Sachin, please retire, I can’t handle it any more

It’s all very well for ‘experts’ to suggest that Sachin Tendulkar should decide when he should retire, as he knows best. What if he doesn’t? What if, like so many of us in so many situations so often in our own lives, Sachin does not know what’s best for him? The best, for him, is that he retires. Now. Not next week, not month, not after the next series, not after he breaks another record. [caption id=“attachment_720269” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sachin Tendulkar being honoured by another great, Sir Garfield Sobers.[/caption] Right now, he’s a pitiful imitation of what he used to be. And that pains me, a true, completely committed Sachin Tendulkar fan for decades. Take a look at this framed photograph, which, friends of mine will know, hangs on my drawing room wall. It’s Sachin being honoured by another great, Sir Garfield Sobers. The other photographs on the same wall are people I admire greatly: Leonard Cohen, Carole King and Johnny Depp. And today, I feel like removing Sachin from the wall. It wasn’t like this. When my son, now over 25, was a young boy, I brainwashed him, as only a doting parent can do, into loving Sachin Tendulkar. When a director friend, Punkaj Parashar, was shooting with him for an appalling commercial for Today’s ball pen, I asked him to get me an autographed cap for my son, personalised. He did, and my day was made, as was my son’s. A few years later, when the Titan Cup finals were held in Mumbai, I drove in my Maruti 800 to Pune, picked up my son (who lived there with his mother), brought him to Mumbai and sat in the north stand of Wankhede to watch the genius at play. He didn’t let us down. He was Sachin, the hero, the God of all cricket things. After the match, it was back to Pune (by the old and tiresome road; there was no expressway in those days). I was knackered, as was my son. But it was all worth it. And it stayed that way for year after year. Watching Sachin play was always worth it… …till it wasn’t. Till he became a shadow of his former self. Till his footwork disappeared. Till he looked like a bumbling caricature of a batsman. Till bowlers stopped celebrating when they bowled him middle stump. Till fans began to find excuses for him when he struggled, which was not all the time. Till ex-cricketers and sports writers began saying ‘Sachin should decide when to quit.” No Sachin, you are no longer fit to decide. You are obviously blind to the fact that your cricketing days are over, that you are unsure of yourself and that you are only stretching your career for reasons best known to you. And every day you do that, you bring pain to your true fans and invite derision from those who aren’t. And it’s reaching a stage when you’re now the butt of jokes. “Sachin has lasted one over. Is that a new record, the maximum number of times a batsman has played at least one over?” True fans can’t take it. I can’t. Please retire, Sachin. As far as cricket is concerned, you’re past your sell-by-date. It’s likely that you will not, which demonstrates, in a funny way, how little you care for fans like me who’ve cared for you. So I’ll do what my heart tells me to do. I’m removing the framed photograph from the wall. Today. I will not throw it away. There are too many great memories which caused me to put it up in the first place, and, one day after you retire, I’ll want those memories back, and the photo, framed, will be back where it once was.