Despite financial hardships, Naushad always supported his son’s passion. Despite financial hardships, Naushad always supported his son’s passion.

“Abbu, Arjun kitna naseebwala hai na? He’s Sachin sir’s son, and has cars, I-pads, everything.” He didn’t mention it as a lament. Sarfaraz Khan was right though. On the face of it, Arjun Tendulkar was of course more fortunate than many others. And Naushad could do little but nod in agreement.

Like any father, it wasn’t what he wanted to hear from his son, regardless of how true it was. But Sarfaraz never let him mull it over. For, he ran back almost immediately, wrapped himself around Naushad and said as an instantaneous afterthought, “Abbu main usse zyaada naseebwala hoon. Aap din bhar mujhe time dete hai. Uske papa use time hi nahi de paate (I’m more fortunate than him. You can devote the entire day to me. His father is not able to give him any time).”

Recalling that conversation, Naushad’s eyes well up and his generally authoritative voice gets wobbly. Sarfaraz’s words not only meant that the two were on the same page in terms of pursuing their maksad (ultimate goal). They also belied Naushad’s biggest fear. That he was pushing his son too far in his quest to keep up a vow he’d made in the face of a ‘betrayal’ that he never quite came to terms with.

Long before Sarfaraz took steps towards cricketing stardom, Naushad had dreamt the same dream of producing a cricketer at the highest level with Iqbal Abdulla—the star pick among many young, poor kids he’d plucked out from the clutches of poverty and brought to Mumbai. He had even kept the boy from Uttar Pradesh in his 225 sq. ft. Kurla home, getting his wife, Tabassum, to cook and clean for him.

Abdulla, like Sarfaraz has subsequently done, would go onto play the U-19 World Cup for India as well as become an IPL star. But according to Naushad, he would also turn his back on the man who’d been his unrelenting benefactor as soon as it was time to show the necessary gratitude.

It came to a head during their ‘final meeting’ at the same house that Abdulla called home for seven years that would once and for all drive a wedge through their relationship.

“That is when he spoke those unforgettable words, Mere mein kabiliyat thi, main khela. Tumhaare mein talent hai toh apne bachchon ko khilaake dikhao na. (I had the ability, so I played. If you have the talent, then make your son play and show the world,” recalls Naushad, his eyes turning red.

Rather than react with any hostility, Naushad took Abdulla’s challenge up. It lit a fire in his belly, and became a drive to make his own son reach the level that he had brought Abdulla to. It wasn’t that Sarfaraz wouldn’t have made it this far without the two growing apart, but it certainly has been a major motivating factor in his meteoric rise in the last half-a-dozen years. It was also an episode that turned Naushad into a shayar, and he can barely go a few minutes without spewing his shers.

The real force behind it though has been Naushad’s all-encompassing, almost overbearing, grip over his son’s life, both on and off the field. Growing up, the Western Railways’ Class 4 employee was used to odd jobs. The track-pant selling business that he partook with Sarfaraz as his apprentice enhanced the mutual respect between father and son.

“Sarfaraz still starts crying when he talks about those days. There used to be one lot in front of me, one between Sarfaraz and I, and one that he would carry on his shoulders. We would get completely wet on the bike, but still make sure we did enough business on Fashion Street,” says Naushad.

The money made from there was used entirely on running Macho Cricket Club-based on a nickname he earned during his playing days for an acrobatic diving catch at National Cricket Ground-and Abdulla’s finances. The Rs 2,000 he earned from his Railways job would run the house.

The rest of his time was spent in perfecting Sarfaraz’s game.

Naushad would spend hours dishing out throw-downs, paying opposition teams to come play friendly games in which Sarfaraz would bat the whole innings regardless of whether the team lost or not. These days, it’s with his youngest, Musheer. Moeen, the middle son, has been taken off cricket and is now pushing himself to be the Ajit Tendulkar of the family.

Sarfaraz though, would find himself a constant tag of ‘problem child’ — something that didn’t sit well with Naushad. But a meeting with Bharat Arun, present India bowling coach who was in-charge of the U-19 team two years ago, changed Naushad’s own opinion about his son, he reveals.

“He said, ‘have you seen the circus? First comes the lion, everyone claps. Then the elephant comes and plays a few cricket shots. Everyone claps. Then why do you need the joker? Sarfaraz is the one you need when everyone else is shivering and is intimidated by the opposition. Don’t restrict him, that’ll kill him,” recalls Naushad.

And as it’s turned out, Sarfaraz today not only stands on the cusp of being the most valuable player of the U-19 World Cup, he also shares the RCB dressing-room with Abdulla, which in Naushad’s eyes is a sort of denouement to a saga that has dictated his life.

“I don’t see it as a victory. Our ultimate goal is playing for India. It’s like saying we have reached Ratlam en route to Delhi,” he says.

But like he showed last year, Sarfaraz has taken a step up by impressing everyone including AB de Villiers, that reinventor of the batting wheel, in RCB colours, especially playing the scoop shot audaciously even off fast bowlers. But it is a shot that his father had brought into vogue back at a time when nobody had seen it in India.

Unfortunately, like Naushad reveals now, it was too far ahead of his time and cost him a place in the Mumbai Ranji team. He grew up playing cricket in a cowshed, diving around on cow-dung, and like his son is today was a belligerent striker of the ball with a penchant for bravura. But he does regret having turned down offers from other states once Mumbai stopped showing interest in him. A mistake he didn’t make when Sarfaraz found himself in the same spot last year. He immediately moved him to Uttar Pradesh, who he represented this season in the Ranji Trophy.

Aakhon aakhon mein raha,

Dil mein utar kar nahi dekha

Kashti ke musafir ne samundar nahi dekha

Aur jab se main chala hoon, meri manzil pe nazar hai

Aankhon ne kabhi kilometre ka pathhar nahi dekha

This he believes is the sher that captures his life the best. And he can’t help himself but punctuate each line with a dramatic pause. In many ways, Naushad, who also sold toffees and cucumbers in trains, has banked on his own life story to shape Sarfaraz’s career.

No wonder it’s mirrored it in many ways already. But he is aware of the fickleness of the sport he calls his best and only friend. He no longer believes that there is no way back for him and his ambitious family if Sarfaraz doesn’t make it.

Says Naushad, “We came from the slums, used to stand in queues for the toilet where my sons would be slapped and overtaken. We came from nothing and will go back to nothing. Sarfaraz told me the other day, ‘Abbu so what if this doesn’t happen. We can always go back to selling track-pants.”

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