Another Shot at Divinity

After all, centuries are a cut-off that turns a good knock into a great one, for those who devour statistics. So this one, 73 at MCG, shall be remembered as an ordinary knock, And that is a pity. Because this was an exemplary knock. The quality of those shots remains unparalleled among all that I've seen. It is not without reason that people, for the lack of words and comprehension, accuse Him of divinity. How you take it depends on how you understand divinity. For me, divinity is a note one hits in the middle of a performance, when one becomes something that cannot be explained in ordinary human terms, it is when something exceeds all possibilities rationally considered thus far. It is the note that is awarded with divine sanction, we feel, for there is no other way in which it could have been reached. The only other man I've seen hitting that note is Nusrat Saheb. How else do you explain the tastelessness, the pointlessness, the banality of everything one is assaulted with right after He departs.

He makes our hearts race in a manner totally unfamiliar, he brings us on our edges for we fear we may lose sight of Him soon. That someone is able to trap him leg before or whatever is our shared loss for nothing else matters. Even if we watch Him for an hour, we've seen something special, something that exceeds our cosmic logic. Today, as He batted alongside another legend, Dravid, and made him look like a plebeian, an ordinary clerk working through deliveries like files, I could not help but think of the moment before the war of Mahabharat, when Krishna reveals himself to Arjuna. Sachin brings us to the limits of our imaginations, overpowers us with sheer awe in the same manner, I feel. Bradman, with his now alleged technique like that of Inzy, might have climbed the peak of averages, I don't think he could even attempt a trek to the base camp of the mountain atop which Sachin reveals Himself, once in a while. It is not always that he is there, you can see it only if you sit through a long spell. Those who've had the same vision would perhaps agree with me.