Famous social theorist Ashish Nandy once said, ‘cricket is an Indian game accidentally discovered by the British’ (The Tao of Cricket, Penguin 1989). In the country of over a billion people with thousands of ethnicity, language and religion cricket is perhaps the most unifying factor. India cricket has earned two World Cup title and its board has become the richest and most influential in the world but the country that loves to worship heroes, if asked to single out one thing in their cricket history that would be Sachin Tendulkar, the most beloved sports person in the history. None else in the history had to carry the burden of over one billion people’s expectation every time taking the field but Sachin, albeit a very down-to-earth man in real life, ruled over all the bowlers and opponents around the world with his bat that made him the god of those billion people.
Only one thing can get close to the euphoria of cricket and that is cinema. The country is obsessed with cinema and obviously mesmerized by its stars.
So, when a film named Sachin: A Billion Dreams, starred by the great man himself is expected to be released the hype is tantamount to madness. It may a good thing that a British, namely James Erskine, famous for producing a few sports related biographical film, is the director of the film as he may not be awed by the batting maestro unlike any Indian.
Although the expectation is at its peak and the emotion will be at zenith to see Sachin along with his wife Anjali, son Arjun and India’s World Cup winning skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the screen as part of the film but that very factor may reduce the aesthetics of the film. Moreover, balancing the emotion to portray the facts will be a humongous task for the directors.
However, Sachin always quenched the thirst of the people with his bat and he asked people through Twitter to select a name before finalizing it in light of billion viewers that indicates the film, which is expected to be release on 26th May, will make its viewers satisfied.