hi, Read “If Cricket Is a Religion, Sachin Is God” by Vijay Santhanam and Shyam Balasuramanian and “Riot” by Sashi Tharoor. Both are well written and will keep the reader completely engaged. First on the book on Sachin. As the title clearly indicates it is written by two worshippers of Sachin and the game of cricket, in that order. Both the authors were born in typical middle class south Indian families where cricket was and is a passion. Both the authors admit that they had bunked not just classes, but also exams, to watch even Ranji matches.In fact, Vijay’s father even sent a leave letter to Vijay’s teacher advising that Vijay could not attend school as he went to watch a Ranji match. Subsequently, as a grown up young man, when Vijay suffered a stroke abroad where he was working, he took only two photographs to the hospital to fortify him. One was that of Lord Ganesha and the other, you gussed it right, that of Sachin. His main purpose of recovery from the stroke he suffered was to watch Sachin play a major tournament. That singlemindedness of purpose helped him to recover and he continues to enjoy Sachin’s heroics. Another time when he was holidaying in rural Rajasthan, realizing that Sachin was nearing a century, he moves to a 5 star hotel in Jodhpur just for a day to enjoy that moment. Shyam, the co author makes it a point to live near a cricket stadium, even if makes him travel long distances to his office. He belongs to Mumbai, where he lived very close to Brabourne Stadium, and presently he lives in London, naturally, very close to the Lords and obviously, far from his work place. The book is not a run of the mill cricket book. It has apt replies to all those multi fanged critics of Sachin. All their high sounding criticism are laid to rest with data based performance details of Sachin. The second one makes one feel very sorry for Sashi Tharoor. To say that this book reflects his life will not be an exaggeration. The story is wound around a young American social worker, who gets attracted to a “over weight, over worked, and already married” IAS officer. The story covers a lot of ground in the Indian history as well, Hindu Muslim conflicts, Babri Masjid demolition, arguments of the fanatics from both Hindus and Muslims etc. Ultimately the young gets killed. The story is told in a novel manner that it is in theform of narration by the characters themselves combined with periodical news paper reports covering contemporary happenings. Shshi Tharoor would have served people better if he had continued to write such books, instead of becoming part of the shenanigans played in politics.
