swallow those gasps of outrage for a minute, and let me explain.

To me, the most fulfilling part about being someone’s fan is arguing in his favor against his detractors.Every time he fails, his detractors pounce on you and hold you personally responsible for his failure, as if to say that you could have done something about it. And you, ever the loyal fan, valiantly give arguments and statistics despite knowing that the thin ice below your feet has long given way to coldwater, in which you are undoubtedly sinking.

But, as a Tendulkar fan in the past few years, you are almost completely deprived of this pleasure ofdefiance. His performances have become so consistently spectacular that his detractors’ criticisms have become feeble to the point of ludicrousness(his average in fourth innings of deciding tests in non-subcontinent conditions against teams with good blowing attacks in the past one year is 7 runs below his career average or something of that sort). Nowadays after a Tendulkar innings I feel like I am walking into a battlefield wearing bulletproof armor only to find the enemy shooting apple pips at me with blowpipes.

And what’s worse is, everyone is joining the bandwagon. Everyone’s a fan now! What happens to us, the “original” fans? The ones who stood by him through the tough(relatively speaking..) times? The most satisfying thing for me after a Tendulkar century was how I rubbed it into my brother’s face for hours, as revenge for all the statistics he used to throw at me when Tendulkar happened to fail. And now, the disloyal little twerp has finally given up and has become a Tendulkar fan! And he supports Mumbai Indians now( like the rest of the world apparently, if you look at the TV and attendance ratings). Again, I ask you, what happens to me?? Where do I turn to now? How do I, the “loyal” fan for twenty years, differentiate myself from these young upstarts? Did you know that I almost missed my flight to see Tendulkar’s double century in ODIs? Yes sir, I was at the airport and refused to leave the television set till Tendulkar got his double, which was inordinately delayed due to that miserable rotter Dhoni , who wouldn’t give him any of the strike. By the time the double happened, the airline people had been announcing my name for about ten minutes and had finally closed the gate. I finally did get them to reopen it and they had to get a bus to take me to the flight, but the point is that I was willing to risk it all for my master’s double(And yes, Mom and Dad, if you are reading this, I didn’t mention this incident to you for obvious reasons) . So, tell me, when I say I am a Tendulkar fan, how do I display the extent of my “fanliness”, to show I am the “real” fan, as opposed to these silly fair-weather fans. I feel adrift in the cricket world, without a sense of purpose and no way to vindicate myself.

Tendulkar’s career is best compared to Stairway to Heaven- you could recognize the genius right when the song started, then most of the song is brilliant throughout, but it really only hits unprecedented heights at the end- and the end carries on at those heights much longer than you would expect. And therefore my master carries on his merry way, not realizing my anguish as more droves of shameless fans flock to him. I therefore contend that I have been the victim of his most unkindest cut of all, and not you, Shoaib Akhtar.