52W52B - Book 21 Playing it my way - Sachin Tendulkar

I was bang on the mark – a book a week – till my 17th book, which got completed in May. Then things went haywire, and the next few months went without reading. Am happy that the love for the books resurfaced and I started reading again. I read three books in about the same number of weeks, but am writing the review for this one first.
I emotionally blackmailed my parents to gift me two books on Diwali: Playing it my way, and How to be interesting. Both the books cost more than 600/-, hence the blackmail .

Well, quite a bit of hoopla was created around this book, and being Sachin Tendulkar’s autobiography, it deserved so. (Yes, I am going to be biased towards him for my whole life!) Boria Majumdar, a Rhode Scholar, co-authored the book. That he was a Bong, I assumed that the written content will be of top class. I was to get disappointed at many places throughout the book. On the contrary, the program that was hosted by Harsha Bhogle on the launch of the book was far more interesting and revealing than the book was.

Before the launch of the book, the media claimed that it revealed numerous events which were not known to the world at large. I believe many people expected that he would reveal some of the details regarding match-fixing, or may be about Mohd. Azharuddin when Sachin was the captain or about Greg Chappel or some other controversial topics which he never talked about. Well, he did talk about a few, but it was extremely brief and revealed nothing which people didn’t know or what the newspapers had not already broadcasted. This was my disappointment number one.

Disappointment number two was that the book hasn’t been written that well. In my creative English class, the instructor talked about a concept called, “Show, don’t tell”. In that, the writer needs to describe a situation in such a way that the reader feels as if the event is actually happening in front of his eyes. Boria seems to have done a terrible job at that. Sachin’s life was described in chronological order – bland and tasteless like the Indian Railways food. The emotions were way too controlled – exactly the way Sachin held them on the pitch. There were instances where he tried to get funny, and shared some pranks or jokes. The only problem was that they failed to tickle me. The pranks didn’t seem funny, nor did the jokes crack me up. Considering the fact that I am a big Sachin fan, and was ready to be influenced by the book – even then if the book couldn’t move me enough, I wonder what the neutral people will feel after reading it. In short, I found most part of the book rather insipid and boring. There was no drama in the book. In fact, when in real life the drama was created, it was sub-dued in the book.

The book did taste well in parts. Towards the end, post the chapter number 21, things seem to have gotten emotional, and came more from the heart than the mouth. It got delicious from the chapter 23, “World Cup 2011”. And then the ride was uphill. Even though even then there were few revelations, I was touched and moved. Having said that, I didn’t like the way the content was written. Towards the end, Sachin was touched and moved, and touched and moved and, touched and moved so often, that I wondered what the touching and wonderment was all about. My English teacher would have spanked me had I “touch and moved” someone so much. I seriously wish, other cricketers think twice before asking Boria Majumdar to co-author their autobiographies. In fact, Boria Majumdar should bandhofyhis boria-bistar and leave.

The farewell speech was top-class, something that was not written by Boria. It forced me to watch the speech once again, and then once more. There were instances in the book, which I already knew – most of the instance I already knew – yet they felt fresh. They did inspire me to open YouTube many times throughout the reading.

I feel that unless one is an ardent Sachin fan, he shouldn’t buy the book, especially at a cost of 899 bucks (599/- on Flipkart). The book could have been much better with more revelations and better writing – may more usage of metaphors or whatever.

PS: from “52 weeks, 5 books”, I changed my resolution to “52 weeks, 26 books”.
PPS: Would love to read Rahul Dravid’s autobiography.

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