I was so dejected and miserable throughout India’s 2013 Test series against the West Indies that was supposed to be my hero, Sachin Tendulkar’s swansong that I went incommunicado for five days.

Yes I’m one of those fans who would skip exams to watch him play, post venerating Facebook statuses and even cry on days like his 175 in a losing cause against Australia.

AND THAT’S PRECISELY WHY I WON’T WATCH HIS UPCOMING MOVIE!

The trailer of Sachin: A Billion Dreams, which was released recently, was a far cry from the iconic number 10’s great career, to say the least. The loud music, the obnoxious visuals and the laboured direction make fans like me almost throw up at the entire idea.

It’s a film!

The makers of the film like to call it a ‘biographical documentary film;’ so basically it’s neither here nor there. Nothing can compare to the honesty in Sachin’s farewell speech after the West Indies series but the film could have certainly inherited the subtlety of expression from there.

Match-fixing, why?

Like really? There have been so many better talking points in Sachin’s career that even the makers of The Lord of The Rings would feel short on screen time, but this is what got the scriptwriters interested. It could have been something like the Shane Warne rivalry or Steve Bucknor’s alleged bias if they wanted to add some spice to the film. But no, match fixing is what they chose, something that had zero effect on Sachin’s credentials.

Is Sachin acting?

As much as I revere Sachin Tendulkar, I can’t help but recognise the aberrant nature of his acting and dialogue delivery. I mean what’s with the ‘Wahin se safar mera shur hua’ Hindi! And in fact if you want to make a ‘biographical documentary,’ why would you make the great cricketer act! Shoot some meaningful bites, get clips of Tony Greig’s commentary on SRT smacking balls to the fence and a word or two from his contemporaries like Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and Virendra Sehwag. But wait, they took the popular Mahendra Singh Dhoni road. S.M.H!

Armchair fans

If you scroll down the suggestion box adjacent to the trailer, you’ll find a reaction/review video by a California-based Youtuber Jaby Koay, who likes to do so for many a Bollywood film. And congratulations, he has validated the message of the movie! And what’s better is that there’s a clueless female who has paired up alongside him to take the naivety further north in this patronising production.

These are just two droplets in a sea of millions of dim-witted ‘Sachin fans’ who don’t even know the cricketing alphabet yet have the audacity to do something like reviewing the trailer. It’s for people like these that the filmmakers have also stooped to new lows.

As someone who has religiously followed almost every match that Sachin has played, it is not only an insult but pure blasphemy to come out with such a ‘documentary’ – or ‘film’ or whatever the hell you want to call it – without portraying it in a proper manner!

I’m sure hardly any of you would agree to my rant, but even as a die-hard Sachin fan, I don’t want to watch Sachin: A Billion Dreams.