December marked a new chapter in Indian hockey with 120 players finding buyers at the Hockey India League players’ auction, in which star midfielder Sardar Singh fetching the highest price of $78,000 (`42,90,000) from Delhi WaveRiders.

Icons leave a gap in hearts of millions

DEMISE \\ The world mourned the demise of sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar who breathed his last on December 12, 2012. Shankar was 92. Ravi Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent his youth touring Europe and India with the dance group of his brother Uday Shankar. He gave up dancing in 1938 to study sitar playing under court musician Allauddin Khan. After finishing his studies in 1944, Shankar worked as a composer, creating the music for the Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray, and was music director of All India Radio, New Delhi, from 1949 to 1956. In 1956, he began to tour Europe and the Americas playing Indian classical music and increased its popularity there in the 1960s through teaching, performance, and his association with violinist Yehudi Menuhin and rock artist George Harrison. Shankar was awarded India’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1999. Astronomer, television personality, British eccentric and a great populariser of science, Sir Patrick Moore also passed away in December. In his capacity as an astronomer, Moore had helped map the moon and was for more than half a century until his death the presenter of BBC TV’s The Sky at Night, missing only a single episode through illness, in July 2004.

RETIREMENT\\ The 37-year-old former Australian Captain, Ricky Ponting, announced his retirement from cricket in December 2012. Ponting announced his decision at the conclusion of the third Test match against South Africa. But he agreed to play for Tasmania and represent Hobart Hurricanes in 2013 in the Big Bash League, Australia’s T20 tournament. Speculation had surrounded Ponting’s future over the past few days after he failed in Brisbane and Adelaide against South Africa, scoring 0, 4, and 16. “It’s a decision I thought long and hard about. At the end of the day, it was about my results and output in this series,” said the Launceston-born batsman. “If you look back over the past 18 months, I haven’t been able to perform consistently.” Noting that he had first discussed his retirement with his wife, the former captain admitted to the difficulty involved in breaking the news to his teammates. “I tried to tell them a lot, but I didn’t get much out. They’ve never seen me emotional, but I was this morning.”

Kerala CM to Oppose FDI in State

FDI \\ The Centre managed to pass the FDI in retail quite comfortably in both houses of the Parliament in December. As seen by the UPA government, this win will give fillip to implement economic reform agenda seen as crucial to revitalising growth and slashing a swollen fiscal deficit. The policy will open paths for foreign supermarkets to come into the country. It will facilitate global retailers, such as Wal-Mart, to establish shops in the country’s $450 billion retail sector, and is targeted at attracting more overseas investment and controlling inflation. On the other hand, the BJP continued to protest the proposal. The BJP wants a 26 per cent cap set on investment, which was recommended by the standing committee on finance, against the government’s proposed 49 per cent. Alleging the Congress-led UPA government won the FDI vote in Parliament by using “CBI pressure” on some parties, Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal said the decision should have been taken through a referendum. “The FDI in retail should have been decided through a referendum. The way the parties have behaved in Parliament was very unfortunate,” Kejriwal told mediapersons on the sidelines of Pan-IIT global meet.

Welcome to the ‘spookiest’ Indian town. Two mad men made a visit and lived to tell the tale

But is it haunted?” my friend Ram asked as we discussed whether to embark on a road trip to Bhangarh, other factors appeared secondary. As we started our research about the abandoned city located between Jaipur and Alwar, legends emerged. There was the tale of an ancient sadhu, a holy man, who resided near where the city fortress was founded. He permitted the city to be built with the provision that its construction should not disturb him. He demanded that not even a shadow of the buildings erected should fall on his abode. The city was built and populated with his blessing but as time went by the rulers forgot their promise and continued to expand upwards. When the shadow fell on the sadhu’s home, he cursed it to a terrible fate. Disasters followed. The city was shortly abandoned as the tallest structures crumbled, demonstrated today by the fact that the royal palace located at the highest point is now a four-storey structure with three of its top stories having collapsed. Then there is the tale of the princess who died after being cursed by a tantric, a practitioner of black magic, which led to the demise of the city. The ruins of Bhangarh apparently wait for her rebirth and return. Others give less supernatural explanations—perpetual battles with neighbors—but legends aside, there are plenty of anecdotes from visitors and villagers of disembodied noises including anklets clinking in the darkness. Some claim to have seen apparitions, others have noted ghostly lights. Visitors claim to have been depressed to the point of tears for no reason inside the palace and some felt invisible hands holding them. Stories have led Bhangarh to be listed online as one of the most haunted places in India. Investigators of the supernatural have delved into the ruins. The romance of Bhangarh tales was undeniable. Ram, my companion on this tour and a writer, wanted to experience a genuine haunting. As an architect enamored by history, I am easily smitten by ruins. We decided that there was only one way to know the truth about Bhangarh. Driving, we went from Delhi to Alwar in a few hours which presented itself as a dusty township. It appeared to be a city which has rapidly progressed from the medieval to the slightly banal modern. The imposing Bala Kila Fort, was visible from several places and we resisted the temptation to drive up in lieu of more ghost hunting. Later, we explored the bustling Kalakand Market near Hope Circus and gorged on Alwar’s most famous sweet. Varieties available were impressive; the sweet itself was gorgeous. We stopped briefly at our hotel where we were amused when we ambled into the gift shop. Like avid tourists we asked to see what was local and were promptly offered printed T-shirts with Bob Marley prints. When further prompted, the shopkeeper declared us to be men of the world and surreptitiously fished out Kama Sutra-themed playing cards. Soon after we left we were at the Sariska Forest Reserve; tiger country! We were politely informed that we could not drive through the reserve. The highway rapidly deteriorated into a broken path and our city car was virtually challenged off the road. Our pace became sluggish and tempers frayed as we spent more than an hour grinding through a 10km stretch ignoring the jungle around us. Traffic thinned the further we drove away from Alwar. After Thana Gazi, it virtually disappeared. Our enthusiasm started to wane with the realisation that we were possibly lost on a desolate stretch while going to a ghost town with the possibility of light fading—almost appeared that we were driving into a clichéd horror movie scene. When we finally reached Bhangarh, we were tired but raring to go on. The first thing one notices about Bhangarh Fort is that despite being a tourist spot, it presents itself as isolated even from the nearby village. Locals shun the fort at night. The Archeological Survey of India prohibits entry into the complex between sunset and sunrise, a guideline which only adds to the legends. The fort nestles against a small hill in the Aravalli range. The sense of abandonment is acute. The surrounding jungle breaks through into the fort in parts. A single neatly paved stone pathway winds its way up flanked on both sides by shells of buildings. Most roofs have collapsed and rectilinear walls appeared to have been whittled by time to no more than a foot or two in places. The bases which once were rooms and houses appear to be the last stand against the invading forest relentlessly inching towards the path in the center. As we walked, we played guessing games about how the buildings must have been lived. Seeing some obviously recent etchings on the walls, Ram remarked about how poorly some Indian historical sites were maintained and how this site could easily mirror a photo-op site in Rome. He was right. Bhangarh could easily be as a pristine ruin in another part of the world. At the hill top behind the complex stood a conspicuously single chattri, a covered pavilion. It was visible from everywhere, and we wondered if that was the source of the legendary offending shadow. Later we were told that the chattri was the one of the places of ghostly evil. Hordes of monkeys appeared to rule the place as dusk set in. As we walked past an inner gate now populated by hundreds of simians, we were pleasantly surprised to see a large quadrangle with two temples and the entrance to the palace which appeared to have survived the ravages of time better than the rest of the complex. The temples were both impressive with lovely stone details and tall shikharas. One of the carved stone bands of a monkey-like face stood out as creepy and wonderful. The palace, higher up the hillside appeared relatively austere. As we explored some of its chambers, we remembered the stories of the terrible despair indicative of haunting. We roamed, we waited, and sadly, we felt nothing. The palace despite its regal past, defied legends. As we descended we were treated to a beautiful fading landscape at the palace entrance and were forced to stand and stare. The caretakers, while clearing the complex of stragglers, acknowledged our presence and indicated their leniency with the rules towards us since Ram had claimed earlier to be a writer in search of his truth. As we walked down, we stopped and tried to explore every ruin we hadn’t seen and take every path we missed on the way up till we could see no more. We were the lone ghosts of Bhangarh then and were sad to leave. A caretaker doubling as a parking attendant hastily locked the gate behind us. Before we could enter the car, he hopped on a bicycle and raced away from the fort; whether to family or away from ghosts was not clear. As we drove back to Aligarh guided mostly by starlight we both decided that Bhangarh was definitively not haunted, but certainly haunting.

Chef Manish Mehrotra is trying to revive the lost ingredients with his eccentric style

In my small tenure as a journalist, the chefs who I have interviewed, have had one thing in common: most were inspired by mothers or grandmothers, and in some cases, even their fathers. But the Indian Accent Chef Manish Mehrotra is not like them. The moment you ask him about what propelled him to be a chef, pat comes the reply, “Mine was not one of those stories inspired by a mother or a grandmother. It was a decision and a choice.” Good for us that he did decide—Indian Accent, as we know it, is one of the most popular restaurants in Delhi, and more importantly, it is one of the eccentric and interesting ones. Where else can you get flavoured candy-floss (buddhi ke baal)? That is not it; Indian Accent also serves the delightfully-tasty Phantom cigarettes—mint-flavoured candies which parents never bought you and yet the coolest kid in school always had a pack. “People get down Rolls-Royces and ask for Phantom cigarettes. There is a sense of nostalgia attached to the brand. It makes us feel like kids again,” says the man who strives to keep small things of our pasts, alive. If your mother was anything like mine, she probably raised you on chavanprash. We have all had chavanprash with warm milk or made a topping of it on a Monaco biscuit. But who would have thought of a cheese cake using chavanprash? Mehrotra did. “It sounds bizarre, I know. But chavanprash is one of those things that will vanish in one or two decades. We want to keep it alive, and hence the experiment. People, who come to dine, make a face when we suggest it to them, but they always order it. It is not a strong flavour, it is your regular cheese cake, with a hint of chavanprash, as an aftertaste,” explains Mehrotra. Mehrotra is one of those chefs, who have constantly kept away from media glare. He is not seen in Page-3 parties, nor is he found giving too many interviews—yet his popularity continues to rise. The reason; his style. He might be a seasoned chef today, but the hands who hardened him were the chefs at Thai Pavilion of The Taj Group. He informs us that the years he spent in Taj were the best (and the worst) years of his life. “Chefs would yell at me thousand times a day. When I messed up, they would wait for my shift to get over, and would ask me to do the dishes or dirty work,” says the man, who now is the Executive Chef at the Indian Accent. “We were learning to extract coconut milk; and my chefs would make us repeat the process throughout the day. So much so, that my hand would be moving in the same motion during sleep!” he admits with a laugh. He did learn a lot in those days. Today, he admits to breaking into ‘evil laughter’, while giving his current juniors a hard time in the kitchen. After a hearty conversation with Mehrotra, it is hard to believe that he is capable of giving anyone a hard time—but he apparently is. Why is it that chefs are full of torture stories—we wanted to know. Mehrotra explains that a kitchen is a like an orchestra. Even if a single instrument is out of tune, the music becomes a cacophony. “The moment an order comes in, every unit of the kitchen starts working in tandem. If even a small unit makes a mistake, then it will resonate with the whole kitchen orchestra. This is why the otherwise sweet chefs become devils in their kitchen. They cannot let anyone make mistakes.” While he does owe the most of his lessons to Taj chefs, he also owes something extra, something perhaps a little more important than all the learning. He met his wife while working at the Thai Pavilion. She used to work at the Konkan Café which was right across the Thai Pavilion. While he shies away from sharing his story, he does tell us that he fell in love with her while working there. We were curious to know—who was the better chef? He is quick to tell us that his wife is, but now she cooks at home. After working with the Taj Group for five years, he joined the Old World Hospitality Group, a company he has been associated with for 11 years now. Before the group started their most popular restaurant — Indian Accent — they sent Mehrotra to London, which he calls the culinary capital of the world. “It was like leaving a kid in the candy store. London had so many cuisines to offer, I went crazy there. More importantly, the kue ka mendhak in me died a royal death.” After his return, he started the Indian Accent, possibly the craziest kitchen of the country. Where else will you find foie gras stuffed galawat, masala miso Scottish salmon, masala wild mushrooms or achaari New Zealand lamb shank? Indian Accent, like its Chef, is a fine balance of the desi and the international. He claims that he can survive on mushroom risotto, and craves for the thele wala noodles occasionally. He loves his coconut and his garlic. He can’t do without his choppers, and cringes at the sight of a beetroot. When asked about the best compliment he has received so far, he shyly admits that women often come to him to say, “I want to take you home”. Then he breaks into laughter. While most Chefs of his stature are planning their own restaurants or have already opened them, Mehrotra tries to keep away from such things. He says that if he starts his own restaurant, then his focus will move away from food, and he’ll start concentrating more on the mundane things that make a restaurant work. He says that once he retires, he will be “out of the grind”. We do not have to worry about that for now. There will be a long time before that happens—till then we all can sit back and enjoy the amazing food plated with a bit of nostalgia and a lot of passion.

How language shapes our lives and transforms the world

IS IT A COINCIDENCE that the month in which the DW team decided to decode the poetry of the Taliban, Found in Translation—a book that re-emphasises the worth of translations, and the work of translators and interpretors—makes its way on our reading list? Poetry of the Taliban left us with a niggling feeling that we were unable (or simply failed sometimes) to grasp the angst behind words and lines; that the pain of the people was lost in poor translation. Found in Translation reiterated that belief. The book begins with strong lines. “Translation. It's everywhere you look, but seldom seen. This book will help you find it.” That is a tall claim. So, does the book help its readers to locate the authenticity of the claim? Yes, it does. Through excellent examples told lucidly with the help of recent global inventions, disasters and phenomena, it makes a strong point in favour of translators and interpreters; a unique breed who are overlooked by academics, critics and media. Those who love reading know the need (yes, the sheer need) of accurate translations especially in the present context when there is fevered academic discussions surrounding the first line of Albert Camus' The Outsider (the one in which the protagonist Meursault finds out about his mother's death). Global literature scene would have been barren indeed, if countries could not share fabulous writers and songsters. Here's a pop quiz; do we think of translators and their work when we think (we beg your pardon) a boob job, or why Japanese men get heart shaped candies on Valentine's Day and why exactly did HSBC cough up $10 million to re-brand? Found in Translation talks of incidents in which mistranslations cost millions, even changed popular customs and how cosmetic tourism is shaped by the work of the peculiar breed who helps us to communicate. There are times we tend to forget that we live in a multilingual world. This book is a reminder that we are indeed slaves to interpretation. In a world where democratisation of ideas is a necessity, and a communication battle is being fought everyday, interpreters are the foot soldiers without who the battle would be half-won. A small point in favour of the easy read, the font and cover design is pretty marvellous. It makes the book a greater delight to read.

It is an honest and important political project, albeit not a literary one. Read it, for these voices have never been heard before

THE POETRY of Taliban, which is a collection of poems, picked up and translated from the Taliban website is an intriguing book. One never thought that one could juxtapose the two words poetry and Taliban. So when I heard about this book, my first instinct was "I want to read it." But, when I actually got down to reading the book, I was disappointed. It is not the kind of poetry that would make you think; it is not powerful enough. In fact, for me, it is not a book of poetry at all. Having said that, it is unfair to judge a poem based on its translations. Like most translations, this book too lacks beauty and depth. Therefore, it won't be wrong to put the blame on the translators Mirwais Rahmany and Hamid Stanikzai. And to a great extent, on the editors Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn. Had they paid more heed to the poems and looked at them as important pieces of Afghan literature, things would have been different. The question that arises here is: how do you look at a book such as this one? For starters, put that literary critic in you to sleep; he is not needed here. Then with an unbiased mind read each poem as you might be reading a personal diary. One needs to write a diary with honesty; it should be straight from the heart. Poetry of Taliban is nothing if not honest and heartfelt. Despite its failings, what makes it an important book, is the fact that it puts a human face to Taliban. It brings to light the agony, frustration and tragedy of life in Afghanistan. When one thinks of Taliban the words that come to mind are war, terrorism, death but not poetry, not compassion, not peace, and not freedom. And this is what this book does. It makes you empathise with the Afghans. There are satirical poems where they criticize Karzai and accuse him of selling their country for a few dollars, then there are poems which reflect their resentment towards their own countrymen earning in dollars. There are poems which show their obsession with religion and God. And the sense of self-pity comes out all too often. Malalai of Maiwand, a national folk hero of Afghanistan who rallied the Pashtun army against the British troops at the 1880 Battle of Maiwand, often finds mention in the poems; it is, therefore, ironic that there is just one woman poet in whole collection. Faisal Devji in his foreword writes: "… recent history of Afghan struggles against Soviet or American invasion has produced no more heroines of this kind (Referring to Malalai); though the bravery and fortitude of unnamed women who typify the county's indomitable spirit continues being praised in the Taliban's poetry." While this does hold true for the book, it somehow comes across as an attempt of projecting a modern image of Taliban. Nothing wrong in doing that, however it becomes increasingly difficult to put your trust Faisal's foreword when you think that just a few months back a 15 year old Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen for being "the symbol of the infidels and obscenity". Literary luminaries like Mohammed Hanif and William Dalrymple who have been generous in lavishing praise over the book partly share the blame for the failure of this book as well. "This extraordinary collection is remarkable as a literary project — uncovering a seam of war poetry few will know ever existed and presenting to us for the time the black turbaned Wilfred Owens of Wardak," writes Dalrymple, in his testimony for the book. After reading the collection, one can only agree to disagree with Dalrymple. Afghan literature, I hope with all my heart is more than this collection of 235 poems. This is no way a remarkable literary project; at best it serves as a footnote in the history of Afghan literature. However, it also holds true that is the first and the only sample of Afghan literature available to the rest of the world. This is why, it deserves a read. So that better editors and better translators can do justice to real poetry of Taliban. This is not a collection of poetry; this is Taliban's plea to be understood, to be seen as human. Read it not for the verse, but to get a however lopsided view of the other side of Taliban, because honestly, before this anthropology got published, you didn't know that this view existed.

Friends, readers and countrymen, let me tell you a story. A story of a young boy who lived far away in a small village of Bihar, called Mohammadpur. This young boy was the son of a poor farmer, he went to a government school, his books weren’t brand new and his school bag was a home-stitched polythene bag. When at home, our young boy and his family sat on jute sacks, they couldn’t afford couches. Life was an everyday struggle for this boy. In these circumstances, you won’t be surprised if I told you that, the young boy who is a grown up man today, sells vegetables in the big city of Patna. What is so special about this story, you ask? Why am I bothering all you good readers with this mundane story of every third Indian? It is because this subzeewala is no ordinary man. This is the story of Kaushlendra Kumar. Some four years back this man caught the nation’s eye when he decided to sell vegetables instead of taking up a high-end job, after passing out from the Indian Institute of Technology Ahmadabad. His aim was to organise the vegetable markets of Bihar. To create a process in which the farmers could directly sell their produce to the vendors. For someone who had spent most of his life in poverty, getting through a premier institute like IIM meant big job, good money and a gateway to a better life. So then, it was obvious that his family and other villagers would not take his decision of becoming a vegetable vendor very nicely. He informs us that when he told his parents about his plans a lot of drama ensued. “My mother cried for months, I was an outcast for a very long time,” he adds with a chuckle. But Kumar had his reasons. While he was in Gujarat (he did his graduation in agricultural engineering and post graduation both from Gujarat) a lot of his fellow students looked down upon him for being a ‘Bihari’. “I was a topper in my engineering college, I got the maximum number of gold medals one could, but at the end of the day I was just a Bihari,” he tells us. It was then that he decided that once he is done with his education, he will work towards building a brand Bihar. The only question was, how? After completing his education, he put his focus on the unorganised vegetable markets in Bihar. Belonging to a farmer’s family he was always aware of the exploitation that the farmer community suffered under the hands of the middlemen, the zamindars and the vendors. Therefore taking matters in his hands to improve the situation seemed like the inevitable to Kumar. Moreover, very early in his life, he had learnt the value of an established network. In the year 1989, when Kumar was a little boy, there were floods in Bihar. The flood water washed away the only rail track that connected Mohammadpur to the rest of Bihar. This event changed the lives of the farmers. Though his village was just 26km away from the city, the bad roads made the 30 minute trip a six hour journey. The farmers could not sell their produce in time, and suffered big losses. When the now Bihar Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar became the railways minister, he rebuilt the network, and life became much better. Kumar was a silent spectator of this change. In his mind he had understood the value of organisation. Geared with his Master’s degree and some `1.5 lakh, he started Samriddhii. From the beginning, he knew what he had to do; with the confidence that the IIM course had instilled with him, he knew he could do anything. After overcoming the first hurdle, which was convincing his family, he set out to jump the second one. He just had a paltry sum in his hand and a project like this one required huge investment. So he started frequenting the Punjab National Bank with the project file in his hand. They ignored his application for a long time, but after a while they got tired of seeing his face every day and finally decided to sanction his loan. Now that he had his initial investment of some `85 lakh, the third step and the most important one was to convince the farmers. He repeated the same process here. He went and met the farmers every day. “The farmers are naïve people, they start believing anyone who meets them regularly,” he says, and then pauses to quote Gandhi “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you and then you win”. And win he did. He began with a network of 300 farmers and today more 5,000 farmers work with him. The process is simple; the state has been divided into zones. Each zone has a collection centre where the vegetables collected from the farmers are cleaned and sent to the packaging and distribution centre in Patna. Here the vegetables are packaged, sealed, bar coded and finally sent to the vendors. “We sell branded vegetables, we don’t sell local vegetables,” says a proud Kumar. The first day of work, he barely managed to make a sale of `22, and his first annual turnover was merely 7Lac rupees. But today, his annual turnover exceeds `5 crore. Though he informs us that the profit rates are low, hardly one or two per cent, but more than the profit what they are doing is changing the social infrastructure of Bihar and changing the lives of the Biharis. Kaushlendra Kumar is an ordinary man with an extraordinary story. He speaks in broken English, is dismissive of his achievements, quotes Gandhi now and then and regrets letting his parents down. If you ask him of his plans for the rest of the country, he tells you in his cut-throat honest manner that he set out to build a brand Bihar and that’s what he will do all his life. There is a proverb in Hindi “akela chana bhad nahi phod sakta” (meaning: a lone gram can’t bust the oven), Kaushlendra Kumar proves it wrong. The world, or Bihar at least, has found its lone gram who has bust the oven will continue doing so till he can.

The world survived the Apocalypse, but can India survive Sachin’s retirement?

GROWN up Indian men, their stubbles haggard, are weeping copious tears. Pot-bellied uncles, who have seen their share of life’s challenges, are walking around like disoriented wrecks. Many are spending their Christmas pouring over YouTube videos from the past, clips that reveal to them hidden secrets from the past. All this could only mean one thing. Sachin Tendulkar has retired from one-day cricket without anything even remotely resembling a notice period. There is no motorcade for the greatest one-day career of them all. There is not even a press conference. The news breaks via the official BCCI Twitter handle, after which there are some cursory statements from BCCI honchos. The selectors don’t say anything about Tendulkar when they pick the one-day team for the forthcoming series against Pakistan. Rumor mills are on overdrive. A conspiracy theory suggests that Tendulkar’s retirement is a strategic distraction from the mass protests triggered by a gangrape in Delhi. Others think he’s been forced into retirement by the selectors, thereby denying him a farewell series. “It’s time to retire from watching cricket,” says a tweet, echoing many others. “It’s time one-dayers are retired from the sport,” says another. These irrational reactions must tell us something. A living, breathing, cultural phenomenon will no longer swirl around the country’s TV screens. We have seen the last of Amitabh Bachchan in a blue jersey, Rajinikanth with a bat and Shah Rukh Khan in an India helmet. Such was his aura. Tendulkar is yet to retire from Test cricket and he may continue to play for another series. Or maybe another year or two. One can never be sure. Yet his departure from the one-day format carries with it a lasting significance for Tendulkar owned the one-day game like none other. Viv Richards had the dominance but not the longevity, Javed Miandad the cunning but not the versatility, Michael Bevan the doggedness but not the chutzpah. Tendulkar had it all. He adapted to the vagaries of the one-day game. He knew how to anchor the middleorder and ushered in a paradigm shift when he was promoted to open. He had a more-than-handy record with the ball—bowling medium-pace, offspin and legbreaks—and was, for most parts, an electric outfielder. Some of his catches and run-outs turned games. His records will remain unmatched. While it is conceivable that another cricketer gets close to 51 Test hundreds, it is impossible to imagine anyone scoring 49 in the shorter format. That is simply outrageous, a record so far out of range as Bradman’s Test average (of 99.94) is from the rest. Nobody in their right minds is going to get anywhere close to the 18,426 runs he has made in ODIs; nobody is going to even attempt it. But records can tell you only so much. Tendulkar’s influence runs far beyond numbers. Indians of a certain vintage have most of his one-day career etched in his memory. Wake them up in the middle of the night and they will tell you exactly when and against who Tendulkar struck a particular six. Remind them of Henry Olonga in Sharjah and their mind will turn to Tendulkar smashing him around the park; say Brett Lee in Sydney and they will describe the blistering drives that Tendulkar played. Tendulkar is also the reason many people have missed the final part of many one-day games. When Tendulkar got out in a run-chase, many spectators, consigned to defeat, witched off the TV sets. When he was out in the Natwest Series final in 2002—with India at 146 for 5 chasing 326—Mohammad Kaif’s parents left their home to watch the newlyreleased Devdas. A few hours later they were being interviewed by TV channels. Kaif and Yuvraj Singh had led India to an improbable win. Tendulkar began his one-day career in whites–he even sported a white helmet in his first few series. He went on to wear various shades of blue, ranging from the azure in an early series in New Zealand, the dark navy blue at the 1992 World Cup, the sky blue in the 1996 World Cup, all the way to the bright “bleeding” blue in the 2011 World Cup. He has ridden the waves of change of the last twenty three years and has constantly adapted—or sometimes initiated the change—in a rapidly changing format. But Tendulkar’s most lasting legacy will remain how he inspired so many young kids to take up the game in the first place. Ten members of India’s World Cup winning squad, most of whom formed the core, were between 27 and 32. Almost all of them were drawn to cricket because of Tendulkar. Many have talked about idolising him in their impressionable years and revealed how they picked up heavy bats–the kind that he uses–before exchanging them for lighter ones. Mahendra Singh Dhoni once said most of the cricket he watched as a kid was restricted to Tendulkar’s batting. He also said how he stopped watching the 2003 World Cup final— between Australia and India—the moment Tendulkar got out. This is how deeply Tendulkar has been ingrained in the young Indian psyche, this is how integral he has been to the development of the generation that followed. Which is why the most memorable part of the 2011 World Cup celebrations was when Virat Kohli, after chairing Tendulkar and parading him around the stadium, said to the TV cameras: “Tendulkar has carried the burden of the nation for 21 years. It is time we carried him on our shoulders.” Kohli wasn’t just speaking for himself. He was speaking for a generation of cricket fans, the same set who will now have to grapple with the massive void that Tendulkar’s exit has left in their lives. For these millions from the Tendulkar generation, watching India’s one-day matches in the near future will no doubt be one heck of a challenge.