THE LEGEND WHO SOLD HIS FERRARI!

At a time when the social networking sites are flooded with die-hard fans of Sachin Tendulkar hailing him as God and even going to the extent of updating their Facebook status as “Cricket will now be a religion without God” – as Sachin finally retired from international cricket after playing his 200th and final Test (thankgod for that! – pun intended), sending me in a complete state of bafflement – mainly due to the frenzy surrounding his retirement, I wonder if people are merely posting statuses to garner some hundred likes or if they actually revere him as GOD.

At the risk of inviting strong backlash from blind(in reference to their blind faith)-staunch-proponents of Tendulkar, I finally decide to throw some light into all the blind fans’ hearts.

About 10 years back, in 2002, racing legend Michael Schumacher presented the Little Master with Ferrari -360 Modena when he equalled the record of 29 Test centuries, earlier held by Australian legend Don Bradman. Soon after, our little Master sought an exemption on the stipulated 120% import duty on the premium sports car. The amount — about Rs 1.3 crore — was waived. This led to some controversy with some people filing a PIL, about the exemption, and in turn serving of notices both on the Finance Ministry as well as Mr. Tendulkar. With the issue getting out of hand, Fiat India agreed to cough up the import duty, bringing an end to the mess.

In late June, 2011, Mr. Tendulkar sold his gifted Ferrari to a Surat businessman, Jayesh Desai, who is one of the promoters of the Rajhans Group, for an undisclosed amount.  This was the final nail in the coffin. The supposed-God sold his gifted Ferrari, which was presented to him by none other than the legend himself, Michael Schumacher.

"When Sachin got his Ferrari as a 'gift', he wanted duty & excise exemption; now that he has sold it will he ask for capital gains exemption?" wrote Tushar Gandhi, great-greatgrandson of Mahatma Gandhi, on social networking site Twitter.
Writer Shobhaa De described Tendulkar as 'The Legend who Sold His Ferrari", an ironic reference to Robin Sharma's novel 'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari', a book with the message of simple living and high thinking. "Didn't know times were this bad", Shobhaa De added in her Twitter post.
Well, the times weren’t bad. Or so it seems. Refer to: http://www.motoroids.com/features/sachine-tendulkar-sells-gifted-ferrari-buys-a-new-gt-r/

So, I think we should let him be what he is, just a cricketer. Not God, definitely.