Sachin Tendulkar will retire from cricket and the joy will leach out of our lives like the last embers of sunrays on a moonless night.
Sachin who brought magic into the lives of millions of Indians. Millions? No billions.
One billion people gathered at the same stadium, cheering.
That Sachin, he's retiring. And all the nation's trees will drop their flowers.
Sachin, who gave us the feeling that no matter what, we could triumph, we would prevail, that no challenge was insurmountable. No ball too tricky.
Sachin is retiring, and for one day all the players of gully cricket in all the maidans and by- lanes of Mumbai, will point their bats up at the sky. That was Sachin's gesture. You must have seen him do it when he wanted to communicate with his father.
An army of unknown boys will raise their bats to the sky at ten past ten on the tenth of next month. What? It will be the eleventh month you say?
Never mind. The calendar will reset itself spontaneously to render the day more appropriate. What's a little detail like that when it concerns our batting God?
Sachin is retiring, and with him he's taking all our middle class values and family morals; from now on mothers listening to All India Radio on their transistors will be neglected, old friends forgotten, grandfathers ignored and no one will help their old coaches cross the street any more.
Who will give us our sense of virility and manhood? Who will show us right from wrong? Who will we look up to and emulate? Who is to keep us going?
Sachin is retiring and all is lost. Biscuit sales, hair oil sales, financial products sales, and the sales of colas and fast food chains will be down.
Kids will refuse to eat their two-minute packaged noodles, even the existing FDI investments will be re-routed to China, and Standard and Poor's rating of our nation will be downgraded.
Ah the Sensex, don't even ask about the Sensex. Haven't you heard, the Sensex was last seen weeping into a cup of cutting chai at an Irani restaurant at Flora Fountain?
Sachin is retiring and the cute factor from our dreary lives is gone. No curly mop of hair to smile at, no bright eyes and squeaky voice to make our nation's girls weak-kneed and no shining countenance to make the GDP smile.
Sachin is retiring and to mark the sad occasion the entire Lok Sabha is going to show up in football jerseys for the winter session; giant luminous cricket balls have been ordered to light up the streets of Delhi, and for ten days Arnab Goswami is only going to read out the Little Master's batting records.
Sachin is retiring and now we have no one to give us our sense of dignity, our feeling of pride.
Yes, AR Rahman and SRK are good fillers for that slot. But can they bat? Can they field? Have they had a movie made about the stealing of their Ferrari? Have they been gifted Mark Knopfler's electric guitar?
Sachin is going. Very soon there will be no number 10 jersey on the field. In fact the UPA is planning to remove the digit from the entire school syllabus across the country. Once he goes, the number 10 is in serious jeopardy.
Sachin is going. Grown men are weeping. The nation's heart is dark and the stadium lights will be low.
Soon we will have nothing to watch, look forward to or talk about.
Except Honey Yo Yo Singh of course.
You heard it here first.
Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer malavikasangghvi@hotmail.com
