Tendulkar and the overseas Indian

A sportsman described as the Michael Jordan of his sport sticks an arrow into the Indian quiver that has been missing thus far. True world-dominating sporting power in the new liberalised era is foreign to Indians; to trade in the currency of its attainment, to speak of an Indian at the top of the heap in a game, to speak of the physical skill of an Indian, is a heady experience. Sachin brings instant admission to a world long denied to Indians; he does it by enabling a conception of us that is still exhilaratingly new. The nationalistic pride that he enables is of a qualitatively different nature.