When Sourabh Met Sachin

The first time I saw him was when I was 6 years old. I still remember sitting alongside my mom I was watching that match when as a 16 year old he burst in the international scene. He came down the track with ease and first hit couple of sixes against Mushtaq Ahmed. What happened next is stuff that only happens in fairy tale. Incited by then world’s best leg spinner, Abdul Quadir, he came down the track four time in an over and hit him for four sixes in one over. That One over from Abdul Qadir read: 6, 0, 4, 6 6 6. That day he scored 53 runs in 18 balls. Just as he was stepping down and hitting sixes I was also jumping up and down in my house seeing someone thrashing Pakistanis (I hate this country). For the next 16 years of my life the admiration and love for him kept increasing in my heart. Every time he stepped on the field to bat or bowl I stopped doing anything else. For over a decade he single handed carried the entire Indian team on his shoulders. He was and still is the only one in this country who brought smiles on the faces of millions of people in a time when the country was going through serious troubles (Mandal commission, Babri Masjid, Stock market crash, Economic Depression in 96). Watching him play was always a pleasure and playing alongside him for the country was a dream. Sadly very soon I realised that probably im not good enough to represent the country so, meeting him once in my life then became the next motto. As a student of journalism interviewing him was the next big passion that I carried in my heart probably that’s why I joined a sports channel and not a news channel. Finally after 16 long years of keeping this dream in my heart I met him, face to face. Talked to him for over 5 minutes and even asked him for an autograph not once, not even twice but thrice. I thought that perhaps that Im becoming annoying to him but he kept signing the autograph with the same smile that he always shown to all his fans while batting. There is something about him. He has an aura that nobody that I’ve met (Except Amitabh Singh) so far has. More than 100 fans for 3 hours kept asking him for his autographs and posed with him for photographs but he just kept smiling. It wasn’t a fake smile that he just pasted on his face but that was perfectly geneuine smile. All this while for 3 whole hours never for once I moved my eyes of him. Finally when everything ended I just kept jumping up and down the way I did when I was a 6 year old kid and when he and he bole toh Sachin Tendulkar was a 16 year old boy. Yesss people if you still havent figured it out I met the great man Tendulkar, Face to Face. And all that I can say is that the whole purpose of me becoming a Journalist and forget a sports Journalist is fulfilled for ever. And in words of Bilal Maqsood (he is an exception from pakistan) all that I want to say is

Khwab jo aankhoin mein tha jalta
Pura ho ke accha laga
Tumko dekha to aisa laga
Ek sapna sacha hua