With television channels, newspapers and Internet conversations abuzz with tributes, homages and eulogies dedicated to the celebration of 20 years of international cricketing life of the supreme master, the undisputed god of the game of cricket, Sachin Tendulkar, we experienced an uncontrollable urge to interview the phenomenal deity of our times. But since deities are not accessible to little-known obscure websites, the urge to question the great god of the game had to be diverted towards interviewing one of his devotees. Raghu Deshmukh is one such devotee, an ardent, impassioned fan of the cricketer and considers him as one of the all-time greatest legends to have walked on the face of the earth.
Delighted at being interviewed about the man he admires most in his life, Raghu soon launched into a long soliloquy outlining the qualities that make Sachin Tendulkar the epitome of magnificence. The interview turned out to be more boring than we had imagined with Raghu repeating the stuff we have read and heard countless times in thousands of articles, blogs, interviews, sound-bytes and cricket commentaries over the last two decades. Bored at his incessant recitations of paeans sung in the glory of his idol, we decided to change our track and started quizzing him about his own life instead. Surprisingly, the man had little to tell us about himself and answered most of our queries with acute discomfort asking repeatedly to us, 'What's there to talk about me?'
"I'm just an ordinary guy, a regular Joe, who slogs for a software company for a living and spends his spare time watching cricket, movies and listening to my girlfriend's torrent of anguished complains about another bad day at office."
To our distress, it turned out to be that Raghu, despite spending all of his 27 years of existence on this planet with his own self, had lesser knowledge of himself than he had about his revered idol, Sachin Tendulkar. "What's there to talk about me?", he asked once again irritatedly. "Except for a single para of a testimonial by my ex-girlfriend on my orkut page, nobody has ever written anything about me. I'm fun-loving, jovial guy with a quirky sense of humor who enjoys watching Sachin hit fours and sixes. My taste in music or movies is indistinguishable from countless other guys of my age, except for exaggerated liking I have towards C-grade Hollywood blood-n-gore movies like the 'Saw' series."
Raghu has vague memories about his childhood and doesn't remember much of it except for the few times when he faced the wrath of his maths teacher for not doing homework. "I got painful thrashing from Mrs.forgot-her-name on my knuckles with a wooden ruler few times. I also remember playing cricket with my friends and pissing in my pants when one day I was forced to face the super-fast bowling of an older neighborhood bully who would have almost knocked my head off had I not ducked in time. "
Facing the bowling of a bully out to kill him made him realize that he was not cut out for anything more than tennis-ball gully cricket and so like a good boy, he decided to concentrate on his school grades, passed out with good marks, joined a neighborhood college and graduated out of it without honors, enrolled for a computer course, learned how to write code and soon got employment as a techie in a software company"
Raghu may not remember much about his early years, he may have forgotten the names of his childhood friends and class teachers, his memory may fail to recollect the grades he received in school or college, but he is a virtual encyclopedia when it comes to knowing the reigning deity of cricket. "I remember when I first heard about him after he broke the record for highest partnership in any form of cricket with Vinod Kambli. How can I forget that memorable innings? I know the exact number of runs he scored in that match. I remember his debut in international cricket against Pakistan and the memorable over playing against leggie Abdul Kadir where he slammed him repeatedly for sixes."
Raghu confessed that when he recently got hold of an old photo album, he was shocked to see how gawky he looked at the age of sixteen. "Honestly, I'd forgotten how terrible I looked eleven years back." But he hasn't forgotten Sachin's babyish face and his curly locks when he made his debut at the age of 16. "I've seen more snaps of Sachin at the age of sixteen, than my own" he confessed sheepishly.
This die-hard fan of Sachin often wonders how life will be after he retires from international cricket. "Would he, like every other retired cricketer, take up cricket commentary? But his voice is too childlike to suit commentary.." We cut him off and ask him about his own future. "I dunno. I haven't given it much thought. I guess I will get married, have kids and continue to write code." But he immediately switched the topic back to Sachin. "I hope Sachin plays at least for 5 more years. It would be heart-breaking to watch cricket without him at the helm." 
After reading a 20-page special pullout about Tendulkar's 20 years of awesomeness in today's newspaper, Raghu thinks of him as a dear family member. "I know almost everything there is to know about this genius of a man. Media coverage of Sachin's two decades of international cricketing career has filled in a lot of blanks that I didn't know before, like how he loves playing with kids or how he trains with as much intensity as he did 20 years back. I'm sure by the time he retires from playing cricket, I would have known enough about him to write his biography without even meeting him once." said Raghu with a guffaw.
What would his own autobiography be like? We asked, prodding him to share his beliefs, views, values and thoughts on life, universe and everything. Before he could launch into another quizzical 'What's there to know about me?' pique, we remind him of the ancient Greek aphorism 'Know Thyself". "I thought this interview was about my admiration of Sachin. Why the hell do you want to know me, when I don't know myself?"
We, at onionuttapam.com, don't like to tread the beaten track. We do things differently. While everyone else is paying tributes to the maestro, we thought that instead of putting up just another glowing eulogy dedicated to the cricketer, we would pay tribute to the quintessential Tendulkar fan, without whose love, admiration and adoration, Sachin would be just a 36-year guy who hits round, leather objecs with a flattened wooden club for a living, not a living legend.
Raghu's face suddenly lit up. "I do know a lot about me!." He lunged forward towards his computer screen and opened his facebook account. "When I'm bored, I often take facebook quizzies." he said excitedly. "As per the results of this quizzes, I was a barman in a night club in Philadelphia in my previous life. My best quality is my ability to even charm those who don't like me. My celebrity twin is...guess what?..its Sachiiin! My dream girl is a brazilian babe size 38-24-39. I'm fire element, have a dirty mind and think about sex every 69 seconds. I was born to drive a...guess what?..a Ferrari..heh heh! My biggest fear is allodoxaphobia, a nasty fear of people telling me how pathetic I am. My Greek god is Hades, king of underworld. If I was a serial killer, I would kill at least 20 people before I got caught. My heart is greenish-blue in color with a tinge of yellow. My lucky number is six. My mind looks like a tennis hard-court where everything bounces off the surface without delving too deep. My chances of nailing Megan Fox are zero (she laughs at the thought..sigh). My cute quote is "Sometimes you deserve to forget you deserve worse in life........"
Shishir
said:
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"..we thought that instead of putting up just another glowing eulogy dedicated to the cricketer,... " Hey! Eulogies are meant for dead people! How dare you insult my God by mistakenly implying he may be dead!  |
essbee
said:
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@Rajesh, Honestly, it wasn't inspired from the onion article you have mentioned, though I confess I had read that article  |
Rajesh
said:
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nice post, but inspired from this Onion article - http://www.theonion.com/conten..._knowledge |
but alas it is sad bu...
