When Nostramadus Augured Sachin

A brace of Nostramadus’ predictions that had escaped the parturient attention of most scholars, like Eureka Trutum, has just been unearthed. Scholars, who interpreted such until-now-unheard-of aphorisms in one old scroll, told newspersons from the globe’s leading newspapers, magazines, TV channels, the electronic medium etc., that the wordy gems, which were lost in antiquity, foretold the emergence of one of cricket’s most vibrant batting machines.

Not only that. Researchers also said that the ‘media-well’ savant had this to reveal in one axiom:

On an island of islands, which will be given as dowry by way of marriage
Therefrom, will arrive a lad, in the midst of a rock-hard jungle, who’ll be the only man among men.

What he’ll have in his magical hands is a flaxen willow
A simple wooden sabre, with a patch of weird alphabets on it
A blade that will launch a thousand endorsements.

In a connected reference, the forebear of Nostramadus, Premothenus alias Polymathus, who, perhaps, lived during Alexander’s invasion of India, and had made the modern-day temple town of Vandovan his home, has this to illumine just as well:

This tiny youth will be a hard nut to crack
He sends red herring cracking to a patch of land
Beyond a white stripe.

No humanoid can dictate terms to him when he’s in the mood
And, when he has his bearings out of place
Everybody is distressed.

So, there it is! The best of both the ‘prophetic’ worlds!

Flash-Forward. You know his identity.

Who else, but Sachin Tendulkar – the run-machine that meaningfully ‘carries’ India’s batting armoury, and hope, in both Tests and one-day cricket? This is also present perfect, really. But, it’s not just the end of it all, if you relate to the Little Master’s nagging tennis elbow affection.

Nostramadus goes… again… into the comfort of his crystal gaze. He adds:

This pocket battleship will run from one end of three sticks
To another end of three sticks – like a hare.

He’ll confuse eleven-like-him folks
Most times he gets the better of them
Sometimes, and occasionally, they get the better of him.

In another connotation, Nostramadus annotates another maxim:

This gentle, little giant is quite overburdened
He gets too weary doing his job
Not to speak of facing a portrait-tool, which shoots his image
From inside of a box, and on sheets of papyrus with ink and colour.

He will then think that enough is enough
And takes to hitting the round thing differently with more ‘iron’
In a land of unequally distributed plenty
With more runs for company.

Put simply, Tendulkar, as one scholar elaborated, and if the prophesy is anything to go by, will soon unleash more and more plans to score runs by the heap, fed up as he is with scoring them in dozens, once his nibbling wrist problem is fixed. Besides, he, according to another not-so-decipherable couplet, is hell-bent on mocking at Indian cricket’s quota system, or expanding its not-too-pleasant overseas record, besides ‘pitching’ in for advertisements-a-dime-a-dozen, and clobbering match-fixing acts of ‘commission,’ not omission, and so on.

There is also a possibility, as one scholar who is studying the scrolls put it, that Tendulkar may soon take it upon himself to reach a crescendo no cricketer has ever reached. That’s not all. Sachin will soon be honoured, as another scholar explained, with the India’s highest civilian award/honour, the Bharata Ratna, which is tantamount to a Nobel for an inventor/researcher.

Interestingly, it all also boils down to a simple equation, especially in today’s context. With his God-gifted talent, Tendulkar, as another overseas researcher, who has come to study the prophesy, observed, will also be a potential candidate for the Presidential – or, the UN Secretary-General’s – chair, when he’s in his mid-forties – a popular national/international choice, just like how he’s so impeccable, on the field and off the field, in his halcyon days with or sans his willow or appearance on TV, Web, or the print medium. The endorsements, he adds, would also follow suit… for a ‘model’ President and/or Secretary-General. Yes, willy-nilly. Whether or not you like it.

Like it, you will – because, it is a question of being loyal to your hero, come what may.

Maybe, you’d believe every word of it. You better do. Because, when you breeze through many more moons – after the dust on many a new match-fixing, or other, allegation settles, or does not settle, down – you’ll ‘torrent’ us with bouquets for having prophesied tomorrow’s Tendulkar news… much more earlier than today!
_______________________________________
Rajgopal Nidamboor is a Mumbai-based writer-editor, and author of Cricket Boulevard.