Impossibly Heavy Baggage

It’s unfair to make Tendulkar’s son carry the legacy of his father

For someone making it to a list of probables for the Mumbai Under-14 team, Arjun Tendulkar has found himself receiving an extraordinary amount of publicity and approbation. The immediate comparison is with his father Sachin Tendulkar. The assumption behind such comparisons is a ‘what if’. Can it be that Sachin’s cricketing genius has passed down the bloodline?

It is actually an unfair thing to ask of anyone to be extraordinary. Across India, millions of parents fondly watch their children put on their whites and head for daily coaching sessions. The chances of any one of these kids becoming a Tendulkar is almost nil. It is not something anyone can design. It’s the equivalent of making a child study 15 hours a day and expecting him to come up with another Theory of Relativity when he’s 26 years old. Or making him play chess from morning till night and expecting a Vishwanathan Anand to break out of the shell. Either you have some quirk in your brain or body that makes you spout grand insights or anticipate a ball better than anyone else, or you don’t. In other words, the maximum that anyone can realistically expect from childhood conditioning is moderate achievement.

The chance of Arjun Tendulkar becoming a Sachin Tendulkar is also slim. Take any of the great sports personalities across time—Pete Sampras, Edwin Moses, Sergei Bubka, Michael Phelps, Maradona and so on—and then ask who their parents were. You won’t know without help from Google. Or ask who their sons are. And you won’t know that either. Sons of super achievers usually become moderate achievers. All the training and home advice could not get Rohan Gavaskar anywhere near his father’s records.

Tendulkar made the best comment on his son’s induction into the Mumbai team’s probables. He hoped that the boy would enjoy his cricket. And that is all that someone with heavy baggage like that should be doing. To try living up to a legacy that normal human beings find impossible to emulate is to guarantee yourself dejection. What matters is what you do with what you have, not the shadow of your father.

About The Author

Madhavankutty Pillai

Madhavankutty Pillai has no specialisations whatsoever. He is among the last of the generalists. And also Open chief of bureau, Mumbai  

•