Sachin Tendulkar visited the Care Hospital with his wife, Dr. Anjali. He came to see me; a great gesture on his part. I have been a cricket fanatic since childhood and had earlier met Sachin in 2003, when President Kalam hosted a reception at the Rashtrapati Bhavan for the Indian cricket team, who had lost the finals to Australia. When, before the arrival of the team, Dr. Kalam asked me what he should say to Sachin, I told him that he should talk about Sachin Tendulkar’s Master Class against Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis and his iconic six off Shoaib Akhtar at the Centurion. Dr. Kalam noted down the names, rehearsed them and mentioned them correctly while praising the team, to the great delight of Sachin and all the other team members.

I thanked Sachin for dropping in and spoke of the joy I experienced when he had scored an unbeaten 241 at Sydney as a New Year celebration for the country. We made some small talk. His father had named him after the great musician, Sachin Dev Burman; he was a fan of John McEnroe and grew his hair and tied a band around it in his style in his teenage. I told Dr. Anjali that Sachin was a national treasure and she said that she was aware of that and was guarding him properly. This visit was the high point of my mundane hospital stay.