Living next door to Tendulkar

“Sachin is God”, reads the T-shirt that many fans surprisingly wear. One, muscles rippling beneath the words, actually had two women with him as he craned his neck to see what he could see. Fifteen minutes he was there—I know because I waited too, for my daughter’s school bus—as one woman spoke on her phone and the other filed her nails. Just a building, I couldn’t help saying as I walked past, just a man. The nail-filer flashed a smile no less condescending than a truck driver’s had been, months earlier. “Yes, but this is Sachin’s biggest fan!” She raised her voice enough that Tendulkar’s security guard—another new man—turned to look: “The BIGGEST!” Yes, but what was this biggest fan doing? He stood immobile, immovable, uncannily like a giant praying mantis clothed in white and suffering a neck problem.