Centuries old current news – disrespect to Sachin Tendulkar

Wasn’t it more than a century ago that the tennis playeress Sharapova paid her “disrespects” to the Indian cricketing icon Sachin Tendulkar, by saying she does not know who the latter is? One of my friends had even blogged on it in his inimitable style and he is not, well, fast on the uptake (no disrespects meant!). Hence my judgment on how old the news is.

Then, how is it I read a short piece in The Hindu of today, July 23, 2014 (‘Sharapova’s comments not disrespectful’, to be precise) on that non-news item? I looked around to see whether the paper was doing what oldies today, like This Day, Hundred Years Ago. No such luck.

Then, the question arose in my mind why Tendulkar took this long, after more than a century (not on the cricket field), to clarify what he thought of Sharapova’s ignorance? He is reported to have said in an interview to NDTV – the very people who, it looked to me, were starved of happening news – that “[H]e didn’t find it disrespectful that Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova did not know who he was …”.

Here is my take on how this interview came about. The head honchos of the TV company called a meeting of the sub-head honchos and gave them the mandate to resuscitate any old news and catch hold of someone who has time on his hands to sit in a studio and mouth inanities – the more inane the better. That is when Sachin happened and so did Sharapova. Then, we got resuscitated happening news!

I wonder why Tendulkar did not make this simple clarification on Twitter or on his Facebook account. Oh, you say, he is not into such newfangled things as he is one immersed in centuries old traditions? Have to agree.

The whole column is about four inches long, in which the heading takes about an inch, Tendulkar’s mug shot (smiling, of course) takes another inch, and the write up fills up the rest of the space. It does not speak well of the paper that after searching through their archives they could come up with only this item, century-old as it is. Tut, tut …

Raghuram Ekambaram

P.S.        By the way, I had an urge to post something today, and even as vigorously as I worked my brain, I couldn’t come up with anything substantive! My apologies!