While Madame Tussauds in London is preparing to unveil the wax statue of Sachin Tendulkar, at Triveni Kala Sangam in Delhi the master blaster attains the status of a demigod on silk. Jaipur-based artists have dressed him not in the blue India tee, but as Hanuman, with an MRF bat in hand.
“Sachin is the new Hanuman for some,” says Gautam Bhatia. The architect did not paint the oil on silk, but was involved in its conceptualisation, as he spent hours with traditional artists who gave Tendulkar the mythological avatar.
Sachin Tendulkar is god to billion Indians but he is a “gracious god” who lifts his people out of the pit of despair in the wake of Mumbai terror attacks, a leading British newspaper said, paying tribute to the champion batsman who has “not a scrap of ego”.
Tendulkar offered balm to a country which was devastated by terror attacks in its finacial capital yet he remained a modest god, according to a write-up in Daily Telegraph.
“He (Tendulkar) is an unlikely-looking god. He stands there in the middle dwarfed by the gigantic Andrew Flintoff and the strapping Yuvraj Singh, a boy-like figure with a cherubic face whose Michelin man-style pads come half way up his thigh,” Simon Hughes wrote.
“The poor Indian lifts his hands to Sachin Tendulkar in supplication; Give us respite, a sense of liberation; lift us up from the dark pit of our lives to well-lit places of the imagination with your skill-wrought perfection. He has not a scrap of ego. He is a gracious god. We will never see his like again”.
Many have thought it has been the case for years, but Sachin Tendulkar has been turned into a Hindu god by fans.
The Daily Express in London reports that supporters in Delhi commissioned artists to create icons of Tendulkar as the monkey god Hanuman. The works show him holding a bat instead of the more traditional mace.
“He is truly a god to millions of people who worship this sport,” explained artist Gautam Bhatia.
At Bhatia’s Gulmohar Park studio, he worked alongside graphic artist Orijit Sen and over 20 traditional artists from Bihar, West Bengal, Delhi and Rajasthan. “The aim was to get the traditional artists to depict modern lifestyle and themes instead of folk and epic tales that they have painted for several years,” says Bhatia, as he explains the aim of the collaborative arts project “Desh Ki Awaaz” that was initiated in December 2004.
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