In a game where opinions about players vary wildly, both experts and lay enthusiasts of cricket agree that when Sachin Tendulkar plays, they see not a batsman but a supreme artist in action. The movements of the bowler’s ball, Sachin’s bat and his graceful body get elevated from the realm of a game to a sublime dance form. Each stroke is suffused with the maestro’s unique aesthetics, many are executed with the gentlest touch of the willow and, when he is in peak form, some are hit in a style that transforms the impossible into breathtaking perfection, such as when he upper-cut Shoaib Akhtar in the 2003 World Cup in South Africa or when he reverse-swept his boundaries during his latest, 44th and series-winning century in last week’s ODI against Sri Lanka.

Artist Sachin we know, but Philosopher Sachin? Earlier this month, in a television interview with Harsha Bhogle to mark the launch of his new Adidas cricketing gear, the Master Blaster said something profoundly philosophical. “My bats speak to me,” Tendulkar remarked in a revelation about his incredible relationship with his sporting tool. Narrating an incident while playing for Mumbai Indians in the IPL, he said, “My teammate Dwayne Bravo tried to fool me with an array of bats. But I had no problem identifying my bat.”

I kept thinking: Why does Sachin’s bat speak to him? How does an inanimate object, defying all rational logic, acquire a life force of its own and begin a special conversation with him? The only way I can unravel this magic is by taking recourse to karma yoga—the philosophy of action or work. All positive action, when it is performed with total dedication, commitment and concentration, and as a grateful offering to the Almighty, not only reaches higher levels of perfection but also becomes artistic. In the process, it humanises the instruments of action, so much so that the instrument becomes indistinguishable from the performer of the action.

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