BOOK REVIEW

PLAYING IT MY WAY

PLAYING IT MY WAY 
By Sachin Tendulkar 
Hachette, India, 2014, pp. 486, Rs. 899.00

Most people tend to view autobiographies ambivalently partly because there is something narcissistic about them 

and partly because you do wonder, from time to time, if you are really interested in all the details of someone

 else’s life. Also, the best autobiographies are usually insensitive to the people who figure in them and the worst

 ones are a dead bore because they hold back so much. Problem is, it is only after purchasing them that a

 reader finds out.  The two autobiographies under review here fulfil the criteria, one each. Sachin Tendulkar has

 written a disappointingly flat account of his life. Naseeruddin Shah, on the other hand, has written a very racy account 

of his life. No holds are barred, although you do get the sense occasionally that he is trying his best not to go 

the whole nine yards. Tendulkar’s book is almost entirely about the matches he took part in. This is fine if you are a 

cricket buff. You want to know what actually happened, rather as you would if you were a war buff, when you would 

want to know all the details of battles.   However, Tendulkar has millions of followers who know nothing about the

 game. But they have passion and would expect some of that to show in the book. Instead, that’s the one thing that is

 missing from it. Also, his assessments are designed to avoid everything controversial. There is virtually no cricketing

 gossip in it. Since much of his life has been written about, one expected a different fare. But alas, Tendulkar has chosen

 to stick to the straight and narrow. On the whole, though, if you are going on a long trip, you are better off with

 Shah’s book than Tendulkar’s, which can be kept in the car to browse through tedious trips into town. It is great to dip

 into from time to time, but not such a riveting read that you would find it hard to put it down. That’s a pity because his 

batting was just that—utterly riveting.  The opening paragraph of a review of Tendulkar’s book by Harsha Bhogle, the 

highly voluble cricket commentator, justifies the blandness by saying, ‘The prerogative of telling a story belongs to the

 author and no one else and so you cannot complain about what ...