My Hero: The Lessons I Learned From Sunil Gavaskar
The India cricket legend remains my enduring hero, and not just for cricket
Speaking of heroes, many expect an answer rooted in music from me—perhaps my father or Pandit Nikhil Banerjee, whose style of music I started with, and I still continue to uphold. But my answer has remained the same since I was 12, and it’s not a musician. It’s Sunil Gavaskar. One of the finest cricketers of all time, yes—but for me, he has always been much more than that. On the field, off the field, as an orator, as a commentator, as a public personality, he has been exemplary.
As a boy, I wanted to be a cricketer. But I played the usual amount in school and had a few years of misadventures where I kind of played on my college team at Presidency College (Kolkata), but then, for fear of breaking my limbs, I just focussed on music. I was decent at cricket, but music was where I had already put in a lot of hours of practice when I was younger.
At the same time, I was studying English literature, which I genuinely loved. The fascination was such that when I went on concert tours to England, I even ended up dating a couple of British girls just for the accent. I’d buy Morphy Richards answering machines and have them record the greeting on it, because I was so taken by their accents.
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And at a certain point, I realised you have to set priorities in your life. I realised that there’s only so much that you can do and I had a head start as far as music was concerned, so why not take that forward? But Sunil Gavaskar was there all the time throughout.
First, when I was 12, as the player I looked up to. Later, as the commentator and human being I adored. He has been here throughout. The first time I met him was in my mid-20s, at the Bengal Club in Kolkata. I was awestruck. There were no smartphones then, so I couldn’t take a photo. But I shook his hand, and the aura was a thousand watts.
The couple of times I’ve met him over the years have only deepened that admiration. He’s also a very cultured man. He’s interested in music—both Indian classical and Western—in jazz, in literature, and in Indian scriptures. When we spoke, his love for music was clear. At the same time, he is also a wonderful author. I’ve read his autobiographies—Runs ’n Ruins among them—and followed his career closely. He went through bad patches, even a couple of seasons of poor form. He faced bouncers without helmets, suffered injuries, endured politics. But he never once lost his dignity, never shifted blame, never lost his cool. That balance, that composure, is what I try to hold onto in my own life.
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What stood out most was how he never stood for that most common and, in my view, most ugly Indian habit: nepotism. He did not promote his son out of turn. Rohan Gavaskar tried his hand at cricket, was decently successful in the Ranji Trophy, and I’ve met him—he’s a wonderful man. But what struck me about Sunil was that he encouraged others instead: Sanjay Manjrekar, Sachin Tendulkar. He stood for meritocracy, for fairness, for integrity. That, to me, is the mark of a hero.
Moreover, I remember his resilience on field when the West Indies bowler Malcolm Marshall bowled a bouncer at him, hit him on the forehead, and after that he had a skull injury. So, then he wouldn’t wear a helmet, he just stuck to that skull cap.
Never for a moment did he lose his dignity and grace—and the reason he is able to do that is because he is somebody beyond his cricket. I think he always looked beyond his cricket, towards his family or towards the society that he lives in, and then you realise that ups and downs are not so important.
For me, he represents a well-rounded life: not just cricket, but a whole way of being.
As told to Rudra Mulmule
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