Tendulkar at 50: He took the elevator to reach top of cricket but never forgot to stay grounded

Peter Roebuck told a story of being on a train between Shimla and Delhi which stopped at a station simply because Sachin Tendulkar was batting on 98. "Everyone on the train waited for Sachin to complete the century. This genius can stop time in India!"

A lot of people played the sport for a lot of countries but people connected with Tendulkar like they did with very few, probably no one, just because he appeared to be a regular guy who happened to be exceptionally good at cricket. 

The family, the upbringing kept him grounded even after sitting on the highest cricketing thorne for so many years. 

Tendulkar was earmarked for greatness since his school days. This early success could have gotten into the little boy's head but the family didn't let it happen. When a proper article in a newspaper with his photo was published for the first time, his entire family didn't come out of the house for two days.

There's another story about a newspaper article. In his debut match for his school, Tendulkar scored 24 runs and his team won the match comfortably. In Mumbai, it was mandatory to score at least 30 to get a mention in the newspapers. The scorer added 6 more runs to Tendulkar's tally from the extras and he didn't really think much and agreed. 

The next day, his coach Ramakant Achrekar was extremely angry with Tendulkar because he was not legally the owner of those six runs. He then promised that he would never adopt unfair means while playing cricket.

Achrekar made sure Tendulkar did not get carried away because of the early stardom. "People don't realise that he is just 15. They keep calling him for some felicitation or the other. The other day he was asked to inaugurate a children's library. This is ridiculous. These things are bound to go to his head. He will start thinking he has achieved everything," he said in an interview in 1988.

Tendulkar never forgot those lessons. After that famous "desert storm" tour in 1998, one of the sponsors wanted to shoot an ad but Tendulkar rejected it, saying the script was "disrespecting" the sport. The sponsor then changed the script and Tendulkar agreed to do it. "I don't think that after shooting that ad, I would have been able to go back home or even go back to my coach. That wasn't something they had taught me. They had inculcated the right values and I stand by those values," he said.

Talking about the family, Tendulkar always credited his brother Ajit for his unprecedented success. But Ajit or any of his family members, at least in the early days, didn't use his name for any privilege. 

During the match where Tendulkar got his first Irani Cup hundred at the Wankhede Stadium, the stadium's security guard had failed to recognise his elder brother, Ajit, who had come to watch the game. "My family members, brothers and sister, never use the surname, Tendulkar, while introducing themselves. It is just Ajit," he said.

You can clearly see where humility comes from.

A man who achieved so many big things in the sports never forgot small things.

During India's tour of Australia in 2007, Tendulkar hired an Indian Taxi. After some time, it started raining heavily. The taxi driver gave him his jacket to keep him protected. Tendulkar was so touched by the generosity of the driver that he decided to do something in return for him.

Later on, he gifted the driver a brand new designer jacket, and one team jersey signed by the players of the Indian cricket team. Along with that he also presented him with match passes.

Coming back to Tendulkar's first Irani Trophy hundred which would see him getting selected for the 1989 Pakistan's tour (his debut). Tendulkar was on 89* when the ninth wicket fell and the no. 11 batter Gursharan Singh had a fractured finger. But he courageously turned up to bat after instructions from chairman of selectors Raj Singh Dungarpur.

Tendulkar got the hundred and remembered Gursharan's act and said, "Whenever you want me to play, I will play." 

Years later, Tendulkar kept the promise. Gursharan arranged a benefit match in 2006 and invited Tendulkar to play. The match was scheduled to be held on 25 April, the day after his birthday. But he arrived in the morning of the 25th and played the whole match. Interestingly, Tendulkar, who walked a few times even after not waiting for the umpire's decision and didn't show displeasure after being given out wrongly, decided not to leave the crease after being adjudged out to entertain the crowd.

This trait of Tendulkar helped him connect with people like no other and even a decade after his retirement, the love for the master remains the same. He might have taken an elevator to reach the top of the cricketing world but the values always kept him grounded.