'He's the only idol we have'.

(From The Times of India)

There is no escape from Sachin Tendulkar. He is omnipresent. His cherubic face smiles down from the innumerable hoardings that dot the skyline, stares at you from glossies, keeps popping up on TV during commercial breaks between your favourite soap. Be it credit cards, health drinks, two-wheelers, cars, tyres... he is all over the place. He is the all-pervasive icon dominating the Indian sensibility, not to mention that of Lucknow, where like the rest of the country, he is a demi-god.

"He is here, there, everywhere, you can't miss him," says Sushil Ramakanth, a college student and an avid cricket fan. "But then he is the king of …