Five dogs in Goa. No social media. Friends who don’t follow cricket. A camera he refuses to smile at. Arjun Tendulkar — three weeks married, first day at a new franchise, Lucknow instead of Mumbai — is trying to explain what comfort zone means to him. Speaking on Shubhankar Mishra’s YouTube channel before the start of the IPL season, the interviewer suggests leaving one is a big deal. Arjun disagrees, quietly. “Comfort zone se nahi nikla hoon main. Idhar bhi maza aa raha hai.” Same enjoyment, different city. His face doesn’t change when he says it. He is twenty-five, carries the most famous surname in the history of Indian sport, and none of that, he is telling you, is the point. There is a version of this story that writes itself — the son emerging from a giant shadow, the weight of a name, the struggle to be seen. Arjun knows that version. He has been living adjacent to it his whole life. He declines to perform it. “Kisi ko kuch prove nahi karna. Main bas cricket apne passion ke liye khelta hoon. And I work hard.” Nobody to prove anything to. Just the game and the passion. *** There is a Kanga League afternoon from about ten years ago that tells you something. A dry monsoon in Mumbai, coarse maidan grass, an under-prepared pitch. Arjun had just been bowled off an inside edge. Chai was going around in white plastic cups, and a teammate turned to pass one on. “Eh, chai peeyega?” Arjun shook his head. The boy let fly some snark: “Haan haan, tu toh Boost hi piyega na?” — a reference to the TV ad, to the father, to everything that followed the name. Arjun went quiet and stared ahead. He sat alone in the crowd. He was a teenager then. Learning, among other things, that the name opened some doors and made others harder to walk through.Story continues below this ad At his father’s farewell Test in 2013, Arjun was initially in the stands with his family. But on successive days he slipped away to sit with the other ball boys — his teammates from the Mumbai junior circuit, kids his own age doing an ordinary job. He wanted to be with them, not in the family enclosure. *** Arjun Tendulkar during a Team India practice session in 2017. (File) “Two stress fractures” is how he accounts for the years when other people’s sons were becoming household names. The back went first. 2015. Two stress fractures, back to back. The action had to be rebuilt from scratch. “Ek saal gaya.” One year gone. “It was my make-or-break year in U-19 and I had to miss the whole year.” That window closed while he was doing the slow, unglamorous work of relearning how to bowl. There were more challenges after that. “Boolunga toh time nahi jayega,” he says. If I start listing them, we’ll be here all night. But the back is the one he names.Story continues below this ad His first wicket in professional cricket was Bhuvneshwar Kumar — who once dismissed Sachin Tendulkar for a duck in a Ranji match. When the interviewer points this out, Arjun looks briefly surprised. “Pata bhi nahi tha mujhe. Frankly kuch nahi pata tha.” *** Five years at Mumbai Indians. More time on the bench than in the middle. The question arrives: didn’t it frustrate you, not getting more games? “Hamesha lagta hai. Kisi ko nahi lagta?” It always feels that way. Who wouldn’t feel that? But the only thing in his hands is the work — “mehnat karo aur jab mauka aaye toh performance karo.” At Lucknow Super Giants, new coaches are adding new layers. Bharat Arun, who shaped Bumrah and Shami, is now shaping him. In a practice match he bowled one over, took two wickets, gave seven runs. He reports them without modesty or pride. Just the facts of a working cricketer. *** In Lucknow, he went to the old city and ate biryani and shami kababs. The dogs are in Goa. Five of them. When the interviewer asks how he keeps himself calm — apne aap ko cool kaise rakhte ho — that is his answer. The dogs. No stats, no social media, friends who talk about other things.Story continues below this ad Five years from now, the interviewer asks: Indian team, IPL star — or a happily successful person who lived life on his own terms and gave it everything he had? Arjun doesn’t hesitate. “Last wala.” The last one. “Apne aap ko khush rakho. Kisi ka nuksaan mat karo. Imaandari se zindagi jiyo. Fraud mat karo.” Keep yourself happy. Don’t harm anyone. Live honestly. Don’t cheat. His father’s advice to him runs along the same lines: “Mehnat karo. Poori imaandari se mehnat karo. Game enjoy karo. Shortcuts mat dhoondho.” Work hard. Work honestly. Enjoy the game. Don’t look for shortcuts. Father and son, saying the same thing in different words. One earned it across twenty-four years of international cricket. The other is earning it his own way. Story continues below this ad The boy who slipped away from the family enclosure to sit with the ball boys is still in there somewhere — choosing, when he has the choice, to be among ordinary people doing ordinary things. He smiles in real life, he says. Just not on camera.
‘Kisi ko kuch prove nahi karna’: Arjun Tendulkar on dogs, Boost ad, and why he sat with the ball boys
