Ashok Mitra in The Telegraph:

“At least one-third of the nation, one dares say, would have heard of Sachin Tendulkar. Social mores, set by the top stratum, have ordained that cricket will henceforth be the national game. The down-and-out ones, including those too who do not have the wherewithal for even an indecent meal a day, cannot but respond with some deference to choices and decisions reached in the precincts of the superstructure….

“Is it only to be expected, or is this a latent irony: not even one-tenth of one per cent of the more than a billion who constitute the people of India would presumably be able to say who Vijay Tendulkar was? Even Sachin Tendulkar, who knows, might himself not have ever been told of the existence of a Marathi playwright of the same surname as his and with roots in the same village in Maharashtra as his.

“A playwright is no match for a cricketer in the business of capturing the popular imagination…. There can be no superior suffrage than the democratic verdict.”

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